"The high priest asked Jesus, 'Are you the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One?' Jesus said, 'I am; and "you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of the Power," and "coming with the clouds of heaven."'" (Mark 14.61-62, from the Gospel for Sunday)

---

Midway through this meeting I mount a soapbox.

Not because the topic - project management training - is inherently passionate, but because the larger context stirs my blood.

As we interview two trainers from a local college, I am listening for signs of rigidity vs. flexibility, textbook vs. creativity. Will they offer the standard 35 hours of Project Management Institute training, or help us to think and to re-invent?

I draw three boxes on the whiteboard. One box says, "Tell me what to do." These are people who respond to assignments or challenges by saying, "Tell me the rules," "Tell me my duties," "Tell me the boundaries."

The second box says, "I know what I already know." These are people who already have the answers, or want to appear so. They cite authoritative sources. They filter fresh ideas through existing knowledge. They resist discovery.

The third box says, "Think, Create, Re-invent." This isn't really a box, but an absence of box. My bias, I tell them, is that we must always "re-invent the wheel." That attitude infuriates the boundary-seekers and authority-citers. But I believe there is always a better way to do something, always a fresh interpretation, always a responsibility to think for ourselves.

I am not interested in "cookie-cutter" training, I tell them. I don't want our staff to be memorizing PMI methods. We need our own methods, and above all, we need an ability to think creatively about the problem at hand. If this training can help us to think, I am all for it. But if it stifles creativity under the weight of someone else's "best practices," forget it.

As I sit down, I observe my soapbox. Where did that passion come from? Eighteen years of serving congregations where fresh and creative thinking - about anything, from Scripture to worship to office layout - was not only loathed but actively resisted. "We don't need to re-invent the wheel" - the real "seven last words of the church."

Our fundamental human duty, I believe, is to think and re-invent, not to memorize and replicate. The best training is always a question, not an answer. I ache when I see the stifling of curiosity and creativity in my sons' schools. As a Bible teacher, I die inside when surrounded by passivity and an attitude of "tell me what it means."

Jesus was a blasphemer. He was a radical, a rebel. He had no use for the boxes of traditional religion, and we Christians have done him a tragic disservice by placing him inside boxes labeled "doctrine" and "tradition."

When asked if he was "the Messiah," he said, "I am," but he went on to explain what he meant by that: not what they meant, and not what the ancients meant. He meant something new. He meant what he was in the process of living out: not a cookie-cutter, but a dynamic way of interacting with reality.

Christian religion, it seems to me, is trapped inside the first box: "Tell me what to do." We call it "faithful" and "orthodox," but let's be honest: we're scared and passive. We are scared of what our lives would be like if we truly encountered the Son of God, and if we then truly encountered the Prince of Darkness, and if we then truly encountered the world as it is, and if we then truly created a new future.

We ought to be scared. The box-less life is frightening. But let's recognize our passivity as driven by fear and not by God's call. And let's pray for courage and not for better cookie-cutters.

-----

(On a Journey meditations are e-mailed daily to readers who request them. You are invited to add friends to the list by sending their e-mail addresses to oaj2000@earthlink.net. To be removed, send an e-mail to oaj2000@earthlink.net and specify REMOVE.)