The church in America today needs a different kind of thinking. I am kind of tired of all the success stories. Maybe because I haven’t been much of a success. No I am not a hater. Woohoo for all the people in the Kingdom who have had great impact on souls, on society, on culture. Awesome. But I’m tired of people, institutions, system thinkers thinking that they have arrived, that they have found “the” answer, the eureka moment that grants them superstar status and follow me attitudes. I thought I understood the Word to have told me in a not-so-round-about way that on this side of heaven there will never be perfection and alas I must say a perfect christian or church.

The different kind of thinking we need can be summarized best by a quote I recently read that I filed away in my “blog about this” slush pile on my desk. It reads:

“Never accept and be content with unanalyzed assumptions about the work, about the people, about the church or Christianity. Never be afraid to ask questions about the work we have inherited or the work we are doing. There is no question that should not be asked or that is outlawed. The day we are completely satisfied with waht we have been doing; the day we have found the perfect, unchangable system of work, the perfect answer, never in need of being corrected again, on that day we will know that we are wrong, that we have made the greatest mistake of all.” (emphasis mine).  (Vincent Donovan, Christianity Rediscovered, New York: Orbis Books, 1993)

Yeah, we need a different kind of thinking.