Many of us from the MSC have been in LA for the Western Jurisdiction Fresh United Methodist Church Summit. We have been discerning what our church needs to look like in order to strengthen our witness and ministries as we seek to share the love of God with others in our unique settings in the West.
One young person at my work table talked about time capsules. I confess I found my mind wandering once she said that! Every since I was a child, time capsules have fascinated me. Perhaps it was because I saw the Westinghouse Time Capsule at the 1964-1965 World’s Fair in New York. I was in awe that things that were staples of the day were going to be buried for thousands of years, waiting to be opened and scrutinized by those in the future.
Sometimes, churches are like time capsules.
One of my favorite churches that I regularly stopped in to pray midweek was on a dirt road, tucked away in a valley, far from a tiny village. I never saw another person at this church. It had an outhouse in the back and no running water. Antique glass fire extinguisher grenades (look it up!) hung in obvious places around the tiny sanctuary. The hymnbooks were from a much earlier era of Methodism. It felt like a walk-in time capsule, a church that was still in the 1930’s.
If a newcomer walked into your church today, would they think they’d walked into a time capsule? What year/era does your church communicate? Or would they walk into a building that reflects the current age, that communicates “the old, old story of Jesus and His love” in fresh, contemporary ways?
This is our task: to keep vigilant lest we turn our churches into museums rather than mission outposts, dated and out of touch relics to an earlier age rather than ministry centers deeply connected to the current realities facing people in their everyday lives. In this way we ensure that we are putting “new wine into fresh wineskins." (Mark 2:22).
This is our task, my friends!
