It can be tempting for me to want to do everything all at once. I often have wish I had a magic nose like Samantha from Bewitched, so I could wiggle it and the large task ahead would be done. It’s over whelming to think about losing weight or creating institutional culture change. These are not things that can be done in one go, it’s about small changes, bite sized tasks.
One way we live that out in our family is a practice called 15 minutes. Each day we set the timer and do as much cleaning as we can in 15 minutes. It’s amazing how much we can get done. And if we do it every day suddenly the floors are mopped, the picture that’s been propped up in the hallway is properly hung, and the couch cushions have been de-cat-furred. If we said we’d do all the tasks necessary in one fell swoop we’d all be cranky and the child would revolt more than she already does, but 15 minutes out of our day isn’t much and before we know it between the three of us we’ve spent more than 5 hours on house work.
Church work is like this too, often it’s the things we do over and over again that make changes. This season we’re working on evaluating our ministries and getting community input to form new spiritual formation and service opportunities. It’s not easy and it takes small steps to shift from what is to what could be, but I know how powerfully these meetings and conversations add up. It’s sometimes tedious work, requiring patience and not much magic, but the results can be miraculous indeed.
-Eilidh
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