Barnabas File

As I looked over a group I was meeting with this week, I realized that practically everyone there was going through a time of transition—sending children back to school or launching them into world; dealing with birth or death; supporting aging parents or considering one’s own aging; beginning a new position or leaving one;  celebrating good health with new activities or recognizing the limitations of changing health; beginning a relationship or ending one. Change and transition are not the same.  Change is an external event or situation that takes place: a new job, a new life situation, a change in lifestyle.  Change can happen very quickly.  Transition is the inner psychological process that people go through as they internalize and come to terms with the new situation that the change brings about. Recognizing that we are in transition leverages change for significant growth.  When you touch an artistic mobile, equilibrium is changed. ...

I have just completed the first of two eye surgeries that remove cataracts and implant a new lens in each eye.   This is a time of transition.   The vision in one eye is improved significantly while the other remains the same as before.   My old eyeglasses work great for the eye that has not had surgery, but not at all for the one with the new lens.   The transition will continue through the next surgery on the other eye and for some time after. This is a liminal space for me.  Alan Roxburgh introduced me to the idea of liminality.  In a ritual, this is the state of being on the threshold from one way of doing life to another.  One is almost there but not yet. It is a time of disorientation, stress, and promise. The nation of Israel experienced liminal space as they passed through the wilderness. They were no longer slaves but they were not yet what God had called them to be. Parents experience this liminal space when ch...

A couple of months ago, I wrote a blog on the challenge that a pastor faces in transitioning to leadership in a larger congregation.   This promoted a response from a pastor friend in another state.   I share his comments with his permission: “I tried to pastor a large church with a medium-sized church style.  It just about killed me.  I resigned before I did them serious damage.  They still love me, but it was extremely painful to face my ineffectiveness when I had done well in other churches.  I was a picture of ‘The Peter Principle’ of so long ago, i.e., promoted one too many times.  However, I was at an age that I didn't feel like I had the time or energy to change as dramatically as I needed to change, so I returned to the kind of church where my gifts best fit, and left the larger situations to those gifted for them.  I guess I will spend the rest of my life wondering if I should have tried harder to press my growing edge.” Chang...

"Above all, trust in the slow work of God. We are, quite naturally, impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages, we are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. And yet, it is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability . . . and that it may take a very long time."--Pierre Teilhard de Chardin I am not a particularly patient person.  From a family perspective, I came by it naturally and I have probably passed it on.  Therefore, when I read these words I am confronted with the truth that some things take time to come to fruition and that period of time involved may be punctuated by turbulence.  Passages are rarely as quick and easy as we would wish them to be.  As my grandchildren often ask plaintively, “Are we there yet?” Churches face this temptation to rush forward when a pastor leaves and to get a new person as soon as possible....