Faith Works 4-2-22

Faith Works 4-2-22

Jeff Gill

Answered prayers are two edged tools

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"More tears have been shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones."

This saying has been attributed to St. Teresa of Avilá, and it certainly sounds like her, but it's not found in her writings, at least not that pithily.

Truman Capote used the line for his last novel, but his relationship with facts was always a creative one. Let's just call it folk wisdom of a sort. 

We think we know what we want, and when we get it, things don't always work out as we might have hoped. Our unanswered prayers, the times we knew what we wanted and didn't get it, can end up opening doors we never knew we could go through. Sometimes it takes a closing down of options before we can narrow things down to the one thing we really ought to choose.

But answered prayers? Those really can be tricky. Especially if it's the culmination of a long held hope, a plan much anticipated. Our fondest wish is granted, and then . . . as certain fairy tales point out, both ancient or modern, there's what happens after happily ever after.

At the risk of sounding cavalier about some sincerely voiced concerns, I think much of the reaction to the Intel announcement for Jersey Township (or New Albany) in Licking County fits into the category of answered prayers evoking some weeping and wailing.

We've all said that it's too bad so much industry and manufacturing has closed, and how good it would be to see new production facilities open up in our area. It's a commonplace in political campaigns not just to say they're going to create jobs but to make opportunities for our young people to stay nearby. Economic development has been the core of most of the community planning and visioning I've been privy to since I first moved here in 1989.

Twenty billion dollars is quite a lot of economic development. I had to look that up just to make sure I was remembering it correctly, and saw Kent Mallett's reminder that Intel has suggested it could be $100 billion by the time they're done. And that's not counting the affiliated businesses that undoubtedly will move in next door. Economic development? The question isn't about calling in the wave now, it's learning how to surf it as the wave washes over us.

This is a dramatic and region-wide version of what happens in a faith community, to a congregation that wishes and plans and prays for growth, and then reacts awkwardly to new people and different practices and the dynamics of larger numbers, let alone a significant percentage of strangers. Thom Rainer talks about "the berry bucket" and what happens at a certain moment for clergy when the number of people in a church shifts from everyone having been there before you came, which is always the case at the start, to the tipping point that comes when after enough losses and departures and funerals versus new members who came since the preacher arrived, you have a new equilibrium.

Rainer actually notes that it's often not an equilibrium that comes when the older berries are equalled by the new pickings (and I don't love the metaphor, but it's a well known one). Sometimes the previous critical mass reacts against the new cohort, both consciously and unconsciously, to reassert how things "used to be" or even "should be." 

The problem for a church in a time of change is that the existing congregation can, at least for a while, stop it. Now, the outcome is usually not for a different sort of growth, but to freeze it in place, if not roll things backwards. Leaving the question of God's vision for growth to one side for the moment, we'll just stipulate that congregations can halt growth when it gets uncomfortable.

Our region can't do that. The floodgate is already open, and the changes are already happening. No amount of angst will alter the short-term reality, which is growth. New people, new jobs, new buildings, new traffic, new money.

It's what we wanted, right? Yeah, we can say now "but not quite like this" or even "not this much!" for all the good it will do. Growth, and fairly dramatic growth, is coming. How will we be good stewards of this opportunity?

I believe this is an opportunity for faith communities, and hope to share more about how our impending future can bless both our existing religious landscape, and the one that is coming into being.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's never seen anything like this, either. Let's share our ignorance and scraps of knowledge through knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.