Everything Changes

Here is a list of the top ten companies in the Fortune 500 for three selected years:
Since 1955, there have been 2000 companies on the list. As you see, only two companies are found on all three lists and the list from 1955 represents a very different world. Certainly some of those companies from 1955 are still in existence, but if you look at what the companies in 1955 did and compare them to what the companies in 2010 do you see a distinct difference. Microsoft, Dell and Walmart were not even included anywhere on the list in 1990.

Even GE, which still does "electronics", does so in a very different way. They have changed who they are and what they do in order to stay competitive and to move into a new future. The oil companies still have a large presence, but my prediction is that if they do not make significant changes to their primary product that in twenty years they will not be on this list anymore. Companies must adapt and change in order to survive.

This list is about the mainline church as much as it is about the companies. We have to change if we want to survive. But this is not about survival for survival sake, because that just makes us another company. Instead we need to change because we have a message to offer the world, and we need make sure that people can hear and receive that message. "I am all things to all people," Paul said.

In going out beyond Jerusalem, Paul found that he had to change what was important. Would the church exist today if all those who pushed for following Jewish law had won? Fortunately we will never know because Paul's argument won the day, and the traditions that he considered unimportant to the message and stood in the way of people receiving the gospel message were eliminated. We must do the same.

The high point of mainline churches, of which the United Methodist Church is one, in terms of power and membership was 1954. How many of our practices are based more on 1954 than 2010? How much of what we do is based on a reality and a world that simply does not exist anymore? Certainly there are core things that we need to hold onto, GE is not making donuts after all, but there are lots of other things that we hold as being important that aren't and that are holding us back.

We need to take a serious hard look at who we are and what we consider important and decide if it's central to what it means to be a Christian or if its important only because that is what we have always known. I am a church historian, but I don't want to be a part of a church that exists in the past, I want to be a part of a church that is happening right now and blazing a path for Christ into the future. Are we Esmark or are we GE?