Church is like a Rube-Goldberg Machine

-Rev Melissa Fain-

We have no respect or patience for the process anymore. It appears nothing takes time, and nothing is made by hand anymore. When I was in high school I heard the term "Fast Food World." Everything was so fast, we couldn't appreciate or enjoy it. Now, twenty years later, we live in a Fast Food World on Steroids. Everyone wants to go faster, and get things done quicker.

The church, by it's very nature cannot exist in this mindset. As an organization, a community, and a group of individuals- the payout is directly died to the process it took to get there. Church is like a Rube-Goldberg Machine. You start with a call from God, which leads to a mission. If the mission gets off track, even a little, the whole machine fails and the outcome is never reached. It is then the job of the church to painstakingly go over the process again. This takes time and work.

The modern Protestant church isn't playing the long patient game we are being called to. Why? 

1. We are so used to getting things now, we have lost the skill to build- Two weeks ago I subbed for the Family and Consumer Science Teacher. Us old people used to call that Home Economics. I decided to bring in my cross-stitch project. The students were in awe. "That looks so hard!" I heard more than one say. In reality, cross-stitch is probably the absolute easiest part of embroidery. It was pixel art when Nintendo was just a card game. But, to these students, and much of the world today, cross-stitch is difficult because it requires things we no longer have: Patience and the ability to follow the plan.  In a Rube-Goldberg machine, the purpose is to get a series of movements to do a simple task. For a church, the simple task is the Great Commission. Go out and make disciples. Many churches get frustrated because they go straight to the end. We must build the steps first, and then we can worry about the payoff. 
2. We see the cliff and instead of going into crisis mode, we are just doing something!- You are going to get a ton of school stories, because that's where I've been. Three days ago I was walking 7th graders to connections when a caution, wet floor sign fell. It made this loud pop in the atrium. A couple of students began to panic. One of the teachers, who had seen the sign drop commented, "Calm down, it was just a sign." I, who had put two and two together after the fact, said, "I don't know about you, but I was about to pull kids to the ground." Those who hadn't seen thought it sounded like a gun shot. The students and myself show the difference between those trained for crisis, and those reacting to crisis. The students were reacting. It sounded like a gunshot and they had no training for that while transitioning to another class. I, on the other hand, continue to seek crisis training. I know staying calm is the best first move. (And yes, thinking it was a gun shot, my pulse went up dramatically.) Check-Call-Care. In crisis we don't throw something at the wound, we check the situation. Churches don't check anymore. We are so afraid we just act, and just acting often leads to worse outcomes. With a Rube-Goldberg Machine, we have to plan out the execution, even if we are working with time limits. If we are not taking the time to think, it's just not going to work. Period.
3. We don't want to work with the pieces God wants us to work with.- When I was in second grade I got disheartened because no one would play with me. I had two friends and both were out sick. I went to the teacher and told her my problem. She had the best solution. She brought me to the most unpopular kid in second grade and introduced me. The horrible person I was, I said I didn't want to play with her. The kid, God bless her soul, said, "It's okay. I can play by myself." The teacher, however, was less than pleased. "If you can't learn to play with anyone, than you deserve to play by yourself." Tough words for a second grader, but also true words. The climate has shifted. We can no longer build churches the way we did in the 90's with a vision plan and a prayer, but we keep playing that old song. Moses cannot live in Babylon. Jonah, cannot bring the people to the promised land. John the Baptist isn't in the game to wash people's feet. In other words, God calls specific people, for specific tasks at specific times. It's not our call to decide who God is calling. We can't play pretend that we are in a different time or place. If you want to lament that you can't work with a specific person or items, fine. Mourn what you can't have, and move on. It's not your call. It's God's.
   

If I could sum this up it would be this:

Take your time. God is with us. Trust the plan, and follow the directions you know you need to follow.