Revolution
I’ve learned a lot from Seth Godin – about marketing, about publishing, about being a leader. I read his blog regularly and found this post particularly provocative. What is it we think right now is just right, just about perfect? Or, maybe more to the point of our life in the church: what have we thought for years is just perfect and so wouldn’t dream of changing? And what have we thought was impossible and couldn’t be done? If we had no fear – no concern that it wouldn’t work, or that people wouldn’t like us, or that we don’t have enough money – what would we try.
There’s much in our life of the church that isn’t wrong, it just doesn’t work that well anymore. But because we thought for so long it was right – and maybe it was! – we’ve come to think it’s inevitable, a given. But what if we didn’t worry for now about what once seemed perfect or about what always seemed impossible and instead asked what we believe is necessary now. What if we didn’t accept “the way it always was” and instead asked what God is asking us to dream? What if we didn’t accept the status quo – in our churches, our schools, our families – and instead imagined what revolution God is calling us to? What then?
Let me know what you think. And, in the meantime, enjoy Seth’s post:
The definition of a revolution: it destroys the perfect and enables the impossible.
The music business was perfect. Radio, record chains, Rolling Stone magazine, the senior prom, limited access to recording studios, the replaceable nature of the LP, the baby boomers… it all added up to a business that seemed perfect, one that could run for ever and ever.
The digital revolution destroyed this perfect business while enabling the seemingly impossible: easy access to the market by new musicians, a cosmic jukebox of just about every song ever recorded, music as a social connector…
If you are in love with the perfect, prepare to see it swept away. If you are able to dream of the impossible, it just might happen.
We are in a process in our congregation of attempting revolution because what we have done for so long simply doesn’t work well anymore. We are trying to dream big, somewhat impossible dreams. In fact, a few of us just returned from visiting our companion congregation in Tanzania, and yesterday’s Temple Talk by one of those participants, which included some learnings from that trip, asked the congregation to spend Lent dreaming big dreams, and I hope that they do. But the problem that we keep running into on this road to revolution is that it is hard to give up what has always been so “perfect” — it is hard to let go and try something new — it is hard to remove all of the very present obstacles like money, available human resources, and our own reluctance to let go of “the way we’ve always done it”. It is hard to ask what is necessary because we don’t want to look at the needs within and around us that demad our attention. It is so hard to trust that God will really guide us the way that we should go. It is hard to recognize our own abundance and trust that God will continue to provide abundantly (going back to the devotion for today), that we too often turn and focus on what we lack. And then, dreaming big becomes very hard and revolution is a struggle. I pray that we can let go and try something new. Who knows where God will lead?!
It is really hard, Carrie, but it may help to know you’re about the right stuff – trusting God, dreaming big, and imagining a new future. Blessings on your journey.
Carrie, I want to encourage you. We are in the midst of revolution with our faith community and it’s taken awhile, but we’re finally gaining ground. I don’t know where your “big dreams” are headed, but ours was to turn a community of faith from “come to us” mentality to a “we’ll go to them” mindset – turning from making people “projects of evangelism” to turning our own lives into incarnational ones – really being the hands, feet and voice of Jesus in our world today,not to try to get more members, but because that’s what Jesus calls us to do. We started by “preaching/teaching” that idea again and again and again, you get the idea. Then we added a bit of “why we can’t stay here” and a compelling vision of what it means to change the world through sharing people’s own stories of how they are doing it. And now are just getting to changing our institutional system to match. A great resource for this type of dream is Hugh Halter’s book “Sacrileg”e and Brandon Hatmaker’s “Barefoot Church”. I pray your community with be brave to step into a revolution – it’s not easy but it’s amazing and life-giving and I couldn’t do anything else now! Will pray for you all!
Thanks for sharing a bit of your journey, Jane. Even though these kinds of movements are highly contextual, it really, really helps to have models of where things are working. Thanks, too, for the book recommendations!
Thanks for sharing, Jane. I will check out those books as much of what you are talking about is what we are struggling through. Blessings on your ministry!