Think Change, or plan your funeral
I read a book by a Puritan called “The Reformed Pastor“. It had some wonderful insights, but there was one huge element of the book that made it utterly unrealistic for modern leaders. He was leading a country parish where he knew exactly how many families he was responsible for, where they lived, and where they were spiritually.
That kind of reality exists now only in monastic settings (which, not surprisingly, are making a bit of a comeback). But for churches (or other organizations) in the modern world, change is an everpresent reality. There are statistics like “30% of a congregation in a large city turns over every years”. This is certainly true for us at Mercy, moreso given our younger population.
Whatever system or strategies we put in place must take this into account. On one hand, I have friends that I hope stay in this church with me until one of us dies. But in reality, most of the people closest to me will move on. They might move, or their needs might change such that they end up in another congregation (get over it, pastors, people are going to leave you and it doesn’t make them bad or you a failure.)
If we make plans with the idea that the same people will stay around year after year, we will almost immediately start declining in both attendance and effectiveness. We must plan for the reality that our church will look completely different in 5 years, in ways we probably can’t even imagine.
Let alone the turnover in people, consider the effect of technology. I literally cannot conceive of how to do ministry without cell phones, web sites, email, and facebook. But what new technologies will be present in five years that I’ll have to catch up with? And for the record, I’m not a techno-geek. I’m a late adopter on almost all technology. I didn’t set this blog up- my friends did, then sent me a link and said “type in the box.” But I know if I fall too far behind, I’m dead.
What stays the same? Jesus. Love. Hope. But Jesus is an incarnate God, you hear me-incarnate. That means he enters into the world, into reality. Which means, in the 21st century west, Jesus embraces constant change.
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So I’m kind of bad at making friends. I mean, not because I’m unfriendly or mean or unlikable – at least I hope that’s not the case – but because of life and personality making me very self-sufficient, self-reliant and being a loner rejuvenates me. It just takes me time to make friends.
The reality of 21st century life being one of constant change hits me in the face all the time because of these tendencies. As soon as I make friends, I lose them. My struggle is I have to continually fight against the temptation to stop trying to make good friends. Usually I do okay at that. I still make friends, even if we go separate ways.
Occasionally I want to shout, “AAHHH, God!” from the emotional exertion.
Then I recall the life of Jesus and remind myself, “Well, if God will cross the line between divinity and humanity with the Cross for me, I can at least cross a few state lines with Facebook.”
The benefit of friendship is worth the cost of separation. Just as along as it doesn’t involve the phone. Not the phone…
Oops. I gave you the wrong ET homepage address there. Not that you needed it anyway…
No response? You hate me, I know.
Just kidding. By the way, where I mentioned Beck’s addressing these topics “more or less carefully,” I meant to say “more and less carefully.” Sometimes he’s careful. Other times he’s glossing or neglecting some critical pieces. But he’s almost always addressing something really interesting. Or so it is to me anyway.