It’s been a little over a month now since we’ve moved to our new home. It takes a while to get to the point where it no longer feels like I’m living in someone else’s house. For the first couple of weeks, it seemed like I had to remind myself that it was OK if I wanted to hang something on the wall, if I wanted to remove a “volunteer” tree from the landscaping. I kept thinking to myself, “Well, I don’t know if they’d like that. Wait, who’s ‘they.’ Oh, that’s right, I’m ‘they.’” Coming home from vacation helped to overcome the strangeness of the changes. After being away for a week, coming home to sleep in our own beds helped us feel like we were finally home after a month.
It’s been a little over a month since we started New Day Community Church. It takes a while to get used to a new rhythm of church. I no longer worry about whether this word or that word is the right one for my sermon, now I worry whether people will remember where we’re meeting this week. Our kids (and maybe yours) are still struggling to understand this new Sunday morning routine. Yet as we create a new rhythm, I’m reminded that this is not the first time that a church started anew. I wonder if it took a while for people of the early church to create new rhythms of their spirit lives. The strangeness of this new thing likely overwhelmed some. Some might have thought that the peace that came in the rhythm of their old spirit life, no matter how much it weighed them down, was better than the pain of the change. I have to remind myself why we chose this new way. DeAnn and I chose this because we are convinced that Jesus asks something more in following Him than week-to-week attendance in a building. And our faith in Jesus’ love, and Jesus’ faithfulness toward all of us, is compelling us to continue down this strange, wonderful, changing path.
Strange things still happen (and will still happen). That seems to be one of the defining characteristics of the Way of Jesus: the strangeness of changing to become like Him. I pray that we (OK, I) never become so comfortable with something new that it becomes something old, causing me to rather stay there then to follow the Way of Jesus.
So for all of you experiencing this strangeness of the changes in your life (new job, new home, new church), how do you find strength in the midst of the strangeness? How does faith provide the stability you need in walking forward in something new? I pray that you experience the presence of the Living God in the midst of the strangeness of your life.
Moving ahead through time and space in a positive way always takes an effort. More effort. More doing. Good job.