Unless a Grain of Wheat Falls to the Ground and Dies...

Several years ago I participated in a BGAV learning group in which a small group pastors from across Virginia met weekly to learn together from our leader and from each other.  The purpose of this year-long peer group was centered around the mission of the churches we served, and how, in a changing world, a church can better serve its community.  After the group got to know each other, one of the first topics that was introduced was the idea of “Creative Destruction.”  The idea was this: churches, businesses, and organizations regularly need to look at their structure and decide what needs to be “destroyed.”

Churches are known for keeping programs and ministries limping along for years, maybe even decades, when it would have been far healthier to simply allow that program to die.  Because when something that has lived out its good life dies, God is in the business of bringing new life in ways we never expected.

This year during the Lenten Season at May Memorial, we’re asking ourselves “what do I want to bury that I may experience new life at Easter.”  This is a recognition that all of us as individuals, and as a church, allow habits, sins, defects, and harmful ways of thinking into our lives.  It is necessary, as followers of Jesus, to take time and examine ourselves, our church, and ask what we need to “destroy,” kill, allow to die, or bury.  In doing this, we know that God brings new life to places where there is death and burial (think Empty Tomb!).

Maybe one of the things we need to consider burying this Lenten Season is the idea that we (or I) are not good enough, not “up to par,” not worthwhile.  Maybe someone has told you (or us) that you just don’t have what it takes, and that you’re not valuable to God.  Maybe the person who has told you this is yourself.  Let us bury that way of thinking.  Let us quiet continually telling ourselves and each other that story.  Let us not forget who we are, for God has told us: we are His children, created in His image.

I have given much thought about what I need to “bury,” or leave behind, this Lenten season.  And those couple of things that God has brought to my mind and laid on my heart, I’m prayerfully working on those.  I wonder, what do you want to bury?  What do you need to leave behind?  What do you need to “creatively destruct?”  Name those, take them to God, and let go of them.  Let them die.  And on Easter, let us be amazed at all of the ways God can bring new life.