Living three blocks from the fairgrounds is a good or bad thing depending upon what you think of the fair.<\/p>\n I get most of my fair jollies just sitting on the front porch. Watching the parade of happy people walking to the fair early in the day as they park somewhere beyond my house.<\/p>\n And, then, I am blessed with the occasional treasure of seeing the exact same people coming back later that night\u2026 transformed.<\/p>\n Tired, broke, sun burnt or freezing (it\u2019s Kansas, you know) and almost always \u201cless happy.\u201d<\/p>\n This people watching is a little thing I have learned to enjoy in the last seven years of living here in Hutch. I do it every year as I listen to the concerts from the comfort of my porch swing.<\/p>\n You know what else doesn\u2019t change?<\/p>\n The Fair!<\/p>\n That\u2019s amazing to me.<\/p>\n And, honestly, I love it.<\/p>\n Why?<\/p>\n Because it makes my wife think I\u2019m a genius.<\/p>\n Every year at the fair she\u2019ll be looking for something, somewhere that she can barely\/vaguely describe and I take her right to it.<\/p>\n Then she looks up at me with those big beautiful eyes of hers, with a look I remember from our dating days, and she says \u201cYou\u2019re amazing! How do you navigate this.\u201d<\/p>\n With a cocky sneer, a little grab of the belt loop to hike the pants a tad, I humbly reply, \u201cBaby, it\u2019s just a guy thing.\u201d<\/p>\n We (humanity) love familiarity! It\u2019s comfortable, it\u2019s safe, it\u2019s easy.<\/p>\n Even those of us who push for change and claim to abhor the mundane for the new, we still have our routines.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a horrible confession, but even as I sit here in this coffeeshop writing this blog, my brand new 3G iPhone is pumping\u2026 Air Supply\u2019s Greatets Hits into my brain.<\/p>\n Why? Because no one writes music like that anymore, and I’ll fight you over that!<\/p>\n Here I am, the one that you love, asking for another day\u2026. (pause, enjoy, remember… ah) Change is hard, even for those of us who\u00a0push for it, but change is necessary for growth, development and progress. Sure, there will always be those who stand back and think it\u2019s a tragedy that we left the old ways behind. They are \u201cLost In Love\u201d for the past. They are \u201cAll Out Of Love\u201d for the future. They can\u2019t stand taking \u201cChances.\u201d They aren\u2019t able to grasp that \u201cYou\u2019re Every Woman In The World To Me.\u201d<\/p>\n Someone save me. I need an iTunes card. That last one didn\u2019t even make any sense.<\/p>\n Change is a Biblical must:<\/p>\n 21 <\/sup>\u201cNo one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. 22 <\/sup>And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins.\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n The Holy Bible\u00a0 : New International Version, electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996, c1984), Mk 2:21-22.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n In this passage Jesus was talking about far more than change itself. He was talking about religion, faith, theology, fasting, but in each of these areas He was talking about change that was necessary.<\/p>\n You can\u2019t pour the brand new into the old. It\u2019ll break and both will be ruined. We have to let go of past if we\u2019re going to get a hold of the future without losing sight of the purpose, meaning and significance of both.<\/p>\n It\u2019s difficult to say the least; almost as difficult as not ending a sentence with a preposition like both (Man! Now I\u2019ve done it twice).<\/p>\n I saw a great example of change this past Sunday. Tough, arduous, hard-fought change, but change that was worth it.<\/p>\n I haven\u2019t been in services for our church for just over a month as I have been recovering from brain surgery. But, this weekend I went to our Sterling campus.<\/p>\n As a church we have changed. Seven years ago we were a traditional little Baptist church of about 140 people.<\/p>\n Today we are a multi-site, faith community with video-driven venues and campuses across the state weekly seeing form 1,200 to 1,500 in attendance. We have two campuses in Hutchinson, and one in Sterling, Hays, Salina and Great Bend.<\/p>\n Obviously, things have changed.<\/p>\n As I sat there to worship in a gymnasium there in Sterling I heard the excitement about the new building that\u2019s nearing completion. I listened to the Celebrate Recovery Band lead the music. I watched the well-written, fantastically edited and polished video teachings on worship from our team.<\/p>\n The service was great, and I was in awe.<\/p>\n The quality was top-notch, and I was awestruck.<\/p>\n Then the intangible hit me, and I was amazed.<\/p>\n God had gently whispered in my ear, \u201cHey Andy, they did all this without you.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019d admit that I teared up, if I ever admit that I cry. But, that\u2019s not going to happen.<\/p>\n I sat there thinking Daniel, great job. Paul, wow! Rod and Bobby, way to go. Shivawn, yes! Irv, you the man. Matt, you go boy.<\/p>\n The list could go on and on, but all I could think was that seven years ago we could not have pulled that off at even one campus. And, if we tried I would have had to put my hand on every element of it. From picking songs, to shooting and editing the video, to setting up the equipment.<\/p>\n It\u2019s no slight on anyone, its just that seven years ago we didn\u2019t have the skill sets. But, as I sat there this weekend I was overwhelmed. I couldn\u2019t be more proud of my church family, my staff and my Lord.<\/p>\n Oh the changes He has wrought in us, in me!<\/p>\n Some have come easy, some have been battles and as sure as Rick Dees Weekly Top 40<\/em> was the best radio program ever, more changes are going to come for us as a church, as families and as individuals.<\/p>\n That is, if we want to grow or go anywhere.<\/p>\n We could take the familiar, the easy, the safe, but tomorrow we\u2019d be the same people and the same church we are today.<\/p>\n And, I know that\u2019s not what God wants for us.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. <\/sup><\/strong>The Holy Bible\u00a0 : New International Version, electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996, c1984), Php 1:6.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Change is in the DNA of the believer. It\u2019s what got us to become believers!<\/p>\n So whatever obstacle is before you, don\u2019t run from it, embrace it.<\/p>\n Change must come if we are His people.<\/p>\n And, when we come to the other side of our difficult transitions we will see that \u201cEven The Nights Are Better.\u201d<\/p>\n … I need help.<\/p>\n For those who are not geographically aware of this bloggers location, the following statement won\u2019t mean much:<\/p>\n It\u2019s State Fair time!<\/p>\n Living three blocks from the fairgrounds is a good or bad thing depending upon what you think of the fair.<\/p>\n The Addis from high atop the Weenie Wheel. I get most of my fair jollies just sitting on the front porch. Watching the parade of happy people walking to the fair early in the day as they park somewhere beyond my house.<\/p>\n And, then, I am blessed with the occasional treasure of seeing the exact same people coming back later that night\u2026 transformed.<\/p>\n Tired, broke, sun burnt or freezing (it\u2019s Kansas, you know) and almost always \u201cless happy.\u201d<\/p>\n This people watching is a little thing I have learned to enjoy in the last seven years of living here in Hutch. I do it every year as I listen to the concerts from the comfort of my porch swing.<\/p>\n You know what else doesn\u2019t change? The Fair!<\/p>\n That\u2019s amazing to me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,8],"tags":[138,15,139,29,34,141,53,59,140,482,137],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":627,"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620\/revisions\/627"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.crosseyedlife.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"The](\"http:\/\/one-church.net\/crosseyedlife\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/09\/The-Wheel-300x225.jpg\" "\\"The")
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\n The Addis from high atop the Weenie Wheel.<\/p>\n