Adaptive challenges

 I am currently re-reading Canoeing the Mountains by Tod Bilsinger. He tells the story of the Lewis and Clark expedition that set out to discover the Northwest Passage to the Pacific Ocean. At the time everyone knew there had to be a water route that would lead people to the ocean. The expedition traveled by canoe and raft until they realized that what everyone knew to be true wasn't. They came to that realization when they came to the Rocky Mountains! They soon discovered that their canoes were useless and they had to find new ways to continue their journey.

Bolsinger compares this discovery to the challenges facing today's church. Everything we have done in the past has brought us where we are today, but it will not take us where we need to be in the future. Much of what we knew to be true of the church in the past is no longer valid today. Many are finding their seminary education did not prepare them for ministry in the 21st century. We are not facing technological challenges today that can be solved by tweaking our systems. We are dealing with adaptive challenges that are more systemic in nature that cannot be solved with past knowledge. The author writes

"Adaptive challenges are never solved through a quick fix. If talking, trying or tricks work, they would have worked already. They are only going to be solved through new insight into the context, the values and the systemic issues at play in the congregation and within the leaders themselves. In other words, before we can solve any problem, we need to learn to see new possibilities. And, ironically, because the solution will be an adaptation of the core values, identity and theology of the congregation itself, seeing those possibilities depends on first seeing ourselves and our congregations as we really are."

This will become quite an adventure for those congregations who want to thrive moving forward. New ways of thinking will be demanded that may be challenging to many in our congregations. "We've never done it that way before," will be repeated in many church business meetings. Like Lewis and Clark, we will have to admit that what we've done in the past will no longer allow us to move ahead in the future, and we will be challenged to find new solutions to current challenges.

Lewis and Clark had few choices when they came to the Rocky Mountains. They could stop their expedition and give up. They could continue to carry their canoes through the mountains insisting those canoes brought them this far and would somehow take them the rest of the way. Or they could admit they had to find new solutions to address the current issue of getting through the mountains.

The mountains, the challenges, today's church faces is just as real as those mountains were to Lewis and Clark. I'm afraid many churches will hold onto their canoes and fail to make it over the mountains. What will your church do?