Dear Friends,
Someone said the only one that likes changing is a wet
baby. The person was probably right. Change is not always a popular experience,
and it can produce a lot of damage if it is not done wisely, carefully, and lovingly.
Today we face a culture that is fast changing, and that change
has not been lost on those of us in the church. New Monmouth has been through a
number of changes in recent years, and for some not all of those changes have
been popular or easy to accept. However, I commend you on the way you have
handled them.
Change is never trivial no matter how small that change may
be. I remember the first time I ditched my robe while pastoring one Sunday
morning a number of years ago in a church I served, and you can’t imagine the uproar
from some of those in the pews. “What is
Tom doing walking around the pulpit teaching without wearing a robe?” It was as
if I had ascended the pulpit in my birthday suit. I can write and laugh about it today, but I
can tell you I wasn’t quite prepared for the reaction I received. That
experience was a stark reminder to me of the ‘tumult’ that even change can
produce, no matter how small that change may seem.
When people allow their own personal preferences to usurp
the church’s efforts to reach people for Christ, the church is in danger of
becoming irrelevant. When change happens in the church that I don’t like, I
have to remind myself that the church is not here to serve me and my
preferences or traditions. It is here to reach the world, and if that change
can help in accomplishing that goal, I better be championing it no matter how I
personally feel about it.
This week I have been reading an eye-opening book by J.D.
Greear, titled “Gaining by Losing”. In it he shares a story that really touched
me. It reminded me of the way our New Monmouth Baptist Church family regularly responded
to change.
Greear, a pastor in Durham, N.C., where several of our
members have visited, writes about a lady in his church who has a great
appreciation for hand bell music.
She discovered the church was about to sell their hand bell
set so they could purchase some newer music equipment, specifically some new
guitars. “This lady, who loved worship, was more of the organ, bells, and horns
persuasion than the drums, guitars, and rhythm one.”
Confronting the pastor, she shared something that he didn’t
know. Those hand bells, which had been stored away in the closet for a number
of years, were the result of a gift her mother had given to the church shortly
before she died.
In speaking with the woman, Greear writes “After a couple
of long, awkward seconds, I said to her, “Well, don’t you think your mom in
heaven would be glad to see us using instruments that would help us reach this
next generation-including her grandkids and their friends?”
“She thought about that for a second, and then said, ‘Well,
yes . . . I suppose my mom would be happy with that.’”
“She requested that
we not sell the hand bells but donate them to another church, which we gladly
did. Yet she did not resist seeing them go, and she did not leave our church
when we shifted our worship to a more contemporary one. Today over 2,000
college students attend our church each weekend.”
Greear concludes the story with these words: “Because of
the selflessness of this woman and many others, our church is reaching a whole
new generation. Taken from “Gaining by Losing”, J. D. Greear, p. 90
It is true that as Robert Schuller once wrote, “every end
is a new beginning.” And those of us who protest change may miss the joy of
seeing what God is ready to do with “new beginnings.”
See you Sunday!
Yours in faith and friendship,
Pastor Tom
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