It's been said that the only person who likes change is a wet baby. My experience in the past tells me that is only occasionally true. There are times the baby in need of changing is much less than cooperative. But whoever first penned the above words is onto something. Change is not the kind of thing we like happening to us. We are much happier in our Lazy Boy chairs than with something new. Maybe it is part of the human nature. This could explain why we hold on to our favorite items past their expiration date. We draw the proverbial line in the sand stubbornly resisting the new even if it is an improvement. I think we resist change because we still want to be in control of our destiny.

Let me share with you a disturbing piece of information. You may want to run fast to your Lazy Boy upon reading this. The world around us is indeed changing whether we give it permission or not. Ours is a generation of catastrophic change in spite of how many lines we draw. To be honest, one of the reasons I regret being my age is that there are so many changes coming. I just don't want to miss any of them. This doesn't mean that my life has room for the differences around the corner. It just says that the world in which I was born bears little resemblance to the world of today.

This computer upon which the blog is written is so far advanced than the first one I used back in the 90s. This one is faster, smarter, and will soon be obsolete. Computer shelf life was about six months at one time. Now we make technology breakthroughs at even a faster pace than that. My first truck was a bare bones edition. My seats were vinyl and the radio only received the AM signal. Today, my truck has a computer gizmo as well as satellite radio if I wish. Cars today have GPS as well as working computers in them. Even the standard refrigerator now has the capability to broadcast your television show. Rotary phones are an antique item. Even the push button phone is becoming old school. Just today we updated our membership information as one family no longer has a home phone. They strictly use their cell phone for any call. All of this doesn't even begin to mention the medical strides being made for diagnosis and treatment. Every year sees warp speed strides in helping us recover from diseases once considered terminal. You probably are getting the point by now.

But it is not just our stuff that changes. People also change as time progresses. Sadly, not all of that is for the best. Today there is a huge gap between those who spent a lifetime within the confines of the congregation and those who don't. This is an enormous challenge often overlooked by church leadership. One group is fairly familiar with the Bible while some don't know the Old Testament from the New. Some know those old hymn standards that we sing week in and out. These are brand new songs to some who attend the usual church service. We old timers use words like foyer and fellowship hall. That can be a foreign language to a person who wanders in on Sunday morning. Even worse is the typical response that the newcomers should just pick up on our lingo and rituals without question. Why should we have to change just because new people aren't like us?

In the end, many do not change. They do not want to go through the uncomfortable cycle of being new. We fail to realize that the newcomer may not want to go through that same cycle just to be like us. So the newcomer returns home unable or unwilling to find a home among those who are God's people. Even worse is that over time that same group of people end up anxious over the fact that attendance is down. Most churches would do anything to grow or reach new people except for one thing. Change is not something that only us old timers need to accept. Change is at the heart of the New Birth. Constant change is the path of being spiritually mature. We are all changing for better or worse. My hope is that it is from God for the better.

Bro. Trey