A PLace I am Used To

“A Place I am Used To”
Pastor Nathan

One of my favorite places in the world is the family camp. My dad’s side of the family all went in together to buy the land and built a cabin on East Grand Lake in the back woods of Maine. I love it there. It is fun every time I go. However not much about the cabin has changed. It is the same pale yellow color filled with old furniture that was handed down from each of our houses. We have a beach of rocks out front with a wooden dock sitting on old rusted cast iron wheels. We have a canoe, two kayaks, a hammock, and a fire pit. I love it.
On July fourth weekend you can bet at least twenty people are occupying the cabin while maybe even a couple tents are set up out front. It is a blast. This is the way I grew up. Then it seemed one day that everything had changed. I have only been their once in the last five years. People grow up and change. It happens that is a part of life.
In the past five years I have spent time in Indiana, Delaware, Colorado and now South Carolina, and the one thing I see is that people do not like change. They like what they are used to; personally I am that same way. Every year on July Fourth and I am not at the cabin, I complain about not being there. But it has become a part of my life.
The last eight months for me I have experienced a lot of change; a move down south, a new job, a new wife, new friends. At times this change has been tough but also wonderful, challenging but also rewarding and lonely but also fulfilling.
Change is not always fun but is always needed. If we were not always evolving as humans we would become stagnant creatures of habit, living in a complacency that is unmoved. The trouble with this complacency is that the world around us is changing. If we are not willing to change then we will be left behind.
As far as ministry goes it is the same way. If we want to grow as a church we must be willing to change. We must be willing to meet people where they are at to minister to them in ways that are relevant to their lives.
Sure I miss the cabin. Who knows maybe next July Fourth I will be able to go back. But if I never left a place I am used to then I would be missing out on so much more. I do not want us as a church to miss out on “the so much more” that God has in store for us.