Change: More Recently

W
elcome back! Thanks for sticking with me through that history lesson. I hope you can tell where we are going. We, as 21st century believers, are not the first ones to experience radical change in how we do church. And I know, history is hard, but hang with me for one more history lesson. I promise it’s worth it. We can be encouraged from the men and women who have gone before us and paved new ways!

First off, a few notable men who changed church as we know it…

1. Martin Luther nailed his 95 Thesis to the door (supposedly) of a local Catholic Church in the year 1517. He basically stood up against all theology and practices currently happening in the church. His stance birthed the Protestant denominations.
2. In the 1730’s a man named John Wesley experienced salvation. John began to preach outdoors, he began to appoint laymen (normal, ordinary guys) to care for congregations, he visited prisoners in jail…all things that were not happening the church then. And thus, the Methodist denomination was birthed.
3. In the 1850’s, the Reformed Church of Manhattan commissioned Jeremiah Lanphier to reach the millions of employed workers in the city. Jeremiah began a noontime prayer meeting. The spark became a flame and thus began a huge revival across all of New England and the entire United States as other cities began adopting the idea of a noontime prayer meeting.

I am not saying these guys were all 100% theologically sound. I don’t even know, I’m far from a theologian. I didn’t bother to research those types of things about them. All I’m saying is these guys saw the lost and dying world around them. They saw that the church at the time was not reaching these people. And then they figured out a way to make it happen. Church, as we know it, changes constantly. This is a good. thing. Scary, I know, but so so good.

A few other things that churches faced in the recent history…

1. The introduction of automobiles. This allowed people to choose a church. They didn’t have to attend the church closest to their homes anymore, they could branch out and explore. This introduced “church shopping” and also megachurches began forming after automobiles were commonplace.
2. The introduction of radio and television. You could now “have church” without ever leaving your home. This allowed churches to communicate better and begin to see what other churches were doing or saying that was working. It also forced churches to focus on making church a place people wanted to be IN, not just listen to or watch.
3. A really interesting thing I discovered, in the 1950’s tons of women had to flock to the workplace. Women now worked outside the home and had careers. This made them busier people who didn’t have as much time to devote to volunteering in the church. This forced churches to begin hiring employees to do the things that women had typically volunteered to do.
4. Technology has drastically changed the way we do church. We have words on screens, instead of in bulletins or hymnals, we have computer systems to organize records and finances, we promote and advance our church via the internet and social media. People don’t start their journey with a church on a Sunday morning, they instead have checked out the website and social media accounts of the church.

Friends, these are just a few changes that we’ve seen in the last few hundred years. And there is so much more.

Application Questions

1. Think about a few of the men listed above, when they saw that their church wasn’t reaching the people, they did something about it. In what ways is today’s church failing in reaching the people? What can you do about it?
2. Can you think of any other cultural shifts or inventions that have changed church besides the ones mentioned above? How did they change church?