First Things First
3/11/02

Last August I took over a second year girls soccer program at our local high school.  Soccer is a new sport in our community so I found a team of inexperienced players who played with the "kick and chase" philosophy of new soccer players.  My strategies were based on dribbling and short passing skills that the players had not yet developed.  So although we structured formations and set plays to work off ball control strategies, they were not working because the young women simply did not have the basic skills to execute.  After a couple of games we knew we had to get back to basics and drill, drill, drill basic skills.  The players did not like it, they were not used to the concept of disciplined drilling to improve skills, but by the end of the season we were starting to play varsity quality soccer. 
 
A weakness in many of our congregations is that we have allowed several generations of Christians to play church without learning the basic skills of spiritual discipline.  A woman in the congregation I serve tells how she had not opened a Bible or prayed by herself for thirty years.  During this time she served in most of the major leadership roles in the church.  An experience in a short-term Spiritual Life Group helped her discover deep meaning in daily scripture study and prayer, and has transformed the way she looks at church life.  Learning the basic skills has helped her find a ministry that is much more fulfilling than her years of committee and board work.  She now sees her leadership as ministry and gift rather than duty.
 
The structural transformation that we encourage as The Jesus Connection is a solid strategy for transforming established congregations, but it will fall far short of its vision if spiritual transformation does not precede it.  Changing formations and plays does not help if team members do not have the basic skills to execute.  Changing to a structure that assumes a basic understanding of spiritual discipline will not work if people are not involved in personal spiritual disciplines.  That is why the first step in the process is always to invite people to the next level of spiritual growth, whatever that may be for them.  That is why we think it is so important to begin The Jesus Connection process with a sabbatical period with a spiritual growth focus.  First things first!  Learn the skills, and then find the structures that will use the skills and not inhibit them.
 
We're often in a hurry.  We want to kick the ball and race others to it instead of patiently working it down the field.  But if we are going to transform congregations that often have several generations of inertia, we must start with transforming personal lives so that they become uncomfortable with the status quo and seek new ways of being disciples in community and ministry.
 
Loren Olson - First United Church, Little Falls, MN