Chapter 2 - Entering That Awkward Age, or Does Jonah Eat Bagels?

1. The topic of Dan's fear resurfaces in Chapter Two. As a pastor, Dan always feels the pressure to be the one who has the "answers". Neo seems to think this is a particularly modern sensibility, an age characterized by "debate, dialectic, argument, and discussion". What is the role of a leader in the church? Do we pay pastors to be the answer-men and -women? What is the cost of such an approach? How might the way we train such leaders dictate the kind of leaders we produce?

2. Sometimes a well-formulated question can be more productive than a matter-of-fact answer, even when it is "correct". Do you agree or disagree? Why?

3. Neo locates the greatest source of Dan's struggle as an issue of "immigration" from a faith shaped by the cultural forces of modernity into the reality of the postmodern world. After reading Neo's ten characteristics of modernity (pp. 16-18), do you agree with his assessment that Dan is facing an immigration problem? Have you ever struggled in the same way? If so, how have you described your struggle to others, if at all?

4. Neo divides the timeline of history into five eras: prehistory, the ancient world, the medieval world, the modern world, and the postmodern world. Have you ever considered history in these ways? What is helpful about these classificiations? Is there any danger in simplifying history in this way?

5. Consider the ten phrases introduced by Neo to describe modernity. Do you see examples of these themes in contemporary life, and in the church in particular? If so, where?