By Benton Heisler, West Michigan Conference Director of Connectional Ministries
In 2008 we had no Christmas tree or festive decorations since we were in the midst of a move on Dec. 19.
In 2009 we had to determine where it would go since we were now in a different parsonage.
Now, in 2010 it was placed downstairs in the family room instead of “where it’s always been” (one year, ha!) in the living room.
My point?
Lots of change.
Not to mention graduations, weddings, surgeries, a new phone contract, the IRS Tax Code, all those cables down the center of the expressway, the Spartans as Big Ten football co-champs…get the point?
The changes just keep going on and on…
Seriously, I believe that as Christians, change is simply the healthy characteristic God inspires in us and expects of us. The Scriptures are full of images and stories of changed hearts, changed lives, new futures and ultimately our Eternal Life as a transformation of our human death.
We can choose to be nostalgic about “how it used to be,” but that eventually leaves us in denial of the current reality facing us.
In his book, Good to Great Jim Collins points to the importance of the “brutal facts” that need to be faced in order for healthy change to move forward.
Others may describe it as the importance of “selling the problem” and therefore setting up the possibility to be able to cast a vision for the solution. The three-year-old that constantly asks “Why?” actually gets it.
Too often when a new idea has failed to move forward, one key reason has been the failure of those initiating the change.
They have likely been insufficient or unconvincing in their rationale for what is leading to this transition.
In the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy, after being carried to a new time and place, speaks the “brutal facts” to her faithful canine companion in the often quoted phrase: “Toto, I don’t believe we are in Kansas anymore.”
Scriptures have told us the same “brutal facts” in a variety of ways.
One primary testimony is Isaiah 43:19 “Behold, I am about to do a new thing…I will make a new way.”
As we enter the New Year, I invite us to expect change, to envision change, work for change, be changed, “do a new thing” for the sake of Christ and His Church.
I have my own personal list of changes I would like to make, information I would like to learn, skills I would like to acquire and visions I imagine being accomplished.
Some of those possible changes will be articulated in this space and others are personal.
I encourage you to do some personal assessment and congregational visioning about to whom and for what purpose is God calling you.
The unique perspective we have as Christians is that our future need not be determined by Wall Street, Hollywood, ESPN, network TV, or endless commercial marketing.
We can claim as our personal truth, God’s word spoken through the prophet Isaiah, “I am about to do a new thing…”
I like stable, predictable, organized, but I trust God far more explicitly than my need for what is comfortable.
“So, God, whatever wild new thing you have in store for me and your people called United Methodists, I am watching and waiting in anticipation for you to reveal and set it in motion!”
Let me know where God is “moving your tree.
0 comments:
Post a Comment