Saturday, February 19, 2005
Revolution?
Milt Stanley of at Transforming Sermons provides and interesting link to a post at Adventures in Following Jesus.
Milt picks up on a question that Adam asks, "Will their current identity define their mission or will their mission define their identity?," and opines that this does rightly identify a tension that most congregations live with. I agree.
Adam; however, drives forward from that question and says the following
One of the key issues that has always concerned me is that we worship a timeless and unchanging God. Our sole purpose is to reflect Him. We are not very good at doing that reflecting thing and we should change to do so better, but what we reflect does not change one iota. Therefore, after 2000 years, "revolution" sounds to me like we might be trying to change what we reflect instead of simply trying to reflect it better.
Change should be organic to the church, but it should not be revolutionary. That means change will be slow, painstakingly slow, often imperceptibly slow. In the wonderful world of chemistry that I inhabit there are silicone oils, liquids mind you, that can take several days to pour from one beaker to another. There may be an analogy in that.
A long time ago, in a place far away, and never read, I wrote this piece and this piece on the subject of change in the church. I offer and recommend them again here for your consideration on this subject.
Milt picks up on a question that Adam asks, "Will their current identity define their mission or will their mission define their identity?," and opines that this does rightly identify a tension that most congregations live with. I agree.
Adam; however, drives forward from that question and says the following
Perhaps we need to figure out how to weave things like revolution and change back into the fabric of what a church is understood to be.Change perhaps, but "revolution" is a very strong word. Those who are so anxious for change run as much a risk of throwing out good stuff as those afraid of change risk holding on to bad stuff.
One of the key issues that has always concerned me is that we worship a timeless and unchanging God. Our sole purpose is to reflect Him. We are not very good at doing that reflecting thing and we should change to do so better, but what we reflect does not change one iota. Therefore, after 2000 years, "revolution" sounds to me like we might be trying to change what we reflect instead of simply trying to reflect it better.
Change should be organic to the church, but it should not be revolutionary. That means change will be slow, painstakingly slow, often imperceptibly slow. In the wonderful world of chemistry that I inhabit there are silicone oils, liquids mind you, that can take several days to pour from one beaker to another. There may be an analogy in that.
A long time ago, in a place far away, and never read, I wrote this piece and this piece on the subject of change in the church. I offer and recommend them again here for your consideration on this subject.
