I have a confession.  I believe in evolution.  We evolve.  Not as a race but in life in general.  I do not believe I came from a protein that was able to form on the back of a crystal.  I did not used to swing from trees.  My great, great, great grandfather never had a tail or lived in the oceans.  Yet we have evolved.  Evolution is defined as, “A process in which something passes by degrees to a different stage; especially a more advanced or mature stage.”
            Life changes.  Technology changes.  Attire changes. Music changes.  As life evolves we must evolve.  We would look pretty silly to still be driving a Model T car as our primary vehicle.  Growing up in Ohio I was exposed to the Amish community.  The Amish community is unique in that they do not use modern equipment.  They still drive horse and buggies.  They plow their fields with hand plows pulled by animals.  They refrigerate using cool river water.  They use kerosene lamps for light and wood stoves to cook and heat their homes.  When you get deep in the heart of Amish country you feel like you stepped back into Little House on the Prairie days.
            We often say we wish for simpler times.  We do not like the changes in the world around us.  We wish for days when life was much simpler.  I do not like to admit this, but I somewhat agree.  I do not like the hustle and bustle of life.  (Do not get me wrong, I love the technology.)  I just like to slow down and enjoy what is going on around me.
            The problem is this; regardless of how we feel the world should be or how we wish for things to be different, our world is what it is.  It has evolved.  Things have changed.  We either have to adapt or bury our heads in the sand.  Obviously as the body of Christ we cannot bury our head in the sand.  Our only option then is to adapt.
            Adaptation does not mean the absolution of things from the past.  There is nothing wrong with wishing for, revisiting, and implementing aspects of simpler times.  We cannot forget  where we came from.  There are too many people who have sacrificed too much for us to not hold on to what they gave us. 
            There are also some timeless principles, standards and beliefs that are not subjected to the evolving society around us. We are a holy church because God has called us to be holy.  Holiness is not just a state of your heart, it is an outward sign of an inward change.  To be holy on the outside and not on the inside is to be a hypocrite.  To be holy on the inside and not on the outside is also to be a hypocrite.  Merriam-Webster defines a hypocrite as follows;
                        1 : a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion
                        2 : a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings
            The first definition is an outward holiness but inward rotten person.  The second definition is a person who believes in inward holiness but that they can do whatever they like on the exterior.  The first definition is simple to understand.  The second definition struggles with the evolution of our world.  People have tried to dilute holiness in order to evolve with society.  That is not a part of evolution.  The way we do church, worship, set-up, type of attire, structure, etc., has to evolve with society.  Holiness is timeless.  It is what God has called us to do; to be separate.  You cannot be one thing on the outside and be different on the inside.  Likewise you cannot be one thing on the inside and something different on the outside.
            The struggle in the church today is how we evolve without changing what we believe.  The solution is simple.  We remain open to changing how we do things, but we never change the what.  We believe the whole Bible and do not pick and choose what we follow in our lives. We live the gospel with our lives.  How we reach people with that gospel is what evolves, not the message itself. 
            Evolution is real.  We are living in an evolving society.  As the church we become all things to all men (1 Corinthians 9:22). Whatever it takes to reach this world we should be willing to do as long as it does not interfere with the message and the stance of holiness that God has required us to take.  Evolution is real and we are evolving into what God would have us to be in order to reach our world