The Scooter

In my experience, God frequently speaks through a commonplace object lesson.

I can become like a heat-seeking missile with regard to outreach. I can be pretty pushy about congregations making the necessary changes to become focused more on disciple-building and less on insulating and maintaining themselves. Change, however, is hard. It is messy, scary, and unpredictable. It is painfully easy for people to set things in stone, and assume they will always be the way they are. Case in point...

Many weeks ago a small child's scooter appeared alongside the west side of our church facility. It's a little pink thing; cute, but showing considerable wear and tear. No one knows where it came from. Everyone assumed some child left it and will come back for it. It's been nearly three months. It's in the same spot. The mowers have come and gone several times, and they either mowed around it, or moved it temporarily, then put it back in its original spot. Beginning with me, all of us assume that someone else will do something with or about the scooter, and none of us should be the one to move it. It could be taken to a thrift shop, offered to a child in need, or even junked. Yet we all assume it's there for some reason, though we don't know what reason is. We don't know why the scooter occupies the space it does, but, for causes not at a conscious level, we all are uncomfortable with changing it. Maybe someday we'll assume the scooter has always been there.

That's how fast something becomes a fixture in the landscape of our existence. It's just part of being human. That's why it's hard to move the sanctuary piano, to change the time worship starts, to start a new service, or to bring new people into our gathering. Change is necessary, especially where the mission of the Body of Christ is concerned. But change is hard.

Let's be gentle with one another as we negotiate the scary, unknown rapids of these times. I'll see you around the next bend in the river. We'll see how long the scooter lasts.