Jesus and Yoda

Sometimes I think the philosophy in a lot of congregations is closer to Yoda than Jesus. In The Empire Strikes Back, Luke Skywalker goes to the swamp-planet Degoba to learn the ways of the Force from the ancient Jedi Master Yoda. At one point, frustrated by Luke's failures in his attempts to use the Force, Yoda scolds, "Control! Control! You must learn control!"

Does this sound like the leadership structure of any congregations you know? In some congregations, this could practically be the title of the annual council leadership retreat. Rather than rewarding creativity and initiative, too often our structures squelch new ideas and keep ministry following in the same grooves it has always followed. We laugh at the joke about "We've always done it that way!", but only because we know that the sentiment expressed by those words does in fact drive much of our ministry. Members feel the need to seek permission to do anything, with the presumption often being in favor of continuity with the past rather than faithfulness to our future. Deep down, we fear that if someone isn't in control, there will be anarchy and somehow our congregation will implode and die like a planet hit by the Imperial Death Star.

The irony is, few if any congregations die because of a lack of control. Far more likely is that a congregation will decline or die because of too much control, too little willingness to encourage people to follow the Spirit and too little permission granted for God's people to use their gifts to glorify God. I'm willing to go out on a limb and bet that no congregation ever suffered because the council didn't vote on and approve the menu for the annual luncheon. In far too many of our congregations, however, councils are engaged in just such minutiae rather than in seeking God's vision for the congregation and leading the charge in pursuit of that vision.

In contrast to Yoda, Jesus has a very different perspective. In Matthew 16, Simon confesses Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of the living God, and Jesus responds, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it." Built on the rock of Peter's confession, the church will stand! Built on the rock of faith in and obedience to Jesus, not even the gates of Hell can stand against the church! If the gates of Hell, all the forces of sin and evil in the world won't prevail against a church standing firm on that confession, then neither will a little creative chaos now and then. In fact, ever since the creation of the world, God has been at work bringing order out of chaos! We don't need to fear chaos; if anything, we should be more afraid of sacrificing faithfulness and obedience to Jesus in a vain search for unchanging stability and order.

This is what freedom in Christ means for our congregational structures and leadership ethos. We are free to step out in new ways as we follow Christ's calling to be disciples who make disciples. We are free to try new ministries, to do things we've never done before. We're free to throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks, not worrying about the things that don't. We're free to give up control; free, in fact, to give up control, recognizing that control was never supposed to be our primary preoccupation in the first place. Control of the church belongs to Christ, working through the Holy Spirit. Our preoccupation should be with fidelity to our confession of Jesus as Messiah, with conforming our lives to his in radical, self-giving love, and with being open to all of the gifts God has given to the church (not just with the gifts that fit our time and talent sheets or our organizational chart).

Granted, this kind of permission-giving is risky, and a little scary, but our freedom in Christ is also freedom to fail. It's the freedom to lay it all on the line, to risk even the very existence of our congregations, if that's what it takes to be faithful to Christ's calling. We really don't have near as much to lose as we have to gain. After all, if we're committed to faithful followership of Christ, and if the gates of Hell itself won't prevail against the church, then how bad can we really mess it up?