Sunday Thought - When Your Church is Waiting for It's Second Wind

Okay, I finally had my first very minor freak out at church recently. Seems there have been a few people that a year and months after the SP's departure are still struggling with things related to that. It's not important to list those details, but I guess it could summarized in "at least in Egypt we knew what to expect. In the desert it's new every day."

From what I understand from my very healthy and in shape running friends, the ultimate test is to run a marathon. I had thought about it when I was much thinner, exercised to "wog" (walk/job) the 26.2 mile endeavor) as part of the Lukeumia Society's "Team in Training." I went as far as reaching my financial goal to participate yet found myself struggling in the training department. The people in the running group were runners. I am not. They were sleek, toned, conditioned and experienced. I was thin for me, but no where near their physical condition. At the end of my first morning I left and cried in the bathroom at home feeling like I was an absolute failure. From that point on I had conditioned myself to believe that I would never succeed in the experience and of course fulfilled my own self-fulfilling prophecy.

A few years ago, I came to discover something I didn't know about churches. Churches are full of imperfect people. For those of you who are more astute than I, you probably already knew that. I, on the other hand am either too Pollyanna-ish, or just incredibly slow on the uptake. When I began working in church life, it was amazing to discover that the individuals who "do" church on Sundays struggle with the same behaviors, personalities, doubts and flaws as those in the pews do. I guess somewhere in the process, I thought that leaders were farther along in the sanctification process than pew people. What I discovered was that outside of the service, people are people. When I began to step into leadership, the areas and issues I dealt with seemed to fly up into my face on a daily basis. It is a challenge to think that others look to you as a source of hope and wisdom for their spiritual lives when sometimes you are asking yourself the same questions that they are. When churches (and leadership) struggle it's often because we have lost sight of our own limitations, we hold someone to a higher standard of behavior than we hold ourselves to ("I want a Pastor/leader to be the kind of Christian I can't be") or we just can't let go of the past and begin to move forward in hope.

So - back to the minor freak moment. I had left knowing that there were at least two families on the "departing the church" fence. One had already notified me that they were leaving. Because we're a small church, and thus a small Children's Ministries program, any family that leaves creates a significant dent in our percentages. When I arrived back, the dent was a 10%+ decline rate in our Children's numbers. I'm thankful to learn that all the families that I spoke with over the past few months that were leaning towards departure were doing so for reasons outside of the ministry area I have oversight to - yet saddened nonetheless to see them leave. A second blow came when I arrived back into the office and discovered our Student Ministries Director had submitted their resignation. That's when the freak happened. Not because of the resignation, but of what that might signify to individuals - would they think that the health of Children/Youth programs were at stake? Was there something going on that they should be concerned about? For me - the inevitable questions was "would I have a job this time next year?" followed by "*$&%, I found a place that I sync with, and is that in jepoardy?"

God, my Spiritual Director tells me, is more concerned with my willingness to obey than my obedience when all the dots are connecting. It's the reminder that humanity is in the dark no matter how clearly we think we see the picture before us. When our community moves forward with a pledge drive to secure finances for our SP position, we are moving foward in the belief that not only is this church going to be here in twelve months, but we will be moving forward in vision and purpose under the leadership of an SP. When I am creating my budget for Children's Ministries, I am believing that outreach and connecting with the community will become a bigger part of what we do as a community than it has during this hibernation period. When we search for an interim Youth Director, we're letting parents know that nothing will stall, and we're moving forward believing for new things for our youth. Where before I would have wanted to polish off the resume at the first sign of trouble, I came out of the moment more committed to the ministry set before me. God has (and is) calling me to radical trust in this area. There are good things waiting to happen, transition happens. And yes, it often takes much longer to happen than we think it should.

Leaders are not perfect. Pastors (and ministry staff) are no different than anyone else, with the minor exception that we may be more aware of our weaknesses to the extent that we're vulnerable before God. Our community has been running the equivalent of a marathon these past few months/years and we are hitting the proverbial 24.0 mile marker. I hear this for some is the "wall" point. Where you are willing to cash in all your chips and just stop believing you don't have enough stuff left in you to finish the race. For some people in the community, I think this is where they are at. Change takes time. It's hard to keep moving forward when one is not totally sure where you are going. It's been a long season, and the ending point still isn't in clear sight. Perhaps it would have been better to never have started the journey at all, rather finding something else to do (or place to worship)instead.

But it's after the wall that you hit your second wind. That energy that comes seemingly out of nowhere to propell you towards the finish. For us, that wind takes place in the interview that is happening across the hall for an Interim Youth Director, the Search Committee who is having second interviews with applicants, the Children's Ministry team who is gearing up for VBS with kickoff Sunday today and recruiting for Summer Children's Church. It's reminding ourselves that we are a part of something greater than what we can physically see - and this is the point of the race we're running that we sometimes need to focus our eyes on the crowd of witness cheering us on while waiting for the finish line to come more clearly into focus.