Church like a stream

A dear friend of mine is hearing God's mysterious voice, telling her to move to a new country and start a new thing. A few weeks back, another friend heard God's voice, moving him to a new place. In my heart, a wave of joy and sorrow -- joy will win. I know this because we, as a church family, are moving again. And when a church moves, so do her people.

Church should be like a stream -- water flows in the same direction, moving at different speeds, but all chasing the same destination. Creeks wind their way into the current and it pushes the water places the water never even imagined it could go. Sometimes a rock, tree or branch will send water on a different path, headed the same direction, but not traveling together. And then there is the noise of the stream -- babbling, full of life and joy and peace and hope.

You see, for a long time I was in a church that felt more like a pond than a stream. The difference is small but profound. Water moves in a pond, just slowly. Discussions around church always felt like building a dam, trying to stop the flow of movement. "How do we close the back door?" "How can we bring more people in?"  Good questions, but if there's no outflow, momentum slows, and we start to deposit our dirt. Algae starts to grow and the whole thing becomes stagnant. Then it starts to smell, really smell. The more and more we'd try to hold in, the more we kept finding leaks in ourselves, in the dam we built, until one day the whole thing just broke apart.

It's hard to come from the quiet pond and move to a babbling stream. Momentum is tricky, and makes a mess sometimes. It's loud and rushing and unfriendly -- it carries you along to places you may not want to go. But it makes the water clear and fresh and nourishing to people who are thirsty. So come join the stream, for a minute or for a lifetime. It's no longer my job to keep you swimming, just trust the One who is leading us to the ocean.