Answering the Harder Question of Why
When I was a young child my mom says that I asked a lot of questions. I was one of those kids who always wanted to know “why?” Why is the sky blue? Why is milk white? I could go on and on and my mom says I could wear them down with all my “why questions”. I can still remember the day my mom and dad presented me with a three set volume of books entitled “Tell Me Why”. After that gift whenever I would have a string of “why questions” my parents would point me to my set of Tell Me Why Books and suggest I go look it up.
This past weekend we invited two consultants from the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Kansas City to come to Wright’s Chapel. We asked them to come here to look at our church and our leadership and to try and help us think about how we can be even better at being the church God is calling us to be. The Church of the Resurrection is the largest United Methodist church in the U.S and worships with over 10,000 people each Sunday. Adam Hamilton is the pastor and in clergy circles is often looked to as a leader and innovator. I, along with a group from Wright’s Chapel, met with two men from the Church of Resurrection Saturday afternoon and then I had about a 3 hour dinner with them at Giuseppe’s Saturday night.
I was hoping at our dinner on Saturday evening that the two experts we’d hired were going to tell me the answers. In our session in the afternoon they had asked us all to reflect upon some deeper questions of “why”. Now at my dinner alone with them I was hoping that they were going to give me the answers to my questions. Tell me what we should do so that we can continue to grow as a church. Tell me what we can do to be better. Tell me how I can be a better pastor? But rather than give me any concrete answers to all my questions of “what and how” they instead asked me a lot more “why questions”. Why do you want this church to grow? Why are you doing all these programs with children? Why are you moving Cindy’s Closet out of the church building? They weren’t real interested in all I was telling them about what we did. They wanted to know why we did it. Now I think I know how my mother felt when I would wear her down with all my “why questions” because the more I tried to answer them the more they kept digging deeper and deeper into the why.
When I finally got to the bottom of it all, I really had to answer three questions. Why do I and why do I think other people need Jesus? Why do people need the church? And why do people need Wright’s Chapel UMC? It’s been a while since I’ve been asked or answered those questions. What I’m realizing though is that when I’ve answered those “why questions”, the answers to the “what and the how questions” seem easier to answer.
How would you answer those questions about yourself? Why do you need Jesus? Why do you need the church? Why do you need Wright’s Chapel?