The Old Order Changeth...

By A. Ralph Johnson

"The old order changeth, giving place to new,
Lest one good custom, should corrupt the world." -The Passing of King Arthur

It is early Sunday morning, and I had a restless night. Yesterday was work day at the church grounds and last night I couldn't sleep, so I got up and looked out the window across the parking lot at our building next door. It had been a long day and I was tired. My wife was sleeping and somehow I felt in a kind of strange mood, --like when you get to thinking bout the old place where you were raised and things you did as a kid. In the lights around the building I watched the rain gently falling, sparkling and dancing off the leaves of the trees.. I had a sense of being in a long night in back in Coos Bay, Oregon, where I was brought up, with one of those damp, chilling, coastal fogs drifting in around me. Outside I could hear an occasional roll of thunder in the distance.

The day had begun early with taking care of reading and responding to my email. I looked out and already there were a couple of cars in the parking lot. My wife remarked that it looked like the team was already getting going.

For many years we have set aside one Saturday a month to work maintaining the church grounds. We have several acres of land and it takes a lot of maintenance.

Accordingly, the previous Saturday the deacons met with the elders to report on their plans. They listed the projects to be done. We are getting crowded and they were to re-wire the sound system in preparation for removing the back wall and opening up another twelve feet to auditorium use. Chairs have been ordered and new carpeting is planned.

Unfortunately, whenever anything is changed it intrudes on someone's territory. The daycare would have to make concessions. Some classes would be effected.. Colors would be chosen for the carpeting. Progress requires that everyone give.

Well, it was time to go. I got ready and went out onto the back porch. The big garage door was open and some of the guys were busily coming and going. I went down the stairs and walked towards the shop to see what was going on.

The garage is especially my territory. I have stocked it with tools. It is the engine room that keeps everything on the property working. It houses a couple of riding lawnmowers, leaf blowers, and all kinds of tools. Got to watch things close. People borrow without checking things out and don't bring them back. They break things and don't tell you. They handle things carelessly and damage them or endanger themselves and others.

I was met by Don Berg, one of the deacons. He is the cheer leader of the team. He was already getting things going and started with his usual, "Ain't things great! Already the fellows are getting busy," and started ticking off what was going on. Some of the young guys were getting the mowers going and starting to cut the grass. Others were working on the sound system. A lady was starting to repair a broken seat in a boat we have in the play yard. "Ain't things great!"

I began touring the property, checking on what was being done, --"mothering," they call it. At the same time my wife came back from my son's place next door saying that he needed some advice replacing a garage door with some glass doors to turn it into a room. I felt a little frustrated. How could I keep watch on what was going on at the church and help him too?

I went over and he was having trouble with a tool he had borrowed that uses 22-shells to drive nails into concrete. It wouldn't work. It appeared to have no firing mechanism. After fiddling with it for a while, he took off to rent a tool to do the job. I went back to check on how things were going at the church..

They were humming right along like they didn't need me at all. More people had arrived and Darrel Jones, our second deacon, and another fellow, were trying to get our green John Deer riding lawnmower going. The starter would not work. Finally! Something I could contribute to. I told him that the last time that happened they used a rod and hammer to bang the starter. He cracked a joke about it and went for a tool, and soon it was going.

I noticed the Nursery door open and stopped in. Some of the women were busy sorting things. They had plans to make some big changes. That ugly carpet had to go!

That always makes me nervous. I am a saver. That is how we got where we are with no debts other than a few payments on the parsonage. I had saved and cut costs, and made do for all these years. I was born in the year of the Great Depression and had learned well the importance of not wasting anything.

"These women just don’t have any sense of value. They want to throw everything out. One of them has a slogan, "If something is not used in five years, throw it away." She is positively dangerous! They kid me that they are going to send her over to clean up my garage. Horrors!"

The nursery has been a sore point for some time. Along one wall there are some cabinets, a clothing closet and a food storage area. The clothing and food storage areas had been my pet projects to provide for the needy but they had finally sent the clothing to some other outlets and the food was rarely used. It seems no one needs much. I hate to see it abandoned. Aren't we supposed to clothe and feed people? So many things are going now. People just don't seem to care about all these important projects.

They have changed our music. They have changed the order of services. They have changed our Wednesday night prayer meetings at the church to small groups in the homes. Changes, changes, changes! All people seem to want is change.

I have spent so much effort managing and doing things that almost any change is to something I was involved in. I have done plumbing, built walls, and put in heating systems, bell systems, burglary systems and fire systems. I even made modifications and lived in one end of the building for a year after we bought it from the school district. I had put a lot of effort into those things. People just do not know what they are doing when they start tearing things out and making changes.

Tear this out. Throw that away. Replace something else. Doesn't anybody like things the way they are?

What about the cost? And, why don't they care about how it is going to affect others. This is a multiple use building. It is for daycare, days. On Sunday there are different classes for Bible School and worship services. Again, it is used in the evening. On Mondays the youth group and our college classes use it. Some outside groups also use various areas at different times. You have to think of how other people will be affected. Nobody seems to care about anything but what they want.

I wandered back to the Nursery and saw a sliding cabinet door that needed fixing. I went after my little handy-dandy battery operated drill to fix it before they decided to throw it away.. One of the ladies collared me about the changes they wanted to make. She pointed out that we did not need the closet and food cabinet, and that the room really needed the space. Yeah, but... I must be getting soft. I reluctantly conceded it made good sense, internally let a tear drop for my projects, and relented, making a joke about her being able to soften me up. Another lady standing by said they needed to remember to use her more often.

I walked into the auditorium where some were talking about changes they would need to make in arranging things when they removed the back wall. One of the guys called attention to some long low cabinets used for daycare storage. I had found them someplace, cut them in two, and put casters on them so they could be moved easily. Some wanted to get rid of them but I had objected that they were needed. I had spent a lot of effort on them and here they wanted to throw them out! He suggested that they remove the casters on one and attach it to the top of the other. That way they would not take up so much floor space. It seemed ridiculous to me but I said nothing. These people are obsessed with throwing things out. The next thing, it will be me!

I went outside and noticed they had chosen a lot of toys to get rid of. Some time ago we had purchased walkers, children's beds and furniture, and they had been dumped. Here they were at it again. Some even wanted to get rid of the display of books for sale I had put in a cabinet in the entrance area to encourage getting religious materials into the homes.

I walked towards the garage and noted that the dumpster was full and a pile of discarded things was growing beside it. There was a children's playpen--in perfectly good shape! Worst of all, there was this wonderful big solid baby changing table that someone had given us, with big drawers underneath where you could put lots of things. True, they tended to fill up with junk, but it was solid. One lady had actually called it a "monstrosity!" To replace it, they had bought a flimsy infant change thing that would never work for the heavy use of older children of the daycare. There it was in the trash heap, and they had not even asked me!

I went to the garage. They were working on our yellow riding mower. What is wrong? Oh, the pulley had seized up. They had it out and Darrell Jones was telling them to put it in a vice and pound out the rod that holds the pulley. They hit it a couple of times with a heavy hammer and the pulley bent. Throw it all away and buy a new one. Darrell went to phone to order the new parts.

I could see no nailing hammers in the garage so I went back to the church. A couple of fellows were putting wallboard up. Don showed me the wiring for the sound system and the way they were going to hook things up. He had one of the men lined up to build a movable cart on which to place the new sound controls so they could be rolled out of a closet where they would be locked. He showed the progress they had made installing the new mike sockets on the stage. It was pretty impressive. Quite a change. Of course, all those old things, upon which we had spent thousands of dollars, would have to go.

I have trouble understanding the importance of a "perfect" sound. When I started we learned to preach from our diaphragm and put the sound in the bleachers! It was a real change when we got just a mike and an amp. We installed them and were happy to have them, but now they do not have the proper "impedance" and are "obsolete." They are putting in a square yard of controls and huge black boxes blasting out all over the auditorium. With all the bang, wailing and thumping they do you can't hear the words of the songs anymore. At my age I can't hear all those distinctions of sounds they talk about anyway.

Then he really blew me away. They were going to get rid of that "big old ugly pulpit" and replace it with a new one. That hit a really sensitive spot! That pulpit has been with us from the purchase of our very first building back in 1955. We bought it from the Christian Science Society of Riverton. It is a huge old thing that they used for two people to stand side by side while alternately reading the Bible and Mrs. Eddy's books. We had done some refinishing and put, "Do This In Remembrance Of Me" across the front, for the Lord's Supper. I had put casters on it to move it around when we had plays on the stage. That pulpit represented a lot of memories in our past.

I cringed inwardly but only suggested that the new one be on wheels and that it have the capability of raising and lowering the top for speakers of different heights, --since I am so short. Maybe I could find room in the garage to save the old one and bring it out later for some other use.

Then I asked where the hammers were. We looked and could find only one --with a wooden handle that was cracked. I told him I was going to go to the store and buy a half dozen more. Maybe eventually everyone would have one and we could keep a few around to work on the church!

Don asked if I was going right away. If I was, he would go with me. He had some things to get to finish the wiring conduit. So, we made a list and I grabbed some checks. We piled into his Bronco, and headed off for Eagle Hardware. We walked through the tool department, coveting some of the equipment, bought our hammers, a couple of measuring tapes, his conduit, and went to the checkout stand.

While there, he got a call on his cell phone about some parts his company needed to do a job in Louisiana. On our way back to the church building we talked about how amazing it was that while going to the store for things for the church he could manage a project for his company on the other side of the nation. Amazing, how the world has changed in my 67 years. I had been raised in a log cabin, starting out with no plumbing or electricity, much less a telephone, and we had used a horse to plow, and now this! Don said you couldn't do that even five years ago.

Back at the church property, my son sent my grandson to get me. He needed help again. I went over for a little while, but I just had to get back and watch over things.

As I walked back, a couple of the young fellows were looking at our wheel-mounted blower for clearing the parking lot of leaves. They were huffing and puffing, pulling on the starter cord, but the thing just wouldn't make that last turn-over to get going. I told them that the "Old man," Chuck Mitchell, a fellow elder, starts it every Saturday and kidded them that all it needed was a "big JERK on the end of the line." I suggested they get a can of starter fluid from the garage. They did and it started right off. And so it went, as I split my time between the church and my son's project.

The whole day went like that. They didn't seem to need me much. Things were rolling right along, --and that pile of things they were throwing out was growing.

About two o'clock the ladies had lunch prepared and we stopped to eat. We serve it late because as soon as people eat they begin to think it is time to go. Eating that late drives Don Fleming, our director of evangelism, up the wall. How that guy can eat so much and not get fat like me is a real puzzle!

Finally, after everyone had gone and I was doing my usual job of getting the tools back where they belonged, I felt alone, tired and moody. I had done so much on that building and property. Now things were being changed and thrown away right and left. The day would come when all the work I had done would be discarded and forgotten. Couldn't they at least wait until I was gone?

It seems that everything is going that way these days. The men who brought me to Christ and influenced my life are "passing one by one" (Bill Paul's poem at the Funeral of Burton Barber). There are only a few hangers-on left. Now those my age are beginning to go also. Recently, Bill and I had lunch with a brother who was in town for the week, that we knew when we were in school back in Iowa. I listened as they listed a number of other class-mates who had died, or were struggling with cancer, heart problems or some other disease. I had the overwhelming sensation of a loudly ticking clock in an empty room, counting off the hours of my life as we move towards the end. I must hurry and try to get things completed soon.

And then what? I could see them taking my meager possessions of any value, distributing them among the family, and my socks and clothes being sent to the Good Will. This was unsettling. There are many other things I have saved that are, to me, very important. Letters I have received. Little momentous of my past. Pictures. Videos. Tapes. Nice notes or poems that people have written to me. These are a part of me. What value will they be to those who are left?

Most of all, what about the church? There are so many files on my computer. Important things! Some are very personal. Who will have the time, or care, to go through all of this and decide what to save and what to dump? Yes, I must to hurry to get things sorted .

Will the college program be scrapped? Will the daycare be abandoned? What will happen to our churches? These young bucks who are taking over make me uneasy. It seems they want to change or throw out everything we have struggled so hard to accomplish. They couldn't care less about what we went through to get where we are. If they keep on we will be right back where we started.

Then, as I sat there, gazing out into the lonely night, my thoughts began to move in a different direction. It has not all been a waste. So much has been accomplished, and God will complete His work. It is not the "things" that matter, or what I think or like. What is really important is the people. The things thrown away are dead objects that will pass anyway. Those living, eager children of God, working and taking the initiative, --that is what lasts. That is really what I have been working and praying for all these years. That is where the true values are. They are the fruit of all of the effort and time spent cultivating. These are my brothers, sisters and children. They have absorbed the teachings of the scriptures and are now making decisions and changes to meet their thinking and needs. That is why I came here. The junk they throw out is nothing. What they have saved is vision and hope, and a caring for God.. As I am the result of efforts of countless men before me, so now they are taking up the baton to run the race a ways and, in turn, pass it to others.

When I came in I caused no end of concern to the older men, with my rambunctious and challenging behavior. It seemed I was dissatisfied with everything and totally reckless about what would be thrown out. Now it is my turn to hover, wringing my hands anxiously, as younger and less experienced fellows take over. Now, slowed by age, I find myself standing on the sidelines catching my breath as I watch the younger generation go racing by. They are charging forward, eager to change the world. Change it they will, just as we did, for good or for bad, and then they, in turn, will step aside and yield their place to others.

As I quipped to one of my kids who started telling me how he was going to do things differently, "when you grow up, you can make all of the mistakes you want. RIGHT NOW IT IS MY TURN!"

It is ordained, the new generation must have their chance to test their ideas and skills.

I have had the privilege of sharing in that effort, of teaching , counseling, and praying with them. Now their hands must grab the tools and go to work. Yes, the old order is changing. So it has ever been, and so it shall be until Jesus returns.

"This too shall pass."

Maranatha!

A. Ralph Johnson is an elder in the Glen Acres Church of Christ in Seattle, Washington. He may be reached at aralphj@msn.com. More of Ralph's articles may be found in the free section of The Preacher's Study.

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