Embracing Change Thursday |
I am writing from my hotel room in Nashville, where I am attending a Convention. I miss my wife and boys terribly. It doesn’t matter how many times I go away, I always get a little depressed being apart from them. The convention has been enjoyable and enlightening. It is really two conventions happening at once; one is The National Pastor’s Convention with many main line speakers, musicians and pastors and the other is The Emergent convention which concerns itself mainly with the church and theology in a postmodern society and spiritual formations (two of my passions). An attendee can choose either conference at any given time.
If I had to make one statement about what Emergent has done so far for me, I would say that it has made God big again. It has brought back a sense of humility to my faith as well as mystery and awe. God is breaking out of the box that I put in Him in. Of course, for God to become big once again in my thinking means feeling a bit insecure about my previous assumptions and conclusions. It means being OK with feeling uncomfortable.
When we are comfortable, we are satisfied, and when we are satisfied, we are not interested in change which brings about growth, and when we are not growing, we die.
Earlier today, I toured the Ryman Theater, the place where the Grand Ole Opry has been held for many years. Although I do like Blue Grass, I really took a tour because it was right across the street from where I was staying and I needed a diversion from all the “new ideas’ I was learning. Much to my surprise, I was more moved while touring this grand place of musical, political and religious events, then I was at much of the offerings of Emergent. I don’t mean to romanticize the past, but there was a beauty that was experienced in that place, of simplicity and community and it all revolved around great music that spoke to their life experiences; a common language. Most of those country greats are now dead and gone and so with them an era has passed. It is a time and place that cannot be returned to, life has moved on. This is sad. And I felt its loss while I visited. How strange to be at a convention that embraces change in Church structure and practice and here I was across the street longing for the past.
I think this is how many people feel in the church today. They may not know about postmodernism, they may not be interested in reading all the books and entering into the new conversations but they instinctively feel, as Bob Dylan sang, “the times, they are a changin’.” They feel its loss. Eras are passing, old methodologies are crumbling, comfortable styles are fading and the people that are so quick to embrace the new things, do not seem to know about, nor respect much of what once was.
Yet, the root of every declining economic structure, every failing government, every ineffective church and every stunted person, is the inability to adjust to the changes that life naturally brings. We instinctively know this, but find change hard still. An interesting article appeared in Fastcompany magazine in May of 2005 entitled, “Change or Die,” in which research found that, even if faced with death, 1 out of 10 people would make the change necessary in their lifestyle in order to survive. This is not how God designed us, this is our fallen nature that can keep us from becoming what God intends. The scriptures speak of how there are times when we must build up and times when we must tear down (Ecc. 3:3), God told the Israelites that they were getting to comfortable and that it was time to leave the mountain that they were camped out on (Deuteronomy 1:6), and Jesus spoke of new wine needing new wine skins and not old ones (Luke 5:36-39). This does not make the pain or sadness that one would feel concerning things lost less real. It is very real, but the pain cannot be allowed to cripple us in such a way that we fail to move forward.
I will leave the last word with Watchmen Nee, as he wrote in his little book Twelve Baskets Full; “ The whole trend of the Bible, from Genesis to revelation, is an onward trend. The record from beginning to end is a progressive unfolding of God’s goings…What is required of you and me today is not that we attain the ultimate, but that our measure correspond to the stage reached in the development of the divine purpose at this present time. You and I must be found at that point which the tide of the Spirit has reached today-not the stage it reached at some point in the past, nor the stage it will reach at some point in the future.”
If I had to make one statement about what Emergent has done so far for me, I would say that it has made God big again. It has brought back a sense of humility to my faith as well as mystery and awe. God is breaking out of the box that I put in Him in. Of course, for God to become big once again in my thinking means feeling a bit insecure about my previous assumptions and conclusions. It means being OK with feeling uncomfortable.
When we are comfortable, we are satisfied, and when we are satisfied, we are not interested in change which brings about growth, and when we are not growing, we die.
Earlier today, I toured the Ryman Theater, the place where the Grand Ole Opry has been held for many years. Although I do like Blue Grass, I really took a tour because it was right across the street from where I was staying and I needed a diversion from all the “new ideas’ I was learning. Much to my surprise, I was more moved while touring this grand place of musical, political and religious events, then I was at much of the offerings of Emergent. I don’t mean to romanticize the past, but there was a beauty that was experienced in that place, of simplicity and community and it all revolved around great music that spoke to their life experiences; a common language. Most of those country greats are now dead and gone and so with them an era has passed. It is a time and place that cannot be returned to, life has moved on. This is sad. And I felt its loss while I visited. How strange to be at a convention that embraces change in Church structure and practice and here I was across the street longing for the past.
I think this is how many people feel in the church today. They may not know about postmodernism, they may not be interested in reading all the books and entering into the new conversations but they instinctively feel, as Bob Dylan sang, “the times, they are a changin’.” They feel its loss. Eras are passing, old methodologies are crumbling, comfortable styles are fading and the people that are so quick to embrace the new things, do not seem to know about, nor respect much of what once was.
Yet, the root of every declining economic structure, every failing government, every ineffective church and every stunted person, is the inability to adjust to the changes that life naturally brings. We instinctively know this, but find change hard still. An interesting article appeared in Fastcompany magazine in May of 2005 entitled, “Change or Die,” in which research found that, even if faced with death, 1 out of 10 people would make the change necessary in their lifestyle in order to survive. This is not how God designed us, this is our fallen nature that can keep us from becoming what God intends. The scriptures speak of how there are times when we must build up and times when we must tear down (Ecc. 3:3), God told the Israelites that they were getting to comfortable and that it was time to leave the mountain that they were camped out on (Deuteronomy 1:6), and Jesus spoke of new wine needing new wine skins and not old ones (Luke 5:36-39). This does not make the pain or sadness that one would feel concerning things lost less real. It is very real, but the pain cannot be allowed to cripple us in such a way that we fail to move forward.
I will leave the last word with Watchmen Nee, as he wrote in his little book Twelve Baskets Full; “ The whole trend of the Bible, from Genesis to revelation, is an onward trend. The record from beginning to end is a progressive unfolding of God’s goings…What is required of you and me today is not that we attain the ultimate, but that our measure correspond to the stage reached in the development of the divine purpose at this present time. You and I must be found at that point which the tide of the Spirit has reached today-not the stage it reached at some point in the past, nor the stage it will reach at some point in the future.”