DE Ponderings by Kevin Kessler

American Baptist Church pastor and author Jeffrey D. Jones posted on article for Alban recently entitled New Questions for a New Day. Jones offers that new questions are needed to move us to out-of-the-box-thinking. I agree. And I might go one step farther to say such questions may help us to move beyond the box, a phrase given consideration in a book entitled Beyond the Box, published several years ago and authored by Bill Easum and Dave Travis.

Easum and Travis write, “Many people are writing these days about ‘out of the box’ thinking for ‘coloring outside the lines.’ Neither of these issues is our main concern. We’re writing about something much more radical. We are writing about people who believe, act, and live as if the box never existed.”

In Beyond the Box, the authors provide a threecolumn chart depicting “in the box,” out of the box,” and “beyond the box” thinking. The first item in each column is telling, in my view. In the box thinking is “stuck and dying.” Out of the box thinking is “thriving and growing,” which sounds very good. Beyond the box thinking is being “radically innovative,” not just thriving and growing but creatively engaging the culture and the lives of people to develop lasting and loving relationships. Out of the box thinking seems to focus on the institution or organization whereas beyond the box thinking tends to focus on people and human connections.

Jones offers us a conduit to increase our capacity for “beyond the box” thinking by offering a list of new questions. He first shares a common question we frequently ask then reframes it to help us think anew.

Here are the questions:

Concerning declining membership:

• How do we bring them in?
• How do we send them out?

Regarding roles and responsibilities:

• What should the pastor do?
• What is our shared ministry?

On the subject of strategic planning:

• What’s our vision and how do we implement it?
• What’s God up to and how do we get on board?

About financial struggles:

• How do we survive?
• How do we serve?

Thinking about mission:

• How do we help people?
• How do we make the reign of God more present in this time and place?

Jones concludes his article by stating he believes that “asking these new questions will help ensure that whatever the future holds for us and our congregations we will be more faithful in the work we are about right now. And that is a pretty wondrous thing!”

As I think about the work that Jesus calls us to it seems to be summed up in two ways: to love “God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind” and “to love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37, 39) To be more faithful (and fruitful) in this work anytime seems like a pretty wondrous thing to me! May we work at reframing questions to helps us, in this time, to be more faithful (and fruitful)!