Time to Move On…
My all-time favorite musician is Tom Petty. His music has always resonated with me at a spiritual level. Different seasons of my life have related to songs he’s written. When he died about 5 years ago, I shed some tears. Around the time of his death, I responded to an NPR project and was interviewed for an article they wrote about his most popular song, “I Won’t Back Down”.
The chorus of a song he wrote came to mind recently regarding some writing I’ve been doing and then a sermon I preached recently. You should listen to the whole song but here are the chorus lyrics:
It's time to move on, time to get going
What lies ahead, I have no way of knowing
But under my feet, baby, grass is growing
It's time to move on, it's time to get going
Over the years, those of us at Seeds and Water have encountered so many people who have been hurt or disillusioned with their faith journey or church experience. The reasons are nuanced. Everyone’s story is unique. One thing is common: there is a massive shift in Christianity happening in America right now.
Millions of American Christians (spiritual refugees) have come to the edge of their faith. They are leaving churches and not coming back. Church participation in the U.S. is at an all-time low. The pastoral profession is struggling with many leaving ministry, facing intense burn out, or struggling with their own faith. Last year, in our ministry, our engagement with new clients tripled and most of those were current or former pastors and church leaders. Many denominations are dying and social scientists predict many will cease to exist in 50 years.
So what do we do? How do we respond?
This quote (from a great book) by Terry Walling comes to mind, “What got us here, may not (and often will not) take us there. There is no going back to normal, because normal no longer exists.”
Coming back to my boy, Tom Petty, it’s time to move on from quite a few things that got us here. Over the coming weeks, I’m going to share some of the sacred cows of Christianity in America. These are habits, methods, and even beliefs that we need to “move on” from and replace with actual sacred habits, methods, and beliefs of historical Christian faith.
The problem that we face is that these idols run deep in this area of the world. Many of them for hundreds of years.
Are we ready to hold on loosely to everything but Christ?
Are we ready to move backwards, peeling off all of the crusty habits that have damaged faith and the Church, so that we can move forward into healthy and holy Christian faith and community?
“What lies ahead I have no way of knowing…”