Baby steps are still steps

December is the time of year that people start to make New Year’s resolutions. Every year the list of things we seek to change seems to grow and grow. We fool ourselves into thinking that fitness, diet, relationships, education, and career goals can all be achieved simultaneously. The dream is that on January 1 we will become overnight success stories.

Reality is actually quite different. Usually our resolutions get us a couple of weeks into the new year. It turns out fitness is hard. Getting to the gym is inconvenient. Career goals require work and self-sacrifice. Relationships require love and forgiveness. Our resolutions die a speedy and unceremonious death. Complacency is just so much easier.

This is why fitness experts encourage us to ease into exercise. New runners do not jump off the couch today and run a marathon tomorrow. They start by walking and slowly build up to a 5K. Keep at it and eventually the Boston Marathon will happen. Pushing too hard too fast simply causes injury and burnout.

Change in the church works the same way. It takes time for us to become the people Christ calls us to be. The Hebrew people spent 40 years in the wilderness before they were ready to enter the promised land. Even then they still had plenty of growing to do. We simply cannot do everything at once. Attempting to do so causes emotional injury and burnout.

The working lunch on Sunday, December 13, is simply the first baby step in the discernment process. All members and friends of the church are invited to sit down together after worship. We will use the results of the appreciative inquiry interviews to discern where we collectively see the most life in our church at the moment. By aligning our passions and talents with what God is already doing here we will learn what the first step off the couch should look like.

That first step will become our priority. It will not be the only thing that we do. It will simply be the thing that we do first. Breaking the process up into little steps will give us the ability to focus. It will prevent organizational injury and burnout. It will give us the opportunity for more immediate success. Small successes build confidence. Confidence inspires further risk taking. It will be at that point we come back together in a few months and ask the Holy Spirit to show us step two.

Eventually this process will become second nature. Through repeated spiritual exercise we will become people of discernment. We will become the kind of Disciples that God is looking for here in Dexter. Whether you are currently sitting on the spiritual couch or already running a 5K, please join us on Sunday. Together we can make that next step. If we keep at it, eventually we will be running marathons.