"I am Doing a New Thing..."

He told them this parable: “No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old one. Otherwise, they will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘The old is better.’” Luke 5:36-39

Newport. New car smell. New York. New tomatoes. Newsweek. New-to-you. New Mexico. Newfoundland. New and updated. New baby. New England. New life. New Jersey. New edition. New Era. New moon. Newegg.com. New Seasons. New horizons. New look. New shoes. New toys. Newspaper. New Year.

The title of this blog comes from a series of musical creations written and performed by my friends David King and Jeff Lowery, written from the perspective of God to the world. There are lots of opportunities to explore something new in our lives. The biggest new joy for Mira and I is the expectation of a new little one in our life. And we may be old-fashioned (or “new fashioned” as the case may be), but we are especially excited to discover the gender of the baby after the baby is born. This excitement will accompany the new breath, new movement, new words, new everything for this child and for us as his/her parents. Another thing that I have personally experienced as joy in anticipation of the new baby is the procurement of a new video camera and editing software for the computer. A first fruit of which is displayed on an earlier post of the blog titled “Finding Joy”, which was a source of discussion at our monthly “Supper” gathering. I am looking forward to the new opportunities to create visually stimulating moving images for people who want to engage in them (especially of the new little one!).

New things and new experiences and new people are exciting to us. Yet one of the challenges for leadership in the church is not that we have to come up with new and more fascinating stories to tell, but, the foundation of our faith is the telling and re-telling of an old story, despite the fact that its called the good “news”. Coming up with a newer, more compelling story is a challenge: that's what creative writers do. But its not the church's challenge. Our story is not a new one; in fact it is part of an ancient narrative that extends back thousands of years. There is a lot of chronological and cultural distance between our lives and the lives of our ancestors in faith. Disconnection from the old story from the new world is not just a possibility, but a reality. Our daily lives and world differ significantly from those who lived in the ancient Middle East. But when the old story becomes nothing more than ancient history, it begins to make no more sense to our current setting than any standard piece of fiction. Truthfully, if the old story didn't matter to me, then I wouldn't waste my time with it, either.

But the old story does matter to me. And I think a big part of why it matters to me is that over the course of my life, gifted and talented people have been able retell the old story in ways that make it come alive. And this is why I appreciate attempts to tell the old story in new contexts so much (such as film and new media). The people who tell them don't run fearfully from the challenge of cross-cultural wrestling matches. Nor do they try to force people of a new generation into a method of story-telling that doesn't fit this culture or this era anymore. Recently I saw a retelling of the birth of Jesus from Joseph's perspective, as if he was able to be on Facebook when it happened. Through status updates, profile picture updates, and with an attention-grabbing soundtrack, I was guided through the story in a compelling way that I could relate to, as a frequent user of Facebook. In fact, I was shown this video via the status update of a member of the Cornelius church.

Two questions stick out as I recall this event to you. First, I was already familiar with the old story. If I didn't know about Mary and Joseph's relationship, and the miraculous birth, would I have been able to follow? Secondly, if I was unfamiliar with how Facebook status updates worked, would the retelling of the old story worked? This particular new way of presenting the old story gripped me and many others online because it engaged completely our world. The bottom line is that it doesn't appeal to everyone, nor should it. But that doesn't mean it shouldn't have been done.

In the new year, the challenge that I face as a pastor is to evaluate how I have been telling that old story, exploring my strengths and weaknesses. Is my story-telling compelling to anyone? Do we find ourselves in the grips of the story because we identify so completely with the experience? Or are you and I going through the motions of hearing an old story that is no longer gripping to us, that has little or no effect on our daily lives? I am aiming to be gripped in a new way because that's what has moved and will move me anew into the old story. I look forward to where this exploration takes us all!

Finding Joy

Here is a video that Ricardo Umana and I made just before he left for Anaheim last week Sad for us but happy for him). What was most interesting to me was what wasn't said in the video. For many, the pain of the question, "Where do you find joy?" was too deep to consider answering us. One woman said that she had no idea what we were talking about, having just lost her father, and quickly left as her eyes were welling up with tears. It is amazing to me that this surface-level set of questions could bring out such emotions in people, and a reminder that depth-seeking conversations help us to deal better with whatever comes our way.

I really appreciate all the folks who were willing to wrestle with Joy during this crazy time of year.