Green Lights

"As churches in the west keep planning and planning, children are dying."

This was one of the criticisms communicated to us here in Rwanda. The belief is that western churches and organizations tend to spend too much time planning, and too little time implementing.

Like most things, it’s a balance. It order to ensure right relationships, good accountability, and successful outcomes, a fair amount of groundwork and organization has to occur. After all, God Himself is a God of planning and order.

But often, the west is too gun shy or simply scared into inaction.

As I flew from London to Nairobi on this trip, I watched an Indian movie on the plane. The dialog was in Hindi, with English subtitles. One of the main characters was a young lady who was looking for a husband. Her requirements were numerous and restrictive – he had to be smart, creative, successful, humorous, sensitive, attractive, of good character, from a respected family, etc. The catalog of qualities went on and on. She didn’t accept courtship from anybody who failed to meet all her criteria.

As she was listing all the necessary items, a co-worker interrupted her by asking if she wanted to hear a story about a friend and his new car. She wasn’t really sure what a car had to do with anything, but she reluctantly agreed.

Her colleague said that his friend’s car was beautiful, a shiny work of art, but that he refused to take it out for a drive until all the street lights were green. He didn’t want to encounter any possible impediments or incidents on the road.

The young lady got the point. You can’t wait until every detail lines up perfectly. It may never happen. You simply have to go out for a drive and see what conditions and circumstances are presented. Yes, one learns how to drive, how to anticipate and navigate around potential problems, but you actually have to get behind the wheel and put things in motion to make any progress and get to any destination.

Again, it’s a balance. We don’t blindly go into things. And with so many orphaned and abandoned children in the world today, we can choose to be especially picky in who we associate with as agents of their rescue.

But there are definitely many churches and organizations that appear to be trapped in analysis paralysis.

Why they navigate bureaucratic structures and debate the finer points of ministry engagement and budget line items...

...children are dying.

Comments

[David]

That blessed me a lot! Thanks.

[Marcello]

great point. Wow, why aren't movies with such story lines not in our theaters tonight...

[esther kamat]

Your stories and your communication of the same are excellently inspiring. It shows you are moved to compassionate tears by what you see and thats very rare in todays world where news of injustice is familiar and almost grating to our ears...
Its the love of God shed abroad in our hearts that allows us to share the grief of others, to hurt when they are hurting...

[Scott]

...children are dying