Conde Nast Traveler - The Future of Travel
Other than books, on occasion magazines can be helpful source of information about what's coming. I pay particular attention when it dovetails with other resources I'm reading. Such was the case with a magazine I picked up several weeks ago by a magazine called Conde Nast Traveler on "The Future of Travel."
https://www.cntraveler.com/future-of-travel
Here you can read more about cities being built (right now) on the water, the speed of travel, and ecotourism (along with other great topics). For the purpose of this blog, I want to highlight a quote, a worldview, and a concern.
The quote comes from page 44:
“We are moving from an age of talking to an age of doing. Sideline commentary on what needs to happen is no longer valuable.”
– Andy Ridley, Conde Nast Traveler Magazine, Sept/Oct 2022, p. 41
I couldn't agree more. Though Mr. Ridley was talking about ecotourism and environmental protection, I would apply the quote to missions, the local church, and evangelicalism. But to know what to do, we need a game plan. To have a game plan, we have to know where we are, where we want to go, and by when.
The worldview I want to highlight comes via Sir Richard Branson: https://www.cntraveler.com/story/richard-branson-in-conversation. Forget the transcript and look/listen to the video between 5:34-5:58, and then the 7:08 mark. He is expressing a view known in academic circles as cosmopolitanism. Cosmopolitanism wants a one world experience. The challenge is not with the romantic ideal, but rather, it denies the sinful nature of people. Globalization has led to an interdependency and fragility. There's a lot of upside to globalization (farmers in Kansas now eat sushi). But there's are also tremendous weaknesses (a threat elsewhere wreaks havoc with markets here - just consider the recent gas price spike, or supply chain disruptions). Worse, a cosmopolitan world requires a cosmopolitan rule. Understanding the cosmopolitan worldview will help us understand the longing of major global players, realize their romantic roots, and yet not wear a distorted lens which would deny a healthy suspicion of human sinfulness. We're not nearly as good as we think we are. Mission strategy in the future needs to begin with that posture of humility and realism.
The concern, well, concerns the much-vaunted metaverse. The World Economic Forum (WEA) isn't alone in it's obsession with the potential of the metaverse. The magazine does a great job showing that the metaverse won't supplant our need for what's real, but will accelerate it. When SIM game reality was introduced, I recall church planters being excited about planting a "virtual" church. But church is not virtual. Church is physical and local. The recent COVID pandemic highlighted the pros and cons of Zoom (by extension, these will apply to a holographic or digitally enhanced world). Was it nice to stay in touch? Yes. Were there conversational exchanges in small groups? Yes. But did we also realize that church was more than a nice TV show; a program or appointment into which one could "plug" in and out? Absolutely. And it was especially noticed when we reconnected physically. By extension, the challenge of thinking of church purely in terms of "church universal" is that Scripture focuses in on the necessity (not nicety) of church local. So, while we can attend YouTubeU, the metaverse will show us that there is a difference between information dispersement, simulation and experimentation, personality projection and real life, real connection, real friendship, and real church. "The more people can be themselves, the better the world will be" (Sir Richard Branson, 7:08 https://www.cntraveler.com/story/richard-branson-in-conversation). Here, he has it right. But we know that when we define ourselves, we create lies that distort who we were created to be. And the only way to become the creation we hope to fulfill, we must connect to the Creator who informs and guides us to that uniqueness. I worry about the metaverse only in that many churches, in the name of reaching many, will continue to confuse others. Some did it in COVID ("church. anywhere. anytime." was one of the dumbest), by conflating community access with community on mission. Some will do it again in the metaverse. They'll assume a church can exist in holographic or digitalized terms. But church is rooted in local mission. As the future moves with a developed metaverse, it will reveal the need for the local church. That's good news.
