Dead, dead, dead

There was a movie made a long time ago called The Happiest Millionaire. It was a musical all about this kind of wacky millionaire family in Philadelphia. I always liked it, but I don't really know why. I think because I grow up as a musical junkie, loved all of those old movies. I can still remember bawling like a baby over West Side Story and being so mad that no one told me it didn't end well.

Anyway, in Happiest Millionaire, there is a scene where the new butler has left the windows open in the conservatory and all of the 'pet' alligators are frozen in their tanks. They try to thaw them out but they don't seem to re-animate and from time to time the family members take turn patting them and saying dead, dead, dead. Later after a night in front of the fire, the alligators warm up and are active and alive after all. Nice for the story, even funny for the story as once back to the land of the living and unrestricted, they are free to roam the whole house and find all kinds of interesting places to explore.

So what? I hear you and I am going somewhere here, beyond thinking that I need to watch this movie again. I have been thinking a lot about the Methodist Church. I have been walking around in it for the last twelve or thirteen years kind of patting it and saying, dead, dead, dead. We would be assigned pastor after pastor, each one it seemed to have less depth, less vision, less drive. Dead, dead, dead. My local church seemed to live in spite of it's leadership and even grow and thrive despite a pastor or two who seemed determined to kill it off. I went to my first annual conference and I thought dead, dead, dead. In fact, what I really thought was if it's not dead someone had better kill this thing off.

Lately, I have cause to wonder if like the alligators, perhaps there is hope for the Methodist Church, at least in my conference. The issues are there, and just as big and bad as I thought they were. In fact the further in you go, the bigger they seem to become. Just lately it seems some signs of life are beginning to stir. The conference seems to be instituting some stuff that might actually work. At least the they are making some effort to try to bring about change. In a few places I even hear that there are churches who are doing some really good ministry. I begin to hear a similar theme from various parts of the connection, focus on developing excellent young leaders, developing strong lay leadership, intentionally developing a discipleship plan. All of that sounds like life, doesn't it? Could it be that God is in the process of thawing us out and restoring some life into these old frozen corpses?

I am reminded once again of the people standing at the edge of the promised land. They had God's blessing to go in, take the land and the promise that He would go with them, He would protect them, He would provide for them. They had the opportunity to check it out and see for themselves and it was every bit as good as God said. But they learned that there were giants. Huge hulking giants. They were grasshoppers in comparison; they thought so, the giants thought so. So, despite God's invitation they didn't go. The rest of the story is, forty years later the opportunity is finally offered again, but not to those who turned it down the first time. If this is God, and this is an opportunity to go to the Promised Land, to see Him bring life and vitality to a conference and get to be a part of that, I sure don't want to miss it. I know the giants, and I know I am a lowly grasshopper, but I am confident that my Father is enough. If it's not Him, well, I am praying He makes that abundantly clear and I am smart enough to listen.

In the meantime, someone make the popcorn and let's watch a movie.