dreaming & ideas

i love ideas. i’m not sure if i ever loved ideas before, but i really love them now. i married a man who’s as giddy as a schoolboy when we talk about ideas; he holds on to them like kite strings, enjoying them when they catch a breeze and fly higher, and then reeling them in again, thrilling at the tension of movement. he’s made me love ideas.

many years ago, i had an idea that i’d buy a big farmhouse just outside a city (yes, it was an idea, okay, so i have no idea if any farmhouses can really be that close to a metropolis). folks would walk up onto the wide front porch - all white, with swings and cafe tables - and into the main doors where they’d find a coffeeshop with windows facing both east and west, letting all possible hours of light pour onto the old, wood floors and rummage-sale chairs and tables. but there was more. just off the coffeeshop was my room of revolution. inside, the walls would be lined with newspaper articles announcing small triumphs of the revolutionaires who met in that room, those who advocated for the voiceless, the overlooked, the marginalized. there were articles, too, of needs within the city and all over the globe. there were 2 computers next to each other for research on any given topic, and books galore. there were prayers written on the walls, messages left for other revolutionaires to echo in their own conversations with God.

i had another idea that someday i’d be a mom who spent her days divided between providing academic counseling for college students and lobbying for change in public squares and capitol buildings.

i dream a lot. i often think of what could be. i’m rarely content with the status quo. my whole person feels naturally drawn to seek out what - in the here & now - is not right. i move towards conflict. i can pause to celebrate a victory only so long before i want to know where we’re going to go from there.

in my old job, i loved the opportunity to meet with people who were of the same mind, thinking about how they could DO something, how they could respond to a need, how they could make a difference where it mattered.

in rare cases did any of those folks profess to be christians. whatever their reason for doing something GOOD, they felt compelled to see it through. and i honor that. absolutely.

i would only assume that christians should be MORE compelled to do good. galatians 5 says “it is for freedom that christ has set us free … the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love … you, my brothers, were called to be free. but do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. the entire law is summed up in a single command: love your neighbor as yourself.” and later in galatians 6, paul says this, “therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people.”

all this freedom! all this love! how else can a christian respond but to love others?

but why is it that we can get so caught up in the “how”? we ask what opportunities our local church provides for us to love others. we check out what options there are for serving the neighborhood. we consider if any of them will fit our personalities and giftings. some of us join on, others of us fail to do anything, acting as if we still need more time to consider the details of the demands of the DOING.

is the act of loving so difficult? is it so limiting? are there only so many ways to love?

i fear the local church has been in the business of killing creativity for a while now. we’ve shown our dependence on staff, letting them make the creative decisions about how our local church will serve in love. my guess is that in any given church body, there are more than 40 people (or, let’s be honest, 10) who can think of some creative opportunity to love.

so you can imagine how happy i was to see in the book i’ve been reading that there was an entire chapter devoted to releasing the church to dream up ways to serve God. i’m going to insert a few bits here:

saying yes!
one of the surest ways to empower peole to serve is to champion their ideas. if any church member approaches you with an idea for ministry, the answer must always be yes! does this mean your church supports and sanctions every ministry idea a person wishes to attempt? no, it doesn’t. but it does mean that you champion each idea in a manner similar to the following:
1. you enthusiastically praise the person for coming up with such an original idea. no matter how dumb you may think the idea is, the fact that he or she has taken the risk to approach you with a creative idea is outstanding. how many more ideas do you think the person will bring to you if you criticize this one? when you can’t praise the idea, at least praise the person for being creative and courageous enough to think of it.
2. ask the person to find five other people who are willing to team with him or her to help build such a ministry …. when the team has been identified, the person with the idea should come back to you. [this] requires him or her to define and communicate the vision for ministry well enough to attract others to it. it allows the ministry idea to be confirmed, refined, or rejected by others in the church.
3. when you meet with the team, … encourage them to think through how the new ministry fits with your mission and direction as a church.
4. support the team with all the training they need but encourage them to find their own funding.
5. assure the team that the church will support them in every possible way.

 i am so excited about the potential of new ideas. in my last post, i think, i talked about this family meeting our church had a few weeks ago. though i enjoyed the talk, i was distracted by the people in the room, moved by what seemed to be like little fireworks dancing over a dozen or so heads. and i cried. i felt like god was doing something already in the lives of people in that room; that he was igniting passions, or urging action from dreams. what a beautiful thing that god is at work in the ideas of his people. how can we be a part of releasing the church to dream big and do good?

how beautiful, how beautiful.