The Aging Rock Star

There's a band that I have been following for a few years. They are a Christian act who've done a handful of albums and had pretty good success. The front man is great about giving his testimony at each concert. He lived hard, did a lot of drugs, and then came face to face with Jesus who then rescued this singer from the misery that was his life before Christ. It's a great story. Each and every time I hear it. And there in lies the rub.

This band has a cool ministry that touches many lives. However, the singer's testimony stays the same night after night, tour after tour, album after album, year after year. It is a powerful story, but the events that transpired in the testimony happened long, long ago. The singer is way past his twenty's now with a wife, kids, and a house. Though his life has changed significantly over the years, the way he chooses to define himself hasn't. There's is mostly silence from the stage about all that God has done in his life since the bad old days.

Don't we often do the same thing as a church? Don't we go through periods of being stuck in a testimony from the past? Don't we sometimes define ourselves by who we used to be instead of who God has led us to become? I'm not saying that the past is bad. Remembering your past and letting it inform your present is a good thing. Yet, constantly re-living and getting stuck in your past as the world morphs and changes around you is not such a good thing.

What a different landscape the church would be if she had the courage to be fully present here in today's world. Imagine the lives that would be transformed by a church flexible enough to embrace people for who they are today instead of forcing them to fit into what we used to be.