Be the Change

So as I was sitting at a dance recital (of all places) last night, mulling things over while watching what was happening on stage…out of the blue this thought came into my head:

“Be the change you want to see.”

It was so profound I wished I had my laptop there so I could blog about it in the dark and irritate lots of people around me. But something told me someone else had come up with this phrase before me, so I Googled it when I got home.

Dang you, Gandhi.

Well, I don’t care that Gandhi said it. Non-Christians can say true things, and since truth belongs to God…we can claim truth wherever we find it. So I claim it.

Be the change you want to see. What profound implications this has, in so many ways.

• When you are disillusioned with religious systems and you have this conviction that there has to be a better way to live as a follower of Jesus…be the change you want to see.
• When you have suffered under oppressive church leadership, and you are convinced that this couldn’t have been what Jesus meant when He told us to wash one another’s feet…be the change you want to see.
• When you see the church isolate itself within its own subculture while the world waits outside the walls, and you believe there must be a better way to show Jesus’ love to people…be the change you want to see.
• When you long to see an authentic expression of real Christian community, where people are truly in fellowship and in grace with one another, but you are hard-pressed to find Christians who aren’t wearing their “super-Christian” mask…be the change you want to see.
• When the town you live in is so full of complacency that at a local dance recital for kids, the emcee has to beg people not to leave during the intermission…be the change you want to see. (Sorry…don’t know where that came from.)

The point is, we can, and should take a hard look at what is wrong, both in the world around us and (for those of us who are Christ-followers) in the church. It is even right for us to call a spade a spade and to say so when something isn’t right. But if all we are doing is complaining, we aren’t taking the problem toward the solution. Change requires a change in action, and that starts with you and me. If we want change, we must become the change. We must find a way to live in the new reality of what we believe to be right.

This phenomenon of the church becoming more fluid–of people leaving the institutions–is often referred to as a revolution. Revolutions do not have to be bloody. (The guy who first said “Be the change…” was a pacifist.) All it really takes to be a revolutionary is to see a better way and to commit to living in the reality of that better way, even against the flow of those around you. I’m convinced that when we commit be the change we want to see…this is what will cause us to dream again, what will be the catalyst for us to receive some amazing new ideas from the heart of God.

Be the change you want to see.