April 26, 2009:

Ponderings of a Pilgrim PASTOR

“The Church On The Border”

            A thoughtful pastor was asked by her therapist, “Do you want to be safe or alive?”  That question also comes to us not only as individuals but also as churches.  Do we want to stay with the tried and true, the traditional and the familiar, and be “safe,” or are we willing to move from our comfortable (or even uncomfortable but familiar) past into uncharted new territories and experience new life?

            Of course, someone will say, “I want to be both safe and alive!”  Would that were always possible!  The problem is that it usually isn’t.  To stay with the safe risks holding on to a dying past.  While the way things used to be was good enough for survival even a few years ago, that just won’t work anymore.  As far as the Church is concerned I have seen so many articles in recent months lamenting (or celebrating!) the death of Christianity or institutional religion.  One thing is sure:  we are in an entirely different situation than was true for those a generation ago.

            The pioneers who went west had a saying:  “It’s best to be shifty in a new country!”   There is no doubt that today we are living in a very new country, indeed.  And the future will be even more different.  To stay with the familiar is a great temptation, but it is rather like those poor polar bears looking for a safe ice flow in the midst of global warming.  For us, the challenge is always to move forward with the assurance that God who has been with us in so many changes in the past will still be with us in an uncertain future.

            So, the question hangs in the air:  “Do you want to be safe or alive?”

Love,

Pastor Dave