As I began working on a blog for the Center, I received an email message from Tom Reynolds, a retired minister living in VA. It was the thoughts he put in his journal on that particular day. Tom said I was free to pass it on to any who might have an interest. His thoughts struck me as something we all need to hear, and he wrote it better than I would have expressed. So, enjoy – and, thanks Tom!

I preached at my church this past Sunday morning—the first time I have preached there for a Sunday service since my retirement in 2002.  It was a Lord’s Supper service.  The former Associate Pastor and I shared in its leadership and the folks who still know us declared it to be like “old times”.  One young woman said, literally, “I would give a million dollars; no, I would give my right arm for things to be as they were before.”  My response was, simply, “We can’t go back.” 

It was a good day but it called for reflection on my part.  I was reminded, again, of the tendency on our part, as human beings, to try to hold onto (to grasp . . . to control) that which was meaningful in the past.  Periods of rapid change only exacerbate this tendency.  It is a particular problem for folks for whom church is important.  It is the source of the “worship wars” and conflict between young and old in the churches over the past two decades. 

We Baptists, in particular, have difficulty in living up to the “Protestant Principle” that the church is always in need of reform.  We claim to stand under the judgment of the Cross, the central symbol of our faith.  But we demonstrate a marked reluctance to submit ourselves to it—to “die” (surrender) the cherished forms, hymns, methods, personalities of our past.  It is sad to see so many churches simply withering away because its membership is unwilling to examine themselves and the effectiveness of their witness in the present world with all its vitality and dynamism.  I, myself, feel overwhelmed by the impact of technological advancements and their impact on the way people think and communicate.  I feel “left behind” in a very real sense.  And in my quiet times find myself singing the “old” hymns over and over because they express the meaning of my faith in ways that young adults cannot begin to understand.  So, I, too, am in need of submission to the “Wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died”—to “submit my images for correction” (as Carlyle Marney put it).  I need, at the very least, not to expect that a new generation will find as much meaning in the elements of my experience as I do.  It, also, means that I must affirm new symbols and methods of expression that demonstrate integrity and effectiveness.  I must confess that that is a tall order.

Les Robinson  June 2011