This has been said by many, remember the “good ole days”.
But how many do and when? Do you really want to go back to the turn of the
century in the 1890’s? When smoke filled the winter air from every coal and
wood burning stove? When lights were candle and needed to be lit? When refrigerators
were not there to keep food edible? Before Tupperware for leftovers? When you
had to feed and clean up after your transportation, even if you were not using
it? For that matter your transportation had a brain of its own and often would
not do what you wanted! No the reflecting for the “good ole days” is something
we do while forgetting the limitations.
For me, think about maps, you don’t have to fold them
anymore! Also, the map required you to decide the route, while today
applications monitor traffic conditions and give you the best route based on
this. Calling home, if you were out and about when I was younger you had to
find a phone to call home and hope someone was near the phone and not in the
yard. Today, your phone is with you and often does more things for us than we
can imagine. Before I had to go to the library to research something, today I
can pick up my phone and find that same information via Google.
No going back to a simpler time has it’s draw backs, there
are major problems today but we have solved many of the major ones of the “good
ole days” and can move forward. Granted many solutions only create new and
different problems, but that is life.
Now with the church, do you want to go back to the 50’s and “Leave
it to Beaver” or the roaring 20’s? Or how about the Roman bath houses and Caligula?
We need to live in the now and not ponder on the past. Philippians 3:13 says it
well:
Brethren, I count not myself to
have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are
behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,
The church I grew up in is different from today! In the 60’s
people just went to church outside the hippy movement. We found God and that
was just the way life was. Most businesses in the 60’s were not open Sundays and
if they were they did not open until after churches let out. Today many of us
have to go to work, many have to sleep since they worked nights, many don’t
even consider church since that is not the norm. Does that mean we go back to a
time without internet or fast food? Or do we work as a church in this new
paradigm?
The key through all this is not to look back and do things
the old way expecting different results, but rather adjust and do things
different to reach those who are “lost” in their relationship with Jesus. So
look for those service moments, look for those chance meeting to share your
story and do not get lost in “cliché land”!