April Fool - Belated

On a river canoe trip, sometimes floaters have to navigate swift rapids and sharp turns. Sometimes they must negotiate tricky obstacles above and below the water level. Sometimes, though, it's good just to wave the paddles and splash each other!

On the night before April 1 I gave into a little bit of a mischievous impulse. Capitalizing on being alone in our church's facility, I went around to our staff's various work spaces and messed with them a little bit...put a telephone in a drawer here, reversed a computer monitor there, hid keyboards and desk ware in other places. I just created a little April Fool's surprise for the next morning. For the last week I've been a little disappointed that the staff members didn't rally in retaliation, or at least strike back individually.

Well, I've been out of town on Monday and Tuesday of this week. When I returned, my office had been completely redefined. Virtually every picture and plaque on my walls and desks had been recovered by comic staff photos or just random family pictures of everybody's family but mine. Every book on my shelved had been turned on their spines. Surprises of various kinds were left everyone from my desk drawers to the mirror in the restroom. To top it all off, the center of the wall display right across from my desk had been replaced with a proud emblem of the now number one college basketball team in the nation - the Kansas Jayhawks. (Those who know me well will know what an affront that is to this Missouri Tiger fan!) You have to see my entire office to appreciate it; it was a masterpiece of delayed April Fool artwork.

We've had fun all day with this among all of us on staff, and the fun has spilled out of the staff and into some of the congregation. This has reminded me what a wonderful and joyful gift I have in the people with whom I work each day. They are each and everyone one of them committed to Christ, passionate about enveloping people in the love of Christ, and dedicated to the Body of Christ fulfilling the Great Commission. My colleagues here are courageous seekers, with a deep desire to discover God's flow for our congregation and to stay in that flow. They have struggled and faced barriers. They know what it means to stand at the edge of the chasm of discouragement. Their hearts ache when churches care more about maintaining what is inside than venturing into what God is doing outside. And they can pull together and have fun with the best of them.

In many of my posts I have talked about the challenge and risk of churches moving from maintenance to disciple-making mission. Sometimes I can get pretty task-focused and maybe even somber in paddling headlong in this direction. I'm reminded that there is joy in the journey, though. And the joy is in each other, as we laugh and cry, love and suffer, celebrate and hang on for dear life, in this adventure which is the way of the Lord. God reminded me of that today, in the gift which is now my comic office, and the beloved comedians who designed it.

I'll see you around the next bend in the river, and I'm going to soak you if I can!

(For those of you who are in the Sikeston, Missouri area, you really need to see my office in its present state. I'm going to leave it that way, at least through the weekend.)