Hello Brothers and Sisters in the Lord

Things look a little different in this issue. I've refreshed the layout, moved to a fortnightly rhythm, and shifted toward one idea per issue, told in plain language, worth your three minutes.

So, if something resonates or doesn't, hit reply.

Jackson Wong

On the night of 8 February 1891, at least two people broke into the Heyworth Christian Church in Illinois.

They dragged the organ into the street. Stuffed its innards with straw. Doused it in coal oil. And lit it on fire.

The Daily Leader of Bloomington reported the next day: "The devil was completely knocked out at Heyworth this morning at 2 o'clock", jokingly referring to the organ as an instrument of the devil.

Some who opposed the organ had already formally withdrawn from the congregation. They walked out, declaring they had left "while yet holy and untainted by the sin of a church organ."

The organ. Once the most controversial technology in Christian worship. Now it's the thing that feels traditional.

This reaction goes back centuries, long before Heyworth. In 1574, the Provincial Synod of Dort ruled that organs should be discontinued based on 1 Corinthians 14:19, which values "five intelligible words" over "ten thousand words in a tongue."

To them, the organ was a wordless "tongue" of wood and metal. They feared its loud, senseless noise would drown out the intellectual clarity of the Gospel. Congregations didn't just disagree, they fought for three more centuries. By 1891, people were still burning them.

Then the microphone arrived in churches in the 1920s. Accused of producing an unnatural voice. Killing the discipline of preaching. Some congregations refused them for decades.

The overhead projector followed. For many churches in the 1970s, a transparency sheet of projected lyrics felt like a genuine rupture. Hymnals weren't just functional, they were symbolic. Sacred objects, for some people.

The photocopier replaced the mimeograph. Email replaced the church newsletter. Online giving was going to cheapen the act of worship.

Each step. Same reaction. Each step eventually became invisible. The thing nobody notices anymore because it just works.

Here's the question worth sitting with: whatever your church is currently debating, a new giving platform, a different service format, a piece of software someone keeps suggesting, which camp are you in?

Not "are you for it or against it." That's the wrong question. The right one: is your resistance a considered concern or a reflex?

A considered concern sounds like: "We'd lose the personal connection people have to physically placing money in the offering bag." Specific. Something you can weigh.

A reflex sounds like: "It just doesn't feel right for us." Real, but borrowed from discomfort rather than discernment.

The people who burned the organ in Heyworth had a reflex. The Synod of Dort had a theology. History ultimately proved both of them wrong about the organ. But here's the difference: one of them could have a conversation. You can engage with a theological argument, test it, push back on it, reason your way through it together. You can't do any of that with a reflex.

And here's the thing that history doesn't tell you but experience does: systems are easier to build than culture. You can adopt a new giving platform in a week. Getting your congregation to stop leaving cash during tithes and offerings takes months. The technology decision is rarely the hard part. The cultural change around it almost always is.

Which means the resistance you're navigating isn't really about the tool. It's about what the tool represents to people. That's worth understanding before you try to win the argument.

One thing to try this week: if there's a conversation about change sitting unresolved in your church, ask the room, "can we name exactly what we'd lose?" If nobody can answer specifically, that's useful information.

The Toolbox resource this issue is Concern or Reflex? Four questions before your church says 'no' to something new. A one-page framework you can take into your next board meeting or leadership conversation. Print it. Work through it before the room shuts down. Grab it below.