In ministry, some things must never change, but others must change constantly.
Clearly, God’s five purposes for his church are non-negotiable. If a church fails to balance the five purposes of worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry and evangelism, then it’s no longer a healthy church, and it’s in danger of becoming simply a social club.
On the other hand, the way or style in which we fulfill these eternal purposes must continually be adjusted and modified because human culture is always changing.
For instance, when I first started Saddleback Church, fresh out of Southwestern Seminary, computers were in their infancy, slow and cumbersome and capable of very limited functions. The Internet was just a crude academic network and nobody had even heard of email. Now I often sit in my pajamas and have conversations with people across the globe.
In addition, you can get on a plane and within a few hours fly to almost anywhere in the world, and that means there’s even less of an excuse for not being involved in foreign missions, even if just for the short-term. The times, they are a-changing, and they’ll keep right on a-changing whether we want them to or not.
And that’s why at Saddleback, any time a new tool becomes available, we embrace it. Before the world wide web, there was Gopher, and Saddleback used it. And we’ve used the web, Facebook, Twitter and every other major social media tool since.
Our message must never change, but the way we deliver that message must be constantly updated to reach each new generation.
In other words, our message of transformation must never change while the transformation of our presentation should be continual, adapting to the new languages of our culture.
Consider this: The word contemporary literally means with temporariness. By nature, nothing contemporary is meant to last forever! It is only effective for a while and only relevant in that particular moment—which is what makes it contemporary.
What is considered contemporary and relevant in the next 10 years will inevitably appear dated and tired in 20 years. As a pastor, I’ve watched churches adopt many contemporary styles in worship, programming, architecture, music and evangelism. That’s OK, as long as the biblical message is unchanged.
