What is new is old and old is new...

It's funny how things can hit you at the most mundane times.

This morning while taking the trash cans to the curb, it was about 20 degrees. My hands were getting numb from the cold. I was thinking how I'm not used to this weather, but I should be. I mean this is where I grew up. I'm not a transplant to New Jersey after all.

A re-transplant, yes, but not a transplant. I feel like at one level my roots are still here. Always have been. But after nearly 20 years away (I haven't lived here full time since 1991!) I've changed and the area has changed. And while no one likes change it is a reality we all deal with.

Then it hit me. My church is much the same.

We are a re-transplant (a replant would be the more correct term for church planters but just keeping with the analogy). We aren't a new church and we haven't been around for years. But we do have a new identity, while keeping much of our old.

The challenge we face is much the same as my personal challenge being back in Jersey. It is not letting the old ways trump the new ways, as well as letting the old ways that were good survive.

For me it is relearning the personality of this area. Even though I grew up here, I've been in Central Pa, Pittsburgh and Jacksonville, and have been influenced by the way of live in all those place, each with similarities and huge differences compared with South Jersey. One great example is that people here are much more direct than in other places I have lived (yes, that is a generalization but one that holds).

For Christ Anglican Mission, we are in the process of relearning what it means to be a church and not an institution. It is one we are embracing but it is a challenge. Doing new things in new ways when you are in the same place you have always been (yes, we are in a new building but still in the same town, etc) is hard.

Especially when our old ways, both personal and church, weren't wrong, just ineffective in new situations. So often though, doing things the old way is comforting and familiar and we all go back to the default setting rather than challenging ourselves to embrace change at a deep level.

It is a process, embracing change. I know I daily have to battle personally to embrace the change. Some days I do better than others, but my hope is to always keep advancing and not retreating. Keep pushing into the changes we are each called to, either personally or as part of this church (or your church). Don't be discouraged by setbacks, but be heartened by the successes.