Changing… Staying the same…

The church I go to is so cool.  It is like the churches I went to as a little kid, when we would go to church.  It has old smelling wood.  Beautiful, old looking glass.  Old smelling walls.  It even has old smelling people.  But it is brimming with life.  It overflows with graciousness.  We are in a unique position because we are the only international church in the entire city, and so we have like 85 years of difference from the oldest person to the youngest person that attends.  There are some people that struggle with the organ (when it works properly) and some people that struggle with the “twangy twangy” of the guitar (when we play it).  I hear of churches that split over these things.  They polarize.  They act if it were the only thing that mattered.  Somehow, by the grace of God, we are living above it, and loving one another.  Some dear friends moved to Buenos Aires after seven years of being a part of our community, and we all gathered around them at one of the pastor’s houses, just all together, being together, enjoying one another in a sacred time for us. 

It hasn’t always been this way.  We have been polarized in the past too.  In fact, sad to say, I have been one of those polarizing forces.   But we come back because, well, for many of us, it is the only place we have to go.  And, because we belong to it.  It calls to us.  Or an elderly member tracks us down and ferrets out whatever petty reason we might have come up with for not being a part, and says, “Come be with us.  Come pray with us.  Come seek God with us.” 

Some of us, from eighty years old down to twenty seven, sat around a meeting a couple months ago talking about music, and how the younger families don’t connect with the worship.  “Ah, yes,” said another, graciously, “yes, we always have that difficulty, and we know they need to be able to worship according to their style.”  It wasn’t an argument.  It was a gracious concession. 

Yesterday, we sang Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine.  I wouldn’t have given it up for all the Rock band worship in the world.  Tell me my non-Christian friends will be driven away by it.  I’ll tell you some of them aren’t worth it!!!  And yet, still I wrestle with the need to be relevant to today’s world while still holding on to all that is good of who we have been in the past.  Of the good things we have stood for.  I see us beginning more and more to speak and sing God’s word and truth so that today’s (and tomorrow’s) faith-crisis laiden person may step into our midst and find some bridges to God.  I see them feeling welcome in our midst and not fumbly and awkward.  And the gifts. Oh, we have gifts that are starting to be awakened, enlivened, poured out as a fragrant offering to God and as spiritual food to hungry souls.  And God is smiling.

Changing, and staying the same.

A dear friend of mine once casually mentioned to me that of course we could get more people to church if we turned it into a discoteca, but that was not what we were all about. And then it dawned on me.  We are not against change. People rarely are. We are against change for the wrong reasons.  We are against change that nurses our egos so that we can tell everyone what a growing church we have.  We resist change that comes from a desire to get more offering in our plate or to win some unspoken growth competition. We resist change that walks over peoples backs in order to get to a quick goal. We resist to look at the world around us and be driven by a fearful need to “keep up with the times.”

Ah, but then I had a parallel thought. If there are BAD reasons for change, then there must also be BAD reasons for staying the same.  Fearful reasons for staying the same. We can’t stay the same because we prize our comfort.  We can’t stay the same because “that’s the way we’ve always done it.”  We can’t put up roadblocks because we have lost our will to risk and make bold moves in the name of Christ for His Kingdom. 

I thought about the time when I was a kid standing in the crashing surf, determined not to move my feet, to stay in the same place.  I remember feeling the tide slowly grab the sand and rip it out from under me until and began sinking, sinking, and eventually fell. 

And just as there are bad reasons for both changing and staying the same, there are also GOOD reasons for changing and GOOD reasons for staying the same.  So how do we navigate the rocky shoals of good and bad reasons for staying the same and for changing?

It comes down to understanding our purpose, our call, our values.  Our purpose anchors us.  Our purpose reminds us to ask the question, “Why are we doing this thing or that thing? Are we accomplishing our purpose?” “What do we have to do in order to accomplish our purpose here?” And then, the question of change or staying the same becomes immaterial. It becomes a question of good versus not-so-good. I want to hold steadfastly, unchangeably, to those core principles in my life that define my purpose on this earth and that are in accordance with who God has made me to be. The rest, I just want to be able to change like clothes.

Jim Collins, in his book, Built to Last, compares it to a gyroscope. In a gyroscope, the inner axis stays the same, while the outer rings spin madly around in an ever-changing manner. If the outside stays the same and the inside spins wildly, then something is broken… So, to change?  To stay the same?  Get the purpose question right, and the question answers itself.