When I came back to Indiana from Texas in 1985 I really didn't feel I had been gone that long. However when a friend from high school ran into me, he exclaimed, “My you've changed!”
I hadn’t noticed it, but when you live with yourself the change is so gradual that you don't notice day by day. That's why it’s good to get the old "blast from the past" every once in a while to remind you, you’re growing old.
I don't mind growing old when it comes to graying hair, bulging bellies, and afternoon naps, but what gets to me is seeing your ministry aging. Even as a young minister I started out preaching to older saints. This has continued over two decades now. They still love me. However, there is a new generation looking for church. They are not looking for stories of the glories days and comments like, "When I was your age..." They are looking for church as it is today. Which, when I face the truth, is a lot different than when you or I started out. That's what really makes us feel old.
We would think since God's message is timeless, that church should be too. This reminds me of Star Trek. It is timeless, kinda’. If you go back and view the original episodes and compare them with the new episodes, there is a marked difference in the style and delivery of the stories they contain. Many of the shows in both series have similar themes and messages, but the delivery is entirely different. Where the acting in the early series fit in its time, it now looks hokey. We understand the relationships and metaphors of the new series much better, although they are slowly becoming dated themselves. Now we could never respect Piccard as a captain if he acted the way Kirk did. Both were good shows and both were right for their time.
Take another example shown in language itself. Even within English, the words we speak and the way we speak them and spell them have changed. Most people today would not consider the King James Version their first choice in purchasing a Bible. It had its day.
The internet and the social networking revolution has even accelerated this aging process even more. The whole way we communicate has changed. In olden days you went to the store and bought a birthday card, wrote a short note in it, signed it, placed a stamp on it, and took it to the post office to mail to your friend, who greatly appreciated receiving it. Today you only see "hb" on their FaceBook.
What I'm getting at is that while we are trying to stay current, even the process of updating ourselves is slower than the advance of the changes. Who would have ever thought email was the old way of doing things? My spell checker no longer tries to correct the word “email.”
I remember when my dad started feeling old and went out and bought a polyester leisure suit. All he ended up doing was looking like an old man wearing a leisure suit (I've included a picture to the right for the younger generation, who may not know what a leisure suit looks like).
Similarly, many of us preachers are trying to do the same thing. We want to wrap ourselves in modern technology and try to convince the new generation that we are as much with it as they are. However, we just look like and old man carrying an iPad.
This revelation has been slowly creeping up on me just like my birthdays. I look at the resource material on the shelves in my office and realize it was published in the 70's, when everyone was wearing leisures suits. When my spirit grows dry, I would pull an old book off the shelf and somehow it didn't speak to me like it did back then. I even had to admit that what it contained was for another generation of saints. Talk about living in the past (by the way, if you want any of these books, they'll be and the local thrift store).
It is time to start again. The problem with strapping modern technology onto an outdated style of church, it ends up looking like my dad in a leisure suit. The transformation begins much deeper. You have to be young at heart. How do you do that? You do it by communicating with the young. They have a young heart naturally. They are not trying to be anything but who they are. It's not a matter of "their time" and "our time." It is a recognition of the "present time." I want to live now. I want to relate to this generation. I want to be a part of now, not then. Not everybody gets to be a classic. Most of us need to update our mindset, our hearts, and the way we interact with others.
I remember when one day, door to door visiting was what churches did and people appreciated it. It doesn’t work that way now. If you go knocking on this generation’s door, they better know you, and know you well!
If I can change will this generation accept me? Actually, I think it was us who rejected them first. We might have to apologize, but I find the current generation will accept anyone who will live in it.
There is one thing I have found so far about the present generation, they will not put up with pretense. You can't "fake it 'til you make it" anymore. They have a keen eye for phonies. They know how to spell "hypocrite" in ten different languages. The current generation is in a desperate quest for the real. They are all about relationships and communication, above formalism and legalism. They are about discovery, rather than having anything preached at them. They are about information, rather than blind faith. They actually use their minds more than we give them credit for.
If they are so different then how do we reach them? First give up on the idea that they want to be like us. They would rather die. The answer is to become like them. I'm not talking compromise, but being real. Being about communication and information. Let's take our own God for an example. He, through Jesus Christ, became like us, so that we could become like him. The ultimate outreach ministry is God clothing himself in flesh.
The Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9:22, "I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some." He knew how to relate through being with people where they are. We close ourselves off in a sterile church society and rarely see, know, or care what others are doing, what they are dealing with, or how they cope with the modern pressures of life.
For me it begins with throwing out some old books (some are timeless, and will stay). Then reading some new books. For the first time in my life I even preordered a book before its release date. I highly recommend Tony Cooke’s new book Qualified. He gathers all those ministry “hints” you’ve heard over the years into one compelling challenge to stay current.
Secondly, there are things I must let go of. I loved Apple computers when they came out. I’ve owned about every version since their inception, but I had a terrible habit of hanging on to them far beyond their useful lifetime. I kept trying to see if there was some way I could get some more work out of them before I had to trow them in the trash (a horrible fate for such innovative technology).
Third, I’m opening my eyes. Instead of looking at things with disdain that are different, I am studying them for why they draw people and what people receive from them. I’m studying churches that grow, why they grow, and how they will sustain themselves in years to come.
Excuses will never work for me. If what you are doing is not producing the results you want, then do something new. Find out what works, and if it is within your value set, then do it. It is unfortunate that what worked for me in the past does not work today, but I’m not going to continue to hold onto it just cause I’m used to it. Keep what works, get rid of what doesn’t.
The Gospel Publishing House of the Assemblies of God has the original printing press sitting in their lobby that produced the early Pentecostal Evangel. If they still tried to use it the weekly publication of one issue would take them 7 years to produce. As so many young people say today, “It’s time to move on.”