Driving in the snow

Greetings!

I was talking with a friend this morning about our mutual weariness of the lack of progress Washington DC seems committed to making in the wake of the State of the Union Speech. I mentioned that I'd much rather work for the Church, a body known for it's quick decisions and responsiveness.

It's true, we are not at all known for rapid progress in the Church. It seems to be an affliction that particularly affects youth workers, those of us who are young and in the church have this desire to see things move along just a smidge faster. I'm in that boat too for the most part. I've spent more than a few conversations over coffee whining about how slow our session's moving with this idea or how unwilling to change our congregations are.

But, is going slow such a bad thing?

I was going through my book shelf, determined to actually read the books I bought at the National Youth Workers Convention this year (and then when that's done, I'll take a look at the ones from years past!), when I started to get frustrated. With subtle few exceptions, every youth ministry book I have is a deconstructionist manifesto. It seems like everyone's solution is to tear things down, wait for the dust to settle, and then build something new again. And sadly for me, as a less-than excited reader, I almost never make it past the demolition. Some books don't even really talk about building something else up, because we don't know what should go there. We just know that what we have isn't working.

As I was reading these books, I began to feel kind of weird, because it turns out that things are going exceptionally well for our team at Westminster. I don't at all feel the need to tear anything down. But at the same time, I know that we are capable of improvement and making a much better ministry than we already have. Am I psycho to think that we could improve a youth ministry slowly, by tweaking this idea and that program just a little bit as we go?

I had coffee with a very good (and it turns out really wise) friend the other day, who told me that leading the Church is actually like driving in the snow. Slamming on the brakes or making a sudden sharp turn is going to spin you completely out of control, and you're going to end up in a ditch. But if you take it slow, if you gear down a little bit and make minor corrections along the way, you'll wind up at your destination safe and sound. Maybe not as fast as you want, but for sure a lot faster than you would if you wound up in the ditch.

Is anyone else feeling this? Let me know in some comments!

(By the way, enjoy the new digs. Hope everyone likes it!)

Godspeed,

J