More on Permanence

My last post was about moving to something more permanent.  In the words of one of my best leaders, it may be time for this church to experience a "second order change" or "disruptive change."  It's not time to just try some new songs in worship, add a staff position, or reformat the bulletin.  It's time to truly shake things up.

As I've prayed about this and struggled over how we can make drastic changes and still be merciful and kind to those who aren't ready for major transformation, some of Christ's words keep coming back to me.

According to Mark (chapter 2), Jesus was asked why John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees were fasting regularly and his weren't.  Jesus' reply calls for new practices that are more appropriate for the times.  Jesus is with them, in the flesh, and it would be inappropriate for them to fast - instead it is a time for celebration, for learning, and for action. 

Jesus pulls this together with two of his own proverbs, and this is where it gets good.  First, the image of a new patch on an old garment.  Think of the clothes in your closet.  If you're like me, you've got a pair of jeans in there that are stretched out and comfortable.  What happens if you take a brand-new piece of denim and sow it to the old jeans?  When you wash it, that new fabric is going to shrink and pull on the old fabric.  The two won't work together. 

Then he talks about wineskins.  Wineskins were used for the fermentation of wine.  Grape juice was put into the skins and as it fermented, the gasses expanded inside, stretching the skin.  If you used the skin once, you couldn't use it again because it wasn't elastic anymore.  New wine in an old wineskin would burst it.

I think of how this compares to our lives as Christians and how it can be a powerful symbol for some of our decaying and dying churches. 

For a church that needs something major, it's not only insufficient to "patch" it with a new program, staff person, or idea, it's actually destructive to the church.  When we do this, we put off dealing with the root of our decay and treat our symptoms instead (isn't that the American way?).  We allow our problems to continue to exist and even grow, making later change even more painful and difficult.  If the garment gets too old, you can't patch it anymore - it's just time for a new pair of jeans.

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