The New Pilgrims: Reflections on Christian Conversion at the Beginning of the Third Millennium

When we ask people these days to tell the story of how they actually came to faith, it often sounds more like a journey than an event, perhaps a journey of years rather days or hours. Often their conversions don't fit what we think of as "normal patterns." Who are these new pilgrims? And how can we, the church, welcome them home? What does it mean to obey the Great Commission in the uncharted waters of our post-Christendom, post-modern world of today. This essay is a brief study of Christian conversion in the light of the dramatic cultural, demographic, and philosophical sea-changes we in Canada and other western countries have experienced in the last half century. Do these changes come as a surprise to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ? Of course they do not. He remains the Lord of the harvest. In fact it may be possible to be "born again" more thoroughly now, than at any time in recent history. But today's conversions may look and feel very different.