Work in the church long enough and you are sure to hear the phrase “but we’ve always done it this way.” While not heard exclusively in Lutheran circles it is certainly heard exhaustively when change is suggested. So often this phrase drowns potential creativity and innovation before it can even get its sea legs much less learn to swim. Imagine if when Jesus told the disciples to cast their net in the other side of the boat instead of listening they had replied, “but we’ve always done it this way.” Their nets would have remained empty. There is an emptiness in the church right now, one that for too long has only been insufficiently filled with the tired sentiment, “but we’ve always done it this way. This pastor is ready to suggest what if we flip the script and say, “we’ve never done it that way before” and then actually try it? How can God make all things new if we, God’s people, Christ’s hands and feet, keep clinging to our same old ways and walking in the same direction? Let’s try doing something, anything, in a way we’ve never done it before and just see what God does.
