How?

How? Not a bad question by itself, but it can be a dangerous one as well. Ever had a dream or an idea that you wanted to try or that you thought could change things for the better? What happens a lot of time in the church is that is when the "how?"s come out. How can we afford that? How will we have enough people? How will we do this or that? How...

Any new ideas are questioned to death and that teaches us to live safely within what we have always done. We don't venture into something new, we don't try to reach a different group, we are afraid to fail. No hidden secret, if you have read any of my blogs before, that I like change and to challenge the status quo. Not just for sake of change but to learn new ways to do things. I am not the most creative person or have a lot of original ideas but I want to support those on the outside fringes who have those new ideas. I may not totally understand the new idea or even think it will succeed all of the time, but I also don't want to be a dream killer. The how question to me is this - How do we create a culture where it is encouraged to dream and also okay to fail?

I love that this last Sunday we tried something new. We had a day of service for the surrounding community within a one mile radius of our church building. We had over 50 people respond with requests for help around their houses. Some trees cut, some leaves raked, some light bulbs changed - not huge things by themselves, but things that they needed help with and couldn't do by themselves. I wonder what would have happened if it had been asked "How can we cut the service short?", "How can we take care of people that don't go to church here?","How can we afford this?" Those questions may have been asked. I don't know, but I do know that we tried something new. Something that may have failed. That excites me because that means that a culture is being created to venture into the new. What dreams are around the corner? We have the choice to support them or try to "how?" them to death. I'm excited by the possibilities.