One of my absolute favorite quotes comes from one of my absolute favorite pastors speaking in a conference several years ago. Fred Luter, pastor of Franklin Avenue Baptist Church in the New Orleans area, on preaching from the text concerning the four friends who lower their friend through the roof (Mark 2 or Luke 5), said (according to my chicken scratch from all those years ago on a borrowed legal pad), “We cannot reach the CD/DVD generation with 8-track ministry.” He went on to say, “The message NEVER changes, but the methodology MUST.”

There’s a lot to unpack in those two statements. Now, I realize that for a good number of us, our human nature doesn’t allow us the liberty to get diverted very far from the proverbial “beaten path” we travel so frequently that we have no memory of how we got to where we are going once we arrive. We see the worn place on the ground & feet begin to step upon it, one in front of the other, with our brain seemingly unattached because they’ve always traveled that way without opposition.

Yet, even as we see the sunlight breaking through an opening between two trees different from the ones that are typically within our tunnel vision, we struggle to reorient our forward momentum toward said opening. We try to reason momentarily against the logic that we know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, what lies at the end of this path. In fact, we can walk it both directions blindfolded if need be.

I’ve used many filters in ministry & life that have been taught me by people of much wisdom. In my words, I have been taught to ask myself a few questions before speaking hard things. They are as follows: (1) Is it true? (2) Is is necessary? (3) Is it kind? In my actions, I have been taught to ask myself a few more questions before doing hard things. They are as follows: (1) Is it biblical? (2) Is it ethical? (3) Is it moral? In my leadership, I have been taught to give a mission/purpose by which to assist myself & my team in the work we do. Once the mission/purpose of what we are doing is established, we can ask about everything we do a simple question as follows: (1) Does this accomplish/fulfill the mission of what we are to be about in what we are doing?

Filters are good & essential in ministry & life. Filters are helpful. When are heading in the direction of change, we can ask ourselves all the above mentioned questions with very little adaptation. Now, I am hoping that we realize at this point that we’re dealing with more than a simple walk in the woods.

The discussion I’m currently having with many folks around me is one of changing church music. I know that many churches are already on the other side of this hill in their own neck of the woods. There are still many who are just beginning the discussion of changing music, changing a legacy program, a schedule that doesn’t work, a facility that’s out of date, or any number of things desperately needing change.

That’s good! It means that more are realizing the importance of not being content with staring at the same people inside the same walls doing the same programs or events at the same time each year getting the same results (if any). One would be hard pressed to find encouragement to become a Kingdom stagnator.

We are called to become Kingdom builders! On occasion, it will cause us to analyze our current status & creatively manufacture ways to change it. Sometimes it will need to be with a little nudge, while other times it will need to be with a sledgehammer.

Change is not easy. I often think back to a staple read of business leadership & favorite parable of mine, Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson. The churches who continue to thrive will be the ones who remained faithfully grounded in the MESSAGE of Jesus Christ, His crucifixion & resurrection, the Holy Spirit’s work, & the heaven that we can all be a part of through the only Way, Truth, & Life while mildly adapting the METHODOLOGY of how we present the never-changing Gospel & participate in the worship of the only One worthy of it.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

(the end of “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost)