From Crisis to Creativity
“Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.”
-The Apostle Paul (Philippians 4:8)
By Pastor Wes Ellis
Do you remember Wile E. Coyote? …You know the guy. He’s always chasing after that slick and speedy roadrunner.... do roadrunners really say “meep, meep?”.... and what’s the “E” in Wile E Coyote stand for?......
...I digress....
I wonder what that coyote would have done with his life if he’d ever actually caught that roadrunner. There is not, to my knowledge, any episode of the classic cartoon that reveals it. There’s no series finale wherein the Coyote finally sits down to enjoy his hard-earned meal. The show itself, in fact, is not about the Coyote catching the roadrunner. It’s about the chase! And it seems to me, the Coyote himself is about the chase. Like a dog chasing cars, he wouldn’t know what to do if he ever caught it!
I wonder if we’re like the Coyote sometimes. Always chasing and never catching. Always frantically searching for the next problem to wrangle, never stopping to enjoy what we have and who we are. Would we even know who we are if we didn’t have something to complain about, some problem to solve, some crisis to overcome? I worry that if we live life this way, we’ll never really be able to enjoy the blessing of life and the freedom to work, not to solve problems, but to just be creative.
As a church, we have been through a lot over the last couple of years. We all know that. In fact, you may be sick of hearing it. But we are indeed still healing. And part of our healing to rejoice in who we are and who God is. I worry that we are still allowing ourselves to be driven by worries and anxieties. I worry that our identity has become a little too wrapped up in that. Like the coyote, we may be so used to chasing that we don’t remember how to just stop and be ourselves.
We need to move from crisis to creativity.
We need to remember that we are not just problem-solving machines. We are human beings in whom God delights and we are called to live in joy and freedom. The purpose of our boards and committees, for example, isn’t just to meet the next challenge and do the next task. It is, in fact, to faithfully enjoy the invitation to be a part of what God is doing and to creatively dream and envision what adventure God may have in store for us next, with hope and anticipation.
So as we begin a new season in the life of the church, with new board members and new leaders, let’s fill our minds and meditate on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious. Let’s find out who we are when life isn’t about fixing every problem. Let’s delight in who we are as we remember God’s love for us.
Pastor Wes Ellis has been a member of First Congregational Church since he was Confirmed in 1994. He served as the Director of Youth Ministry from 2008-2012 and has been the Pastor of our church since October 11, 2021.
