When I was a kid the world around me was unique and often intimidating. The mall where my parent's shopped was this huge complex of endless stores and easy places for kids like me to get lost. Fast food restaurants were exotic stops reserved for special occasions where I could peek over the counter as the workers whipped up a milkshake for me while steaming hot fries awaited me beside a fresh made burger. Even my backyard appeared as big as a football field on which I could wear my little self out everyday running and playing with my brothers and my friends.
As easy as it is to romanticize about the "good old days," it's also easy to realize that those places and events weren't so exquisite as I once believed. I can now walk from one end of the mall to the other in a matter of minutes and there are virtually no stores in which I would choose to venture, much less get lost in. Those milkshakes, fries, and burgers are certainly not a treat anymore and the older I get the more I realize that meals from those places did not constitute special occasions; rather, they were convenience stops when life got too busy or mom had not gone grocery shopping yet. That old backyard is still pretty awesome, but it's really more the size of a tennis court than an NFL stadium.
Perspective is everything when it comes to assessing the experiences from our youth. I still choose to romanticize those early days of my existence because those times were so essential to my formation as a young man. Even when those good old days turn out to be not as sacred as I remember, I still find benefit from clinging to a version of the past that causes me to pause and smile, pondering simpler times and experiences that appeared bigger than life. No harm in that, right?
Don't you wish all of life's experiences were that way? Unfortunately, reality has a way of smacking you in the face as you approach adulthood and you realize at some point that living in the past isn't going to get you all that far. This doesn't mean that you have to grow up as a cynic - life is still pretty sweet and the new experiences that you face everyday can be just as good as the ones in your past, ones that you will probably romanticize about ten or twenty years down the road.
Some of my fondest memories are of sitting beside my grandfather on hard wooden pews in a small Baptist church as he gently nudged me to stop fidgeting during the sermon and then listening to his deep baritone voice as he belted out the chorus to I Surrender at the altar call. I don't remember all that much about the content of what I heard or the organizational structure of that little church, but I do remember the people there and how special they made my experiences in Sunday School and at church fellowships. It was those humble beginnings that fueled the fire within me to serve the Lord full-time in vocational Christian ministry.
As good as those times were, I knew that they could not last. Today, that little church is a shell of what it used to be. Most of those congregants from my early days there have either moved on or gone home to the Lord, while the church never was able to move on beyond those simpler times in the 1970's. Those traditional ways were eventually eclipsed by the inevitable shift in our culture with people today preferring a more modern approach to their Sunday experience. Debates have been raging for decades over whether the traditional style church has its place anymore or whether the contemporary structure is what we should all embrace.
Yet if we take a really close look at what is going on in the churches around us, we will see that it's not really about stye or structural changes that are getting people all worked up. Instead, it is the radical change in relationships that so many are experiencing as life gets more complicated and families have less and less time.
Today, people are hungry for real "I-get-you-and-you-get-me" relationships - but they always have been. That's what held that little Baptist church together for all those years, the men and women who "did life together" and invested so much time in each other. Having the pastor preach a sermon that was rooted in the truth of God's word was and still is essential, but even when he had an "off day" those members still had their community rooted in faith to stand upon.
Those memories of people who loved and invested in me are the ones that I cherish the most but they also remain my deepest desires. I honestly no longer have all that much of a preference of style when it comes to church because I believe that when the men and women of God are seeking His face above all else and intentionally engaging in meaningful relationships with one another, all of that pans out in the end. I'm not so sure that we need to "rethink church" or craft newer expressions of worship. Maybe it's as simple as reevaluating the relationships that we have with each other regardless of the size of our gathering. When Christ is central and we are seeking to meet the needs of each other, I will romanticize about that all day.
As easy as it is to romanticize about the "good old days," it's also easy to realize that those places and events weren't so exquisite as I once believed. I can now walk from one end of the mall to the other in a matter of minutes and there are virtually no stores in which I would choose to venture, much less get lost in. Those milkshakes, fries, and burgers are certainly not a treat anymore and the older I get the more I realize that meals from those places did not constitute special occasions; rather, they were convenience stops when life got too busy or mom had not gone grocery shopping yet. That old backyard is still pretty awesome, but it's really more the size of a tennis court than an NFL stadium.
Perspective is everything when it comes to assessing the experiences from our youth. I still choose to romanticize those early days of my existence because those times were so essential to my formation as a young man. Even when those good old days turn out to be not as sacred as I remember, I still find benefit from clinging to a version of the past that causes me to pause and smile, pondering simpler times and experiences that appeared bigger than life. No harm in that, right?
Don't you wish all of life's experiences were that way? Unfortunately, reality has a way of smacking you in the face as you approach adulthood and you realize at some point that living in the past isn't going to get you all that far. This doesn't mean that you have to grow up as a cynic - life is still pretty sweet and the new experiences that you face everyday can be just as good as the ones in your past, ones that you will probably romanticize about ten or twenty years down the road.
Some of my fondest memories are of sitting beside my grandfather on hard wooden pews in a small Baptist church as he gently nudged me to stop fidgeting during the sermon and then listening to his deep baritone voice as he belted out the chorus to I Surrender at the altar call. I don't remember all that much about the content of what I heard or the organizational structure of that little church, but I do remember the people there and how special they made my experiences in Sunday School and at church fellowships. It was those humble beginnings that fueled the fire within me to serve the Lord full-time in vocational Christian ministry.
As good as those times were, I knew that they could not last. Today, that little church is a shell of what it used to be. Most of those congregants from my early days there have either moved on or gone home to the Lord, while the church never was able to move on beyond those simpler times in the 1970's. Those traditional ways were eventually eclipsed by the inevitable shift in our culture with people today preferring a more modern approach to their Sunday experience. Debates have been raging for decades over whether the traditional style church has its place anymore or whether the contemporary structure is what we should all embrace.
Yet if we take a really close look at what is going on in the churches around us, we will see that it's not really about stye or structural changes that are getting people all worked up. Instead, it is the radical change in relationships that so many are experiencing as life gets more complicated and families have less and less time.
Today, people are hungry for real "I-get-you-and-you-get-me" relationships - but they always have been. That's what held that little Baptist church together for all those years, the men and women who "did life together" and invested so much time in each other. Having the pastor preach a sermon that was rooted in the truth of God's word was and still is essential, but even when he had an "off day" those members still had their community rooted in faith to stand upon.
Those memories of people who loved and invested in me are the ones that I cherish the most but they also remain my deepest desires. I honestly no longer have all that much of a preference of style when it comes to church because I believe that when the men and women of God are seeking His face above all else and intentionally engaging in meaningful relationships with one another, all of that pans out in the end. I'm not so sure that we need to "rethink church" or craft newer expressions of worship. Maybe it's as simple as reevaluating the relationships that we have with each other regardless of the size of our gathering. When Christ is central and we are seeking to meet the needs of each other, I will romanticize about that all day.
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