Metamorphosis: The Cocoon Stage

A Time Of Rewiring, Reworking, Remaking, Redoing

Several months ago I wrote about the church going through a metamorphosis process, going from being a caterpillar, cumbersome, slow to change, devouring all it can eat in an effort for growth to entering a cocoon stage where a transformation of structure would occur to be released as a butterfly, a sleek structure ready for flight.  I believed the church was about to go through quite a transformation process because it would literally change the “structure” of the church. I wondered what would take place in this cocoon stage that would create such a dramatic change.

Then I remembered that “we” are the church, so it would have to directly affect “me”.  I thought of the church as a whole, as a structure, as an institution, but not that it would affect me personally. How wrong that assumption has been.  I briefly shared my journey then with a group of people last night, and one participant piped out, “sounds like you are in that cocoon now.” I think he is right.

So what is happening inside it? I can wrap it up in two words: drastic change. I feel like I am in a challenging time; it can be a depressing time. I do not have a “critical spirit” that produces negativity, but I find myself questioning everything the church does, believes, and propagates as well as what I do, believe and propagate spiritually.  It’s beginning to drive me nuts, because it creates an illusion of isolation, not being able to “fit” in to current structures, structures that always gave me assurance, support, comfort, encouragement, structures that use to be the pillars of what I did and what I believed.

It feels like I am being rewired, old out dated wiring being ripped out while newer wire that meet more stringent codes of higher quality and standards are replacing them. I am beginning to sense what an old housing structure must feel like when deemed inadequate or even condemned, then completely gutted, only to be rewired, reworked, and remodeled to newer and higher standards and codes. It must be a painful process to that old building when at first experiences being ripped apart, then reworked and even reshaped, before being repainted.  Often we take “before” and “after” shots of our remodeling projects so we can say, “I can’t believe it looked that way once, but look at its beauty today.” 

The hardest part of this process is the constant challenge of new ideas and ways of thinking by the Holy Spirit to challenge my willingness or lack there of to embrace new mindsets. The way that I did church in my childhood seems so antiquated that it parallels with Puritanical times. Societal norms and culture have drastically changed over the century. My grandfather drove a horse drawn cart to deliver milk, experienced the invention and integration of the telephone, radio, television, and internet.  He took a trolley to town, bought a model-T Ford, and saw the creation of superhighways. He lived in a society life centered around the local community church and the local band pavilion, then changed to school and sports activities, to now embracing social networking. His world started local, being interrupted by a World War, followed by its connection through something called a world wide web. He longed for “the good old days” of a simpler, more local life, but gave way to health care, assisted living, and nursing facilities that lengthen his life by several decades. Even my life span of six decades has seen incredible change.

So the cocoon phase brings death to some old structures, pillars, out dated wiring with outdated codes, and replaces it with new life, new pillars, new wiring with more stringent and higher healthier codes.   The new remodeled building or structure looks nothing like its original although basically it is still built on the same foundation. That foundation is Christ Jesus, the Rock.  The Church is facing a world that is changing, one with a greater global vision, more interconnectivity, one actually becoming smaller, a world that can come to one’s Smartphone in one’s pocket, the way I/we structure Church, do Church, will have to be revamped, restructured, reworked, redone, rewired.  

Church, I propose, we are in that cocoon stage.  The only way to come out of it as a butterfly is our willingness to yield and listen to the Holy Spirit and be obedient to His work as he coordinates this restructuring, rebuilding, rewiring, redoing.  If the creature that enters the cocoon as a caterpillar decides to stay in the cocoon, it means only one thing, death. Life, a resurrected life, is one that is willing to oppose the grave and rise in newness, the butterfly, the new structure, a new life.

I am sure as I/we walk through this stage, even more challenges, more new mindsets, more reworking, more repentance, more dying to self and dying for our fellow brethren will have to take place. The cocoon stage has only begun!

Shepherding And Social Networking: Can The Church Capitalize On This New Technology?

How Do You Prepare God’s People For Works of Service? Part VIII

If shepherding is nurturing, caring, and developing, and social networking and new technology is influencing our current society, the church just needs to look reexamine how it shepherds. I read this week that Google is thinking of invading the television business with major capital investments because the 18 to 34 year olds are beginning to watch their entertainment on their smart phones, or IPad devices rather than having to sit in their family rooms in front of their televisions sets.  This “mobile” society is about to see another paradigm shift away from traditional family time, traditions, and cultures and the way we are use to do things.

My age group attends High School and College Class reunions because we have “lost contact” with almost everyone after graduation except for a select few.  That is not true with the younger age group, for they stay in contact through social media formats and tools.  By becoming “friends” they communicate through Facebook and join “circles” to keep in touch with different groups in their social strata. Every time they are on Facebook, they expose what they are saying and doing. You can almost “monitor” what is happening in their life just by following them on Facebook, or Twitter, or other forms of social media. They expose their backgrounds, share current pictures, and post daily comments.  Even the Foursquare software program allows you to “check in” and gain rewards when you notify where you are currently located. All this information and data about people is available, and they are not even in your physical presence.

Mentoring is most effective when done 24/7, but who can be with the one they are mentoring in their Christian growth when you are not in their presence.  Today that can become a reality.  If you are discipling or mentoring a younger believer in the Lord, you can monitor their social patterns, where they hang out, where they shop, who they communicate with, their interests, hobbies, etc. Availability is crucial in a successful mentoring program, and today’s technologies make that possible with smart phones, that not only let you talk to one another, but also see one another. One being mentored can easily and immediately contact their mentor orally, visually, or through written communications like texting or tweeting. If one needs help, prayer, or advice, contact and help can be immediate.  Interactivity is a key to successful social network connectivity.

So shepherding can now be 24/7 and connectivity almost instant.  Part of the Smartphone culture is the need to react to the ding, ping, or sound effect that comes from our phone. It is almost like an immediate response, and instant reaction. Connectivity and availability is crucial.

The danger lies what one does with all this data and information about a person.  In the 1970’s the Shepherding Movement from the Fort Lauderdale Five was birthed out of the need to help younger Christians mature under the direction of older more mature Christians. We have learned through them that unfortunately, it is so easy for the mentor to fall into a “control” mode, guiding every decision of the young Christian rather than teaching them how to make decisions on their own. So far, social networking is not about “control” but “contact” and “communication”, the transfer of information from one to another. That “loose” relationship can actually be a healthy one, for you have to allow everyone to “work out their own salvation”, to “walk their own spiritual walk”, and learn to “hear the Holy Spirit for themselves”, because eventually they will have to walk and stand on their own and hopefully mentor others in future journeys.

The church needs to embrace the power of social networking because it has permeated our American culture. The question is what to do with it, how to effectively use it as a tool for communicating the gospel, and communicating with others in guiding them in their spiritual walk. Many churches are making websites basically to “advertise” their worship service and available services, but they must learn how to make their sites interactive.  If Facebook is only a tool to post information about their church and there is no interactive communication happening on that page, then the church has missed the mark of what social networking is all about.

So pastoral/shepherding skills may manifest themselves in new forms as we enter this social media culture of the twenty-first century. The challenge for the church is how to be open to change, technology, and new mindsets of thought and communication.  

If We Could Only Be Like Little Children

The Faith Of A Child; The Theology Of An Adult

An inquisitive event occurred at the church I was attending on Sunday.  The Pastor gave a sermon on Justification By Faith.  In an attempt to show an unbiased look both sides of the “Once Saved Always Saved” versus “You Can Lose Your Salvation” arguments although he let you knew what side he favored because “it was his responsibility to portray the ‘truth’”, a woman broke into the flow of debate, not to ask a question, nor to give an opinion.  She wanted to share a testimony.

Her testimony was that she had had headaches and back pain during the service.  Someone from the children’s department asked if she would come and let the children pray for her.  She complied. The teacher of the children’s class had been teaching the children how to listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit themselves. As the children honed in on that still small voice, they began to minister to this lady. By the time they were done, she was pain free.  Here she was now telling the adults about this experience as the children released their "child like faith".

That is the beauty of being a child: having child like faith. Adults were discussing “faith”, debating theology, trying to figure out how faith works while justifying their theological positions. The children? They just practiced their faith!  The adults came to no conclusions that united them while the children produced results, a healing!

When is the adult church going to allow the passions of the children of God to arise, that of an evangelist, a shepherd, a teacher, a prophet, and an apostle, and release the children of God to freely exercise them?  The Holy Spirit resides in the temple of God, the bodies of believers in Jesus Christ. Church, let’s allow that spirit to arise, manifest itself, and be released in resurrected life and freedom! 

When is the adult church going to learn it doesn’t have to be theologically correct or kosher all the time; they just need to have faith in Jesus and listen to his Holy Spirit speaking?  Every religious sect thinks the theological “truth” has been revealed to them, and the rest of Christendom is incorrect or missing an element of that truth? Why does the adult church feel it has to “justify the truth” rather than live by the principle of “justification of faith”? Faith in what?

If we have “faith” in Jesus’ power to heal, then let’s just do it: heal!  If we have “faith” in Jesus’ power to forgive, then let’s just do it: forgive!  If we have “faith” in the body of Christ, then let’s just practice IJohn 3:16 and “lay down our lives for our brethren”: let’s just do it! If we have “faith” in “rebirth”, then let’s allow the Holy Spirit to rebirth! If we believer in sanctification, then let’s allow the Holy Spirit to lead us in caring, nurturing, and developing our fellow believers into the image of Jesus Christ!  If we “faith” that God speaks to his children, then let’s listen and be obedient to what we have seen and heard.

When, as adults, are we ready to scrap our prearranged, highly organized, well orchestrated, music and oral ensembles we call worship services, and allow the children of God who attend to just be “children” who want to play, to romp, to sing, to dance, to be free to skip around bear footed, even puddle hop, and maybe even make mud pies while getting dirty instead of always appearing pristine clean? When are we going to allow their passions in Jesus to arise, to help “develop” towards maturing in Christ-likeness, and to release them to be free in the destiny God has for them instead of prohibiting them, holding them back, and controlling them?

I recently observed a parent, who when haggard by their children’s noises of just being kids, playing, sibling rivalries, vying for parental attention, and being fidgety under the strains of having to be in an adult world while still being kids, completely shut down their activity to have “order” for the sake of adult sanity, suppressing any child like life in them for quietness and control. As adults, we do that all the time to our children rather than joining them.

Jesus said, “Let the little children come unto me,” and “unless you are like a little child, you can not enter the kingdom of heaven.”  I want to enter the lifestyle of that kingdom; I want to be a child again; I want to be able to come and jump into the lap of Jesus! Then I got to divert back to my spiritual childhood with child like faith. I got to quit debating, quit trying to be correct, quit trying to always be a portrayer of truth to prove that I am righteous, and just be a kid again!  In an adult world kids are never right; in a kid’s world they just want the adults to join them in experiencing life.

I just want to heal, to forgive, to love, to respect, to honor, to worship, to grow, grow up to be like Jesus! I just want to experieince continual rebirth, to care, nurture, and develop others, to walk our the Word of God in my daily life, live it, to develop my inner ear to hear the still small voice of the Holy Spirit, to be able to envision the Church as a bride without spot or wrinkle prepared for its wedding day.  As a kid, I want to play, imitating my Father. Ironically, as an adult I have learned to “play church”, but as a child I want to be the church; I just want the freedom and release to just do it!