Adapting With the Times

When I was younger, there was a chain of restaurants across the midwestern states called "The Red Barn." They had really good hamburgers and fried chicken. The franchise grew to several hundred stores located in 19 states by the late 1980s. But today, they are all gone. I was thinking about them last week and got to wondering why they are all gone. They had good food, a comfortable atmosphere that made an enjoyable dining experience. Still, they went the way of the dinosaur. After thinking about it for a while I came up with this thought" "It doesn’t matter how awesome your hamburgers are if nobody wants to eat hamburgers."  As America went through the '90s and the "yuppy" period and people began eating more healthy, the Red Barn did not adapt to the food that many people wanted to eat... so the people stopped coming... and they are now gone.

There is a lesson in this for the church. If we fail to adapt to the times and the culture, we will become irrelevant and useless. No matter how good our preaching or music, if it does not fit what is needed then it will become unappealing and the church will die. The message of the Gospel must never be compromised, but our methods must adapt and change. So many people complain that they want the old-style music back in the churches and so on, but that is selfish. They are not thinking about reaching a the younger generation. Red Barn made a great burger... but people were looking for low fat, low cholesterol and stopped eating at Red Barn. The church can ill-afford to follow that same pattern, or we too shall find ourselves with shuttered windows.