This English language!?!?!

Best class I ever took in college was one that helped us learn the power of words...or the misuse of them. Take the following statements for instance.

Man, this job is really hard. (Rocks are hard, the job is difficult)

I am very gifted at _______ (The word 'very' in the sentence is unnecessary)

Let's go to town so that I can get some milk. (Please take the word 'that' out of this sentence)

Okay, my initial thought above is actually inaccurate; the best class I ever took was Media Literacy.

Besides that error, the English language is still challenging.

The word that brings the greatest confusion and fear is 'change'.

When we speak about change it sets everyone on edge. Change is good as long as we don't have to do it. Change is built into our creation. Nothing stays the same.

No matter how or where you use the word, it is understood that someone will be made uncomfortable.

We are discussing the future of our church and considering the possibility of change. GAAAAAAAA! Run for your lives!!!! Change is evil!!!!!

Frankly, the lifespan of a church is linear. It has a beginning and an end. In between those two points are dreaming, goalsetting, ministry forming, celebrating unity, loss of focus, settling on busyness over disciple making, mistrust, and death.

"Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which

you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you

and remove your lampstand from its place. (Revelation 2:4-5b, NIV)

WAIT! Hold it right there for a minute! There is hope!

What if we would stop at the point of loss of focus and reset the stage of dreaming and goalsetting? What if we stopped the decay process in the life of a church and began again? That sounds like change to me. In this case, change could be life generating not life ending. Why wouldn't we embrace change as a good thing? We could you know. In fact, we should you know. Would you?

There, their, they're, it will be okay. We're changing things in order to renew life in disciple making. It is 'hard' work but we can do it.