Of all the reasons churches and leaders falter, high up on the list is a failure to change. And most of us realize this.
But what we overlook is the opposite truth. Just as high on that list is the tendency to change for the sake of change.
How can both be true? The explanation is easier than you think.
One of our greatest pitfalls is the inability to separate the essential from what the ancient church fathers called the adiaphora. That’s a Greek word meaning things which don’t matter a lot.
Take worship for example. From a theological point of view, the outward form of music doesn’t matter a lot. That’s why men like Wesley and Booth borrowed popular melodies from the very bars out of which they were rescuing people. They made up new words for the songs. The music drew people, and the preaching and the lyrics taught them. But for that they received lots of criticism from the religious folk of the day.
When the organ was introduced as an instrument for accompaniment to worship, there were plenty of complaints. And when, centuries later, the organ began first to be supplemented and then to be replaced as an instrument, there was another firestorm.
David wrote most of the psalms. Three thousand years later, they are still there in our Bible just as he wrote them. I’ve just finished writing a year-long devotional based on the Psalms, and have been struck yet again by how they speak so amazingly into our lives today. But what we don’t have preserved is the musical accompaniment. And believe me, there was lots of it. At least ten instruments are mentioned by name in the psalms, and no doubt there were more. The musical accompaniment was part of the adiaphora, but the words are inspired and eternal. I have heard the psalms sung a cappella and word by word in Gaelic in the Outer Hebrides, set to hymn form in church growing up, and in lots of choruses and contemporary music since. All of it is great. I even appreciated the Gaelic (which sounded a bit like a vocal version of bagpipes), though I didn’t understand a word.
So here’s my point. Some folk reject any change to the music, even when it has long since lost its ability to communicate with the people we need to reach. But others are in a cycle of continuous change, and their principal goal is to reject anything written more than six months ago.
And this carries over into every other area of church life. The denomination in which I grew up is completely mired in outward forms of tradition, but has long since thrown out every shred of truth and Biblical doctrine. I conducted a wedding in one of their church buildings in which enormous offence was created when the communion table was temporarily moved. They had no difficulty discarding Jesus’ divinity, his miracles or his resurrection. But God help the person who moves the communion table! Jesus had a graphic way of describing this: straining out gnats while swallowing camels.
What we need to do in our churches is to determine what God has laid down as eternally non-negotiable. Then we need to stick to it. That includes everything the Bible says, excepting those parts the Bible itself declares no longer necessary because they are fulfilled in Christ.
And everything else has to be open to change. This kind of change is not giving into culture, it is facilitating communication of truth to culture. Change for the sake of change sacrifices truth in order to pander to culture. Refusal to change declares yesterday’s approach to culture is more important than the Biblical command to reach men and women for Christ today.
All this is far easier for me to say than it is to put into practice. Yet somehow we need to find ways of doing that. If we don’t, in another generation we will have no churches left.
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AWAKENING MINISTRIES // FOUNDATION of FAITH Project
Foundation of Faith Project is strengthening generations in faith and bringing beautiful changes to the communities around them. Through teaching, mentoring and coaching, many are finding out who they are and who they are destined to be. They are bringing more to their world. David Campbell is the key leader in this initiative and you can support him financially directly through Awakening Ministries.
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