By Maureen Wright

I am participating in the three-year residency program of the Association of Mid Council Leaders, Presbytery Leader Formation, that seeks to support presbytery executive leaders as they begin this type of church leadership. I have completed my first two years of residency. My cohort group is reading the book Imaginable by Jane McGonigal. The subtitle of the book is How to see the future coming and feel ready for anything – even things that seem impossible today. Yesterday was the first group discussion. Some of you may be thinking, why would a group of presbytery executives read a secular book? What does a book written by a game designer have to say to the church? Here is one thing that I have learned in the 23 months I have spent as your Transitional General Presbyter and Stated Clerk – “the Church” needs to expand its toolbox in order to be faithful disciples for Jesus Christ in the world in which we find ourselves. Toolboxes and tools are resources. New tools, new skills give us new ways to be the church.

Last July, I wrote about change. I shared, nothing is constant but change, a statement attributed to Heraclitus, a Greek philosopher who lived around 500 BC. While change may be constant, most of us do not like or look forward to it. Change is difficult. Expanding our toolbox is change. We may ask, do new tools mean that we do not use the old tools; do we go so far as to throw out the old tools? Expanding our toolbox can feel uncomfortable, unfamiliar. Sometimes, we may even want to stamp our foot and declare that we will not change. When I picked up Imaginable, I was skeptical until one of my colleagues shared her experience of seeing the work of the Holy Spirit in the book.

Sometimes we dismiss change because we are afraid or do not think we have the energy to change. Sometimes we dismiss change because we are comfortable, seeing no need to change. Sometimes we cannot, or choose not, to embrace new ways of doing things. How many meetings have you been in where someone says, “We have never done it that way before”? It is easy to forget that the God who created heaven and earth meets the children of God in surprising ways and places. I am reminded of God promising that Sarah will bear a child in her old age or using Balaam’s donkey to convict him. God sent Jesus, who was born to a young girl in a stable, to save the world.

God continues to meet the children of God in surprising ways and places – even books written by game designers, even preachers committed to the “yes, and” of improv, even Stanford’s Design Thinking. The God who created heaven and earth is still here. God is leading us to new tools, new skills, new ways of thinking. I pray that we will use all that God provides to be the Presbytery God is calling us to be for such a time as this!