"Simple Works!"

The Pentecostal church which formed me as a youth was simpler, less sophisticated than the church which bears the same name today. Part of the change is a result of affordable technology. Even I, a certified technological Neanderthal, am thinking of visual images which will be projected when preparing to preach. Questions of color, occasional action figures, and whether an outline item should "fly" in or simply "appear" are options to be considered.

The plain 40' by 80' tabernacle style building where my boyhood church met sported a few old-time banners. The one over the pastor’s head reminded me every Sunday and Wednesday, "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." (2 Corinthians 5:17) Some Sundays I read, and reread the verse from the King James Version (I was worshiping long before the NIV was published.) And I finally memorized its truth. It is imbedded in my spirit now.



Church fads pass across the ecclesiastical horizon like meteorites sweeping across the night sky. The technological life of the overhead projector with acetate films arranged by a reluctant teen was so short lived that video projectors replaced them before we could decide if they were proper for church use. When gasoline was three gallons for a dollar, retired school busses were repainted and deployed hither and yon every Sunday morning. (I attended workshops on bussing for Sunday School!) "Shepherd" became a code word for a form discipleship which ran amok in excess. "Rallies" drew thousands. I’ll never forget a huge crowd gathered in Detroit’s Masonic Temple to promote world missions. And, the monthly youth rallies introduced us to young people from churches across the city.

That has passed, but the truth remains the same, "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." In Jesus the old, worn out and disqualified become new. The banner over the pastor’s head was quaint, odd shaped, and had dull white letters on a faded blue field. But, the Message was full of life, liberating, and lasting! It may have been the nearly fifteen years of reading the Message that made it so enduring. It certainly wasn’t high tech!