In a recent blog, Seth Godin pointed out that “history
doesn’t always repeat itself . . . but it usually rhymes.” Most of us grew up with the world view that
history tends to be cyclical—wars, famines, economic disasters—tend to recur on
a regular basis. The players may be
different, but the circumstances are pretty much the same. This worked pretty well for us when we were
much more tied to a low tech, agricultural culture. Godin points out the new reality that the
next “big thing” may look very different from the last one, bringing with it a
number of unexpected consequences.
For example, when we started using pagers, did we really
expect that they would be replaced by compact “communicators” that we call cell
phones? Cell phones (and smart phones) have
brought a whole different kind of wireless connectedness to our culture—text messages,
instant pictures and videos, and delivery of music, movies, and other media—all
in the palms of our hands. All of this
has changed so quickly that we hardly remember how we were limited to wired
media—landlines, faxes, etc.—only a decade ago.
Of course, this will pass quickly into something else that we can’t even
predict at this point.
Those of us in the church tend to think in cycles as
well. Too many of us are “waiting for
the parade to some around the square again” so that the methodologies that
worked in past decades will be relevant again.
Don’t wait. It’s not going to
happen. Not only has the way we do
church changed, the expectations that people have of church have changed. Certainly, they still desire to come closer
to God in worship and grow in discipleship, but the delivery systems have
changed even as the context has changed.
The lesson for us is not to become too attached to a
particular way of doing something. As
Godin says,
“Most of the time, we’re dealing with a moment, a step in
a trend. We fail when we fall in love
and believe there is no next step.” So
what’s the next step for the church?
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