Barefoot Blog

What do you think of a God who creates everything, and then tells his creation to “name” the things he created? Incredible. Adam was not created to serve God; he was created to rule and reign as a co-creator with God.

When we innovate and consider alternative perspectives, we are creating with God. We are encouraging vision. This kind of creativity is what makes the Church a people and a community on mission with God. 
 
The nomenclature we use, naming things, is one of the greatest gifts of God; we’re given the privilege of naming things. It’s not an exclusive task for just a few, to avoid confusion. It’s a task given to all. That shared responsibility of naming things, and the shared creativity that ensues, is the process of creating culture, I believe. It’s happening all around us, and it can’t easily be contained or controlled to avoid confusion. 
 
Confusion may be a temporary, though necessary, part of the process of transition, liminality, and stepping into a future together. 
 
Certainly, the Children of Israel did not know all that was before them when they were delivered from Egypt. They entered into a transition in the wilderness. Nomenclature from the past carried meaning of the past and habits and sins of the past. Finding terms for what God is wanting to do next is an exciting process I would hope we could all embrace and explore with faith and hope and love.
 
Moses didn’t just say, “Let my people go.” He completed the phrase, “that they may worship God.” Ultimately, we’re on a journey to ascribe greatness to God. He’ll receive glory as we follow him in faith, so long as we don’t hold too tightly to security of the ways we knew.
 
I have been using this phrase a lot: The Church does not have a mission, God’s mission has a Church. 
 
As we step out into that unknown future, as Abram did, we are the people of faith God called us to be. 

Henri Nouwen describes a new kind of leader, one who is the “articulator of interior events” leading people spiritually from the inside out. Are we preparing this generation of leaders in the church? Nouwen writes, “The first and most basic task required of the minister of tomorrow therefore is to clarify the immense confusion which can arise when people enter this new internal world… Most [leaders] are used to thinking in terms of large-scale organization, getting people together in churches, schools and hospitals, and running the show as a circus director. They have become unfamiliar with, and even somewhat afraid of, the deep and significant movements of the spirit.” Will the church be accused of failing “in its most basic task: to offer men and women creative ways to communicate with the source of human life”?