Repost: A Hinge in the Door Every 500 years...

I first published the blog below in June, 2014. With COVID19 having us on lockdown, and needing to look at new ways of being the church, it seemed appropriate to repost:

"It seems that every 500 years (or so) The Church has a giant garage sale, throwing out the old, and ushering in something quite new.  We seem to be in one of those times...and you seem to be in the thick of it" someone commented to me a couple of days ago.

My brain went to those "garage sale" moments in history, particularly since I've recently gotten back from a trip to the Mediterannean / Holy Land, and one of the stops was key in that first "garage sale": Constantinople (now Istanbul).   If I were to name the garage sale moments, I'd list them as:  

1. Christianity becoming a legally allowable religion in the Roman Empire (and becoming intertwined with political power) - 313 AD

2. the Great Schism between the east and west church - 1054

3. the Protestant Reformation. - 1517.

 All of these moment had huge implications in world history, radically changing what the church looked like, how it behaved, and how it interacted with and impacted society. Some of these transitions were for the good.  Some for the bad (I'll let you decide which was which!).  But once these transitions happened, there was no going back. 

And now... It seems that we're in another one of these "garage sale" moments, when the church is on the brink of radically changing, leaving what it has looked like in the past behind, to become... What?

My friend had said that I was in the thick of all this change.  Why?  Because I keep peering into the future, asking questions, looking for new forms, moving forward.

As we continued to talk, a different image popped into my head, much different than the garage sale image.  It was the image of a huge door... In fact, a specific door that we saw on our trip.

My husband Marshal was the one who noticed the door (interestingly in Istanbul), and pushed it to see if the hinges still worked.  They did, beautifully.

Some who are asking what the future holds for the church may be in garage sale mode:  "out with the old!"  But that's not me.  I'm asking:  what does God have for us in this next era?

I picture that huge door, leading to...what?

Thinking about those past transitions, I know that we could be ushering in a new period of God being powerfully at work in and through us.  But I also know that if it becomes about us rather than God we could be wounding our world. (Think: The Crusades, that were birthed out of the east / west split).

And so... Back to that image of the door.  When my friend observed that I seem to be in the midst of all the change, I thought:  I'm a hinge in that huge door!

In so many ways we who are hinges do nothing. We are a very small part of the very large door.  And yet...for the door to open the right way, a lot of hinges need to be working together AND going in the right direction.

If you, like me, are looking and asking what the next era of the church is to be, can we together commit to playing our small part, by opening the right door in the best direction?  A direction that truly points people to Abba Father, and not to us, our programs, our buildings, our books, or our egos?

There's a lot through that giant door, friends.  My prayer is that we do, in fact, open the right door in the right way.