The New Copernicans: Millennials and the Survival of the Church

by David John Seel Jr.

New Copernicans desire and look for a personal encounter with spiritual reality. There is no conceivable reason why an ordinary apprentice of Jesus who is indwelt by the Holy Spirit can’t become for that seeker a Wi-Fi hotspot for the kingdom of God.10 The central message of Jesus is that the “kingdom of God has come near” (Mark 1:15). He meant by this that all around us is God’s presence and power and that his spiritual presence and power is available to us as we acknowledge him in all that we do. Writer Madeleine L’Engle reminds us of the obvious: “We draw people to Christ not by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it.”11 By God’s grace and because of our humble reliance on him, God’s presence, God’s love, God’s forgiveness, and God’s reality should be evident in who we are, if we have entered into a personal relationship with Jesus and have apprenticed our lives to him. It is for this reason that our “being” is more important than our “talking.”