As I was working on my message for Sunday focused on “Forming Community” I was encouraged and challenged by a quote from Tod Bolsinger in his book, “Canoeing the Mountains: Christian Leadership in Uncharted Territories.” In the book Tod said, “Leadership isn’t so much skillfully helping a group accomplish what they want to do (that is management). Leadership is taking people where they need to go and yet resist going.” Leadership as Tod defines it is, “energizing a community of people toward their own transformation in order to accomplish a shared mission in the face of a changing world.”
As I think of my time on athletic teams in junior high, high school, and college I can remember coaches leading me in similar ways. I can remember in track having to run 800 repeats (two times around the track) and we would get a short break in between and then have to run it again. Each time we were expected to have our time as a team under a certain amount or we would have to run even more. If it had been up to me I probably would have said let’s run a few and call it a day, but the coach was training us for something greater. I can remember running full court press drills for basketball over and over again. It was exhausting and there were times I wanted to give up, yet the coach was preparing us for moments we would face ahead. Those coaches were not interested in getting me to do what I wanted to do, they lead me to where I needed to go.
This caused me to reflect again on the topic of community and the church. There are times honestly that it is easier for the church to just be a large gathering of individuals instead of a thriving community. Why? When the focus is on the individual it is about getting what I want and when I want it. Yet, when it is about thriving in community that is much more messy, because then it is about WE and not ME. Instead of Church being about “what can the church do for me?” the question transforms into, “I am part of the church what can I do for someone else? What can we offer one another?” In making this shift it takes us from a consumer focus of wants and preferences, to a mindset of care and love for one another. When we are willing to wade into the messiness of community with one another, praying for one another, encouraging one another, supporting one another, challenging one another, then it leads fully into being as the scriptures say in 1 Peter 2:9 “The priesthood of all believers”.
This may not be where we have been, this may not always be where we want to go, but if we are willing to be push forward and go where we need to go then it help lead us as the Church to effectively live out our mission in the face of a quickly changing world.
