People Get Ready

One of my favourite songs is “People Get Ready.” Written by Curtis Mayfield, this gospel-inspired tune was first recorded by the Impressions and since has been covered by Al Green, Bob Dylan, Rod Stewart, Bruce Springsteen and many, many others. The first verse goes like this,

People get ready, there’s a train a-coming

You don’t need no baggage, you just get on board

All you need is faith, to hear the diesels humming

Don’t need no ticket, you just thank the Lord.

To me it is a song about hope for the future. There is a better future a-coming and we need to prepare so that we are ready to get on board when it comes.

                There have been some changes happening at Walnut Grove Lutheran Church. We have been trying out some new services and we have been trying some different things in our 10:30 am Sunday service. Here’s why we are doing these new things. We are getting ready. We are getting ready for what God is going to do in the future. I do not know what the future will look like. That’s God’s domain, not mine. But I believe that WGLC needs to have two worship services in the future. I say that because offering another worship service in a different style than our present 10:30 am service will help more people connect with God through worship. And there is a spiritual hunger for something more than what we are presently offering.

                Worship is very important to a worshipping community like ours. And changes to worship are challenging because those changes impact everyone in some way. But the changes we make are not change for the sake of change. They are changes for the sake of God’s mission of seeking and saving the lost through His Son, Jesus Christ. The matrix through which we filter all of our decisions at WGLC is this: Is this going to help to draw people who are far from God closer to Him? If the answer is “Yes,” then we will do it. If the answer is “No,” then we won’t do it.  We want, with every fibre of our being, to fully engage with the mission of Jesus Christ. We want all people everywhere to come to life through faith in Jesus Christ. This means, as we seek to engage with the mission of Jesus Christ, that everything is on the table. Though I expect that our 10:30 am service will continue to be in the contemporary worship style, we have to be willing to make changes in the format, and perhaps even in the time, of that service for the sake of mission.

                So I ask for your patience and understanding as you experience change at WGLC. I even ask you to support changes that you do not like for the sake of God’s mission. It’s not about you or me and what we like. It’s about the missio Dei, God’s mission of saving people from an eternity of condemnation and suffering apart from God and bringing them to a life of meaning, purpose and joy with Jesus that will last forever. God’s mission has a church that exists to carry out that mission. If we abandon our mission, we lose our reason to exist.

                It is amazing to me that God invites us to join Him in the greatest rescue and restoration project ever! People’s lives will be positively impacted for all eternity because of the changes that we make in the here and now!

People get ready, there’s a train a-coming

You don’t need no baggage, you just get on board

All you need is faith, to hear the diesels humming

Don’t need no ticket, you just thank the Lord.

In His Service,

Pastor James