The New Millennium Needs A New Church

This morning we’re going to view a video clip. Don’t worry about understanding the dialogue in this segment. In this clip, you’ll see two men walking through an airport terminal. As they walk and talk, their voices are slightly muffled and there is someone making announcements over a public address system. The dialogue isn’t what we’re going to look for. As we watch it, see if you can identify where this airport is located. Let’s see if we recognize the airport. We’ll take a quiz – a multiple-choice quiz afterwards to see who among us recognized this ‘famous’ airport. We’ll choose from four well know airports… you know, just for fun, we’ll make it five – a five choice quiz. Let’s watch:

(Video clip shown)

Now, does everyone recognize the airport? It’s not Tulsa International Airport. Here are your options:

A) Vancouver International Airport, - Vancouver, Canada

B) Salt Lake City International Airport – Salt Lake City, Utah

C) Silicon Valley/Orange County Regional Airfield

D) Centennial International Airport – Denver, Colorado

And I promised you a fifth option… we’ll say…

E) Somewhere half-way to the moon.

Okay, made your choice?

I’m sure we’ve all figured it out already.. the correct answer is… “E” – somewhere half-way to the moon. That video clip, as I’m sure you all recognized is from Stanley Kubrick’s landmark film, “2001.” How appropriate that the first sermon delivered in 2001 reaches to the film of the same name to begin.

Kubrick’s film was released in 1968, and actually began work and shooting in 1965. And it today stands as quite a milestone in the history of American Film. And the vision it portrayed of what then was the distant future was not all that far-fetched after all.

In “2001” the film there is a large, international space station. Read the news lately? In 2001 reality we are building and operating a large, international space station. In “2001” the film a daddy uses a video-phone to call home. In 2001 reality such devices exist and rumored to be entering the mainstream marketplace in much more cost-effective means very soon. In “2001” the film business such as Hilton Hotels and AT&T are coaxing people to utilize their services while traveling ‘abroad’ in space. In “2001” the film there are brand-new industries, business and divisions within corporations preparing to make profit on travelers and, yes, tourists in space.

And there are, of course, some obvious elements of the film that are not a reality in the year 2001. Much of this well-known motion picture is still indeed science fiction.

And what I’d like to draw your minds to this morning is that the activity, the life, the world that is projected in the motion picture “2001” is a wholly different one that anything that would be experienced by the average person walking down Main street USA in 1965 or 1968.

I think I need to remind you that the same thing is very true in reverse in dealing with reality. The world in which we will live in 2001, is significantly different from the world which that average person knew and experienced in 1966.

The world has changed dramatically in the past 40 and 50 years. We live in a very different world in 2001 than the people who attended the premieres and opening weekends of the film, “2001.”

We live in an era where change is taking place at record pace. We are the frontier of a with a new way of life and new understandings of what it means to live, to love, to work, to play, to mature, to succeed and to survive. We have experienced dramatic shifts in our culture, amazing transformations in the political landscape, wholesale re-drawings of the geographical borders of nations and world powers. How we make purchases, how we stock our refrigerators, how we recreate on the weekends, how we meet our mates… is all changing in ways no one could have imagined. Technology is reinventing and one-upping itself at a blinding speed. The market place, the work place, the school house, the communities in which we live are entirely different today than they were even a couple decades ago.

Just look at Owasso. I was in a conversation with a lady earlier this week. She commented that when she moved to Tulsa some 18, 20 years ago, Owasso was a small, rural township. Today, it’s a suburb and community all its own; growing and exploding.

The way that people organize their thoughts, evaluate their lives, determine their priorities, set their values… these things have change in important and consequential ways as well. In very real terms how Americans decide: a) who they are, b) what they will fight and die for, and c) what really is ‘truth’ has completely changed since 30 years ago.