As the story is told, the editors of a big city newspaper decided to do a series of articles on “The Typical Small Town in America.” The reporters and photographers descended upon the subject town to gather their material. While conducting interviews with various local citizens they came upon the oldest inhabitant – a 99-year-old-man. One of the reporters said to the old man, “I suppose you have seen many changes in this town during your lifetime!” Whereupon he replied, “Yep, and I’ve been against every gosh darn one of them.”
Change! For a lot of folks that’s a dirty word and yet the truth is there is only one constant in our world and that’s change! Admittedly, some of them are good and some not so good.
I can remember way back in the early 90’s…when a popular novelty item were these plastic phones and a funny looking antenna you would attach to the top of your car to make it appear as though you had one of those fancy car phones that some people had. Honestly, the idea of everyone someday having a phone in their car seemed pretty farfetched. Yet, how many of us now days will freak out if realize we left the house without our cell phone?
Yeah, technology has allowed for a lot of change to happen in our lives and in some cases it’s pretty positive. I’m comforted to know that if my wife has a car problem she can call me from wherever the car breaks down. I’m also thankful for spell-check on my computer because otherwise half of what I’m typing right now would probably be misspelled.
But change can be hard because if we’re comfortable with something, change might mean that we will be uncomfortable and we don’t like that! But my experience is that whatever is uncomfortable will become comfortable soon enough…if not even more so than you were before.
I’m bringing this all up of course because we will be trying something new this summer. Yep, changing something. As the Elders looked at people’s attendance patterns over the last few years, Emanuel generally experiences a drop in attendance over the summer months. With two worship services, the result was that neither would be well attended. So, they decided to try something new this year…one worship service at 9 a.m. and Bible study at 10:30 a.m. for the months of July and August.
I know, I know, it’s change, but it’s only for two months, and the plan is to see how folks like it, and if it turns out to be a positive thing to perhaps try it again. But before we go down that rabbit hole lets see how this “trial run” works out and then in September let your Elder know whether you thought this was a good change or a bad one.
This all reminds me of one of those “light bulb” jokes. How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? Answer: Only one, but it is a long tedious process, and the light bulb has to really want to be changed.
If a person wants to change their outlook on life, they only need one person to do that…Jesus Christ. And the beauty of it is that it doesn’t have to be a long tedious process. If they really want to be changed from the inside out…they can do it now. All that’s required is to have faith that Jesus has changed the course of our entire lives and that includes our eternal lives. For he came and has atoned for our sins on the cross and as a result has changed our destiny from that of hell to heaven! Talk about a positive change!!!
Until next month….
Pastor Roloff