The world is changing radicly and quickly - the church must respond

Over the last few days I passed a monster, four times. It was the biggest machine I have ever seen. It stood at least five stories high, but the boom rose a further ten stories, to give the machine a reach of over 300 feet. It is a factory in its own right, except that it walks.

I was traveling through extensive coal fields watching these fantastic monsters rip up earth to expose the coal face. Around them I saw mountains of black coal awaiting export or transfer to nearby power stations. As I drove along the way I also saw a dragline dumping overburden on a mound, which raised billows of dust that, from a distance, looked more like the plume of a volcano.

I felt I was watching the death-throws of a great industrial marvel.

Coal is still amongst the cheapest sources of energy around, although nuclear is evidently both cheaper and cleaner. Technology has, however, provided ways to reduce emissions from coal burning, but there are also significant options for turning coal into oil.

However, the market for such monsters is dying as the world depletes its coal reserves: a trend that is being aggravated by the search for alternative energies. They are monuments to a passing era that began with the industrial revolution: a phase of human history that had by far the greatest impact on human development.

How our world is changing. So much has changed in recent times and the rate of change is accelerating.

The possibility frontiers created by the waves of change in recent decades, predict exponential rates of change in the coming years. Where will it end?

We must predict a future where machines will be smarter than humans and where robots will replace much of what we do everyday. Already whole industries are struggling to survive in the face of such change. How that will keep a growing global economy employed, is just beyond me, but if we don't we will face astonishing crises.

Recent riots in Greece, Mozambique and France give us a scary insight into what will happen when economies fail the people they were supposed to benefit. Truly, the only options for preserving order are dark and desperate. Already first world nations are headed towards socialism or police states, often predicated on delusions of insecurity.

I am left with only one conclusion. If God does not shorten these days, we will not endure, but let me also say that unless Christians stop playing church and learn the practical principles of codependency, we will also fail.

Never, in all history, has the church faced such a pregnant period, a time so full of potential. Past generations longed to witness these days, but this is the generation that will live through the end times. However, we will not live, let alone survive, unless we shift our mindsets and get more practical: a process that may well herald the dawn of a golden age for the church and a realization of its truest potential.

(c) Peter Eleazar @ http://www.4u2live.net/