Dying Leads To Life

In their book “The Practice of Adaptive Leadership," Heifetz/Grashow/Linsky remind us that there are times when the best thing that can happen to an organization is for part of it to die.

Paul Achtemier wrote, “Where there is death, there is hope.”

Paul, the Apostle wrote, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, [they are] a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come" (2 Corinthians 5:17).

As members we have many ideas about what should be important to us as a congregation. Some of those ideas are 30-40 years old and don’t fit us or our context anymore. I think it’s time to let some of our dreams die. If we are holding onto our unrealistic dreams how can we grab hold of God’s dreams for us?

We need to let some past goals and dreams die so that we can be real about following God’s plan with the resources we have and in the new context of a world that is always changing.

When I was younger I played some rec league softball in my small town. We were all friends and had a good time. One of our mates was very slowly running the bases when someone yelled at him, “Dale unload that piano you’re carrying!”

What load are we carrying that slows us down or keeps us from being as agile or nimble as we need to be in our modern world? How can we do a better job of sharing Jesus’ love in our world that is so filled with hate? Will our old practice of opening the doors and trying to be nice to those who enter work in the future? Will we need to do more? Will our old business model of governance work in the future? Will small congregations be able to each afford their own pastor in the future? How will ministry change? How can we get excited and enthused about this new adventure?

Paul says it all… "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, [they are] a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come" (2 Corinthians 5:17).