Sometimes very early in the morning I will wake up and not be able to go back to sleep. When that happens I like to go get my I Pod and sit in my favorite chair and tune in to a Christian radio station that plays a variety of "contemporary" Christian songs.
This morning I heard this worship leader talking about how God ordained the church but then He had to choose broken, imperfect people to do the work of ministry. As it turns out, I have been giving this a whole lot of thought in recent days. I could not help but think about Jesus when he stood on a hill overlooking Jerusalem and wept for the people there because of their rejection of Him and their adherence to the law.
At times in her faith journey the church is much like those stubborn people in Jerusalem in Jesus' day. It is so easy to put our focus on things which are NOT eternal but temporal. The church at times will accidentally think it is doing God's will when it actually doing it's own will in God's name. What's the difference? RESULTS!
Now as a spiritual leader in the church I am still one who stands in the need of God's Grace and love and forgiveness. And I'm not at all comfortable with comparing my leadership abilities with those of Jesus but I believe Jesus has put His heart in me. And because of this I believe I can empathize with Jesus when it comes to the struggles of God's people to do the right thing. In recent months the church where I serve has come to the realization that we need to do something rather drastic to reverse the decline in our membership and attendance. We have made very difficult decisions with regard to worship and tried new things. Very recently we have made yet another radical decision with regard to worship, an unpopular one in the minds of a few. And I see this congregation that I have grown to love very much go through the laboring pains of change-and my heart breaks. My heart breaks because I see the passion that people have in terms of their perception of worship. Most of that passion I believe is genuine and good but some of it is very, very negative. My heart breaks because, in some of the conversations I am having with folks I sense the fear of change. Change is not a bad word!
But here's the thing: If the church is of God, and I believe that it is, and if the "gates of hell" shall not prevail against it why should we (i.e. the church) fear change at all? And if we think for one minute that the church will fail without us I believe we are gravely mistaken! If the church chooses not to fulfill its mission then God will raise up somebody else to do it! For centuries principalities and powers have tried to discredit and destroy the church and guess what-we're STILL HERE! And on the flip side of the negativity that often occurs in a local church with regard to change, particularly in worship, let me say that the very fact that we RECOGNIZE a need for change is a good thing! We might be in trouble if we were lukewarm and didn't even know it!
So we have a choice to make, church. We can choose to get angry over change and become disgruntled, discontented and pick up our spiritual toys and go play somewhere else. OR we can accept change and celebrate the great possibilities that God will provide through it and support it with our prayers, presence, gifts, service and witness. What's it gonna be?
The Methmusician
No comments:
Post a Comment