July 16, 2007
Replacements
Today many service clubs are bemoaning the drop in their membership. A member of the Lion’s Club recently told me, “We have members who pay dues and financially support the club, but they’re the older folks who no longer want to participate and be active. We are trying different methods to bring in younger members.” I see the same thought process in the church. Looking for young blood, the older generation expects the next generation to become their replacements. I think we’ve failed to realize the Lord is in the new creation business, not the replacement business.
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Gail;
-----If the Lord is in the new creation business, would it not make sense that He make His new creation out of the freshest material? The material most capable of carrying the business forward? The most physically able and the most understanding of the ways of an ever more rapidly changing world? The material most beneficial to a vibrant, relevant church able to change with the transformations of its cultural environment?
-----No. The new creation is in the individual, and that comes from Jesus Christ Who is found in the Word and seen in the activity of those who are faithful to Him. These individuals come together and become the church. To think that the church needs a generational overhaul is to entirely miss this point.
-----Somehow the idea that the church must keep up with the culture of the world has risen to the surface of the clergy’s ideology like a dross. The relevance of “young blood,” for its familiarity and intertwinement with cultural change, becomes the linchpin upon which the church’s future depends. Then hyping of the importance of change is spewed about like some cheap air freshener to cover the foul odor of disrupted lives. In the carelessness of the overextension of change and in the zeal to bow to it as to a god, it has been forgotten what is the change which makes the new creation.
-----Christ emptied Himself of His position as God and became a servant. That point is of paramount importance to the reality of fellowship in the church. Paul tells us regarding this act of Jesus, “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 2:5.) This statement of Christ’s attitude, which we are to have as well, is supportively placed after, “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vein conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.” Of course, we can not empty ourselves of our positions as God as Christ did, because we are not God. But we can empty ourselves of God’s position which we usurped through selfish ambition and vein conceit, which decision we do to serve the interests of others. This is Biblical change, the new creations which assembled together are collectively the church.
-----Ezekiel 34, Malachi 2, and James 2 expose God’s great distaste for favoritism. God is so intimately interested in each individual that He has the hairs of each head numbered, He knows the thoughts of each heart, and He observes the actions of each moment. There are ten billion stars in our galaxy. Our galaxy is only average size. There are millions of galaxies. God has each star named. His attitude is that of intimacy. Therefore this attitude that ours should resemble must be that of intimacy towards each one as well, looking to that one’s interest, young or old, without favoritism. That is the new creation.
-----Favoritism, on the other hand, is the denial of full intimacy with some to openly extend it to others. It is the process being employed by the contemporary element through realignment of the church with the changing secular culture, in order to attract and please the young without regard to the interests of the others who are not that way culturally inclined. The process requires misalignment with Biblical attitudes, the bona fide heart of church culture. It requires a repose from the new creation and a dabble in the old.
-----If this favoritism was not a part of Christ’s attitude, then whose attitudes are we aligning with when we determine to favor young people? Christ’s call goes out to all - Jew and Gentile, male and female, slave and free, young and old, no distinctions made, whosoever will come. The church leader, the church preacher, the elders with visions are the ones who have dug up the old man to pre-sort the sheep, favoring the young over the old, as if they were doing Jesus a favor.
-----Yes, Gail, you stated it so truly. It is so easy to behold those in the replacement business. They are not interested in all. They are not acting from the new creation. As John would put it, they are not abiding in His love. And I will have no part in their error. I have enough of my own.
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