Across the Pastor’s Desk by Tom Biatek

I spend a lot of time in coffee shops. I like coffee, I like free Wi-Fi and I like to find a place where I can get away from the office and work. Writing a sermon requires peace and quiet, and, this might sound strange, but it can be very quiet in a noisy coffee shop. The sound of a cappuccino machine, the chatter of a dozen conversations, the background music and traffic outside on the road can make a nice space to think, write and create.

Except when it can’t.

I was sitting in the coffee shop here in town, formerly Prairie Wind and now The Interchange, and it wasn’t quiet enough. There were two other women in the shop and they were talking loud enough that I could hear them. There was no other noise to drown out what they were saying. They were talking about taking a vacation down South and their experience at a large church that they had visited.

Being a pastor, and very interested in how people experience worship, I will admit that I listened in.

They did not like how the service was a show. They did not like that there were guitars and drums. They did not like that the pastor wore a shirt with no tie. They did not like how casual the people in the church were dressed. They decided that, for the rest of their trip, they would not go to church because it just was not for them.

The conversation shifted to what they wanted but did not get from this church down South. They wanted a choir. They wanted an organ. They wanted hymns that they could sing and a sermon that made sense to them. “What I wanted,” the one woman said in a very loud voice, “is church the way that it is suppose to be.”

There was a lot that I agreed with in their conversation. There is a lot that I want in worship and I miss it when it is not there. Like them, I like organ music and the great old hymns. As a preacher, I would prefer to wear a robe but, if I don’t, I do put on a tie. I do that to honor my mother who told me that a pastor should “look like a pastor.”

But some things worried me about their conversation. I like drums and I play guitar. I like some of the new Christian music. I like anyone coming in to worship and I don’t worry about what they wear. I like noisy babies and restless children. I want to hear laughter and joy, applause and amens. I like worship to be filled with surprises and unexpected wonder.

I am one of those getting older pastors who recognizes the church of my youth is fast fading away. Worship is changing. Worship is always changing. Every generation has a way of praising God and understanding their world and, more often than not, the younger generation wants something different than what their parents want. Our world is changing and it is a congregation that clings too tightly to the past that will slip away into obscurity.

I don’t write this to make church people fear for the future but to make us all think about God in a new way. I believe that God is a God of hope and hope is all about the future. While we sometimes love to look back, God looks forward. We, as people of faith, should also look forward with hope, openness and a spirit of anticipation. As one of my church members is fond of saying, change is strange, but change is also in the very nature of God — to go deeper, understand more fully, to discover a new means of praise and worship and new life for us all.

Do you recall the words of Joshua 1:9? “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

 

The Rev. Tom Biatek is the pastor at United Methodist Church of Albert Lea.