In Makoto Fujimura's book Refractions: A Journey of Faith, Art and Culture, the author talks about "The Five-Hundred-Year Question." The Five-Hundred-Year Question is "What ideas, what art, what vision in our current culture has the capacity to affect humanity for more than five hundred years?" This question is an extremely important question for the church to ask in the midst of a cultural reality shaped by a fanatical pursuit of many for their "fifteen minutes of fame."
I wrote about the concept of a multi-generational view of life in the chapter c
alled "The Art of the Long View" in Presence Centered Youth Ministry. Many youth workers, (like any other classification of people) seem to be drawn to the latest, greatest, splashiest, gimmicky thing coming out of the novelty conduit. What would an approach to spiritual formation and youth ministry look like if we embraced a healthy frame of reference and appreciation of church history as we looked ahead to embody a praxis and perspective on the importance of cooperating with God in a way that truly considered the Five-Hundred-Year Question?
Fujimura who believes that we are staggering in our culture because we
have "lost even our ability to ask that question (five-hundred-year question)." 
What was happening 500 years ago that is still affecting humanity today? Fujimura points to Leonardo Da Vinci's Mona Lisa and The Last Supper; Michelangelo's David and The Sistine Chapel (all things that I have spent many hours sitting with in total astonishment); Martin Luther was nailing his Ninety-five Theses on the Wittenberg Door (I stood at this spot with goose bumps contemplating the magnitude of this); plus much more that we could add to this period of Renaissance (and this is just to mention western culture.)
These thoughts have dominated my thinking over the last couple of weeks. I am quite consumed with how much this resonates with my view of culture making and thinking about youth ministry, church and spiritual formation.
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