One of the now-common thoughts in our world is the error of believing we can "preserve" things. When Yellowstone was established as a federal protected area, people spoke of preserving it. We see it in modern efforts to "Preserve America" by "preserving" various buildings and parks and such things all over the country. You can even buy a special automobile tag in Georgia for "historic preservation."
For a very young country (only a couple of centuries), we are fascinated with trying to preserve things. But, we ignore a very real problem. You cannot preserve anything except by killing it.
How do you preserve a childhood home of a president? You make sure no one lives in it. You fill it with old things that no one would ever use today. You buy things that are "like" the things that would have been there and you make sure no one uses them. You put up signs telling people not to touch anything and explaining all the things that they otherwise would not understand. A living home becomes dead. It becomes a place you pay to get into, a place children are forced to go see in order to "educate" them. It stops being a home at all. It dies.
How do you preserve nature? You make sure it stops being natural. You stop anyone from hunting. You eliminate wolves and other animals that, if not eliminated, will kill the animals you like. You make sure no one moves in or walks anywhere that you do not want them to walk. You set up "viewing areas" for people to look at what you have "preserved." You make sure there are enough food sources so the animals you like will stay where you want them to stay.
Nature is not like this at all. Nature is vibrant, alive, constantly changing. Animals move and roam for food and territory. They grow and live and die and fight and form units and change. They are violent and alive. But the animals that are in "preservation areas" are passive. They eat what you give them. They go where you let them go. They cease to be wild animals at all. They stand quietly for your pictures.
In short, the only way to preserve nature is to kill it, to remove all true life from it. The only way to keep Yellowstone "as it was" is to destroy the very liveliness that made it so marvelous.
We cannot preserve anything that lives because everything that lives is, well, "living." Everything changes. You change, your family changes, your likes and dislikes change. Life is about changes. Preservation is simply not life at all.
Yet, we speak of preserving our churches. We want to keep the "worship service" like it was when we were children. We want the preaching to be "like our fathers loved." We want the music to have lots of thee's and thou's and references to cultural ideas that we do not understand. We think that any attempt to change the services is, somehow, like saying the services were bad. We fight any attempt to have life actually impact what we do.
But life is about change. We change daily. We wake up with an ache we did not have yesterday, or maybe without an ache we had yesterday. We do different things and our children grow and we get older and everything changes all around us. Everything that lives changes.
When we try to preserve our church, either its services or its ministries or its look, we are forced to destroy the life within it. We cannot preserve anything without killing the very life that was within it. It becomes a show, a nostalgia piece, a thing of no current value.
Let life flow in our churches. God has given us life more abundantly, let's live it in our churches!
For a very young country (only a couple of centuries), we are fascinated with trying to preserve things. But, we ignore a very real problem. You cannot preserve anything except by killing it.
How do you preserve a childhood home of a president? You make sure no one lives in it. You fill it with old things that no one would ever use today. You buy things that are "like" the things that would have been there and you make sure no one uses them. You put up signs telling people not to touch anything and explaining all the things that they otherwise would not understand. A living home becomes dead. It becomes a place you pay to get into, a place children are forced to go see in order to "educate" them. It stops being a home at all. It dies.
How do you preserve nature? You make sure it stops being natural. You stop anyone from hunting. You eliminate wolves and other animals that, if not eliminated, will kill the animals you like. You make sure no one moves in or walks anywhere that you do not want them to walk. You set up "viewing areas" for people to look at what you have "preserved." You make sure there are enough food sources so the animals you like will stay where you want them to stay.
Nature is not like this at all. Nature is vibrant, alive, constantly changing. Animals move and roam for food and territory. They grow and live and die and fight and form units and change. They are violent and alive. But the animals that are in "preservation areas" are passive. They eat what you give them. They go where you let them go. They cease to be wild animals at all. They stand quietly for your pictures.
In short, the only way to preserve nature is to kill it, to remove all true life from it. The only way to keep Yellowstone "as it was" is to destroy the very liveliness that made it so marvelous.
We cannot preserve anything that lives because everything that lives is, well, "living." Everything changes. You change, your family changes, your likes and dislikes change. Life is about changes. Preservation is simply not life at all.
Yet, we speak of preserving our churches. We want to keep the "worship service" like it was when we were children. We want the preaching to be "like our fathers loved." We want the music to have lots of thee's and thou's and references to cultural ideas that we do not understand. We think that any attempt to change the services is, somehow, like saying the services were bad. We fight any attempt to have life actually impact what we do.
But life is about change. We change daily. We wake up with an ache we did not have yesterday, or maybe without an ache we had yesterday. We do different things and our children grow and we get older and everything changes all around us. Everything that lives changes.
When we try to preserve our church, either its services or its ministries or its look, we are forced to destroy the life within it. We cannot preserve anything without killing the very life that was within it. It becomes a show, a nostalgia piece, a thing of no current value.
Let life flow in our churches. God has given us life more abundantly, let's live it in our churches!
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