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. Our church 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 our members for the
way they 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 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.
In J.D. Greear's book titled Gaining by Losing,
he shares a story that really touched me. He writes about a lady in
his church who had 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.”
Yours in faith and friendship,
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