Everyone should enjoy life and have some fun, especially Christians. Jesus came that we might have life “more abundantly”. It is a gift from God and we should make the most of it. Adventurism, however, goes well beyond enjoying life and into risking life. We all like new things from time to time; clothes, cars, computers. New things can be good, but they can also be bad.
In the church there seem to be two extremes: 1) the group that will never do anything different than it has been done before (Mat 15:9 But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.), and 2) the group that wants to do or try every new thing that comes along (Eph. 4:14 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;). Some change is inevitable, some is an improvement, some is inconsequential, and some is inexcusable, and as Christians we must be discerning of the spirit of the change in question. Allow me to illustrate each of the four.
1) Inevitable- Children grow up you can’t do anything to stop it (without harming them) and none of us would want to. As a result, we have to change the way we treat them and teach them. Young people have to at some point become aware of their sin and then of their need for forgiveness. Our young men have to learn how to become part of the worship as new Christians, and eventually to be the leaders of the church.
2) Improvement - Our congregation changed the time of the Lord’s Supper from before to after the sermon. This may seem insignificant or even meaningless, but was in fact beneficial. We had had some arriving late and missing the Lord’s Supper at the beginning thus needing to be served at the end. It was also sometimes difficult for me personally because of my nervousness about my upcoming sermon. By moving the time to the end of the service we were able to help both situations.
3) Inconsequential - Do we have 1 song, a prayer, and then 2 songs, or should we have 2 songs, the prayer, and then 1 song? This change would not affect any thing of any significance whatsoever.
4) Inexcusable - Examples of this kind of change abound in society, and are creeping into the church as well. One of the most blatant is the changing of women’s roles in the church. This is accomplished by rebelliously ignoring or attempting to explain away Paul’s clear teaching on the matter. 1 Tim 2:12 “And I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, but to be in silence.” Could Paul have been any clearer on the issue of women preaching, teaching, leading prayer, or leading singing in the public assembly?
Adventurists throughout the brotherhood are crying, “Try it its new, exciting, different”. We need to be cautious. Remember that when Eve ate the forbidden fruit it too was exciting, different, and new. The consequences may be greater than you can possibly imagine. We shouldn’t resist change just because it is different, but rather weigh carefully the factors involved. Scripture must be our first line of defense, but even in areas that are not necessarily sinful we need to say as Paul did, “All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not” (1 Cor 10:23).
Sometimes a change that may be in and of itself inconsequential may become profitable and thus expedient in helping us to get out of a spiritual rut. We may know several songs, but it is good from time to time to learn a new one in order to break the routine. I recently had the habit on Wed. Night of singing the same song for the invitation. It was a good song and I didn’t even realize how much I had been using it until one of our members said, ”Could we please sing a different song tonight ?”. The same could be said of the ‘canned’ prayers that many lead.
Let us make every effort to change for the better each day, and never for the worse.