Hearing Where We've Been

As I start to prepare a worship series about Abraham and Sarah, it occurs to me that we are experiencing some similar things. God asks them to leave the place they have known, to pack up their household and to trust as they move toward a ‘new normal’. God promises land and a huge family to Abraham, and in faith he heads out across the desert with his caravan.

It can be tempting for us in this moment to just hunker down, waiting for things to be familiar and to go back to how we want, and to not hear the call of God extended to us. It can be tempting to focus on our own needs first and our own safety. As fall begins, though, we have to admit that many things we take for granted as coming with the season don’t ‘fit’ this year. No commissioning of teachers and leaders as Sunday school isn’t safe yet in many places, let alone public worship. Dinners and harvest festivals and even bazaars have been canceled. What are we building towards? Where are we going?

We don’t know much about life before Abraham and Sarah set out, but I’m guessing things weren’t the greatest or at least terribly inspiring. God had a huge vision, and Abraham caught that vision and trusted his Creator. He and Sarah needed to figure out what they would take with them as they embarked into the unknown in obedience. We are in a similar spot of needing to trust and move in obedience, perhaps having to shed some of our programs and usual activities or to at least re-imagine them.

These are weighty decisions, and we can feel like the earth is no longer stable under our feet. Sometimes the things we do and how we do them become what we worship and our identity, rather than Christ Himself. As we decide necessary changes and things that no longer serve us, or at least don’t serve us in this season, we need to listen carefully. We need to trust in God’s greater vision.

Our people need to lament what is not happening anymore. The programs and ways of doing things came from and form a story, the very history of the congregation. They are part of the tapestry, the very fabric of who we are. So we need to sit around the figurative or literal campfire and reflect on where we’ve been, where these things came from and how they have made us progress to where we are.

Listening and appreciating the story is the first step towards moving forward. We can celebrate the gifts of these past steps and reflect on what they taught us, perhaps even those things that didn’t go so well, and the people who brought them to life and led us. We can express gratitude and record our thoughts and history. We can marvel at God’s faithfulness in our history but also in this time.

And then we can turn and look forward. We can reflect on where we are right now, the needs and resources we’re currently asked to steward, the people forming our congregation now. We can celebrate that God continues to be with us and has plans for us to lead us through the desert of this uncertain time. We can see this part of our overall journey as full of opportunity and not just loss. As one example, because of the internet, many churches have capitalized on this, sharing worship with far more people than they ever have.

We need to know where we’ve been. It’s no mistake that the beginning of Abraham and Sarah’s story includes a lengthy genealogy spanning from Noah and the Tower of Babel through generations. It sets the tone, sets the story in place and pays homage to where the present situation came from. But then, the story moves quickly into God saying what is next. All of this has built on what came before, and the next part of the adventure is rich with challenge and opportunity. May it also be so for us.