In keeping with yesterday’s observation that times are tough right now, a friend sent an email reminding me that church leaders are experiencing exhaustion and disorientation. He then quotes Tod Bolsinger’s Canoeing the Mountains:

The world in front of you is nothing like the world behind you. – Todd Bolsinger

While I haven’t read the book, I’ve seen summaries, I know its premise, and it’s a good one. Lewis and Clark were accomplished canoeists, commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson to find a water passage to the northwest coast of the U.S.

The object of your mission is to explore the Missouri River, & such principle stream of it, as, by its course and communication with the waters of the Pacific ocean, whether the Columbia, Oregon, Colorado or any other river may offer the most direct & practicable water communication across this continent for the purpose of commerce. – Instructions to Lewis and Clark

The problem, of course, is that there is no water passage to the west coast. Being an expert in canoeing is irrelevant if you have to cross the Rocky Mountains. 

When Tod wrote the book in 2018, he was writing that pastors were not trained for the cultural context in which they find themselves. That was pre-COVID! What about now??

I don’t think the “plays” we used to run are going to work, at least not in the near term. Many churches are in the process of considering when and under what conditions their members can “re-gather.” I, for one, think our church’s Zoom gatherings are at least as effective and hassle-free as trying to meet while wearing masks and practicing social distancing. I don’t know the solutions, but it’s time to think about how we are going to go forward.

Remember not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. (Isaiah 43.18, 19, ESV)

Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the LORD your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go. (Isaiah 48.17, ESV)