Last week I asked you what you thought was the ultimate vision, mission, and values of the Church. We need to consider the why behind everything we do.
Consider computers for a moment—why were they built? Some answers would be to compute complex formulas, speed up computation and make us efficient, make life easier and us more effective, and relieve us of mindless activities.
I well remember the first computer my dad bought for our family— a Commodore 128. This was not the less powerful Commodore 64; oh no, we had the upgraded screaming machine with 128 kilobytes of Ram! And that's NOT megabytes or gigabytes—we’re talking kilobytes! I also remember my first laptop—an NEC 486DX running Windows 3.1. It had a TFT screen and I upgraded my system to include a 28.8 modem! Man, was I cutting edge at the time!
Now can you imagine Commodore Business Machines or NEC saying back in the day that they had built the sweetest, fastest, coolest computer for all time and were therefore never, ever going to launch a newer, sleeker, faster computer? Or can you imagine me still plugging along on that Commodore 128 or NEC? Of course not. Everything needs an upgrade in order to continue fulfilling its purpose. We would never expect any technology today to be sufficient forever. Everything needs an upgrade. Yet in church world, we often have this tendency to build something we think will last forever.
In some industries, there’s a tendency not to upgrade because it is costly, difficult, or takes too much time to learn (and with learning curves comes instability and vulnerability, and nobody wants that). Yet, eventually, an upgrade happens in order for the company to survive. Now while some of that affects our thinking in regards to church world, I believe there's always the greater fear that truth will be lost or compromised. And it's a valid concern.
However, what if the risk is greater to remain with current forms and programs we've built that are both obsolete and ineffective in a world that is constantly changing? Is it possible that by not changing, we might end up limiting the effectiveness of the timeless truth of the Gospel?
