Pop culture teaches us to think and live outside the box, to color outside the lines, the language of creativity and innovation. Warning: This is the language of modern secularism, too. This “out of the box” thing suggests that our answers may be found in clever tag lines, “out there” vision statements, and ideas that stretch us to the limits of human thought.
HolmesOf course, spiritual vision isn’t about human imagination, light bulbs, think tanks, or brainstorming. Authentic vision is revelation.
Make no mistake about it, this faith isn’t in a box either. Nor is God. People of faith must live “beyond the box” and not just outside of it.
Jesus ramped up most of his teaching and conversations to this “beyond the box” level. Right from the beginning, he called the first disciples to be “fishers of men” – a prospect that drew them from their families and occupations to attempt something of another world. The Sermon on the Mount took Christ’s listeners up the incline from “You have heard?-” of traditional human thought to the heavenly truth of “But I tell you?-?.” See John 8:28 and others if you need a Post-It note about the origin of Jesus’ words. It wasn’t creativity to the max. It was “beyond the box” stuff, spiritual truth.
Southern Baptists, at every level of denominational life, are going to have to think “beyond the box” to maintain our credibility in this troubled world. The hairball here is that Baptists are basically the masters of the obvious. In the language of “edu-speak,” we are typically linear thinkers who move along predictable lines. Much of the rhetoric about our demographic and economic declines suggests we make a few strategic cosmetic changes that will stabilize the balance sheets and subdue the clamor for change. A few people have challenged us to be creative, do something new, launch an initiative, crank out some new ministry programming, all the usual suspects for course corrections of such a mammoth enterprise. Most of them are “out of the box” solutions, however. They will not hold water.
Now, we need lateral thinkers, people who have received vision and can move our denomination “beyond the box” to the avenues of faith. In South Carolina, we must re-evaluate everything we do in light of heaven. This is just the instruction the apostle Paul provided to the Colossian believers as they struggled with spiritual orthodoxy and the threats of unbiblical teaching. “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things” (Colossians 3:2). He wanted them to know a new business model wouldn’t solve their spiritual problem.
Everything we do as Baptists, from the first sentence of our constitution and bylaws to the standing rules of the Executive Board, needs to be examined by a higher standard than our best minds. What we are facing isn’t about intellect or innovation or bright minds or slick marketing. It’s about moving to the realm of the one “who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.” You know, beyond the box. That’s how I’m praying! Et vu?