I wrote yesterday, quoting Tod Bolsinger, that what’s in front of you is nothing like what is behind you. My friend Ray Bandi in New Hampshire, a pastor coach, wrote in response to the Finding New Ways blog from May 5:

Unfortunately, it’s easier to keep doing old ways of doing almost everything. We are creatures of habit. So we keep doing what worked … even long after it quit working.

Why do we keep doing what worked, even long after it quit working? Here’s an answer from my friend, Dr. Mike Oldham, who is also a pastor-coach. Mike quoted a pastor in Fort Collins, Colorado:

“The way things were” is becoming the new idol.

In what do we trust as believers or as church leaders? Do we trust our forms and our methods? If our trust is in something other than Jesus who can lead us into new ways of knowing him and doing ministry, we are trusting in an idol. 

Little children, keep yourselves from idols. (1 John 5.21, NKJV)