More Than History Keepers

Being alive at this moment means that God has entrusted to us the stewardship of this time in history. And I do believe He’s entrusted it to us because He believes us to be trustworthy. There is something in this big picture, however, that causes me a great deal of unrest.

When it comes to our presence and purpose on the earth, I am concerned that the Church has largely relegated herself to the role of History Keeper — protecting doctrine and tradition and story of the richness of how God has moved in the past as her sole concern, even at the expense of fulfilling her other mandates. Before we go further, please don't misunderstand me: I am not angling toward the changing of any Church doctrine, nor implying that Truth is in any way fluid. And I believe that the preservation of history is a beautiful and necessary task... but if it stands alone as the primary emphasis of our activities, reflections, thought-lives, and pursuits as a Church, there is no room for the advancement of God’s Kingdom. Because He is not a God of mere recycling; He’s a God of creation, of innovation, of “making all things new.” Of endless ideas and possibilities and solutions.

Pope Francis puts it this way: “A Church worried about defending her good name, who struggles to renounce what is not essential, no longer feels the passion of bringing the Gospel into today’s world. And it ends up being a beautiful museum piece rather than the simple and joyful home of the Father. Ah, the temptation of museums! And also of conceiving of the living tradition of the Church like a museum, to conserve things so that they are all in their place...”

I think it is entirely possible — and common — to be so fixed on honoring the past movements of God that we fail to recognize His activity right now in our midst. We miss the whisper because we’re looking for the (old) fire (cf. 1 Kings 19). I am all for a good celebration of anniversaries and milestones. When Joshua finally crossed his people into the Promised Land, the first instruction God gave him was to build a monument commemorating the event, so that future generations would always remember God’s power and faithfulness (Joshua 4). This practice is crucial to the transmission of our Faith. But if the entirety of our focus is on what God has done in the past, we will miss His very real presence and activity in the present, as well as the opportunity to partner with what He’s wanting to do in the future.

Here’s the thing: We are not meant simply to be history keepers; we are meant to be history makers.

“Whoever believes in me will do the works that I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these” (John 14:12, emphasis mine). If we’re honest about it, I think we’d be hard pressed today to find among us even the SAME things Jesus did, let alone greater. Yet this is the bar that our Lord Himself sets for us. So it begs the question: Why are we stagnant?

The way creativity works requires us to leave space for dreaming, for envisioning. For Christians, this means dreaming and envisioning with the Lord, listening to his “right now” word, pressing in for expressions, solutions, insights, strategies, breakthroughs that haven’t been seen before. If we’ve filled all our spiritual space with “what’s been done” (i.e., limiting our prayer time to revisiting doctrinal teaching points, apologetics, or holy figures of the past), there’s no room for fresh things to enter.

Innovation is part of our birthright. We are designed for the here-and-now relationship with the Lord, and He has things to say to us TODAY — about today, about tomorrow, about the coming generations, and about how it is we are to shape the world for them. Whether it’s from a platform or within our local communities and families, God’s Kingdom is meant to advance through us. And advancement, like all growth, involves new things.

I’m not saying we need to strive harder to impact the world — that is equally as lamentable a watering down of our calling. I’m saying we need to crack open some space to sit with the God of right-now and the God of what’s-to-come and listen to what He’s saying. We need space to receive the downloads that He’s aching to give us, which are meant for such a time as this, and allow His eternal-sized insight to speak into the situations we are facing today. He has the answers. He has infinite solutions to everything we face — personally and globally.

Wouldn't it be devastating if our grandchildren’s generation had no “Joshua monuments” from our entire generation’s span on earth because we were too busy celebrating the past to be building them a new legacy?

What would it look like for us to take new ground in the Lord? What areas of victory does God want to bring us now, so that future generations can build upon it? What facets of Himself does He long to reveal to us, so that the knowledge of Him can increasingly fill the earth (Habakkuk 2:14)? What new expressions can we create to mark the uniqueness of what God is doing in our lifetime?