Telling the Story Part 1

Listen to me, O coastlands, pay attention, you peoples from far away!--Isaiah, Chapter 49, verse 1

This month I am focusing on the concept of "telling the story." We are people of the book, like the Hebrew people with whom we share our spiritual ancestry, but it took a while for the book to be written. What we now call the Old Testament started out as stories and rules for living passed down from one generation to the next over a period of hundreds of years.  The actual writing of the Bible is estimated to have begun around 1000 years before the birth of Christ. However, it was not until after the Hebrew people experienced a painful forced exile in the foreign country of Babylon (land that today is mostly part of Iraq)  that the Hebrew people began to really organize the texts into something one could call scripture. For most of their early history the Hebrew people were people of the land, but with the codification of scripture they became people of the book, an innovation that has enabled their religion to survive periods of persecution, hardship and exile.

Modern day American Christians tend to feel as though this is a period of hardship or even persecution. Most churches are shrinking in membership at a time when the United States population is growing. Churches are growing older in average age while the overall US population remains young.  At first glance makes it seems as though the churches that are growing offer stadium seating, surround sound and a variety of other expensive amenities. Most churches cannot compete with that, and few even bother to try. However, appearances can be deceiving. Some non-mega churches are in fact growing. They are growing because they have found a way to focus on telling their stories of faith--both the stories of individuals in the congregation, and the larger story of the faith that we all embrace. 

We are part of a great tradition of testimonies of faith, and we need to put our focus on telling our story more often and in more ways.

How can we tell the story? Each of my blog entries in January will focus on a specific way that churches can tell the story. 

What is your favorite way of telling the story of your faith? Share in the comments below.
This is part of a series. 
Read Part 2, about Offering Hospitality, here.
Part 3, about Telling the Story without Words, here.
Part 4, Talking about Faith, can be found here.

Tell Us How You Really Feel, God

When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more...Isaiah 1:12

The book of Isaiah starts out with God dissing the people of Israel. Hearing this, the people of Israel must have thought, "God...are you breaking up with us?" According to the prophet Isaiah, God is disgusted by Israel's expressions of devotion, because they are not being true to the aspects of faith that really matter to God. It's like, sure, Israel keeps bringing God flowers, but then Israel constantly talks smack about God behind God's back. 

We all know people like Israel in the time of Isaiah. Maybe we've been that way ourselves, a time or two (or three or a hundred.) True devotion is hard. Putting on a show of true love is just easier, sometimes. 

I was once in a relationship in which my partner complained, "You're always wanting stuff." That's how God is--always wanting stuff from people. God is willing to give, but any relationship is a two-way street, and God wants what God wants, not just token empty gestures.

Suppose what we are giving God is not what God wants? What if a modern day Isaiah were to come into our midst and say, on behalf of God, "Look, people, you can take your white frame buildings filled with straight-backed pews and your Sunday-morning snoozefests with hundred-year-old hymns and stick them where the sun doesn't shine." How would we react? I'm guessing that would make us pretty angry and defensive. 

The fact is, not all churches are empty on Sunday mornings. Sure, some of them are filled because they are willing to do anything to please the people, but what if--what if--some of them are filled because they are doing a better job of giving God what God wants from us? Is that a thought we are willing to think? Are we willing to devote ourselves to sincerely and prayerfully considering what God wants from us, in the time and place that we find ourselves? Because anything less isn't actually worship.

Something Borrowed, Something New

I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. --excerpt from Isaiah 43: 16-21

One of my new favorite TV shows is called "Something Borrowed, Something New." In the course of a half-hour episode, we see a bride shop for a new wedding gown and also oversee the alteration of an old wedding gown borrowed from a loved one. In the end the bride must choose: will she wear a brand-new gown all her own, or opt for the (re-fashioned) old gown? In either case, the bride in question will both embrace tradition (because she is getting married, and wearing a traditional style gown) and reject it (because even the old gowns are vastly changed during the course of the show.)

Our lives are filled with choices like this: will we recover our old sofa or replace it? Will we try to get a promotion at work or seek out new opportunities elsewhere? Will we seek to revitalize our relationship with our current romantic partner or return to the single life? Life does not stand still. No matter how much we love the past and enjoy the present, we must continually accept changes that come our way.

In the show, embracing a more drastic change (here represented as a new wedding gown) tends to be easier for the young brides and their young friends than for their parents. Some mothers of the bride cry when the seamstress begins ripping up the old wedding gown to re-fashion it to better fit and suit the bride. At these times the bride tends to smile with delight to see how even little changes can begin to make an old, out-of-style garment seem more fashionable. The entire drama is kind of a metaphor for the real change the show is about--the fact that this marriage marks the symbolic end of childhood and a permanent change to the family dynamic.

This trend is also common in church life. The young people in a church often embrace change, while older church members tend to resist it. To a certain extent, the older church members need to reign in the impulses of youngsters. It can take a long time to fully understand the wisdom of the tried and true. And to a certain extent, older people need young people to help them continually re-evaluate which practices are truly timeless and which are merely fads that can pass away without harming what is essential.

In short, the generations need each other. I'm guessing that Isaiah's "new thing" is kind of like new wedding dresses--new and different, but not so new and different as to seem unrecognizable.