3. Guideposts Intro: Hacking through the Jungle

A good friend of mine once told me that when you're creating something that has not existed before, it's not a journey where you've got a long runway in front of you. You dont have a lot of visibility and milestones in front of you to predict where you are and where you're going. It's more like hacking through the jungle one step at a time. It's hard and it's messy and most of the time you don't know for sure where you're going, because you can only see the few inches in front of your face.

When you're down on the ground level hacking through the jungle, if you don't check yourself every once in a while, you can really get your head down and get way off course. So somebody on the team has to take a step back from time to time, to get some higher elevation to look over the canopy, and see if you're still tracking toward the right destination. The team has to find some kind of visual marker to align itself to as the ultimate destination.

Where do we look when we're not sure if we're still on the right track?

I don't want to be the kind of person who pokes holes and criticizes without also bringing potential solutions to the table. As I've been on a journey with God over the last year, I've asked a ton of questions. I've had my share of doubts, criticisms, and stones to throw at the way we do church in America. But throwing stones alone doesn't honor God, and it doesn't help us move forward.

My hope with this conversation isn't to divide or tear others down. It's to acknowledge what I see as real barriers, so that we can hopefully unify and rally to the problem, together. So for all of my thoughts on what's wrong with the American Church, I've been convicted that I need to be a part of finding solutions. So this will be the first in a series of posts, where I share some of the biggest themes, values, or ideas that have resonated with me on this journey.

It's probably too early to call these core values, but I hope these can be some early guideposts for us in the conversation. A direction for us to follow and a way for us to check ourselves from time to time to see if we're still on the right track.

So keep reading the next series of posts for the GuidePosts for our conversation.

Let's use these guideposts to keep our conversation unified and aligned in a common direction, as we acknowledge the challenges we're facing, but also seek God's face for His next steps for us!