Seeds of Transformation

THE SPYGLASS by Richard Paul Evans tells the story of a kingdom that has lost vision and faith in itself.  Everything was rundown, the people "were not just poor by way of things, but they were poor of spirit."  A traveler appears who in exchange for lodging promises to show the king how he can change his kingdom back to the prosperous land it once was.  The traveler has the king look through a spyglass, and this glass allows the king to see what might be.  The king goes through the kingdom encouraging others to look through the spyglass so they too can catch the vision of what might be.  The refrain that runs through the book is "You have seen what might be, now go and make it so."

One of the important roles of the pastor is to go out ahead, to explore possibilities of what might become if the congregation puts its gifts to work.  We are sowers in our leadership as we are when we are serving as preacher and teacher.  We cannot control the quality of soil where our seeds fall, but we can continue to place the vision of what might be before the congregation as it discusses its common life.

During the Lenten season we recall that after Jesus understood his sense of call as the "beloved Son," he went into the wilderness to discern directions for his ministry.  I have worked with structural transformation issues in two congregations, one that was comfortable with their old model until I began inviting them to look through the spyglass, and one that specifically wanted a pastor to help them restructure.  Each time I felt it was important for me to spend time in prayer, study, and reflection before I began to share visions of what might be, and I invited key leaders to join me in the process.  With the wisdom of experience and new insight, if I were to begin this process in a church I would invite the congregation to join me in an intentional sabbatical year that was heavy on prayer and scripture study, with business kept to the essentials (and I would define what the essentials were before we started.)  Not doing a sabbatical left us in a situation where we built the walls of our new structure with one hand on the trowel and the other on the spear.

Many wonder how the church can survive during a sabbatical.  How can it survive without one?  How else can congregations spend time discerning mission and ministry free from distraction?  A neighboring congregation decided to do a year long sabbatical and because they did not emphasize the spiritual element of the sabbatical quickly found themselves finding exceptions that had to be dealt with, sabbatical or not.  Exceptions have become the norm and their sabbatical is a failure, although in theory it is still happening.  Letting things lie fallow can help a congregation see what might be as well as seeing all the things that are not as necessary as some think, freeing energy for the important aspects of community life and ministry.  If we can communicate to our members that this is a spiritual process and not an excuse for laziness or to provide time to rearrange the furniture, it will be a seed for transformation.

Spiritual Life Groups, which Jan Linn has explained so articulately ("Reflections" 2/5/02), are the other seed that must be planted conjointly with the sabbatical year.  It is an integral piece to enable people to deal with the concepts of spiritual discernment and spiritual gifts which are critical for The Jesus Connection model.

May God continue to bless our efforts as we journey together, seeing what may be, and working to make it so.

Grace and Peace,

Loren Olson

First United Church

Little Falls, MN