Do You Believe?

The last few days I have been reading The Leadership Challenge by Kouzes and Posner. One of the points they make about leading an organization is the need of the leader to believe. The leader must believe the vision is a possibility. Any of you who are regular readers know I spend a lot of time writing and speaking about the need to reform the church again. In every fiber of my being I feel the church needs to function differently than it currently is. This last weekend I had to wrestle with the question, "Do I believe this can happen?". Do I really believe the church can be reformed, can the church transform itself in order to transform the world for the sake of Jesus Christ?

This is what I call a first order question. My whole life, mission and ministry has been centered around being a prophetic voice in the church. If I do not believe it to be possible, my life and effort have been in vain. Additionally, if I do not believe it to be possible, it is time to do something else in life. If transformation is going to come it is going to take leaders who really believe it is possible for the church to be different. Right now the United Methodist Denomination is inviting people to ReThink church. This will only matter if two conditions are true; one, if people see the need to rethink, two, if there are leaders who believe it matters to rethink the church.

Saying we believe is not enough, we must embody this belief. From every square inch of our lives we must exude believe in the vision of a transformed church. This cannot be false or pretend, we must have this belief become the very fabric of our life.

So the question remains, do I believe? Answer, yes. Not only do I believe, I am confident the Lord is using this generation of people to bring about a new reformation. To this I commit my life, mission and ministry.