Off with the Old, On with the New

I've been watching the crew reroofing the church and parsonage. The church building is getting a new metal roof over old shingles and the parsonage gets new shingles. We've had hail damage and insurance is paying for most of it.

The two jobs are different in two ways. The new metal roof on the church is going over the existing shingles. The workmen are putting the sheets of metal in place and screwing them down through the layer of shingles already there. No problem with that. Seems to be a good way to do it. The old surface is completely covered and the new surface is to be water-tight. I imagine that will last a good long time.

But the parsonage is getting a new layer of shingles where a layer already exists. Not the whole roof, just one section. If the whole roof was being shingled then I imagine they would just put a new layer of shingles over the old. But since only part of the roof is getting a new layer, the old layer in the area being worked has to be removed. Otherwise one section would be thicker than the other. I'm trying to think why that would be a bad thing. Not sure you could see the difference from the ground. But the difference would likely cause a problem sealing out water. The roofing material needs to be level so it can join together to do the job.

That gets me to thinking about the church. Sometimes we just apply something new over something old and it works fine. New instrumentation or arrangements of old songs freshens them up and most of the time we enjoy them more. A modern translation of the Bible can be more accurate to the original - but be careful which translation you choose. A new teacher in a class may spark a little more interest and help the learners to, well, learn.

But sometimes we just need to tear off the old and come back with something new. A long-held belief that people new to the community won't like your church needs to be thrown away and replaced with a fresh perspective and willingness to reach out to them. A dogmatic view of the schedule of services can keep a church from making adjustments that may well be the key to growth. Since doing what you've always done will get you what you've alway gotten, maybe it's time to replace the old ways with something fresh, innovative, effective. And the renovation doesn't have to be across the board. Maybe just one or two things need changed. Or maybe everything but one or two things need changed.

Churches ought to assess their effectiveness on a regular basis. Be honest. When something no longer helps you reach your community, it's time to let it go. Put it out to pasture. Pull the plug. Or at least revise it. Irrelevance might be the biggest sin a church commits. A church that is irrelevant to its community is living in a community that is drowning in the high waters of spiritual complacency. Let's do what we must do to stir those waters and rescue the perishing.