MOMENTS OR MOVEMENTS

This past weekend I got fixated on yet another History Channel documentary. I was flipping channels and noticed the title,
“Woodstock:Then and Now”
With my love of all things music and the fact that I wish I had grown up in the Woodstock era of music the television froze on this channel for the next two hours. Now there was nothing new or revelatory to me in the first one hour and fifty-eight minuets of this doc.

I have seen all the video clips.
I have heard all the performances.
I have seen all the interviews.
I have seen all the controversies that led to this rock altering event.

In other words I was not looking for anything new. It was fresh hearing the perspectives of the artists that performed, and the attenders who were, well, attending. But nothing earth shattering.
Each person gave a great account of what it was like. It was almost as if you were living it through them and felt as if you had been there too.
Just as I was about to turn the channel a man came on the screen that I had never seen in these documentaries before.
He was the producer of Woodstock.
He booked the talent.
He was the one that literally pulled it off for the guy whose brainchild this was.
His insight was new.
His insight was different.
He talked about the festivals that followed Woodstock in 1969.
He talked about how they each tried to mimic what happened at Woodstock, but it never happened again.
These other festivals ended in riots. In fact one of them ended with four students killed at Kent St.
Then he said this, “Woodstock was nothing more than a great moment in history. We wanted it to cause a movement, but these other festivals were proof positive that even though it was a great moment…it was nothing more than that. Movements alter history forever, and even though Woodstock altered music forever, history itself went back to business as usual.”

My jaw was on the ground. I immediately wrote it down. I paused the DVR and played it back again. This was such a profound statement.
I began to look at my context of life.
I eat, breathe, and sleep church world.
I long to see the church create a movement in the Kingdom that will alter the world towards Christ.
But I realized something…
Every weekend in churches all around the country we are creating something.
I would love to say that we are all creating little movements for the Kingdom, but could it be that we are just creating little moments that are simply not as effective as we could be.
Now stay with me. I am not saying that we are ineffective. But keep reading.
Could it be that we, much like those other festivals after Woodstock, have become more prone to mimic other churches and try to create a moment that we thought was cool instead of creating a movement in our own communities?
I have done it.
I have gone to the cool church, in another state, doing creative stuff, reaching their community, and thought…WE SHOULD BE DOING THAT!!!
But why?
My heart is right. I want people to experience the movement that I experienced there. But usually I end up creating a second rate version of what I experienced. Why?
Because the church that I deemed cooler than mine really was not cooler. They have simply grasped that they are to create a movement for their community. Each of us have been called to create a movement for the Kingdom, but unfortunately we get wrapped up in creating moments that are second rate mimics of other churches instead of being a unique voice for our corner of the Kingdom.
So what about you? Are you creating Moments or Movements in your life and church?

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