Exploration is Dangerous Business
2/10/03

That was the thought that went through my mind as I saw the tape of the space shuttle Columbia breaking up.  I don't suppose that my thoughts were especially profound, but they were descriptive.  It is very dangerous to push the envelope and send humans into space.  It is also dangerous to push some people from their comfort zones into the unexplored regions of their spiritual lives.  Many traditional churches offer safe places to exhibit an "outward form of godliness but denying its power." (2Tim. 3:5) The administrative structure of our congregations often conspires to keep everything safe and to ensure that careful planning will save us from ever depending on faith or spiritual power.  We experience the fruits of this spirit as we mark 35 consecutive years of mainline decline.

The Jesus Connection is a good description of what we are about.  We want to help people get connected with Jesus in such a way that they discover a vibrant faith and their spiritual gifts for ministry.  Because of our own experience of congregational structures stifling faith and gift discovery and use, we feel that the congregation needs to look at how it corporately connects with Jesus.  Do the structures serve connections to Jesus, or do we end up serving the structures?

I worked for a time as a psychotherapist in an in-patient facility that served addicts on one wing and the chronically mentally ill on the other.  We often made significant progress while our clients were with us, but we knew that we were often sending them back into systems that would not support their sobriety or attempts at sane-ness.  Their month or two of therapy would not be enough to counter the pressures to conform to the way they had been.  We've see the same phenomenon in our congregations when persons have returned from short-term missions, renewal events, or spiritual retreats transformed and itching to take new steps in ministry, only to have the vitality sucked right out of them as they tried to work through a series of committees or boards.

The Jesus Connection teaches a process for spiritual AND structural transformation.  I tell the people in my congregation that my pastoral goals are that they will each experience a living faith which is deeply meaningful to them, and that our corporate structure and leadership will support them in living out a meaningful faith.  What serious Christian would not agree with these goals? Of course, there are people in our congregations that don't.  I have members of my congregation who think we are "too spiritual" or "too religious" and that we talk too much about Jesus. I have members in my congregation who wonder why we don't treasure Robert's Rules like their other clubs.  I have members who are basically supportive of our spiritual goals, but still worry that the organization will get too "loosey goosey" if everything is not micro-managed.  But I keep holding up the goals and asking the congregation if we are making progress, and if this progress is making us more connected to Jesus.  I think that generally we are.

Explorers have goals.  We need to stay focused on our goals as Christian leaders who are ruined to the old, but not quite sure about the new.  It will be dangerous to explore new pathways to being Jesus' people.  But I'm convinced that the exploration is worth it.

Loren Olson - First United Church, Little Falls, Minnesota