THE CHURCH CYCLE

There seems to be a pattern among us.  It is a broken one which might need attention for we all want to correct it the best we can.  I speak of the younger wanting to be more aggressive in church advancement than the older.

I heard of a church in Mississippi that was arguing over the new idea which had arisen where the church sung without hymnals.  There was generational debate when an aged man spoke up recalling the new invention which disrupted the church when he was just a kid.  The new invention?  Songbooks.

Recognizing some old never age and some young have old ways, I speak in generalities which I think we understand.  The tendency of the older is to form ruts of tedium or even impasse.  I am now in that older age range so I do try to speak fairly as now I have lived in both; young and old. 

Here's the evident problem.  The young want to move forward and when we do we tend to want to preserve our assumed faith and wisdom when such practices may not fit the next new group.  I think we are stuck in such cycles.  The new may feel new; yet our practices are the same old ruts of the last century; arguing over change.

How shall we navigate these roads better?  For one, I don't know of any generation that has set the world ablaze by their tactics.  Yes, how I have heard the church was the fastest growing of any churches in the 60s.  Yet, something isn't right when "youth ministry" was invented in the 70s because the young were leaving the church in droves.

So what do we do?  For now I think we simply realize what might be true in these words.  I would assume I am off a bit here and there.  Such is my point.  Hasn't each generation been off a bit with its movement?  Haven't the young and the old been a bit immature while working in the greatest system on earth?  I think we have.

Perhaps such a view would help all of us a great bit.  Maybe if we could weigh, assert, consider, and yield from one point and then another, we might find the voice of God to be more coherent among us.  We recall His people fussed and jabbed once moved through one of the most miraculous moves of God; the Red Sea Escape.

Sure we could be of the same disposition; disgruntled.  Sure we could be missing the Life at the end of the promise.  Yes, all generations are capable of stumbling over one another missing the target of God's vision.

The church cycle is a human one.  It is a circular wandering in the wilderness of fear of God's call.  Thus, we feel better wandering and debating, wandering and debating.  Yet, I think it remains true.  We love it when we hit the path of the Christ.  It isn't the easiest road nor the safest.  It is always the most satisfying.  And such is the pattern of the cross.