It was way past my bedtime Tuesday night but the atmospheric electricity across America, and even the world, kept me up as Americans elected Barack Obama to be our next president. I wanted to hear what he would say to us the first time he spoke with the baton in hand.

    I wasn’t disappointed as his address was inspirational and masterful. John McCain’s concession speech was magnificent in its grace.  His face flashed with dismay when his supporters booed the mention of Obama’s name and he hushed them.

    Crowds of dramatically different tenor gathered in Phoenix and Chicago as polling results inexorably moved toward Obama’s confirmation. A somber crowd gathered by invitation at a Phoenix hotel. In Chicago, 70,000 who had downloaded passes from the Internet crowded inside the ropes at Grant Park while hundreds of thousands of others responded to a “Ya’ll come” invitation from the Chicago mayor.

    As television cameras panned the scenes I was struck by the faces in the crowds. You’re going to holler that I’m over generalizing, but watch video for yourself, or look at the pictures in this morning’s Raleigh News and Observer.

    In broad terms, the Phoenix crowd was white and older. In Chicago, the crowd was black, white, Asian, Latino, and generally younger. In Phoenix, the crowd was me. In Chicago, the crowd was my children and nieces and nephews.

    As a churchman and a Baptist denominational worker much of my career, I have been in the thick of conversations and lament about attracting or keeping the next generation. How can we attract our children and grandchildren to Christ and to the church as we know it?

    Our problem is we want to attract them to “the church as we know it.” The fact is they generally are not interested in that church. Young seminary students are not interested in leading those kinds of churches. If us old white guys persist in expending our energy to preserve old white guy churches we will enjoy an exclusive and steadily shrinking camaraderie.

    While we tend to vote for people who look like us and who we think will preserve things for us the way they are, we are a steadily shrinking part of the population. The next generation is excited about someone who talks their language, who uses technology well, who appears fit and energetic and who speaks articulately about issues that matter to them, including but beyond the issues that matter to us.

    The fact is that the environment, the wars, poverty, health care, educational opportunity and family matter to the people in your church, especially the young, but also the “seasoned.” Are you bringing biblical wisdom to bear on these issues? Are you helping your young people learn to apply ancient truth in a modern world? Do you project an interest, awareness and involvement in these issues?

    A gong is one note. You can sound the gong and gain a lot of attention briefly, but people soon tire of it and just as soon start to ignore it.

    Many instruments make an orchestra and the music is much more pleasing. Add additional voices to your chorus. The face of America is changing. It is not something to fear, but to celebrate. It is a great time to be alive and to be resting in the hands of a sovereign God.