The Mustard Seed

It’s one of the famous sayings of Jesus, that he tells his disciples about having faith as “a mustard seed.” In The Fire of Delayed Answers, Bob Sorge notes the familiar characteristics of a mustard seed that do much to explain what Jesus meant when he used the metaphor.

It is a very tiny seed, Sorge says. “It grows very quickly and quite tall. Being an annual herb, it has striking growth – some plants will grow as high as twelve feet in a matter of weeks.” And I would add one more: the flower of the mustard plant is beautiful (as shown in the photo above).

Faith, like a mustard seed, can grow. It can grow quickly. It can grow large.

And because it is an annual herb, it has a season, like a life has a season. It’s created, born, flourishes for a set time, and then declines, ultimately ending in death. Death s a part of the natural order of life.

I’ve been pondering this idea of seasons lately for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the recent death and burial of my mother. She was 90; she had lived a long life. Her seasons had come and were finally gone. From dust to dust.

My father died some 27 years ago, and the passing of my mother means more than just being without parents. It means I’m coming to assume the place of my grandparents. My father’s mother was the same age I am now when I was born. My mother’s mother was 10 years older. I never knew either of my grandfathers.

I am now of their generation. It’s an odd feeling, and yet it’s part of the natural order of life.

I think about my grandmothers and this question of faith. My mother’s mother was a staunch Lutheran, as was my mother. My father’s mother, the one I closest to, was a staunch Southern Baptist (my father was not). The story of my two grandmothers’ faith, or faiths, is part of that mustard seed understanding. In ways that perhaps even they didn’t know, they contributed to my faith. Just like, in ways I may not even know, I’m contributing to the faith of my two little grandsons.

Mustard seed faith grows large and can occupy a lot of space.

And it is something that can be quite beautiful.

Led by Jason Stasyszen and Sarah Salter, we’ve been reading The Fire of Delayed Answers. This discussion of the chapter “Don’t Cast Away Your Confidence” concludes the discussion of the book. To see more posts on this chapter, please visit Sarah at Living Between the Lines.

Photograph by Morena Sangiorgio via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

The Metaphor of the Tree

For a long time we had a crabapple at one of the front corners of our house. Small when we planted it, it grew rather large, and welcomed spring each year with a profusion of purplish flowers. 

After a number of years we found ourselves ducking when we walked by it, like when I cut the grass or walked in the garden to turn on a hose. So from time to time it needed pruning and trimming, but it kept growing, sitting there rather content to occupy its corner. 

One day last year, I noticed a limb drooping slightly toward the ground, or at least lower than it should have been. All looked right with the tree, but I mentioned it to my wife and we started to keep an eye on it. 

Before long, it was becoming obvious: the tree was leaning, away from the house, fortunately. The leaning was becoming pronounced. We had a tree expert come in, and he mentioned things like the drought and dry soil and how it would probably stop leaning.  

It didn’t stop. One day, it was all the way over to the ground. In came the tree removal service. 

I’ll miss the blossoms this spring, but the tree lived its life, providing shade and beauty for a time. 

A tree, writes Bob Sorge in The Fire of Delayed Answers, is a lot like a godly man. It’s fruitful in its season; it’s strong in dry times; it stands out as a landmark; it’s unmoved by storms (although storms can be battering); and it provides shade for others. “When the godly perseveres through tough times, the prosperity of God will inevitably manifest,” he says. “He is blessed because he has found a place of special affection in the heart of God. And in the final analysis, that is the ultimate reward of the godly: the smile of Jesus.” 

It’s a beautiful metaphor.  

Right now, at this point in my life, I feel a bit like that crabapple. I’ve been enduring a situation for a number of years now, and I can say that the “How long, Lord, how long?” question has crossed my mind, and more than once. I know all the right answers; but it’s always different when you’re experiencing something that doesn’t seem to want to end but keeps repeating itself in endless circles. 

I keep reminding myself that the point, however, is not the resolution. There may ultimately be no resolution.  

The point is the endurance, the perseverance. 

Led by Jason Stasyszen and Sarah Salter, we’ve been reading The Fire of Delayed Answers. To see more posts on this chapter, “Don’t Cast Away Your Confidence,” please visit Jason at Connecting to Impact. 

Photograph by Ellen Sholk via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

So What Was the Thorn?

It’s one of the mysteries of the Bible, attended by considerable speculation over the centuries. What was the “thorn” that plagued the Apostle Paul?

Paul mentions the thorn in 2 Corinthians 12, saying “a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure.” He says he pleased with the Lord three times for the thorn to be removed, and three times his prayer was denied with these words: “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.”

It doesn’t appear to be a literal thorn that Paul was talking about. Some believe it was a human being, a persecutor who followed Paul around various cities (there were certainly no shortage of people willing to do that, including the group in Judea who vowed not to rest until they killed him). I tend to sympathize with this theory, having had what I consider more than a fair share of people over the years who stabbed, obstructed, plotted and undercut in the various jobs I’ve held.

Others believe it was some physical ailment like cataracts. Having endured a ruptured disk, I have sympathy for this argument, too. Physical ailments can be debilitating without impairing one’s mental faculties.

Bob Sorge in The Fire of Delayed Answers leans toward the physical ailment theory, but gets to the heart of what the thorn is really about: strength perfected in weakness. “God taught Paul that when he was weak and feeling inadequate for the challenges of the ministry,” Sorge writes, “God’s strength was able to be manifest through him.”

There’s considerable sense in what Sorge says. When we feel on top of the world, our spiritual effectiveness can be diminished, because we think we can do it all. When we are weak, we recognize our dependence, and God can make use of that dependence.

It’s a lesson learned through experience. And often relearned through more experience. And I can say that from experience(s).

Led by Jason Stasyszen and Sarah Salter, we’ve been reading The Fire of Delayed Answers. To see more posts on this chapter, “Confidence in His Ways,” please visit Sarah at Living Between the Lines.

Photograph by Petr Kratichvil via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Where do you place your confidence?

It’s a conversation at work, one of those idle ones that people have while they sit in a conference room. You’re waiting for a meeting to begin, or waiting on the person who called the meeting to show up and get this thing over with.

After the usual banter about the rudeness of people who call meetings, the conversation eventually turns to the idea of confidence.

“I really don’t feel confident in this plan,” one says. “I know we’ve been talking about it for weeks, but it’s just not well thought through.”

“Is it the plan,” another asks, “or is it that you don’t have confidence in our ability to implement it successfully?”

“Some of both, I think,” the first person says. “we’ don’t really have all of the experience we need, and we’re struggling how to figure out what success looks like.”

The conversation goes on (the meeting organizer is really late). I think about the things that we base our confidence on, or what we place our confidence in.

Experience.

Skills.

Intelligence.

The right resources.

Professional training and education.

Outside consultants.

Experts.

Senior or top management.

These are all work-related things, but they apply to just about any kind of human situation. Participating in a church activity. Raising children. Going to college. Booking an airline flight. Farming. Running your own business. Teaching a class.

This is a very human thing to do, to place our confidence in what generally seems to work in our specific culture.

But there’s another kind of confidence, and that is confidence in God. And it’s radically different form the human and cultural things we often place our confidence in.

As Bob Sorge says in The Fire of Delayed Answers, “Confidence happens when we come to understand God and his ways. When we really get to know God, confidence is automatic. If we truly come to know Him, we’ll be confident that He will be true to His person.”

I look at some of the key moments in my life, and ask the question, did I place my confidence in God?

In some cases, the answer is yes. In other situations (too many), the answer is no. I have too much a tendency to rely on myself and what I know. Sometimes it works out okay. Other times, it doesn’t.

I’m in one of those situations right now. Everything in my experience is screaming at me, “Do this! You know it will work! It will work this time! It has to! Go talk to him, or talk to her. They’ll know. They can help.”

Yet there is this small voice struggling to be heard amid the shouting. 

“Wait. Just wait. Put your confidence in what you know is rock solid.”

And it’s not my experience, my skills, my training, my intelligence, other people, or sufficient resources.

This time, I think I’ll wait.

Led by Jason Stasyszen and Sarah Salter, we’ve been reading The Fire of Delayed Answers. To see more posts on this chapter, “Confidence in His Ways,” please visit Jason at Connecting to Impact.

Photograph by Alex Grichenko via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Love Test for a Hothead

It’s a familiar story. Jesus, with arrest, trial and death imminent, tells his disciples they will shortly be abandoning him.

And Peter, the hotheaded fisherman from Galilee, says, “Not me, Lord! I’m with you to the ned! All the way! Even prison and death!” Jesus then stuns Peter to the depths of his soul, telling him he will deny Jesus three times before the cock crows.

At first, it looks like Peter will follow through. When Jesus is arrested, Peter strikes the ear of one of the servants with a sword (I wonder where the sword came from?). But then it happens. Confronted by the serving girl, Peter denies Jesus exactly three times. He flees in shame when he hears the cock crow.

Here we see Peter in all his utter humanity. I don’t normally identify with the hothead, but I do here. This is where Peter is broken. In a sense, the denial had to happen if Peter was ultimately going to be of any use. Peter is everyman. Peter is us.

After the resurrection, we find Peter and Jesus again talking in threes. Three times Jesus asks Peter if he loves him. Three times Peter answers yes, and feels hurt and likely shamed by the third time he answers. But this is not the hothead who answers three times. This is Peter, broken. This is Peter, understanding the limits of his own power (and they’re pretty narrow limits). This is Peter, humbled and honest. And hurt.

The point wasn’t to hurt Peter’s spirit. The point was to remind him of where his power actually came from, and what would sustain Peter in the years ahead.

As Bob Sorge says in The Fire of Delayed Answers, this second conversation wasn’t a faith test. Jesus didn’t ask Peter if he believed in him. He asked Peter if he loved him. It was a love test. And Peter failed that one, too – something that’s not as obvious as the three denials. But the time of the third answer on the love test, Peter realized he couldn’t depend upon himself for anything. Everything came from God, even Peter’s ability to love God.

“Our love is perfected,” Sorge writes, “not when we become strong in love, but when we become so weak that we lean on the Lord for His love to empower us.”

That’s where Peter found himself. The hothead had learned what was likely the most important lesson of his life.

Led by Jason Stasyszen and Sarah Salter, we’ve been reading The First of Delayed Answers. To see more posts on this chapter, “Quieted by His Love,” please visit Sarah at Living Between the Lines.

Photograph by Bobbi Jones Jones via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

The Third Temptation

It was a regime change, those organizational rituals that seem to come around with regular frequency. This one was happening because the department was deemed to have failed, and upper management was stepping in to fix it. And the truth was that the previous leadership of the department had failed.

But the people had not; if anything, they had broken their necks to mitigate the disaster that had come from on high. Some of them had managed to actually flourish, and create value for the organization.

That rarely matters when an intervention is underway. The broom tends to sweep everything, even the things it shouldn’t.

The change started slowly. Nothing was rushed into; in fact, it seemed for a time that nothing would ever change. But it finally started, though, it was inexorable.

One team, cut off from communication, found itself being consolidated, combined, and actually facing a reduction in resources, when what was needed was an increase in resources. An increase had been promised; but budget realities changed the picture.

I was part of that team. The pressure to explain was enormous. We met; we explained; we were understood and told it didn’t matter.  We tried different avenues. We went to Human Resources. As the word began to seep out, other teams raised objections, because crippling us would cripple them as well.

In this kind of organizational situation, time becomes compressed. The pressure to do something – do anything – is enormous. The organization was preparing to slit its own throat, and the people making the decisions couldn’t, or wouldn’t, recognize it.

Prayers kept going up, and more prayers were offered. For several days, it seemed I was doing nothing except living in prayer.

In The Fire of Delayed Answers, Bob Sorge says there at least three temptations “that seek to derail the believer who is waiting for God to speak.”

The first temptation is to demand an immediate answer.

The second temptation is to give up.

And the third temptation is just “do something.”

It’s that third temptation that I tend to fall into. I want to fix things. I want to stop the slow-motion organizational suicide. There’s a part of me that says there’s always hope, and I just have to find the right idea, the right reasoning, the right point to make.

I started down that path, and then I stopped.

“To wait quietly upon God is to refuse to save oneself,” says Sorge.

I stopped. I realized that I would ultimately fail if I had to depend on me doing something.

I stopped, not in a smug superior way (“They won’t listen to me, so let the chickens come home to roost”) but in a quiet, accepting way (‘not my will but yours”)..

I’m still waiting to see what happens.

Led by Jason Stasyszen and Sarah Salter, we’ve been reading The First of Delayed Answers. To see more posts on this chapter, “Quieted by His Love,” please visit Jason at Connecting to Impact.

Photograph by Sharon Apted via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Waiting is Un-American

Which one of the following do you think is the worst?

Standing in line at the checkout counter.

Waiting for a web page to load more than five seconds.

A traffic light at rush hour. Or a traffic light when you have red and there’s not a car in sight for the green light.

The server to bring your check for dinner.

Waiting from the phone call from the Human Resources Department that tells you if you got the job, or if you didn’t.

The final month of pregnancy, for yourself or your wife.

Waiting for your teenager to clean his room, or at least wash his clothes.

All of the above.

Waiting, or patience, is not an American national virtue. At some point early in our history, the patience gene became regressive, and the impatience gene became dominant. The advent of the internet only worsened the condition. Remember the Mosaic browser and how it took to load a web page?

For the record, I checked all of the above for the choices I listed. I listed them from my own experience, and my own impatience. Although I should point out that the traffic light at Clayton and Brentwood roads in Clayton, Mo., the traffic light I have the pass through to get to church on Sunday, is a waiting abomination.

We don’t like to wait. None of us. Waiting is time wasted, and we have things to do, places to go, and people to see. We live and work at a frenzied pace, and we simply can’t afford to waste time – or have our time wasted. Especially by the traffic light when we’re already late to church.

God, however, is not an American. His definition of time is radically different from ours. His purpose in time is radically different from ours. That traffic light at Clayton and Brentwood may not be about wasted time at all, but something completely different.

In The Fire of Delayed Answers, Bob Sorge suggests that it has to do with the work God has planned for us. And the greater the wait, the greater the work. The Bible is filled with examples of waiting for what must have seemed like an eternity: Abraham and Sarah waiting for the promised son; Moses tending sheep in the wilderness (40 years!), the Israelites wandering around the wilderness (another 40 years!), David hiding out in the wilderness from Saul.

And then there was Saul, waiting for the priest Samuel to arrive, and finally doing what a lot of us would have done and said phooey on this, I’ll do it myself.

Saul’s aggravated “I’ll do it myself” response is one of the two typical responses to what we consider too long a time to wait for something. The other is succumbing to doubt, and then unbelief. Nothing is happening, so what was promised is clearly not going to be delivered.

We all wait for things large and small. Some of us are rich enough to pay others to do our waiting for us, but most of us have to wait. There is a purpose in waiting, and it’s not our purpose.

God uses waiting to prepare us for something we may not expect, something that will perhaps be even great.

I’m still trying to figure out the purpose of that traffic light, though.

Led by Jason Stasyszen and Sarah Salter, we’ve been reading The Fire of Delayed Answers. Today concludes the discussion on the chapter “Waiting for Delayed Answers.” To see more posts, please visit Sarah at Living Between the Lines.

Photograph by Adryana Nicoleta via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission. 

Taking and Receiving

The last two weeks, as I read Bob Sorge’s discussion on quietness and confidence in The Fire of Delayed Answers, I saw where the discussion was at least partially headed – the theological chasm that has divided evangelical Christianity for a long time.

I mentioned last week what a difficult time we had finding a church when we moved to St. Louis from Houston. We had been attending a non-denominational church in Houston. We were in our mid-20s, and were something of innocents when it came to theology wars. Sorge would say our church in Houston was in the “confidence camp” – the camp that emphasizes “the availability of God’s promises and power to those who believe.” We ended up joining a church in St. Louis that Sorge would say was in the “quietness camp,” which emphasizes the sovereignty of God.

“Camps” is probably the right word, although we never heard anyone in our church in Houston refer to the theological debate between the two. Later, when we joined a “confidence” church in St. Louis, again we rarely if ever heard about the debate.

The church we joined in the quietness camp, however, was anything but quiet. Here, the debate was a living, breathing thing. The confidence crowd was simply wrong. Flat-out wrong. And it was discussed a lot. Sunday School classes. Small-group Bible studies. Membership classes. Training for deacons (I stepped away from this training when the book we were using went way off the deep end about “confidence” churches; it didn’t help to be told that this was a standard, widely accepted text).

Our problem was that what we were hearing about the Christians in the “other camp” simply didn’t square with what our experience had been in Houston.

We had walked into the great divide in the evangelical church, and we were ill-equipped to deal with it. We didn’t even know there was a divide.

Sorge uses this discussion about quietness and confidence as a lens for a discussion about the kingdom of God. Is the kingdom something you select, or does it select you? And there it is in flaming technicolor: free will or predestination?

I am not drawn to this debate. I’m aware of it: I’ve read about it; I’ve even studied it. But it’s never drawn me in, on one side or the other. (I’m also not drawn into the debate over human origins; there might possibly be a connection.) Perhaps that explains why I can be comfortable in churches on both sides of the question, except when they go overboard (like our first church in St. Louis). I understand that people can become quite exercised about it, but I’m not one of them. (And this may well reflect my own Lutheran upbringing.)

Sorge turns to the words of Jesus in the gospels of Luke and Matthew.

In Luke, Jesus says we must receive the kingdom of God as a little child, and note the word “received.” That means it’s given to us; we don’t make the choice. (I hear cheers from the quietness camp.)

In Matthew, Jesus suggests the kingdom is taken, and taken violently (likely where Flannery O’Connor found the title of her story “The Violent Bear It Away”). Unless you think the two gospels are on different sides of the question, Luke also expresses the same idea of taking in “Seek and you shall find.”

So which is it? Quietness or confidence? Receiving or taking?

Sorge says that Jesus simply answers “Yes.”

I think he’s right.

Led by Jason Stasyszen and Sarah Salter, we’ve been reading The Fire of Delayed Answers. To see more posts on this chapter, “Waiting for Delayed Answers.” Please visit Jason at Connecting to Impact.

Photograph by George Hodan via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Reaching for Quietness

In The Fire of Delayed Answers, author Bob Sorge, discusses two camps (or two dominating ideas) of Christian faith, at least as practiced in the United States. The camp of quietness emphasizes the sovereignty of God; the camp of confidence emphasizes “the availability of God’s promises and power to those who believe.” And there you have to two major wings of evangelical Christianity in America.

We didn’t know it at the time, or refer to it this way at the time, but the terms fit. And they’ve fit for a long time. When we moved to St. Louis in the late 1970s, we had a difficult time finding a church like we had in Houston. In Houston, we attended a church that Sorge would characterize as firmly in the camp of confidence. We couldn’t find a similar church in St. Louis, and we ended up at a church just as firmly in the camp of quietness.

Some years later, we did find a new church (confidence camp) and another that was closer to where we had moved (again, confidence camp). When that church began to blow up, we eventually found our way to where we are now, a Presbyterian church that is heart and soul in the camp of quietness (Presbyterian is another name for “sovereignty,” I think).

The fact is, you need both camps. And the fact is, you rarely find both in the same church. But you can individually keep the two in balance, until, as Sorge puts it, the Assyrians invade and “all hell breaks loose.” He says it’s amazing how quickly “our quietness and confidence can disappear. It can be an enormous challenge to rebuild both quietness and confidence while the crisis continues to rage about us.”

Did someone say crisis? What crisis?

What crisis, indeed.

A very close relative has just been moved to hospice care.

I haven’t had a boss at work in over four months, the organization is being reorganized around us, and I’m not likely to have a boss for at least another four months.

In the past six months, our church has lost almost all of its pastors and some key staff people. The elders are working very hard to lead, which I think will be a very good thing for the long run. In the short term, things seem bewildering at times (and I’m a deacon).

Two of the organizations I write for online are experiencing change, and both are still sorting things out.

It does feel at time the Assyrians have arrived. I don’t feel quiet, and I don’t feel particularly confident.

But I know which camp I lean towards in a time like this one, and that’s the camp of quietness, the cleft in the rock away from the wind and fire.

As Sorge says, hear of the heart of your Father:

“Find a place of quietness in Me by settling your soul and stilling your spirit, and relinquish everything into My hands; and let your heart rise up in confidence in Me, by pressing into My face, devouring My word, claiming My promises, and making the good confession.”

Led by Jason Stasyszen and Sarah Salter, we’ve been reading The Fire of Delayed Answers. Today concludes the discussion on chapter 10, “The Dance of the Two Camps.” To see more posts on this chapter, please visit Sarah at Living Between the Lines.

Photograph by Petr Kratochvil via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

What I Write in My Journal

I have a journal. Actually, I have a whole collection of journals. I started keeping one when a friend gave me a Moleskine journal some years ago. I didn’t start using it right away; I waited for a good year. One day I opened it and started writing. Nothing really prompted me to do that.

The Moleskine became another Moleskine, became a spiral notebook or two, became another Moleskine, and then I regularized the process by using a Levenger journal with a tan leather cover. When I ordered a refill, I learned that Levenger owns Moleskine.

The journal goes just about everywhere I do. Most of the poetry I write begins in the journal. So do quite a few blog posts. I use it for sermon notes. I keep schedules in it. Things I need to write down so I don’t forget them usually land in the journal.

The last few journal entries I’ve done include “Thoughts on St. Martin’s,” which became part book review, part musing; a review of Rowan Williams’ A Silent Action; two poems yet to be published; the poem “The White Room” posted yesterday; what eventually became my post Monday on A Million Little Ways by Emily Freeman (“Where Does Poetry Come From?”); some sermon notes; and a few notes on Robin Robertson’s The Wrecking Light, which were used for my post at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Those entries are fairly typical. What I don’t write in it is anything that might prove a problem if someone picked it up and read it. Not many people would get upset to be reading rough drafts of book reviews, notes on Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, and a lot of poetry.

In The Fire of Delayed Answers, Bob Sorge describes using a journal in a very different way. He even includes a few journal entries. Reading them is painful, because he describes the spiritual pain he’s experiencing, the wrestling with God and the wrestling with faith.

What the entries reveal is the struggle between “two camps,” as he calls them – the camp of quietness and the camp of confidence. And then he describes those two camps – the camp of quietness, the one that emphasizes “the necessity of surrender to the sovereignty of God,” and the confidence camp, the one that emphasizes “the availability of God’s promises and power to those who will believe.”

And there it is – the great divide in the church, and especially what we call the evangelical church. Sorge calls them the “two general schools of thought in the body of Christ today.”

I’ve attended churches that were in the quietness camp, and churches in the confidence camp. The one I attend now, and have attended for almost a decade, leans pretty hard to the quietness camp (who ever heard of noisy Presbyterians, anyway?). The church we attended before, for some 14 years, leaned pretty hard toward the confidence camp.

As I look back over the entries in my journal, I believe I was too quick to dismiss what I’m writing about. There’s more here than I realized, more pain and more wrestling. It’s subtle; it’s not obvious like the entries Sorge shares in the book.

But it’s there, mostly in the poems. It’s clearly there.

Led by Jason Stasyszen and Sarah Salter, we’ve been reading The Fire of Delayed Answers. To see more posts on this chapter, “Dance of the Two Camps,” please visit Jason at Connecting to Impact. Next week we’ll finish discussing this chapter.

Photograph by Junior Libby via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission. 

Who Are Your Egyptians?

A small group of us were sitting in a room, assembled to discuss a communications project. The organization had been dealing with explosive growth, a new finance campaign was starting, and we had been asked to consider how to communicate the new effort.

A senior executive led the group, and it was increasingly clear he was growing impatient with what he considered was the slow pace of the discussion. It was also clear he wasn’t thrilled having to deal with communications people, which he wasn’t one of.

I raised the question that turned out to be the tripwire. “We need to understand why the growth is happening. We simply don’t know. We should ask people what is going on, because it could be temporary, it could be permanent, it could be something else altogether.”

The executive had had enough. “I’m not here to ask people questions,” he snapped. “I’m here to get this campaign going.” We were supposed to be discussing articles and speeches and talking points, he said, not trying to find out why there was growth. He was running a campaign, not a research operation.

It was something of a rant, and when he finished, a noticeable chill had settled over the room. The meeting ended shortly thereafter, and the executive did not call us to meet again.

Would it make any difference if I said the organization was a church, the finance campaign was to raise money for a new church building complex, and the executive was a pastor?

The church had been dealing with the problem of explosive growth, and it was a problem. We had recently moved into a new building, and it was already insufficient. The parking lot has been been expanded two or three times, and it was still difficult to find a space on Sunday. The children’s ministry was getting overwhelmed. The facility lacked space for all of the youth programs and adult classes.

Instead of asking people why they were coming, the leadership was assuming growth would continue forever. And the church was turning to campaign programs, fundraising visits, sermons from the pulpit, and outside consultants who had all the right tactics for raising the most amount of money in the shortest possible time.

No one was asking people why people were coming. And no one was looking at the fact that attendance did not necessarily translate into membership, or at the fact that attendance might be “churning” – with a high “turnover rate” of who was making attendance permanent. That’s where the communications group was, and we were dismissed and not called together again.

In the face of a huge problem, as “good” of a problem as it might have been, the church leadership turned to the Egyptians.

In The Fire of Delayed Answers, Bob Sorge describes what King Hezekiah did when he faced the most ferocious and rapacious army of his time – the Assyrians. They had just conquered the northern kingdom of Israel, and they were not known for being merciful to their foe. Hezekiah, who knew better, turned to the familiar and the human – and made an alliance with the Egyptians. He didn’t turn to God, and he almost lost everything. The Egyptians turned out not to be much help, and Hezekiah found himself and Jerusalem surrounded. When it was almost too late, Hezekiah turned to God for help, and it was God who destroyed the Assyrian army, right at gates of the city.

Sorge’s point is that, when facing serious problems (our own version of the Assyrians), too often we turn to human agencies, human strengths and human resources, and we leave God out of the equation. We can do that individually, and we can do that collectively – like a church. Things make work, and we may succeed for a time, but ultimately it leads to more problems or, worse, to disaster.

Led by Jason Stasyszen and Sarah Salter, we’ve been reading The Fire of Delayed Answers. To see more posts on this chapter, “The Assyrians Are Coming,” please visit Sarah at Living Between the Lines.