Fearless Faith

SpaceX achieved another space milestone this week launching its second 400-foot rocket spaceward with the goal of ferrying passengers to the moon and beyond by 2024. Just 10 minutes into the flight, however, the booster separated from the main rocket and each section exploded, something many have wryly termed a “rapid unscheduled disassembly.” A cause for disappointment? Of course, everyone would have preferred a flawless outcome, but project managers and engineers declared the flight a tremendous success because of the amount of data gathered that will help modify and improve future launches.

The first launch in April lasted half the flight duration of this one, with the rocket “disassembling” itself after about four minutes following launch. Despite the seeming trial and error nature of the event, the April launch’s value was incalculable, a learning platform that was necessary to take on the complexity of next steps necessary for achieving the ultimate goals.

That sounds vaguely like what is happening in numbers of churches across denominations. The past few years have constituted a rapid unscheduled disassembly of churches in numbers of ways, some anticipated and others not. The status quo of traditionalism has taken a hard blow that at first appears rather harsh, even terminal. What has been interpreted as failure (and continues to be characterized as such) represents a turning point, a new reality of servanthood and spiritual oneness.

Our choice is plain, we can either succumb to the pressures and disappointment of disassembly, or we can broaden our knowledge base, never discarding the past, but always willing to learn from it. That is an orientation that asks hard questions of each of us. What is worth keeping and what requires a firm resolve to move forward into a better future, even as we leave our comfort religion behind? There was never anything easy regarding the ministry undertaken by Jesus, no easy calculations, considerations, or pat answers. What we think we know must consistently be challenged in order to grow and maintain a meaningful faith and to share that faith with others. We are better when we set aside claims of perfection. But for the failures of religion, we would be insufferable.

As churches, are we willing to face our past to build future successes? The institution is badly in need of a transfusion of courage, but more importantly a change of direction that informs others of a different way of living and working and being. Traditional church remains an important piece of the foundation of our faith. It we do not stretch ourselves theologically, however, then we will be relegated to a dusty display case in the halls of Christendom. It is better to risk failure by embracing a vibrant relevancy than to worry over whether we will ever get off the launchpad.

Most of us will never make it to the moon, but those who do will never claim they did it by themselves. They will recognize first-hand the combined efforts of many which include a large degree of human faith laced with divine inspiration. How many more rocket launches will it take until we are ready to say it is enough? We hope and pray that that door of opportunity always resides within us.