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EDITORIAL
Dealing with change
Dear readers,
I wrote in July 2011, for our local church bulletin, an article about change, based on the modern parable Who moved my cheese? That was eight years ago. It was interesting to read and think about that article again and to look at the story in between.
Where is my cheese?
Two dwarves and two mice live in a labyrinth. They are provided with cheese that appears daily at the same place. Cheese stands for everything we (would like to) have in life: safety, health, finances, good relationships, salvation …
However, over time the cheese is becoming more scarce and action is required: lamenting and demanding rights or facing up to the change or set off and tap into new resources.
Some take up the challenge and come to the following conclusions as they journey along:
– Everything changes (your cheese continues to move)
– Think ahead (be ready for change)
– Notice changes (smell the cheese daily to know if it’s still fresh)
– Quickly adjust to new situations (let go of your old cheese quickly)
– Change (and be content with it)
– Be prepared for this to happen again and again
The Evangelical Alliance
As a local church we have tried to live along those lines with God’s help. And it has been a good journey even though it has been rough sometimes.
I believe as Evangelical Alliance we have to face up to some change. We live in a time where the Christian story, the bible and the culture formed through it, is evaporating. Society is trying to build its security with all kinds of risk management schemes much driven by Artificial Intelligence. But as we learned at the EEA General Assembly in June in Bad Blankenburg, it is not just about security. Nobody can guarantee our security. It is much more about certitudio, knowing that I am secure in the midst of insecurity and knowing that there will be an end to evil.
What are we doing to bring this into the public debate? How can we provide leadership with beliefs that are at odds with a society which is moving from believing in science to believing in information based on algorithms? How can we show the “people in power” that there is a very different perspective and approach, something which goes beyond statistics and the immense accumulation of knowledge?
The Evangelical Alliance is an ideal platform where these questions can be wrestled with on local, national, regional and world levels. As a grass roots movement we have all we need to bring together what is needed and make it known in the respective places.
Therefore, please make sure you bring your input to the table. Let us trust together that God will help us to stay on the cutting edge when it comes to change and the biblical response which is required.
Below is a prayer from the Philippines. May God help us to face up to the change he is bringing along and using
Yours,
Thomas Bucher
General Secretary EEA
Shake us up…
Make us restless, Lord,
if we’re too complacent;
when our dreams have come true,
because they were all too small;
when we are in the safe harbour
already at the destination,
because we sailed too close to the shore.
Make us restless, O Lord,
when we talk about the abundance of things we possess,
have lost the thirst for the waters of life;
when we, in love with this earthly time,
have stopped dreaming of eternity;
when we in the midst of all the efforts,
that we’re investing in building the new harvest,
our vision of the new heaven faded.
Shake us up, O Lord, so that we may be bolder
and venture out into the open sea,
where the storms reveal your omnipotence,
where, with a dwindling view of the shore.
the stars are shining,
in the name of the one who has the horizons
of our hopes pushed far out
and asked the brave to follow him.
Amen
