Barnabas File

  Here’s a new word to add to your vocabulary:  permacrisis.  It refers to “an extended period of instability and insecurity, especially one resulting from a series of catastrophic events.”  The Collins Dictionary added it to their files in 2022 and declared it the word of the year. The word represents the compounding crises we have seen in recent years including inflation, the cost-of-living crisis, the pandemic, disastrous climate change, the war in Ukraine, and ongoing racial tensions.   Permacrisis may well take the place of the VUCA acronym—volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous—to describe our present-day situation. Although it has been used in economic, social, and political contexts, the word might appropriately be applied to where we find the church in North America today.  It appears that several crises are coming to a head for our churches.  All denominations report that their congregants are aging, resulting in...