A parable for the church today

Not too long ago a church some new equipment. The church needed some updated equipment for they had been using the same stuff for 20 years. Finally the day arrived and everything was installed. The church would be able to finally be able to give their best for the kingdom of God as soon as they learned how to use everything and the new pastor of the church was encouraged as he handed the manuals of the sound board and DVD player to the media director to take home. Most everything was the same but on the old DVD player the remote had “title” instead of “menu” for the main menu and had a simple “enter” instead of having also a “play” button on the remote. The sound board had 4 channels where you could double up 2 inputs for stereo therefore after channel 16 came channel 17/18 instead of just 17 and so on. No biggie the pastor thought since we were now after a year of slowly directing the congregation to reach out to the new generation. He got to church on Sunday to find a note from the media director that he came to get a feel for the new equipment before Sunday. The Pastor whose heart was ready for this grand opening and gateway to a new era for the old church to be a force in this struggling community with many lost people turning from God due to the religious people stuck in the past immediately had his heart fall past his stomach. The reason being the manuals, still in their packages unused, sat next to markers marking up the board with everything lined up the way the old board was. Sitting next to a DVD remote with play and menu blotched out with marker and the words enter and title written in beside them. You see we hold on to the way things always have been not realizing the instruction book had all the right answers all along. Like the manuals, we never break open the bible to realize that when we change how the gospel is presented but not the message we are doing nothing but killing the ministry the church was sent out to do.
This isn’t a post about the way we do things or what philosophy is right. This is a post to let us process our attitude and outlook on being God’s hand reaching out or doing what we have always have done because, at least to us, it has always worked.