Pastor Paul's August 30 Newsletter Article

Here's my article for the August 30 Federated Flash

Pastor Paul’s Letter to the Church at Weatherford

I must have discovered the music of Jim Croce the day he died; but when I did, it was with a vengeance. One of my favorites is from his last album, released a little more than two months after his death. The song is called “Recently” and warns about having a long memory. The bridge and last verse go like this:

'Cause mem'ries can be friends
Or they can take you to a place
The you never thought you'd be again
And take you to a place
That you never ever thought
That you would see again

Doesn't matter now who was wrong
The future is tomorrow 'cause the past is gone
And I'm findin' that I'm not as strong
As I thought that I used to be
'Cause recently it seems
I've been lettin' your mem'ry get to me

Remembering the future is nice, but when our memories get to us, it hurts our ability to live in the present. The Church (Capital “C” Church) is getting itself into trouble, it’s letting its mem’ries get the better of it. The Church, like so much of America, likes to remember “The Good Ol’ Days.” Those days when everything was better and we were on top and things were the way “they were supposed to be.” There are two problems with this though. The first is that nostalgia is always better than the real thing. The second is like the first, were the good times really that good?

As for the church, these were the days when women couldn’t hold congregational or denominational leadership roles. These were the days when children were herded and not seen, wait, that’s seen and not heard. If you weren’t wearing a suit or a dress, you were seated in the back. If your skin was the “wrong” color, you wouldn’t be seated at all.

Those days are gone, thanks be to God! So here’s our problem, when we mourn the past, we leave no room for the future. When we let our memories get to us, we choke the ability to live in the present. Neither of these will do.

Matthew’s gospel teaches Jesus saying, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” (Matthew 6:25-27)

I’m not saying “don’t worry, be happy,” I’m saying there’s work to do in the Kingdom of God and we are called to do it. If we sing laments about the past all day long it won’t be long before that’s all we know. Share those memories, remember the Saints fondly, but if we do not train the next generation of Saints up then we will leave a church that is dedicated to the dead when it should be pointing to the Living God. So ask a question! Take someone under your wing! There is no such thing as a stupid question, only answers that give glory to God… or not… and remember, today’s youth are going to be leaders before we know it.

See you in Worship, Paul