I visited the Old North Church in Boston last year. It is an icon in American History, complete with the statue of Paul Revere riding his horse in the foreground. The church is stately, meditative, and bustling with tourists. The church building has great connections to the past. It's Congregationalist heritage is part of the Boston religious landscape.
But the church is dead.
There is a congregation that meets there, I think. But the church maintains its vitality as a tourist stop on the Freedom Trail more than as a representation of Christ's body on earth.
In my job at Harding Graduate School, I am able to work with a lot of people who want to create new churches, congregations that are representations of Christ's body on earth. They want to create intimate communities where God and others are served.
These folks want to become a church that is alive and cares for members and non-members in the name of Christ. It's like the group of friends on Friends, but nicer to those outside the small group.
But these churches often have no past.
Many of these churches are defined by what they are not. ("We are not our parents' church" is the most common, I think, but of course this is rarely admitted.) Even the healthiest of these groups have a healthy dose of reaction against something, rather than straining toward something.
So is the choice we have this simple: Be dead and traditional or alive and lone?
The truth is we all are connected in some ways to the past, admit it or not. If you read the Bible in translation, then your faith is built upon the work of others.
But it is also true that the church is by nature relational, since it is a group of people united by the mission of God.
It is difficult to be connected to the past and connected with others. People polarize so easily, and we are incredibly impatient with either change or lack thereof.
How do we as church leaders honor our past, experience the present, and help create a vibrant future?
