Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before
So, stop me if you’ve heard this one before
There is no growth without change
Change
Ugh
The word itself can send cold shivers down you back
But if we don’t change
The danger is that we can become like a recording on a cassette tape
That’s
Stuck on
Repeat Repeat Repeat
And
If what we’ve always done is successful
It makes us more resistant to change
To try new things
To discover a different approach
One of my favourite Scriptures is Isaiah 43:19
‘Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it?’
STOP ME IF YOU’VE HEARD THIS ONE BEFORE
My mum, God love her
Talks about the good ‘ol days of open air meetings
If your unfamiliar with this concept
Imagine having a Church service in the middle of a shopping centre
If you went back in time
You’d see me hiding behind someone as quickly as I could, just in case any of my friends from school saw me
I agree that yes, as cringe worthy as it was – it somehow worked…
…In 1984
When nobody had a thing called
The Internet =)
And while my mum is going down the well-worn path of ‘Nostalgia Avenue’
Out IT comes
The Tamborine
Now just picture me as, Mike Wazowski in Monsters Inc.
Shouting
‘Put that thing back where it came from, or so help me!’
Rigid thinking makes you stale and irrelevant
To the very people your trying to reach
And that’s not good
Ever wondered why
Jesus never performed a miracle the same way twice?
He didn’t want our thinking to become boxed in
Fear is a big part of why we don’t want to change something that has always worked before
Traditions that have become an unspoken set of rules
That should never be questioned
I know, I get it
Creating something new is scary
In my blog post last week, Build a better home, I didn’t know if the Christmas Production I written and directed was going to work.
We’d never done something like that as a Church
But if I’d have let all my fears of what could go wrong take over
People wouldn’t have experienced the childlike wonder of Christmas again
They wouldn’t have felt the magic of a snow canon popping over them
Or the excitement they felt when they found a ‘golden train ticket’ underneath their seats
I’m sure God has so much more for us to discover
But we have to be willing to forge new paths
I’m not talking about changing the Gospel
God is the same
Yesterday, today and forever
But
God gave us an imagination and creativity
And as a Church
We have a responsibly to use our gifts and talents
For his Glory
To show people what an awesome God we serve
And yes
We won’t always get it right
But if we don’t try
We’ll never know
Wendy xo
Myk
February 15, 2017Open air meetings still work well. E.g. Waikiki Chaplaincy…every Sunday on Waikiki Beach!… 😉
Wendy Parker
February 28, 2017A rainy high street in England to Waikiki Beach…no comparison Myk! =)
Leonie Schlosser
February 27, 2017Change for me has always left me feeling lost, and alone, but your blog touched me as when we do embrace change it makes us grow. C3 is going through a scary change right now, but I trust my God, and I trust my Pastors who I believe are very close with God. so yes Wendy I am prepared to chase away my fears and embrace change as you suggested, because we do have a creative God. Lets create with him.
Wendy Parker
February 28, 2017I’m glad the post blessed you.
God is a constant though the trial and the change. Keep your eyes fixed on Him..x