Lego’s and Leadership
Growing up, I was obsessed with Lego’s. I fondly recall saving for weeks and even months, so that I could put my engineering hat on and build to my heart’s content. I remember the joy of opening those cardboard boxes, releases the pieces from their plastic baggie homes, yanking out the directions, and setting to the task of building. I relished the experience of this joyful task. Step-by-step and piece-by-piece, my creation would come together. After a flurry of concentrated activity, I would take my pristine creation and proudly show it off to anyone who would pay me mind. “Look what I made!” “Isn’t it cool?!” There is something profoundly holy about creating.
I find myself turning back the pages to the beginning in Genesis 1:1. The Common English Bible translates the first words of our Scriptures as, “When God began to create…” Other versions will often translate this passage as “In the beginning God created,” but the CEB takes a slightly different approach. Notice the differentiation between the verbs: “When God began to create” and “God created”. The CEB’s translation leads into the work of creation that continues with the heavens and the earths, the land and the seas, the fish and the animal, until God’s creativity reaches humanity. God saw how good creation was and decided to create humanity—in God’s image—so that we might take charge of all the beauty on this earth. On the sixth and final day of creating, God saw everything crawling on the ground and swimming and the seas, and, profoundly, hands off the bottom to humanity. We are given the sacred duty of stewardship. That is, to care and work for the flourishing of one another and our sacred home. It is then that God takes stock of everything that was created, and reflects that it is not simply good, but, as the CEB translates it, “supremely good.” There is something profoundly holy about creating.
The fun with Lego’s really began, however, when you risked creating without directions. Where you, taking pieces from a hodge-podge of sources of all colors, sizes, and shapes, boldly step out to dream, imagine, and build the object of your mind’s eye. I can remember my brothers and I gathered around a pile of Lego’s in the middle of the room asking one another, “What are you gonna build?” The joy of bouncing ideas off one another, of improving our designs, and, eventually, putting them to story. Our stories, often whimsical, nonsensical, and stuffed with hilarity, made these times sacred.
“The heavens and the earth and all who live in them were completed” (Gen. 2:1), but this, critically, is where our story truly begins. Our story is one as tumultuous and hodge-podge as three brothers furiously building Lego’s in the middle of their bedroom. It is one defined by we humans who do not play very nice in our collective Lego piles and sandboxes. It is one fraught with mistakes, hurt feelings, and tears. However, it is also one defined by the unbridled joy of creation, the vulnerability of sharing our stories, and the realization of things long hoped for. Our story as Christians is not so much about harkening back to a past time of prosperity, but about embracing this reality as the moment we were created for. These are the best of times and the worst times after all—the good old days are these days. Our story is not so much about holding on to what was, but about embracing the reality that is to come. We might not be able to recreate the spaceship we made yesterday but imagine the great skyscraper we can build today! Our stories, often whimsical, nonsensical, and stuffed with hilarity, make these times sacred.
We begin our time together with a hope-filled experimentation that I have found in Lego piles. We are in the process of transitioning our organizational structure away from the multiple committees structures we have grown accustomed to toward Simplified Accountability Structure. This organizational experiment is one that opens us up to new possibilities as a church. It is a change that we hope will enable us to focus on the things that are important to our community—to bring back beloved traditions and communicate more clearly. It is a change that might be a little scary as we chart a new course together. It is a change that we hope empowers each of us to serve where God has called us—to support, uplift, and witness to our community through new events, ministry teams, and mission projects. Before us are the bricks filled with grand and boundless possibilities: skyscrapers, spaceships, and cars. Around us are the builders, creators, and story tellers who will give shape to this new thing that God is doing with us. At our side, leading us on, is God the Architect of Creation who has called us to be the creators—the people who bring heaven to earth, who bring joy to the broken hearted, who lift up the downtrodden, who steward the beauty of creation, who welcome and bless as God has blessed us.
We begin this holy and sacred work together. As ones embracing our rich tradition and heritage and anticipating the new stories, traditions, and memories that have yet been made. As ones surrounded by grand possibilities, skilled builders, and the Architect of creation. It is our privilege and opportunity to begin this experiment together, and I, for one, cannot wait to get started.