Fall Forward

Daylight Saving Time begins tonight. It's the Spring Forward portion of our annual ritual, which means we will all lose an hour of sleep tonight -- like I needed one more thing to lose sleep over! Actually the hardest part about DST is remembering how to set the clocks. It's not just a matter of grabbing the big hand and running it clockwise one revolution. Oh no. It's holding the set button while pushing the seek button three times while repeating, "There's no place like home," or something like that. I'll have to look that one up.

Anyway, I have no real problem with DST. Usually I like it, although it's really kind of strange to still have daylight in July at 10 p.m. But I can adjust.

I live in an area near the great state of Indiana. I like Hoosiers. I was born and raised in the state. But you see Hoosiers are just recently a part of the whole DST world. Until last year, the state ignored the clock-switching tradition. As a result, there are plenty of people there with a vile hatred for DST. I mean hatred. Almost violent hatred.

I know a few of these people. They carry on like Satan himself has taken over the government -- at least the clock-setting portion of it. Cows won't give milk on time. It's too dark in the morning. The earth may fall off its axis. All pretty typical from some of the anti-DST hardliners. To hear them talk, that one hour is the one thing they hold precious in life.

Of course I've seen the same attitude in the church as well. Hymns vs. choruses. King James vs. New International. Pews vs. chairs. Some folks miss the point of why we gather on Sunday mornings. It's not to proclaim the truth that doesn't change in the traditional way that doesn't change. It's to worship God and to proclaim Him and His gospel to the world. And though it may bring a tear to the eye of the traditionalist, the time-honored traditions of the past 150 years is probably not the best or most effective way to proclaim Him. The truth doesn't change. Just the delivery method.

So as you and I move clocks tonight, let us remember that the responsibility of reaching others for Christ and helping people grow in Him is not a matter of making them learn and worship exactly the way our grandparents did, but of bringing them into His Kingdom. They, as we, are to conform to the image of Christ, not to the image of the churchgoer.

Tomorrow, we'll just do it one hour earlier.