Steve Kneale wrote recently in Evangelicals Now about the danger of nostalgia. He was responding to a recent spate of articles letters and blogs which seem to harp back to some golden era in the life of the church when churches held three teaching meetings a week and the pastor led all of them.
David Randell has offered his response here. Unfortunately, his response has been to attack Steve’s article as “misrepresentation” and offer an outright denial of any risk of nostalgia on the part of those he describes as “senior ministers.”
It is perhaps a little ironic that he starts his article denying nostalgia by offering us a little nostalgia by starting with an illustration that ha
The illustration is of the teacher placing stones, sand and water into a jar and at each stage surprising their students as the jar continues to have room for more when they think it is full
Yes, we know that the secret to fitting all of those things in the jar means putting the big stones in first. However, this presumes that we agree on what counts as big stones and what counts as stones. It of course then assumes that you want those stones and sand in the jar in the first place. Perhaps the real punchline should have been “You can fit a lot of pointless stuff in a jar that would be better used for carrying sweets, flour or sugar.”
So, before we go any further let’s talk about what those big stones are that David says we need to get in first. Surely for an elder the big stones are the things he is meant to do in order to care for the flock. At the most basic level that means he is responsible for provision and protection. We might say that specifically he needs to be concerned for teaching and discipleship in order to feed the church good food and protect them from wolves and false shepherds.
Initially, David seems to agree with this. He recognises that Scripture doesn’t say whether or not we should have Sunday Schools or evening services. And yet, with the next breath he claims that if there is a loss of appetite for those things then it is a sign of poor spiritual health. No David it isn’t and cannot be such a sign of appetites for styles and structures not mandated in Scripture change. The issue is when there is a loss of appetite for God’s word, when there is a loss of dependency on the Holy Spirit, a loss of concern for evangelism and a loss of passion for holiness. As I’ve said so many times, the number of meetings you have at your building are not indicators either way on this.
What a pastor should be constantly doing is keeping an eye on all aspects of Church life with a continuing concern to protect and provide. In the analogy, I would suggest that the mechanics of how he goes about fulfilling those responsibilities are the sand and water.
But what this means is that we cannot simplistically impose Acts which deals with an aspect of the apostles’ relationship to one part of the church to the contemporary church offices of elder and deacon.
Furthermore, we cannot dismiss things as just admin to delegate out to when they require significant time and attention not just a few volunteer hours in the evening and when there is leadership accountability for them.
On a side note, I recently saw it argued that a good way for a pastor to preach twice on a Sunday was to stop worrying about being original and make greater use of other people’s sermons. Now I’ve seen the art of fleshing out another preachers’ sermon bones done well and done badly. However, the elephant in the room is:
“What is the point of doing that when people can listen to those sermons for themselves online?”
The irony of David’s response is that it seems to unwittingly engage in nostalgia. Even the claim that the “senior” guys can do no wrong and are just wanting to return us to New Testament habits is an exercise in nostalgia hunting.
You see, here is the thing, of course Steve was right to warn about the danger of nostalgia. Of course there is more than likely to be a tinge of such a desire in the longing to return to a disappearing rhythm of church life. The reality is that most, dare I say, all of us are drawn to nostalgia.
I am an elder in a church which aims to be contemporary and informal in its style of worship etc. That means there are lots of old hymns and songs I remember from my childhood that I’m not likely to sing again. I’m unlikely to experience the kind of Christmas Day, Easter or Harvest type service that I remember from my childhood, or even that we used at our previous church.
I am drawn to nostalgia for things from my past. We all are. In fact, there is neither no shame in that, nor nothing wrong in it of itself. The problem comes when we fail to recognise it.
You see, the fact that I have a nostalgic attachment to something doesn’t mean that the thing in and if itself is wrong. I alluded to the fact that I have certain nostalgic memories of the big church events from my childhood but also that we leaned into them at my last church. You see, the big Harvest festival, Easter and Good Friday events worked well in our context then. I wasn’t (I hope) just imposing my nostalgia on the church.
There are other things that don’t go back years, innovations we ourselves introduced that I might.be even more tempted to look back on with nostalgia.
Yet, if I am not aware of the nostalgic pull then I may not be able to make good assessments of what is needed now. There are things which we have tried in our new church setting including a Good Friday event as well as suggesting a couple of older hymns because whether or not I felt nostalgic about them they seemed to have value. Other things will not be attempted because they won’t be useful here.
Some things may or may not be useful but simply are not possible either because the church does not have space or time or we don’t have the energy for them. For example, we really refined and developed the idea of an interactive cafe style church in Bearwood that I think was pretty unique.
We aren’t in a position to do the same here but I have made use of aspects of what we learnt there in my approach to Bible teaching in a new setting.
Finally, there may be times when nostalgia can be a hindrance to something that is good in and if itself. For example, there is a balancing act between the.fsmiliar traditions of a Carol Service drawing people in and opening doors to Gospel engagement versus the danger that the Gospel message is lost in sentimentality.
I am disappointed because Steve’s article opened up the opportunity for an honest conversation about nostalgia and that opportunity has been lost.
Faithroots 