Map or Compass

By nature, I am a planner and a strategic thinker. I love knowing where I am going, how I am going to get there, and how much time it will require. It’s a gift from God, although I recognize that not everyone is gifted this way. How they ever make it through a day I don’t know.

For most of my life as a minister, I have laid out plans and strategies, mission statements, and goals for where I believe God wants my ministry and whatever church I was working with at the time. It’s my comfort zone for sure.

In this current time and space we find ourselves in, it seems to me that God has us in a season of transition. Many of my friends who are in leadership capacities in churches have felt the same thing. Certainly, seasons of transition happen in our walk with God but this one has felt very different than past seasons of transition.

I believe that it started with Covid. While I do not believe that God caused Covid, I do believe that he has used it to usher the Church (at least in America) into a season of change.

Revival or Reformation

I know that many Christians are crying out for revival and have been for years. I am not opposed to revival but I think we need something deeper than revival. I believe with all my heart that we need a reformation. The whole system needs an upgrade and a reboot.

What we’ve been doing is not working and the Church in America has lost its voice. We are just another undistinguishable sound in a very noisy world. I think that Covid helped us to see how broken we were.

We need a reformation because we don’t love well. We are to be known for our love for one another, a love that is supposed to include those outside the church. Yet, we are more known for our judgmentalism and our inclusivity. We are not known for our love but for our hate; hatred of everything that doesn’t look or act like us (or at least what we think we look like).

Season of Transition

Yes, we are in a season of transition away from gifted pulpit superstars where everything revolves around their charisma and gifting. We are in a season of transition away from ministry mafias where insecure, narcissistic ministers build their own little empires.

This season of transition and reformation has to happen if the Church is ever going to get its voice back and have an effect on our society.

The problem is that we have no map of where we are going. From what I am hearing from across the body of Christ, God is not showing us much of what it will look like or how we will get there.

Like the first called disciples of Jesus, he is giving us the same instructions, “Follow Me.”

He is not telling us where he is going or how long it’s going to take to get there. He is not giving us the steps to achieve anything.

His command is simple: “Follow Me.”

Oh, he’s going somewhere, but he’s just not letting us know where and how. He simply wants us to trust him enough to follow him. It’s about putting Jesus back as the focal point of what we are endeavoring to do.

As I said in the beginning, I am a planner that likes to know where I am going. So, for me, this isn’t a comfortable transition. Instead of God giving me a map with instructions, he is giving me a compass and telling me to chart the map as we go.

A Journey of Discovery

This transition is all about discovery. I believe that there are three specific things we are to discover:

1. How to know and relate to God as a father.

2. How to know and relate to Jesus as the human being that he is.

3. How to really know and relate to one another as the body of Christ.

I will write more about these three things in the next few blogs.

Like God’s call to Abram, his call to us is the same, “Go to a land that I will show you.” In Hebrews 11, we are told that Abram went out not knowing where he was going. Oh, I feel that one!

Like God’s instructions to Joshua, “You’ve not been this way before” (Josh. 3:4). Joshua didn’t have a map of where he was going. He had to follow the instructions of the Lord.

Paul tells us in Romans that “those that are led by the Spirit are the sons of God.” Sons are led by the Spirit. Why is that? Because the Spirit knows Papa’s heart and sons are eager to follow the heart of Papa.

It really all comes down to trust. Do we trust that God has our back? Do we trust that God is really good? Is he faithful to fulfill his promises to us? Can our hearts trust him?

It’s not safe to follow God but it’s good. As C.S. Lewis wrote in The Chronicles of Narnia,

“Aslan is a lion- the Lion, the great Lion.” “Ooh” said Susan. “I’d thought he was a man. Is he-quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion”…”Safe?” said Mr Beaver …”Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

In this season of transition get comfortable with the compass and just follow Jesus out of trust. It may not feel safe but it will be good.

Thinking Allowed: Map or Compass