In honor of The Transfiguration of Jesus I decided to bring in those little tablets that are supposed to turn into sponges when they are placed into water. I thought it would be a great way for the children to see how when something is transformed it is changed forever. Since the Transfiguration makes my head spin, I have resigned myself to cultivating meaning in the event not for how it changed Jesus himself, but for how it changed the way in which the witnesses saw Jesus and that in that moment of Transfiguration, Jesus could never be seen the same ever again by the people who witnessed this mountain-top moment.
After the first service I was pretty determined to find a way to expedite the sponge forming process. I tried to boil the tablets. I tried to tear them open. I thought about getting out the fire extinguisher and spraying them. In spite of my incredibly creative and increasingly violent ideas, nothing I did in any way expedited the process of the tablets absolving and the sponges forming.
I had planned out my Children's Moment, I was prepared (outside of reading the directions...) and none of it made a difference. Inspite of my effort, hard work, and creativity, the only result I had was a bunch of blank faced stares from Children wondering why Pastor Stephanie just lost her mind and was slamming the microphone against plastic tablets like a hammer and a nail. I did not actually end up using the mircophone as a weapon against the disobedient tablets but only because I didn't think it would be effective, not because I thought I would look like a crazy maniac.
For better or worse, I put everything I have into my ministry. All my energy, all my creativity, all my time. And it can be frustrating and discouraging that at the end of the day, the week, the month, the year...all the twelve hour days and all the advocacy for new programming doesn't seem to have the transforming effect that I am really searching to be a part of.
During coffee hour today someone shared with me that what they believed our church needed was more people to come so we could have more money to take care of our building. Reflecting on the conversation, it makes me want to throw my hands up and walk away. That in all my sermons, all our ministries, and all our talk about outreach this is still where our feet remain planted. That we aren't talking about transforming our lives as we walk with Jesus, standing as witnesses to the transformation of others in our midst, but that we are still seeking passive donors to buy a membership to this country club called "the church."
In many ways, I know I believed that if my leadership were effective, if results matched efforts and heart put into something, the coffee hour conversation would sound much different:
How can I more completely give this space to you? The Other? How can I connect with the community? How can I shine the Light of Christ on the lives of people who are broken and suffering, marginalized and alone? How can WE cooperate and use our gifts to meet the needs of the people who are looking for a tangible sign of grace in a grace-less world? How can we seek to follow Jesus more completely and in that journey create a Church which reflects this outward mission?
Obviously, this is about more than a Children's Moment on a Sunday morning. The ability for our congregations to engage in conversations of mission and discipleship and the courage to step out of the building and to seek the face of Jesus on the street corner will be what determines our fate as an institution. I know this and I have poured my heart and soul and body into efforts that support this false belief that I might be able to use fire extinguishers and flame throwers and megaphones to beat the church in a certain direction.
But it doesn't work. It shouldn't work. We all need to be given the space and time to transform. What God says to us and does in us during this time will be what provides the witness to others that we truly can never be the same. It will be an undeniably genuine transformation that the world will recognize. Not forced, not limited....but truly the Transfiguration of the Church.
A leader cannot force or persuade or negogiate the transformation of lives...but we can skillfully wait and prepare for it. We can take up residency in the space of seemingly unfertile ground because God has told us something will grow. And I believe it will. In its own time. In its own season.
God is already at work...the tablets are already dissolving...my commitment to ministry will be the faithful perseverance to remain present to watch the unfolding of the new manifestation of Christ's justice and mercy in this place.
