Yesterday I had a break in my day and I was walking the hallway. In the hallways where I work (a government public utility) there is a lot of memorabilia. There are photos of whole departments from as far back as the 1910's and 1920's. The photos are warn and hard to see but they are there.There are also lots of old trophies in the break rooms. Back in the 1980's and earlier it was not uncommon to have sponsored teams competing in softball, bowling, etc. As these teams would win, the trophies would come here to work, where they were proudly displayed for all to see.
Why share this? There isn't a trophy newer than 1990. It isn't something that we do any more. Just as I looked at the photos over the years, things have changed. We are not the same organization we were 5, 20, 50 or 100 years ago. For many reasons, our business has had to change and adapt to the way things are done today.
This is a good thing. This is a necessary thing. If we did not change, we could chance that something we were doing was illegal, unsafe or immoral. None of which anyone wants to happen. In addition, change allows us to be "profitable", so that we can continue to provide a product to our customers.
However, in the church it seems to be so much different. It hasn't been until recent that the church has really been open to change. In many churches I have visited, the congregation, pastor have been happy with the way things are. They don't want to change.
Why is that? Why is the church so resistant to change? Change is the only constant. The only for sure thing is that their will be change. Knowing that, I would think one would prefer to embrace it, as opposed to running from it.
This is why, I think, the denominational church is dying off. Due to the size of their bureaucracy, they are very slow to change. As a result, they are not able to keep up. Where you see the greatest and fastest change is in the non-denominational church. The autonomous organism that is able to respond quickly to the environment. Yet, even then they need to be on constant guard that they don't fall in to the "safe" zone.
How about you? Do you like change?
1 comment:
just wanna say, i'm so glad we don't have a church bowling team! oh, and the funny thing is, if we're not careful, we can try to substitute "the next new thing in church" for the simplicity of loving God and people and for spending time in prayer and his word... of course, we also must exchange the "comfortable old ways" for the messy, creative, uncontrollable, even shocking (at times) way in which he leads us!
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