The Times They Are A Changing

It is a chore to keep up with the trends. Every season I am reminded that I am behind the times. As soon as I lengthen my skirts the style goes up. Once I manage to get big hair the styles change to straight and flat. But the good thing about being older is that I have reached a point that I just don’t care! I LIKE my skirts longer. My hair IS flat, and I don’t care if every one in the world has a tattoo I simply will not.

But when it comes to technology and business, that is something entirely different. We MUST care or be run over by the tech changes that will outdate us in a heart beat!

We had ordered the first several sets of the Amazing Collection in the standard VHS because that was the newest and the best. They took up large amounts of room in our warehouse. They were beautifully boxed in even larger containers that took up even more space. But it was the best and the newest and we were grateful to have them.

I was in Blockbuster one day, that super store of home movie-dom when I noticed something peculiar. It was a DVD…sleek, small and NEW! They carried a small selection of movies in this new format. I was curious but not interested.

A month later I again visited my local Blockbuster and to my horror the employees were working feverishly taking down every VHS and replacing it with a DVD! Not one VHS was left in its place. “The future is here” the clerk said to me. “But I’m not ready for it!” I replied. “Well, I guess we don’t have a choice.” He said with a sigh.

No choice! I thought about all our VHS in the warehouse. I thought about how they would all look in a dumpster. I thought about the incredible waste of money. And then I thought about Blockbuster. Really, we had no choice.

We have always struggled with the reality of the cost of doing business and the responsibility of good stewardship. Our donors trust us and the way we spend money and in return we do everything we can to be as financial astute as possible.

So, we did what we always do…we went to the Lord and asked direction. Every board member felt we had no choice. Soon after making the decision to go to DVD we received a gift of $50,000. So we ordered the Amazing Collection in DVD and cleared out the warehouse of VHS, giving as many away as we could and the rest went into the dumpster.

I look at all of the DVDs in the warehouse today and wonder, what will be next? For faster than I like, the times they are a changing.

Ecclesiastes 3:1

To everything there is a season ,

A time for every purpose under heaven.