Change Happens!

 

Brodie was a businessman in a small town in North Carolina where I  served as a pastor at a local church over 30 years ago.   He worked at a successful business that did  well.   I patronized the business regularly as I have always felt that we should support local businesses.   They are the lifeblood of the economic health of a community.  One day, Brodie and I got to talking about change and he was quite adamant that he did not like change of any kind.  He did not like change in his family, home, or small town.  He wanted everything to always be the same.   I remember what I told Brodie and it was this:   “You may not like change, but it happens.  If  you don’t believe me, go look  in the mirror and see if the person you see in the mirror looks just like the person you saw there 20 years ago”.  

 One of the constants in our lives and communities is change.  As Bob Dylan sang many years ago, “the times they are a changing”.   I was reminded that change is always happening recently when I read the book Who Moved My Cheese?  Pastoral ministry in rural United Methodist Churches has certainly changed since I began my ministry.  While I began my ministry talking on a land line telephone on a party line, today I speak and text with people on a cell phone.  When I started out as a pastor, online is where we hung clothes to dry, but today online  is where I send and receive messages including from members of my congregation and those in our United Methodist connection.    While internet availability is not an issue of concern for me, it is a concern in  many rural areas.

 People of faith in the 21^st century find themselves walking a tightrope if you will on the issue of change.   First, we must always affirm with faith and confidence that we worship a great and glorious God that never changes.   People change.   If you do not believe that people change, do what I encouraged my friend Brodie  to do many years ago.   Go look in the mirror and see if you look the same way you looked 20 years ago.   While people change in their looks and even in their opinions, God does not change.  His love changes not!

 Secondly, while we affirm that God never changes we also as people of faith look eagerly to  discover new ways and opportunities to minister in these days.    As I recall in Methodist history, there was a time when John Wesley and company did  something they had not done before by preaching to the coal miners as they went to and from their jobs.     This pandemic has been the breeding  ground for new ways of ministry for me and perhaps you.   Two years ago,   the notion of doing worship on Facebook live was outside of my comfort zone.   Now, it is something that my congregation and I do  weekly.     What new thing is God calling you and your congregation  to do in these days?   May the changeless God give us open hearts and open spirits to the new paths he is beckoning us to trod.-  Pastor Randy Wall   

 

PRAYER     Thank you that though change happens, your love and faithfulness changes not. Give me a heart that trust more fully in you; through Christ our Lord.  Amen.