The Haxtun-Fleming Herald - What can we reason but from what we know? -Alexander Pope

More often these days there is the realization of time passing. Measured parameters are increasingly difficult to keep nicely contained. Their march into the future is persistent, relentless in ways that are difficult to quantify. What used to be current events are now historical markers centered around specific occurrences in our lives, some anticipated, others not. Is anyone else surprised at recalling events of over sixty years ago? Our own mortality is called into question when that is where we find ourselves.

JFK’s assassination made a deep impression on the small group of shoppers gathered around the television section of the Greeley JCPenney® store. Men and women alike were silently in tears, unable to verbalize the horror of the moment. It was repeated within a decade with the deaths of RFK and Martin Luther King, Jr. The ongoing Vietnam backdrop clouded Johnson’s administration and yet the end of the decade gave us a moon landing to help restore our national pride. Many of the most memorable moments were attached to both natural and human-initiated events: the shuttle Challenger, Mount Saint Helens, the Berlin Wall, the World Trade Center bombings and of course 911.

What will the children of today recall in future times? Wouldn’t it be nice if their memories were flooded with the best of occurrences instead of the worst? Will they, too, be invited someday to share their recollections of the turbulent teens and twenties? The cycle of violence (actual and structural) is nothing new, nor does it appear to be changing anytime soon.

Church histories are replete with upheavals, violence of varying degrees, and stand-out events in the life of the church body.

Because they are passionate about their faith, churches are notably prone to schism. The smallest of differences cause us to stumble as we attempt to come to grips with scripture that is not always what we imagine or want it to be. Each decade comes with its own challenges, and they will be remembered in different ways. Does that mean we are right and all others are wrong? Is it possible that one group has all the answers we seek?

Some churches mark time by what they have accomplished in building and maintaining a church structure. Having an up-to-date physical facility is fine, but that is not how the congregation will likely be known and recalled. Did they lead with patience and kindness in a rough and tumble world? Did they respond to others in times of need? Did they open their doors to the “least of these?” Some declare that the path of the church and its intersection with end times could not be clearer. Others have grown up in a church culture vastly different from evangelical churches filled with condemnation and fear. Who is right and who is wrong?

Decades from now, will other small groups gather in response to the tragedy and longing of today’s church? A popularized phrase these days asks where the nation is finding itself in the process of “dechurching.” Time will provide the answers, or at least a few of them. Dechurching might be well underway but it has less to do with buildings than with perceived value of what churches bring to the table. Wouldn’t it be nice to hear the description of churches several decades from now commenting “see how they loved one another!” It is not too late.