Blow The Thing Up

In this day and age, good businesses don't just squeeze more and more
efficiency into their processes. Now, it's good to take a look at the
way you do things and ask the question, "How can we do it one second
faster / one cent cheaper / a little bit better?" But every once in
awhile, good companies take a look at the way they do things and don't
ask any questions. They just say, "Let's blow the thing up."

Success -- some might even say survival -- in this day and age comes
not from incremental improvement but from inspired innovation.
Kimberly Clark blew up the paper mills -- literally -- and became a
different kind of business. Apple took one look at a rapidly
commoditizing business and, instead of running, decided to make a real
product. GE is legendary for getting out of stuff it's not leading
the field in. It's a scary proposition -- to throw away what you're
really good at, for the chance at being something entirely different
and altogether better. But it's what makes for good times and great
businesses.

I call this to mind because our church is deciding to do the same.
Not because we're business gurus trying to be innovative and cool.
But because we believe God is inviting us to be more, because He is
more. We have a great and special church. It is a wonderful
manifestation of God's presence in our community, a wonderful vessel
of God's mercy in this world. But the leaders of the church have done
the hard but necessary thing in not asking the question, "How can we
do what we're doing better?" Instead, they're saying, "Let's blow the
thing up."

It's a scary place to be, especially where we (and this is true for
everyone who attends, no matter how long we've attended, so I really
can use the word, "we") look to our church for some semblance of
stability and familiarity. When you blow something up, nothing is
stable or familiar. Nothing, even and especially good stuff that
people have come to treasure as part of what they know as "church," is
off-limits. We must strip away our anchors, our comforts, and look
instead to each other, and ultimately to God. It's a scary way to
steer a church. But it's exactly how you give space for God to be as
big as He really is. And so it's exactly where we want to be.