Change and Stability

Change… and Stability.

I am beginning to accept it, that fact which so many of you have so smugly seen coming for so long.  My identity is changing.

Over the past fifteen or so years, you have watched me grow from a late-arriving college student, to a seminary student, to a self-employed computer guy, to a third-shift computer vampire.  I chased co-eds, created webpages, wrote songs, and cooked meals.

Then you (and I) were shocked when God brought a nurse from Indiana to join me in marriage, together continuing to make Hopwood our home.  Then she and I bought a house, where our desire for children and gift for hospitality could really grow.

But now, I’m a father.  Sleep may never be the same again.  Living with a seven-month-old means constant change.  As soon as we think we’re getting the hang of her habits and hang-ups this week, she changes.  She learns things like how to do the raspberries while being fed.

But living with an infant also means constant care for her.  One of my newer roles is that of helping to provide stability for Miriam and Danielle.  How does one do that?  Sometimes I haven’t the foggiest idea.

In Eric Perry’s latest article on the Hopwood website, he talks about how Hopwood, being a living congregation, a learning congregation, is also a changing and growing congregation.  We are “in a transition, hopefully, from one degree of glory to another.”

Spurred on by Tim Ross and others both in and outside the congregation, we are trying to learn what God has in mind for us.  What does it mean to live in community?  What changes will we have to make to follow God’s dream for us?  Will we remember who we used to be?  Will we miss who we used to be?

We have seen our staff grow from one part-time minister to three full-time and one part-time staff members.  We have branched out into new practices, new services, and new ways of serving.

But while one of the roles of the community of faith is to stir things up, to provoke its members to change “from one degree of glory to another,” another role is to provide stability.  How are we supposed to provide that stability?

You’re looking at one of the answers.  This Table.  Through staff changes, service changes, new paint, new carpet… the Table is still here.  It is still central to our worship, and the Person it points to is still central in our lives. 

Even as we feel our identity, the specific roles or actions we are called to, changing, our core identity, hidden with Christ in God, does not change.  In ways that are fresh and new, yet ancient and well-rooted, we follow the call of the One who is a restless Wind, but also a comfort, and a rock.

For this is what the Lord himself said, and I pass it on to you just as I received it. On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me."  In the same way, he took the cup of wine after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant between God and you, sealed by the shedding of my blood. Do this in remembrance of me as often as you drink it."  For every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are announcing the Lord's death until he comes again.