Just shy of my 30th birthday I started a new job, one for which I was spectacularly unprepared. A small, family-owned manufacturing firm inked a contract with a new and highly-demanding customer that would triple the size of the company – if all went well. If it went poorly, the company might well fail.
Other than a college summer working on the floor of a paper processing plant, I had no experience in manufacturing, but now I was responsible for a new plant and new employees. The task was clear: get the product out on time, on budget and on spec.
My new boss gave me an important piece of advice: make mistakes based on action rather than inaction. In other words, doing nothing is a choice, and probably a bad one. Becoming frozen in the trap of waiting for perfect decisions or more information would likely lead to failure.
We need this advice in the Episcopal Church: make mistakes through action rather than inaction. Many people are hoping someone (Outside Church Walls, the national church, the diocese, etc.) will publish a manual with the definitive answer to revitalization. They’re waiting for it, afraid to make changes or take actions in case they turn out to be wrong.
Unfortunately, there is no single answer; our time and place are too complicated for a one-size approach. As we wait, we’re losing time. We’re passing up opportunities to serve and impact the people around us. As congregations struggle they become more focused on revitalization or survival rather than on serving God’s purpose in our context.
Waiting or acting each create their own momentum. Action tends to lead to further action. Inaction leads to paralysis. Either is a choice.
We’ll certainly make some mistakes. Some congregations might not survive. But we’re already making mistakes of inaction, of lost opportunity. If we do nothing there are congregations that won’t survive. (And, congregational survival is not the end goal, though we desire it. Serving and worshipping God is the purpose.)
The take-away is this: do something. Take a risk, a little bigger than you really dare. Be uncertain, nervous and hopeful. Offer it to God, knowing that God can do something with the outcome. Build some action momentum in your congregation.
Greg
Thank you, Greg. Since coming back 'into the fold' it has been my earnest motive in religious participation to keep the Episcopal Church alive. Now I'm thinking that that may be a mistake. Perhaps it's the dreaded 'death' and the talking about it that we're trying to avoid. But I'm discovering this kind of talk and recognition must be necessary for a 'new birth' to take place.
ReplyDeleteMy family have been Episcopalians for generations but I am no longer able to adhere to the words of the creed or for that matter, much of the church liturgy. However the beauty of it, and it's history I cannot throw out. But it is fading into history, and that's a fact... which makes it imperative that I focus as a leader in our mission church on the Now and the future... the unknown. And there's the kicker, I think. People, of which I am one, are afraid of the unknown, and I'm having trouble getting folks to talk about it, to accept the reality of 'Now' as we move into the future. It's just so much easier to use our past as a comfy pillow where we can fall asleep rather than get up and keep moving.
Using your words and my recent experience, I'm going to keep plugging away... focusing on the holy Now and a Universal Consciousness which I think of as the resurrected Christ in all of humanity and the movement toward a resurrected church.
Again, thank you and the OCW team. I'll do all I can to help keep the momentum going.
Thanks, Carolyn. The unknown future is scary at times, but I do think it gets easier to take the risk if we acknowledge that the likely future without change is not bright, particularly at some congregations.
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