Change always involves tension. There is always an element of saying goodbye to the past when embracing the future. Saying goodbye involves grief. But there is a lure to the future and an excitement that comes with the sense of moving forward. Most institutions struggle with change. There is a bit of inertia that is built into any organization. There is a tendency to want to maintain what has been built.

But change cannot be stopped. It is a part of the world. And we see the tensions of change all around us.

I often refer to museums as one of the examples of change in the world. You would think that museums, with their focus on the past and on what has already happened, would establish their displays and then look the same year after year. But I can think of no museum that I have visited multiple times that does not look very different from the way it looked years ago. Static displays have been replaced with dynamic interactive experiences. Dioramas have been replaced with video screens. Even the stories being told have changed. When I was younger, many museums presented a very Euro-centric interpretation of history. It was not uncommon for a museum to portray indigenous people as primitive, lacking culture and ignorant. Some museums displayed sacred items and even human remains without any information about the deep spiritual meanings of the objects. Times have changed.

Times have changed in the church as well. And change in the church is filled with tension if, for no other reason that we see maintaining traditions to be at the core of our identity. Many churches use the Wesleyan Quadrilateral as one of the ways of interpreting their core values. Put simply, the Quadrilateral states that there are four ways of knowing God: scripture, tradition, reason and experience. Some add revelation to the four.

If history and tradition are one of the ways of knowing God, it is impossible to simply throw out the tradition. Even as we long to embrace the future, we carry the weight of the past within our church structures and organization.

So it may always have been that the institutional church has consisted of many different parts held in tension and sometimes giving rise to conflict. It seems to be a mode of existence for the congregation I serve. Being the first Christian congregation established in our city, our church is proud of its history and traditions. We have generations of shared experience and a sense of being well established in our community. We like to tell the story of our founding and of our establishment. Our church parlor boasts photographs of all of the different buildings that have been home to our congregation. We offer books about the church’s history as a free gift to members and those seeking to become affiliated with our congregation. Our congregation is home to four emeritus staff members and at least eight retired clergy persons. Even though our sanctuary is very modern it its design, the building that houses our congregation is now more than 50 years old. We even held an anniversary celebration on the occasion of our building’s 50th year.

We are also a congregation that is slightly older than the surrounding population. And the population of our community is heavily retired. South Dakota tends to export the majority of its youth to spend their working lives in other places and this is even more so of Rapid City than of the cities on the Eastern edge of our state. But it is a great place to retire, so we experience the influx of seniors and our community’s economy is geared in part to providing for the needs of this population. Our church reflects our community, and also has the legacy of a long-standing congregation. We have members whose families have belonged to this congregation for five generations.

Change is inevitable in all congregations. It is dramatic in a church where we mourn the deaths of 12 – 20 members every year. Just keeping our membership stable, which we have done for a century or more, means that about a third of our congregation is new every decade.

Sometimes I speak of two congregations in the same church: an existing congregation and an emerging congregation. The choice of the names for the two congregations is important because both congregations are living and vital. It would be inaccurate to say that the tension is simply between the old guard and the new members, as we attract new members with leanings toward each expression of faith. But there are differences between these congregations.

The existing church leans towards classical music. The emerging church prefers jazz, folk and sometimes rock music. The existing church participates primarily through regular attendance in worship. The emerging church is less regular about worship and leans towards special events. The existing church supports the church through planned giving and regular support. The emerging church is very generous for special projects and experiences ups and downs in its patterns of giving. The existing church supports committees and boards. The emerging church shuns meetings and prefers hands-on engagement in mission.
I could go on and on, and in fact, I have made several different lists of descriptors of the differences between the existing and emerging churches. But it is not accurate to think of these descriptions as two groups of people who occupy the same church building. The same individual participates in both congregations. There are members of historic families who prefer hands on mission to committee work. There are new members who fill out pledge cards and give the same amount every month. There are folks who were first attracted to our congregation because of its classical music who are irregular in their attendance patterns. In a sense we all belong to the past and to the future at the same time.

So we practice the art of being a community of faith at the intersection of two churches: one existing and the other emerging. And any traffic officer can tell you that there are more accidents at the intersections. There are days when the tension gets to me as pastor of the congregation, but those days are far fewer than the days when it is simply exciting to be a part of such intense activity. Even when we have disagreements, they often are such signs of vitality that I relish the opportunity to listen to the disagreements and work to find ways to keep both points of view alive in our mission and ministry.

The truth is that our moment is very small in the overall flow of history. The issues that seem big to us at the moment are rarely as important as we think they might be. Big problems we face and overcome often seem small when we look back on them. Taking a broader perspective and a long-term view reveals that the tension is essential. It is how we get from the past to the future.

So I thank God for both the existing church and the emerging church. May I find the grace to be pastor to both.

Copyright © 2012 by Ted Huffman. I wrote this. If you want to copy it, please ask for permission. There is a contact me button at the bottom of this page. If you want to share my blog a friend, please direct your friend to my web site.