Changing Hearts

If you follow the news, or maybe even if you don’t, you’ve probably heard about the flap involving the existence of a confederate flag, along with a union flag and a cannon, on an emblem worn by the Gettysburg police department. 

Now, I’m not going to tell you what you should think or how you should feel about that.  That’s entirely up to you. What I want to do, though, is go through some of my own thoughts and feelings about this whole discussion.  The reason I want to do it is that I think there’s a point to be made in regard to the church and its mission.

My first reaction was to be upset at the news media for reporting on this in the first place.  Nobody in Gettysburg cared about it.  As far as I can tell, most people in Gettysburg didn’t even know about it.  Nobody had actually seen it on a Gettysburg policeman and been offended.  Why make this a story at all?  It felt like the media was trying to create a controversy where none existed.

After I thought about it, though, I calmed down.  After all, I’m one of those people who didn’t know of the existence of this emblem until the media reported on it.  So, what difference does it make to me whether Gettysburg police wear this patch?  How is my life affected by that in any way?  And of course, the answer is that it’s not.  So, I got over being upset about it.

I thought about it some more, though, because I wanted to know why I was so upset in the first place.  I think there were two reasons.  One, when these stories first hit, it felt like an attack on the place I live and, by extension, an attack on its people, including me.  When we’re attacked, our natural human impulse is to defend ourselves and strike back.  So that was one part of it.

Beyond that, though, what really had me upset was that this was a “controversy” that was entirely created by outsiders.  It was created by people who knew nothing about Gettysburg and showed no interest in finding out anything about Gettysburg.  They did not care about the town or its people.  And yet, they felt like they could come in and demand that we make changes to suit them.  My thought was, “What gives them the right to tell us what to do?  Who do these people think they are, anyway?”

And that brings me to the point about the church.  I think that sometimes, quite unintentionally, the church comes across that way to people who are not part of it.  When we start talking about sin and sinful behaviors to people who are not part of the church, they look at us as outsiders.  They look at us as people who know nothing about them and have shown no interest in finding out anything about them.  We’ve done nothing to show that we care about them.  And yet, we give the impression that we feel we can come in and demand that they make changes to suit us.  And their reaction is, “What give them the right to tell me what to do?  Who do these church people think they are, anyway?”

Now, don’t misunderstand me.  I’m not saying that the church doesn’t care about people.  It does.  But the people we’re talking to don’t always believe that we care.  And the reason they don’t is that, sometimes, we focus too much on changing behavior and not enough on changing hearts.

Behavior can be changed in lots of ways, including by force, by threat, or by intimidation.  What we in the church are supposed to be about, though, is changing hearts.  Hearts cannot be changed by force, threat, or intimidation.  Hearts can only be changed by love.

So our emphasis needs to be less on behavior and more on love.  That means we need to get to know people.  We need to do things that show them that we care.  We need to get to the point where people stop looking at us as outsiders and start looking at us as friends.

That takes time.  Sometimes, it takes a long time.  But there’s no way to hurry the process.  There are no short-cuts.  If we’re serious about changing hearts, we need to be willing to take whatever time we need to take.

It’s one thing to change behavior.  It’s another thing to change hearts.  But if we’re going to do what Jesus told us to do—make disciples—it’s what we need to do.