The Times Are A-Changing

On October 26 1963, a revolutionary-minded twenty-two year old mounted the Carnegie Hall Stage, guitar and harmonica in hand. The pre-show hubbub fades to applause as he approaches the mic, looks beyond the lights, and begins to strum. 

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown

It’s been sixty-two years since Bob Dylan first performed this song, and I wonder about its lasting impact. 

And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin'
And you better start swimmin'

In the face of cataclysmic change–change that often feels beyond our power to control–these lyrics are as relevant as ever.

But time changes us, changes how and what we hear, the meaning of all we once held dear. The pointed percussive pronouncements of youth soften and mellow with age. Our fight against the man; our rage against the machine fades, nothing more than background noise over tinny grocery store speakers. 

All the while the tide keeps rising. 
For the times they are a-changin'

As a church, have we forgotten Dylan’s prophetic call? Did we ever believe it applied to us? Or maybe the revolutionary Jesus has become a bit of an inconvenience for our comfortable, middle-class lives.

How many of us were led to believe that the church–the church that was present at our birth–would remain untouched and unchanged at our dying day? How many of us believed that the church we inherited, the only church we’ve ever known, would disappoint us, betray all that we said it about it (that is to say, all that we said about ourselves)? 

How many of us look at the church that is emerging – leaner, more marginal – and “criticize / what [we] can’t understand?” Even as one road is rapidly aging, how many of us will “get out of the new one” and how many will “lend a hand?” 

For the times they are a-changin'

The times are a-changin’ and yet God continues to speak. God continues to show up. God shows up in tiny country chapels and downtown Cathedrals. God shows up in carport prayer meetings and on forest walks. “Where two or three are gathered in my name,” Jesus says, “I AM.” 

Where two or three are gathered in Christ’s name, where two or three are open to the breath of God’s wild and Holy Spirit, transformation is possible, it’s blowing in the wind. 

There are times that I miss those larger Sunday gatherings of yore. Yet lately I’ve found myself nurtured by gatherings of two, of three, of four. In times of prayer and reflection; in times of shared study of scripture; in times of openness, vulnerability, and intimacy, I have found myself affirmed, challenged, and ultimately transformed by God working in and through us in surprising ways. 

At the end of the day, there is nothing wrong with large gatherings of Christians; those packed-to-the-brim services where we sing our hearts out; where the Gospel is preached (and I mean preached!); where our hearts are stirred and strangely warmed; where we feel Christ’s presence and respond to God’s invitation, the call to boldly go as we forsake privilege and power to join in Christ’s healing work. 

There is nothing wrong with these large gatherings until they become some sort of idol–something to worship instead of God. 

There is nothing wrong with remembering a full church, until those memories metastasize; a terminal nostalgia where God only shows up in exponential growth.

When we idolize the past–no matter how good, no matter how beautiful–that’s when the prophets pick up their guitars and harmonicas. That’s when the artists pick up spray cans and stencils.

That’s when guerilla gardeners sow clover and wildflower, fescue and purple tansy, seeding pollinator pathways for the Gospel. 

That is when, and that is how--in these changing times--we might become the salt of the earth, the light of the world.  

Upcoming Forum

If you're interested in exploring these themes further, you can at the Wise Elders' Ecumenical Forum in Penticton on October 4, 2025. 

Click here for details and to register.