“It’s the end of the world as we know it…and I feel fine!” is, perhaps, the most recognizable song from the rock band R.E.M. It is so recognizable that you were able to sing the refrain with me. “And I feel fine”. Written in 1987, the song was a commentary on the rapid changes moving in the world. The uncertainty of change: anxiety over the Cold War; information overload with 24-hour news broadcasting being launched and the expansion of the internet, and a sense of the rapidly changing world being chaotic and overwhelming. And within all that rapid uncertainty and change, the hopeful refrain “and I feel fine” somehow, spoke to our need to find a way to be “fine” with it all.
This same anxiety, I think, is occurring in the Church today. There is a question that quietly sits beneath much of our conversation about the church today. It is a question that many are asking. Sometimes out loud, sometimes only in their hearts: can the church survive? We hear it in conversations about declining attendance, changing culture, and uncertainty about the future. It is an understandable question. But, the more I have been thinking about it though our Easter series on “Toward 2035”, I wonder if this is not the right question to be asking. I would lie to suggest that the question is not, “can the church survive?” The better question is, “what new form of church is the Spirit creating?” Because survival is about holding on. Survival is about preserving what has been. And, when you think about it, nothing really ‘survives’ as it once did. If we were to look back on the history of the church, what it consistently did was CHANGE. The Jesus’ movement (not even called a church yet), the underground ‘house church movement’ in the days of Paul. The rise of the institutional church through Rome’s adoption of Christianity. The many schisms of the church: the split between the Orthodox and the Roman Church, the split between the Roman and the Protestant church, the rise of denominationalism. And through it all, the Spirit of God has never seemed interested in preservation alone. The Spirit of God has always been moving, always creating, always opening something new. The Church has always about endings, and about new beginnings. It is about a God who is ‘about to do a new thing’.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus is preparing his disciples for the first big change. He knows that he will not remain with them in the way they have known him, and you can imagine the anxiety in that room. What happens when the one who has guided you, taught you, and grounded you is no longer physically present? What happens when the future feels uncertain? Jesus does not give them a strategic plan or a blueprint for institutional survival. Instead, Jesus gives a promise: “The Holy Spirit will come and remind you of everything I have said to you.” The Spirit will be their teacher, their guide, their advocate. The presence of God will not disappear. It will deepen and move within them. And then he offers them peace: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives.” This is not a peace based on control or certainty. This is a peace that holds steady even when the path ahead is unclear.
When we shift to the Acts reading, we move from theory to practice. In Acts, we see what that promise looks like in real life. In this text, Paul is on a missionary journey. He has plans, direction, and a sense of purpose. And then, in the night, he receives a vision: a man from Macedonia calling out, “Come over and help us.” Everything changes in that vision. The mission is redirected, the map is redrawn, and the Spirit opens a door that Paul hadn’t planned to walk through. When he steps through that door, he meets someone from an entirely different world…Lydia. Lydia is an elite businesswoman: a dealer in purple cloth. Long before the days of dye processing, purple was produced by harvesting a special seashell ~ the murex shell. One would crack the shell open to get to a tiny gland. Thousands of shells later you had enough dye to produce purple. Understandably, Purple was the most expensive colour to manufacture. So, Lydia and Paul were from different worlds. Paul a missionary for Christ and Lydia a wealthy Gentile businesswoman. Yet, while they were from different worlds, the Spirit opens her heart. She listens, she responds, and she becomes one of the first leaders of the church in Europe. The Spirit is not simply continuing what has been; the Spirit is expanding, surprising, and reimagining the church in real time.
This brings us back to our question. Not, “Can the church survive?” but, “What new form of church is the Spirit creating?” Again and again we see the Spirit opening unexpected doors: doors to new people, doors to new places, doors to new possibilities. Often, those doors do not look like what was expected. And stepping through them is not easy. It requires trust, courage, and a willingness to let go of one’s assumptions of what the future should look like. As the church, many envision the future resembling the past. If we can hold tightly enough to familiar patterns, everything will be okay. But, as we learn (and as we know in our hearts) the Spirit does not work that way. The Spirit leads forward, not backward. The Spirit disrupts, it doesn’t comfort. The Spirit opens doors we never planed to open. And faithfulness means stepping through those doors.
That question sits before us as a community of faith. Where is the Spirit already at work among us? Where might God be opening new doors for Northwood that we have not yet fully recognized? Not where do we want to go, but where is God already leading? That is the deeper work of discernment.
Today, we hold that question in a particularly meaningful context. Mother’s Day. This is a day when we give thanks for those who have nurtured life, biologically, spiritually, and communally. It is a day when we remember the quiet, faithful ways that love is lived out: the patience, the care, the sacrifice, the steady presence. And today, here at Northwood, we held a moment of remembrance for Dorothy Nobel, a faithful member who lived 105 years. Think about that for a moment. 105 years of life, of change, of seasons, of beginnings and endings. She lived through times when the world, and the church, were unrecognizable from today, and yet through the sea of changes there has been that thread of faithfulness.
A long life like Dorothy’s reminds us that the church has never been static. Years spanning generations see change: different styles of worship, different expressions of community, different ways of understanding the world. And yet the Spirit remains: present, guiding, sustaining, and opening new doors. Perhaps that is the gift of remembering one’s life. Each unique life serves to remind us that faith is not about holding onto one moment in time; it is about trusting God across time.
When we think of Lydia’s story we are introduced to a life that listens; a life that opens to change; a life that becomes part of something larger than itself. And that is the invitation before us. The future of the church will not be built on nostalgia or on trying to recreate what once was. It will be built on listening for the Spirit, paying attention to where hearts are being opened, and noticing where new life is emerging.
The good news is that we are not left to figure this out on our own. Jesus promised the Spirit. That is the promise! The Spirit that teaches, reminds, guides, and opens doors. So, what might that look like for us? It might look like new relationships forming in unexpected ways. It might look like new expressions of community that do not fit old patterns. It might look like voices we have not yet fully heard becoming central to who we are. It might look like stepping into ministries we had not previously imagined. And yes, it may also mean letting go of things that no longer give life.
This is where courage comes in. It takes courage! Courgage to trust the Spirit more than our own plans and assumptions. It takes courage to step into uncertainty. It takes courage to believe that God is still at work even when we cannot fully see the outcome. Paul did not know what he would find in Macedonia; he only knew that the Spirit was calling. And when he stepped through that door, he found Lydia, and through Lydia a new community was born. That is how the Spirit works: not always in grand, sweeping plans, but in those moments of response, in hearts being opened, in doors being crossed.
Perhaps the question before us today is simpler than we think: Where is the next door? Not ten doors, or ten years, from now. Not the entire future mapped out. Just the next door. And once we see that door, the question is: “do we have the faith to step through it?” Because the promise remains: “I will not leave you orphaned.” The Spirit is here. The Spirit is guiding. The Spirit is opening. So may we be a people who listen, a people who trust, a people willing to follow where the Spirit leads. Even when it surprises us. And as we do, may we discover that the future of the church is not something we must create on our own, but something we are invited to step into, because God is already there—opening doors, preparing hearts, and creating new life.
And in that hope, and in that trust, we can say: Thanks be to God.
Amen.