THE MOVEMENT TOWARD THE NEW
“Once we’ve thrown off our habitual paths, we think all is lost, but it is only here that the new and good begins.” – Leo Tolstoy –
Change. Everybody’s for it until they’re the ones expected to change; then it becomes feared and dreaded and loathsome. The nature of life, however, is one of changes being made…changes being dealt with.
Tolstoy’s observation is that when the things around change, we mourn the changes as loss. “But we’ve always done it like this” is a phrase that often speaks against the changes that are proposed or made. Some church growth observers submit that these are the last words of dying churches. Maybe…but my observation is that people like the status quo – the way things are – because it’s a safe place to be. It doesn’t matter what that status quo could be harmful (consider battered spouses who won’t leave the situation), what I “know” is safer to me that the “unknown” of a new and different future.
Church observers call it “homeostasis” – the desire to keep everything the way it is because that’s the way it’s “always” been. Upon deeper study, however, a lot of things we consider as important to us in terms of heritage are not things that have always been that way. In the life-cycle of Resurrection, for instance, we have seen five or six hymnals used throughout our history – from The Lutheran Hymnal to the Worship Supplement; from Lutheran Worship to Hymnal Supplement 1998 to With One Voice; and now, we have The Lutheran Service Book. We may have used liturgy in our worship services, but with each different hymnal we have also used different liturgies. Nothing wrong here; just different…new…change…different.
During a time of transition, such as an intentional interim ministry, change is something to be experienced. It helps us break from the past and move toward the future. It upsets the “homeostasis” for the sake of discovering new opportunities and new ways of doing things that are just as faithful as the “old ways” were to God and his mission.
It is in the “throwing off” of our well-developed and deeply-held practices that we suffer a sense of loss…there’s no denying that. But, “it is only here that the new and good begins.” Change is simply the movement toward the new. Will come and walk with me?
