In the weeks and months ahead, I expect to be going home after 2 years of being in another place, another town, another state. As I think about going home, images run through my mind, little pictures of things, scenes, and people. I think of my patio, my back yard, my house. I think of the people there that I miss so much, I think of my “home church” family I miss so much and I look forward to getting back to “normal life” again. I catch myself doing this, even though I know better, for nothing will be the same as it was.

I am different now; the people there are different now. The house has changed, the yard and patio have changed, the church family has changed; everything and everyone has changed… except my memories. What used to be “normal” is now but a figment of my imagination.

Things there are not different because I have been gone for 2 years, for had I been in that location, change would have taken place anyway, only I might not have noticed it.

Believe it or not, this has everything to do with our discussion of “church”. Churches change over time, because the people change over time. Often these changes are very slight, often these changes aren’t really noticed, but the compounding effects of many miniscule changes can be huge and yet the people involved may not notice the effects. This is very much the same scenario as the frog in the kettle.

The very first time my wife and I walked into what became our “home church” nobody spoke to us… they stared at us, they pointed at us and whispered to one another; this is no exaggeration: Maybe it was a fluke, but it is no exaggeration. We went back there anyway, and over time people relaxed around us and started talking. I can’t tell you how many times we were asked, “Why have you come here?” It seemed like we were crashing a party!

After more time passed, I discovered a curious thing: These good folks sincerely believed that they were a very friendly and loving congregation!

In truth however, they were a congregation on life support, but no one had noticed, for they had grown so comfortable in their sameness that they had forgotten what church is all about. I am happy to report that this congregation today is nothing like that, for by God’s grace they have awakened from their slumber and have grown into a force for the Gospel of Jesus Christ… but it took time for this to happen.

My intention in writing this post is to transition from our little discussion of “church” into a short series on a related topic that I will take from the book of Revelation. I actually concluded this by saying that what will follow is a discussion of Revelation 2 and 3. Yep, I wrote that ending and scheduled this post Thursday morning. After that I thought some more…

…and I finally decided: It’s time to do Revelation here on The Life Project, not just the letters to the seven churches, but the whole thing. Thus, now approaching noon on Thursday, I’m editing the original I scheduled a couple of hours ago.

To be honest with you, I have shied away from Revelation in past because of two considerations. First, because I really didn’t want to turn my comments section into a “war zone” fierce arguments about how the book should be understood, as inevitably happens if you don’t present the prevailing orthodoxy on the subject. Yep, I’ve danced that dace enough over the years, and it bores me to death now that I have achieved advanced old age. The other consideration was that I hadn’t yet figured out how to best present something like this in the blog format. Should I use my normal “see it’s simple” approach, should I do a neutral presentation of all views, or should I play the innocent fool and “stumble into” the meaning of it as I did with Song of Songs… which was a sort of trial of that method? Perhaps I should just put my “professor” hat back on and do an academic presentation for the next several years…

I still haven’t figured it out!

So I’m just going to present it and see what happens next. I’ll begin the introduction when next we get together, see you then.