Dinosaur

This, some days, is how I feel. 

I was ordained nearly thirty years ago, and was training for ministry for three years before that. In the last millennium. Most vicars still wore frocks in church, even though they were all men then. Most churches still had their own vicar. Lots of churches still used the Prayer Book brought in under Henry VIII and his kids. Some churches were considered avant garde because, alongside the pipe organ and robed choir, they also had a guitar. The real pioneers were embracing the new technology: Roneo duplicators, OHPs, Amstrad word processors, faxes and a pager for the vicar.

Now, in the age of Zoom church, surfing church, Insta influencing, TikTok, online worship, cafe church, forest church, new monasticism, vision and strategy, minster communities and more, all that stuff I started with looks so quaint and archaic. I still wear a frock and like a good liturgy, and I feel like a dinosaur. 

So am I against all the new ways, wishing I could turn back the clock? Not in the least. We keep moving forward: of course we do. In the end it's mostly froth anyway - in another thirty years all this new brilliance will look quaint and archaic too. But in amongst all this we're still pursuing what really matters: loving God, loving others, seeking the kingdom of God, practicing peace and radical hospitality to friends, enemies and strangers alike, praying and living as though the God we talk about was actually real. 

We all become dinosaurs in the end. It's ok. But unless the asteroid comes, I'll still be turning up week by week, day by day (even in my frock) because the stuff we do matters. No matter how we do it.