Becoming a Church with Velocity Part 4

I just got back from speaking up at Dewart Lake Community Friends Church. I think things went well this evening, I got some great feedback from those who were there this evening and we had a good time "unpacking" what it might look like for a church to be a "movement" rather than an "institution".

One of the things that I always enjoy talking about is change. And so tonight I talked about the fact that in order to become a church with velocity we need to be able to adapt to our ever changing culture.

We wouldn’t expect missionaries to go oversees and change the culture in which they find themselves. We wouldn't expect the missionaries to force the indigenous group to wear our clothes, sing our songs, and to begin to speak English. We would expect missionaries to go and study/exegete (word for the day) their culture and to find ways to bridge that culture with the timeless truth of God’s Word. Somehow we tend to forget that we are missionaries in our own culture and it requires that we “learn the language” of our contemporary culture in order to communicate God’s Word effectively.

Adapting to our culture means that the church is going to have to change in its methods or approach in reaching the people within its ministry context. In the natural world adaptation is the difference between living and dying, and I believe it is the same for the church as well. Our message does not change but the methods of delivering that message must always be evaluated in light of the culture or sub culture we find ourselves in. The fact is, our culture is fluid and it changes; and in recent history change happens faster than ever before. Obviously changes happen at different rates even within America; I guarantee the West Coast is changing at a far more rapid rate than what we are experiencing in Farmland, Indiana.

Erwin McManus says, Communities around many churches have changed dramatically, yet the church has stayed the same. And while the transition has been taking place the local congregation has either been unaware or unconcerned.

Too often we are more concerned about preserving our traditions and preferences than making the changes necessary to communicate effectively with a generation that is lost and going to hell.

Change needs to occur to thrive; God wants us to remember what He has done, but He demands that we not live in the past Isa. 43:18, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See I am doing a new thing!” Our memories of God’s activity in our past are to move us into the future.

We serve the changeless God of change. He is the God of creativity, imagination, and revolution. When traditions trap us in the past, they stifle the imagination, bring an end to creativity, and make innovation impossible.

While God instructs His people over and over again to remember all his great deeds, He doesn’t call us to live in the past. As Erwin McManus says, We must leave the past, engage the present, and create the future.