Why isn’t it enough for us to keep doing what we’ve always done?

Over the past few years a little phrase has proved popular to describe the problem with maintaining the status quo. It goes like this: ‘If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you always got.’

I used to find it amusing when a microphone cable would fail in church, and the PA guys would wind it up and place it in a yellow box in the PA cupboard. They would say, “I must repair that this week!” Then they’d forget.

The following Sunday they’d pull out the same cable and be surprised that it still wasn’t working. It was almost as if they felt that a week in the magic yellow box should have miraculously repaired the cable. But of course, it never did.

And yet how often do we in church unwittingly operate in the same way? We assume that if we carry on doing things the way we’ve always done them, then one day the outcome will be different. Sadly, it rarely is.

One of my lecturers at theological college once said, “It’s a brave pastor who ever changes anything”. I wonder if that’s been your experience? But if we don’t experiment, we‘ll never know what difference it could make.

Of course, when you do suggest something new, you may be opening yourself up to hear those immortal words, “We tried that once and it didn’t work!”

Sometimes that’s right – it didn’t work then, and it won’t work now. On other occasions it wasn’t the idea that was wrong but the timing, and it’s worth trying again. An idea can often succeed the second time.

Change is a fact whether we like it or not. Nothing stays the same. In my church, I used to keep moving the communion table each week; it was my way of demonstrating the need to get used to change.

Many of us are waking up to the sobering fact that if we stay just as we are, we won’t exist in a decade. This is making many ask the hard questions. What is negotiable or non-negotiable? What needs to change? What can’t remain the same? What can’t be compromised? What is the heart of the gospel and what is peripheral?

We must all come to our own conclusions on these issues. There’s little doubt, however, that new initiatives, no matter how tame or how small, can and often do breathe new life, give new impetus to church programmes and alter how the church is regarded in its neighbourhood.

Last Updated 30 November 2010