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Over the several scores of years in baseball’s history, there have been more alterations in how the game is to be played than can even be listed in this space. So it was on today’s date of Dec. 12 in 1930 that the Baseball Rules Committee met and agreed upon an entirely new set of regulations for the sport, among them being that no longer would a ball hit into the outfield that bounced into the spectator stands be considered as a home run.

And, as with each change of the rules, there were protests accusing officials of destroying the game and how it would never be the enjoyable American pastime that it once was.

We all have a tendency to shun change. Adapting to any alteration from the way we are accustomed to conducting our lives is often frustrating and upsetting, although the new may be much better. In the early 19th century, people complained that locomotives would never replace travel by horseback. By the 1890s, comments were altered to β€œthe horseless carriage will never take the place of railroad’s convenience.” In 1874, James Simpson faced difficulty from the medical professionals and the clergy in persuading them that chloroform could ease the pain for mothers enduring childbirth. Nicholas Copernicus in the 16th century was unsuccessful in convincing the authorities of his day that his Heliocentric view of the solar system (the planets rotated around the sun instead of around the earth) was more accurate.

We, the church, also have a challenge in adapting to change even when a new way benefits everyone. But, if we have difficulty relocating to another pew because a visitor has occupied our traditional comfort zone, or if we cannot adjust to the sanctuary being painted eggshell white instead of the off-white it has been for years and years, how can we expect to change a world outside the church’s walls whose perspective only sees us ignoring the plight of the hungry, needy, voiceless and ignored?

There is an answer.

Dr. Tom Madden, who years ago served as the General Secretary of the Tennessee State Baptist Convention, was fond of telling the story of an old Tennessee mountaineer who eschewed the big cities for his little farm set way back in the hollows of Appalachia. One day, he and his wife, along with their little grandson, found it necessary to visit a department store in Johnson City. The granddad and grandson wandered and amused themselves while grandmother did her shopping. They then happened upon a newfangled contraption that totally captivated their attention. In the wall were doors that periodically would slide into the wall, and people would enter and exit rather casually. In time, an aged lady stood before the doors, pushed a button, walked into the little room, and the door closed behind her. The old farmer was particularly enchanted with the gizmo when a couple of moments later the same doors opened once again and a much younger lady stepped out.

The old mountain man studied the event for a second, turned to his grandson and instructed him, β€œQuick, boy, go find your grandmother and bring her back here as fast as you can!”

There lies a serious spiritual truth in Dr. Madden’s story. You see, the Lord is not so much interested in changing us as He is in exchanging us!

As Paul wrote to the Corinthian church, a person β€œin Christ is a new creature, old things are passed away … all things are new.”

Orientation to hang-ups, material values and culture are of the old realm, this world, but a person in Christ adapts to the values Jesus taught and practiced not simply the convenience of how things were always done.