BIBLICAL JOURNEY OF TRUST
A major theme running throughout the biblical story is the theme of trust. Trust involves risk. Consider the beginning of our faith story with the call of Abram and Sarai. When they were called to leave behind all that gave them security and move out on the adventure that resulted in our community of faith, they had to trust the one who had called them. We can look back and see the results of their decision, but it began with a risk and no guarantees.
You will find the same combination of decision making and taking risks as part of the journey of other biblical characters.
THE RISK FACTOR
If you are going to build a community of trust in your congregation, it is important that both you and your people understand that a faith journey involves both decisions and risk. A first step might be to engage your people through sermons, prayer, and educational events in exploring risk factor that was part of those biblical stories that are the foundation of our community of faith.
What were the decisions made, and the risk factors involved, in the biblical stories about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Then follow the same questions through the decisions made by other major biblical figures. Make sure that you carry that process through the lives of those in the New Testament. You might even want to reflect on a similar process as reflected in church history.
ANXIOUS SOCIETY
We live in an anxious society. In the last blog, I identified for you the way that institutional failures in the last fifty years have shattered people’s confidence. Living in such an anxious society, people search for certainty. Being isolated from community institutions that they can trust, they are not prepared to make risks that depend upon making sacrifices for the greater good of society. The faith issue for a community is to begin to take even small steps in which they take risks trusting in God and searching for a healthier response to their neighbors.
FIRST STEPS
Consider engaging your people, perhaps through a combination of gatherings and internet conversations to consider how you might take some risks in faith. As they make their suggestions, encourage them to relate the risks they suggest to parallel risks taken in the biblical story. The advantage of this is that it keeps the people grounded in the faith story as you journey together.
Ask people to suggest possible faith steps and then through a series of interactions, keeping the combined list for future reference, select a couple of risks the community might take together.
Keep reminding your people that the purpose of such decision making and risk taking is to deepen the spiritual lives of those who are living the faith. We live in a risk-averse society, and fear and negativity often reflect that anxiety. It is in flexing our spiritual muscles that we strengthen ourselves for the journey.
