Perspectives
13/08/14 05:15
I stayed up later than usual last night. There were people with whom I needed to talk and the opportunities to be with family are rare enough to be very precious. As I lay on my bed a chorus of coyotes are serenading. I never can tell how many coyotes there are. A friend once told me that generally there are fewer than you think. There were, however distinct voices in last night’s performance for me to believe that there were several in at least two different locations - perhaps more. The location of the coyotes is also difficult to judge unless they are very close, which they weren’t. Close coyotes would have brought a response from the dog of the farm.
Yesterday was a wonderful, full day. The wedding was at 2 in the afternoon and there was a fair gathering of folk. I spent most of the morning in conversation and adjusting my plans for the ceremony. There was, of course, a big dinner with cake and ice cream and lots more conversation. Some of us talked long after dark.
Our family is being swept up in a big wave of culture an civilization that is affecting so many other families. The shift from family farming to large scale production agriculture was dramatically swift. In a single generation the scale of farming doubled and then tripled. The number of arable acres required to support a family became enormous. The costs of equipment skyrocketed at many times the inflation rate for other items. Most family farms operate on an incredibly small margin. There isn’t much profit. Farmers and ranchers handle a lot of money, but the amount they are allowed to keep is very small.
If you add to that the normal tensions of passing a business from one generation to the next, the picture is enormously complex. The question of how to allow younger generations the ability to make mistakes and do things differently is a real challenge. Elders keep their health longer and generally find it difficult to give up control. And there is always the question of what to do next as one moves out of the day to day operaton of any business.
So we have much to discuss when we get together. Opinions are easy to come by. Solutions require more time.
But perspective is valuable. Thinking about the issues that surround the River Ranch helps me to see the issues that surround the decisions facing me in this phase of my life. The operation of a church is in some ways different than running a ranch. In other ways, it is remarkably similar. The question of leadership and how to effect transitions in leadership is often as big a challenge in the church as it is on a farm. The new generation likely had different goals, methods, and ways of doing things. Often the elder generation will see these differences and judge the young as lacking in commitment or willingness to work. Tensions arise and what has seemed to be so strong and stable suddenly appears more vulnerable than we thought it would be.
I’ve made comments about the ways of young ministers that sound remarkably like the comments that I have heard about young farmers and ranchers.
Looking at things from a different point of view can make it easier to understand what is going on. I suspect that this week of vacation will turn out to be a pretty good investment in the future of the church I serve at home.
Our family has no more living members of the World War II generation. The church has fewer each year and we can see the time coming when we will have no more. Theirs was a generation of builders that gave a unique contribution to our nation and to most of the institutions of our culture. They assumed leadership at a very young age and retained it for a longer time than many previous generations. They shaped our institutions and ways of doing things more than other generations.
They probably weren't the most gracious at the transfer of authority and control. But that transfer occurs whether or not we bring grace into the picture.
The stories of our people are filled with transfers of authority that are less than gracious. The book of Judges alone has enough stories of failures of grace in the transfer of leadership. Our story is one of God showing incredible grace even when we humans make really big mistakes.
There is no reason to believe that God has ceased being gracious.
Just as the farm give me perspective, so do the stories of our people. Ours is not the enterprise of a single generation. We are reminded of those who have come before and of those who come after us. Having just re-read the cycle of Jacob stories I am reminded how incredible our people changed in just four generations. The trip from Abraham to Joseph is incredible. Abraham was in no way able to envision the giant cast of characters that were involved in Joseph’s trip to Egypt. Joseph is too caught up in the struggles of control with his brothers to begin to think forward to the generation of Moses - and he probably would have been incapable of envisioning what happened as was his great grandfather of imagining his life.
In farming and in the life of the church, it is important to understand that there are plenty of things that last longer than we do. The land and the river endure through hundreds of generations of farmers. The faith endures through faithful and faithless generations.
We are involved in enterprises that are much bigger than we can even imagine.
Our time is short and the timing seems to us to be critical.
But as I am reminded this morning. one wakeful rooster doesn’t make it morning. The sun rises and sets on its own schedule and all of our crowing doesn’t change that one bit.
Yesterday was a wonderful, full day. The wedding was at 2 in the afternoon and there was a fair gathering of folk. I spent most of the morning in conversation and adjusting my plans for the ceremony. There was, of course, a big dinner with cake and ice cream and lots more conversation. Some of us talked long after dark.
Our family is being swept up in a big wave of culture an civilization that is affecting so many other families. The shift from family farming to large scale production agriculture was dramatically swift. In a single generation the scale of farming doubled and then tripled. The number of arable acres required to support a family became enormous. The costs of equipment skyrocketed at many times the inflation rate for other items. Most family farms operate on an incredibly small margin. There isn’t much profit. Farmers and ranchers handle a lot of money, but the amount they are allowed to keep is very small.
If you add to that the normal tensions of passing a business from one generation to the next, the picture is enormously complex. The question of how to allow younger generations the ability to make mistakes and do things differently is a real challenge. Elders keep their health longer and generally find it difficult to give up control. And there is always the question of what to do next as one moves out of the day to day operaton of any business.
So we have much to discuss when we get together. Opinions are easy to come by. Solutions require more time.
But perspective is valuable. Thinking about the issues that surround the River Ranch helps me to see the issues that surround the decisions facing me in this phase of my life. The operation of a church is in some ways different than running a ranch. In other ways, it is remarkably similar. The question of leadership and how to effect transitions in leadership is often as big a challenge in the church as it is on a farm. The new generation likely had different goals, methods, and ways of doing things. Often the elder generation will see these differences and judge the young as lacking in commitment or willingness to work. Tensions arise and what has seemed to be so strong and stable suddenly appears more vulnerable than we thought it would be.
I’ve made comments about the ways of young ministers that sound remarkably like the comments that I have heard about young farmers and ranchers.
Looking at things from a different point of view can make it easier to understand what is going on. I suspect that this week of vacation will turn out to be a pretty good investment in the future of the church I serve at home.
Our family has no more living members of the World War II generation. The church has fewer each year and we can see the time coming when we will have no more. Theirs was a generation of builders that gave a unique contribution to our nation and to most of the institutions of our culture. They assumed leadership at a very young age and retained it for a longer time than many previous generations. They shaped our institutions and ways of doing things more than other generations.
They probably weren't the most gracious at the transfer of authority and control. But that transfer occurs whether or not we bring grace into the picture.
The stories of our people are filled with transfers of authority that are less than gracious. The book of Judges alone has enough stories of failures of grace in the transfer of leadership. Our story is one of God showing incredible grace even when we humans make really big mistakes.
There is no reason to believe that God has ceased being gracious.
Just as the farm give me perspective, so do the stories of our people. Ours is not the enterprise of a single generation. We are reminded of those who have come before and of those who come after us. Having just re-read the cycle of Jacob stories I am reminded how incredible our people changed in just four generations. The trip from Abraham to Joseph is incredible. Abraham was in no way able to envision the giant cast of characters that were involved in Joseph’s trip to Egypt. Joseph is too caught up in the struggles of control with his brothers to begin to think forward to the generation of Moses - and he probably would have been incapable of envisioning what happened as was his great grandfather of imagining his life.
In farming and in the life of the church, it is important to understand that there are plenty of things that last longer than we do. The land and the river endure through hundreds of generations of farmers. The faith endures through faithful and faithless generations.
We are involved in enterprises that are much bigger than we can even imagine.
Our time is short and the timing seems to us to be critical.
But as I am reminded this morning. one wakeful rooster doesn’t make it morning. The sun rises and sets on its own schedule and all of our crowing doesn’t change that one bit.