Nostalgia
The other day I saw that there was a movie on TV that I hadn’t seen in a very long time. It created within me a sentimental longing for a life in the past and sent me down a road of thinking about how much better things used to be. BUT then I started watching the movie and I realized it was very good at all! Nostalgia is a tricky thing because it will make us believe that nothing will compare to the experiences we had previously. The saddest part about that is we're not even experiencing the memory as it was. Instead what we are experiencing is a cut up, mix-matched, and idealized sanctuary from our present circumstances.
The church is not immune from this either. It is so easy for us to look back at our past and idealize what it used to be like. Sometimes we even convince ourselves if we could just emulate the things we used to do then we could bring back the good ole days. You know the days when our pews were filled and children were running down our hallways. Recreating ourselves to reflect our past is a twofold problem. First, if we were truly honest with ourselves, we would find that our memory of good ole days is not very accurate. Second, but more important, trying to recapture an imagined past only keeps us from creating a new future. We only have so much attention, energy, passion, and time to commit. The more time we spend looking backward the less time there is to spend looking toward the possibilities of the future. There is a huge difference between the churches in which people use every bit of their available resources and energy living into the future and the churches in which people waste those resources bemoaning a lost past. So let’s move forward!
In the next couple of weeks we will be beginning a new worship series that will begin asking future facing questions. We will seek to prioritize our resources towards creating a grand future rather than recreating the good ole days. The future of Lake Cities UMC is one that God has placed entirely in our hands, are you faithful enough to walk forward?
In God’s Grip,
Pastor Chuck Church
