Written By Bob Schindler, Chief Operating Officer of CEDE SPORTS“What got us here won’t take us where we want to go!”
The Context
I had coffee with a sports minister recently whose church recently went through a pastor transition after the previous pastor had been there for 40 years. The new pastor said in a recent message, “What got us here won’t take us where we want to go.” This statement didn’t sit well with the sports minister. He loved the church and had been there for a long time. The comment seemed to him to disregard the past, the history that did get them to this point. I may be reading too much into the comment by the pastor, and may be suffering from “growing old” syndrome, but I tend to agree with my friends assessment. What do you hear in that statement? (Please respond in the comments below.)
The Concern
I bring this up because I have noticed something lately. One of the privileges of my role at CEDE SPORTS is that I get a fairly wide perspective on the local church as I connect with churches in different parts of the country, from different denominations, of different sizes and worship styles, even different tenures of leadership. Amidst all that diversity, it seems there is a growing trend of what C.S. Lewis called “chronological snobbery” that values something merely because it is newer. This conclusion on the comment by the pastor may be colored by my assessment. If so, I am asking God to show me my prejudice. If not, this tendency is a concern. My concern stems from exactly what a person means when he or she says, “What got us here…” If, by that statement they mean methods and styles may need to change, then I completely agree. However, there are timeless truths and principles rooted in the Scriptures that always need to remain. My concern stems from those who say or hear that statement and don’t discriminate between those timeless truths and time-sensitive methods. Without that discrimination, timeless truths can be set aside out of “chronological snobbery.”
The Question
What do you think? “Will what got us here not take us to where we want to go?”