The Wizard of Oz

I grew up in Kansas so anytime I ventured out of the sunflower state I was always told that I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. If I had a dollar for every Toto reference or heel clicking cliché I would be a millionaire.

Do you need a refresher course? (Readers note I am not talking about the Muppet version. That one I could do without.) I mean it use to come on TV every Sunday for umpteen years when I was growing up. I even own it on VHS. When’s the last time we had that out of moth balls? To be safe lets give a little background. Dorothy ends up in Oz and begins a journey to find the Wizard. She is told along the way that it is he who holds the key, not only to her return trip home, but for every answer facing the band that accompanies her along the way.

What happens to Dorothy and her merry band? They find the Wizard without question. They also find that the Wizard is a grand hoax. One who can’t help them. They end up discovering that they had what they needed all along if they would have only taken time to notice.

I wonder today how many Christians set out on quixotic adventures in search of the Wizard. In search of the one who has the answer to what their church needs. The one who can answer their desire for church growth. The one who has the answer to a better involvement program. How many in ministry are skipping down the yellow brick road believing that if they can only find the Wizard all will be well? How many churches are subjected to a rousing game of Twister as they attempt to follow their leader on this journey to the Emerald City?

Today I was sitting at a minister’s meeting and I found myself hoping for a Wizard. One of the ministers asked another about their mentoring program. Do you have one, if so how is it doing, if it is doing well how does it work? The second minister said that those that happen organically are the ones he has seen work. I want you to think about this. He said the ones that happen naturally are the ones that succeed. The conversation began because he had related his college experience in a mentoring program. I asked him about that experience. Again, he said that those leaders who really wanted it to work made it work but those who gave it little attention watched it flounder.

No sure fire fix. No program to implement, just people who want it and then it happens organically. No Wizard at the end of the yellow brick road, just a dependence on the inner desire of believers. Just like in the Wizard of Oz, he was telling us it is already there. You just have to bring it out.

I couldn’t help but think of Philip in Acts 8. Here is Philip in Samaria doing a great work watching God move powerfully among the people. What happens? An angel tells him to go to Gaza. Philip picks up form a successful ministry to go to the middle of the desert and he just goes. No one with some book to tell him this is the way to build a church. No one with the latest language to use to reach generation so and so. Just go and Philip gets up and goes. Nothing fancy about it and yet on that road he runs into the Ethiopian eunuch who just happens to be on the road and just happens to have his Bible open. Think of the work of God that Philip would have missed if he would have been intent on following the yellow brick road. Can you imagine him saying look at this great ministry I have. We should have a building fund any day. I can only imagine the parking ministry he would have needed. This is how so and so built their church so I need to follow their plan. No, he just went and look what God did.

I scratch my head at the number of books I have read that had the answer. You see all these churches, from the emergent to the purpose driven always pull out their great success stories. Church such and such copied what we did and look what happened. What they don’t tell you, is the number of churches that didn’t grow, or died, chasing after the Wizard. They don’t tell you the ones who implemented it only to see their church dwindle. Those don’t make for good stories. Why? Because the man behind the curtain didn’t have the answer. The church either had what they needed already or they didn’t, end of discussion. The ones that had it just needed help in focusing what they had, but those who didn’t have it could spend their entire lives at the Emerald City and come up empty every time.

You may be thinking how do you get it. That’s the point. I’m no Wizard. I think you preach about it and talk about it and if the people have it then it will come out, but if they don’t, then it won’t ever, no matter how many new programs or books are read and copied.

It’s funny to me when we say we want to eschew the modernistic mindset and then establish a formula to do that. We want to set new parameters. Why does anyone need to claim a new way of doing anything? Why not just say we are going to try to be. Go along the journey and see what happens. No calls to throw out anything. No demands to rework or review or reenergize anything. Let’s just be. Let’s help the widow and the orphan. The more I read the more I see that as being a consistent theme, old and new.

You see it is easy to say I am looking for the Wizard because I don’t have to work on myself. The Wizard is the quick fix. I am trying to find something new and when I find it, and can define it, then we can really get underway. The problem is, the Wizard isn’t real. Let’s assume that there is no quick fix, no diploma to say we have a brain, no medal to be pinned for courage and no clock for a heart. I think it takes time. A lot of time, but how many ministers want to take the time? Let’s just start today no matter where we are. Let’s assume God has planted us there for a purpose, one that is beyond me or you, and let’s just show love to the widow and the orphan. Strangely basic and simple and one that doesn’t require anything new, just something very old, love.