Looking to the Future
Leith Anderson
It is enormously important which direction people are looking. But how can we move from looking backward to looking forward?
—Leith Anderson As soon as people walk into a church, they can tell if it is oriented toward the past or the future. They don't discover that by what they see as much as by what they hear. When I visit a church or catch conversations in my congregation, I listen to how people talk about one subject: the greatest days of the church. At one well-known midwestern church, for example, visitors may hear people say: "I remember when folks lined up to get into evening services. Conventions of major national associations were held here. When people came to town, they attended here." Their glory days are past, not future. The result, for both the listeners and people speaking, is an overwhelming feeling of sadness. When I came to Wooddale Church, people spoke similarly: "I remember when we used to.… I remember when attendance was growing instead of declining." I found it emotionally difficult to be involved in conversations in which people quoted somebody else's sermon, said the music or the ushering was better before I came, or pointed out that this week's attendance was lower than the previous week's. I knew, as every pastor does, that it is enormously important which direction the people are looking. But how could we move from looking backward to looking forward? How could I shift people's wistful gaze at the past to an expectant peering into the future? The God Who Transcends Time
It takes a great deal of faith and courage for a pastor to switch the direction people look. It demands waiting it out and working it out. There is not one simple answer. But the starting point for any answer lies in God. Vision is rooted ...
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