“Overwhelmed? Take the helm…”
“An old skipper gave me a great tip one time, when I had my own sailboat. “If someone’s about to hurl, give `em the helm.” When you feel motion sickness, a good thing to do is focus on the horizon. It’s even better to grab the wheel. I’ve never known anyone get carsick who was driving. A much deeper level of equilibrium is accessed when you actually take charge of a moving vessel.”
I am not sure where I read this quote recently, but it struck me as speaking to our experience as a Church which is attempting to move into these new post-modern time. As we create new congregations - as leaders we encounter those who don’t want to change and want to hold on tightly to the old. Perhaps the biggest gift we can give these people is the wheel and allow them to focus on the bigger picture. Not easy to do but very powerful.
September 29th, 2003 at 9:46 am
When I was at teachers college we shared our classes with a group from the navey. They had a different view. They had a slide with a destroyer that had rammed a aircraft carrier midships. Underneath was written “A collision at sea can ruin your entire day!”
Personally, I’d be careful who you let steer.
September 29th, 2003 at 9:50 am
oops, didn’t mean a castrated bull but you get the idea
October 2nd, 2003 at 1:25 am
hmm, what i’ve discovered in my brief time at the wheel is that it is a lot harder than i thought it was. what seemed like a simple task from the outside seems almost doomed on the inside. suddenly i have tremendous respect for a community which is alive, because they do not grow spontaneously, they are all little miracles. i find myself wishing, in parental way, that the people who are critical of me would wind up leading a church full of people just like them
i hear the comment about crashing the ship, but maybe we should build smaller and lighter ships so we aren’t so cautious about letting other people steer? it does seem like jesus to hand the wheel over, he came to earth to give away power (among other things).