Can a Church be Changed?

Sang a song Sunday for the first time, and I'd like to share the words with you:

Can a nation be changed?
Can a nation be saved?
Can a nation be turned back to you?
(repeat)

We're on our knees,
We're on our knees, again.
We're on our knees,
We're on our knees, again.

Let this nation be changed.
Let this nation be saved.
Let this nation turn back to you!
(repeat)

We're on our knees,
We're on our knees, again.
We're on our knees,
We're on our knees, again.

As I was singing this song, I started crying, wondering why we're praying for the nation, when the church is in need of the same prayer.

I'm reading Nelson Mandela's autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom. On a side note, it's a long walk to the end of the book, over 600 pages, so I find it appropriately named. What I read this Sunday morning had to do with the way Mandela maneuvered between those loyalist in the ANC (his political party), and the new generation of protesters, that were mostly responsible for the 1976 riots, connected to the oppressive government, known as Apartheid.

The thing that intrigued me most about this part of his journey, was his steadfast determination that he would stand in the gap between the old guard, his comrades who had been in prison with him for 40 years, and the new guard, the active protesters, willing to use violence when and where needed. Not easy, considering that Mandela had taken many of his cues from Martin Luther King and Ghandi, who both insisted on the path of non-violence.

It was his standing in the gap, his unwillingness to let the younger "rebels" go unheard that caught my attention. He listened to and respected them. They were angry, didn't always think things through, and were very young. So, he listened to those that had been a part of the struggle on the outside, while for 40 years he was imprisoned for the same.

He wasn't near as concerned to convince someone that his argument was the right one, as much as he was that they remain together, because in the end, they all wanted the same thing; a unified, equal, and just government where every person had a vote.

I was checked and challenged at the same time, realizing we are at the same place in our church. Too many of our young voices have been alienated for the sake of proving someone right or wrong, when in the end, just like the struggle against Apartheid, we all desire similar outcomes.

So my prayer for myself today is that I am an ear, and not just a voice. That I'm in a conversation, not an argument. That I seek the common ground and unity, and not "theological pride", if I can quote a friend.

I believe there is more common ground than not, and my prayer is that for the sake of the Kingdom, and my church, that we hold fast to our core beliefs, but also listen for the new prophetic voices crying in the "wilderness". I don't want to miss them.