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| Actual picture and article from The State newspaper. |
The two stores I frequent on a regular basis are Publix and Target, and well, right now both my local Publix and Target are going through major changes. Both are having total face lifts on the inside and out. So, when I run in to grab something very quickly, it isn't so quick because I no longer know where anything is! It can be very frustrating and irritating when I am in a hurry. I almost don't even recognize these stores; it is all so unfamiliar and just doesn't feel like my Publix and Target I once knew and loved! I know that sounds silly, but be honest, we get comfortable and used to the way things are. But when I have the time to meander down the new aisles and discover the new changes, I can appreciate the changes being made. The changes are good, and in the end all the changes are going to help costumers have a better shopping experience and be able to find things much easier.
Change just takes time to adjust to, but we humans like to rush and hurry through adjustment periods--or we're so resistant to change that we live in a state of frustration and irritability because we've decided we're just not going to change even though change is happening all around us whether we want it to or not. Such attitudes prevent us from seeing why changes are happening and why they are necessary and how changes are going to be better overall for everyone.
This is where we are as a church--not just United Methodists, but the church universal. Church is not what it used to be; what it once was and had been for centuries. Church is losing its place as the moral and spiritual center of society. It is not the church of our grandparents, and yet it seems it is going to largely be up to our grandparents and parents to birth a new church in these changing times. According to the United Methodist Church, the average age of people in our pews is 57. I just learned at our district clergy meeting last week that 3/4 of all UM clergy in the South Carolina Annual Conference will be eligible to retire in 2017. I have more hope for the church than to assume that should all these clergy retire in 2017, we would be ok because the church is dying at such a rate that we will not need as many pastors. I refuse to believe that, and so this statistic worries me along with the age of our average church goer. If the church isn't willing to change--really change not just technically, but making adaptive changes--not only will we have no church members, but we will have no church leaders either. Lovett Weems is right to predict a death tsunami ever threatening the life of churches.
I can't say that I know how or what exactly needs to change in the church. There is no one-size fits all prescription that will fix the mess we are in overnight; we didn't get here overnight. It's going to be trial and error and knowing your specific context and working within that context. I do know that if that elusive something doesn't change, if we don't "rethink church," our grandparents and parents will have no church to pass on to future generations. I do not think the church will ever cease to exist. God is everlasting, and as Christ's body in this world the church will never fade into oblivion. But if we don't change, can we say honestly that we're being very good disciples of carrying out Jesus' commandment to make disciples--to be fisher of people? It is time to cast our nets on a different side of the boat. What we are doing is not making new disciples, and to continue to work hard doing the same the old thing, the same old way will produce the same results: empty nets. Church, let's take a cue from Facebook--if even Facebook must change to be relevant in this every changing environment, then so must we. After all don't we exist for a higher purpose than Facebook?
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