Question of the Day ??
This past weekend at my School of Congregational Development, Leonard Sweet tried to set an image in our mind. It was the image of the Perfect Storm. You may remember the book or movie that came out several years ago where two storms come together to make the perfect storm. Those of us in this area may feel as though we witnessed the perfect storm last year with Katrina.
Sweet said that we're living in a perfect storm where three are colliding. I forgot the three, but know one was post-modernity and think another was consumerism and don't remember the third.
Our churches are the boats. Where are they the safest? Not where they feel the safest or where they might think they are, but where they really are?
Sweet's answer is that the safest place is driving into the storm. Most churches may think that tied up in the harbor is the safest. But look at what happened to all those on the Biloxi Coast last year. Even though the boat sank in the perfect storm, we have something that it does not. What would that be?
posted by Greg Hazelrig @ 9:04 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
I challenge anyone who comments to push the envelope here. Maybe someone can give what you think the storms are that make up the perfect storm in our culture today. Maybe someone can comment on if we're supposed to be safe or maybe there should be another term used, like successful.
I used to apprieciate Len Sweet's musings a lot, but somewhere in the past couple of years he really took a righthanded turn, and I am not sure where he is headed to.
Its difficult to use "storm imagery" when I have stood in the center of a church in New Orleans that has been ripped apart, congregation scattered, and very little hope to speak of. One of my church members visited Gulfside Methodist Retreat Center in Mississippi, and saw nothing. Entire buildings gone. So I think your right on when Len Sweet says Perfect Storm and we think of Katrina and Rita. Maybe we need to focus on hope. That is where we are looking in the Louisiana Conference. We are choosing to look at signs of hope, to be signs of hope. Isn't that where the church is called to be in the storm? Hope.
Stephen,
to be signs of hope, we can't stay in the harbor. We must go into the storm where the hopeless are.
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