God and Fishing...

(This is #2 in a series of "God and _________" blog entries that have been swimming around in my head for a while)

When I was a lot younger, I went fishing a lot. For one reason or another, I didn't go for a long time after that. Until recently. Having two young sons, who all of a sudden decided fishing seemed cool and asked for fishing poles for their 7th and 4th birthdays last summer, changed all of that. I don't know why exactly I got away from fishing when I was younger, or why it took me a long time to return to doing it. I'm probably never gonna get into it like I do some other things, some other hobbies and outlets in my life. But the boys got into it, so I gave it a chance again, and have enjoyed it, or did until the cold weather hit and we quit getting to go. Those four or five times we went were enjoyable though, and I can see it as something that hopefully down the road will become a neat father/son thing for us potentially.

We live in an area with a lot of natural beauty, including a pretty major lake and a pretty major river, at least for our state. There is a very nice state park that has undergone renovations and upgrades in the past five years or so. National fishing tournaments come here. When warmer weather hits, boats line the lake as we drive across it (my boys love to count and see how many are out each of their sides of the car, making it into a competition). Many of these people are super dedicated. I think there are a couple of analogies I've learned from fishing lately.

First off, fishing, like reaching people and growing churches and ministries, takes patience, and time. The first four or so times we went fishing, the boys were beginning to get a little frustrated because we literally caught nothing, and had only a few bites. The last time we went, however, we had some success, and it reinvigorated them. In ministry it's often the same way. They feed us some crazy statistics...for instance, it takes on average seven attempts for someone to receive the Gospel...meaning even if we don't 'win someone for the Lord,' or even get them to come to our church or youth group or whatever, we cannot get frustrated and lose hope. We instead must have patience, and work on building, developing, and maintaining authentic relationships with the people, being careful to not make it seem as if there is always an agenda or as if we are manipulating them for our own gain or for a notch on our belts. Being a career church staff person, there is a frightening statistic that on average, pastors and youth leaders only stay somewhere 18 months to 3 years. There are a myriad of reasons for that, but some of it is a lack of patience and a lack of allowing God to do His work on His timetable, and a failure to realize that as we wait and work, God is working on and in us even as He is working through us. I have been at my church for 12 1/2 years...that's an eternity at one church as a youth pastor, especially a relatively small one. It would have been easy to give up early on and move on, and people still try to get me to...but the greatest rewards have come in the last couple of years.

The other thing I've seen related to the local fishermen is their level of dedication and commitment. On any given Sunday, driving to our church, you will pass people out on the lake...often even in cold and rainy conditions. Or one night last week, it was pitch black, clod and windy and i saw a truck pulling their boat out of the water. Talk about dedication. The first instinct is to think 'wow those people are idiots.' But these days, instead, I think, "Wow, those guys are super committed and refuse to allow anything to stop them." I mean, any given Sunday there are a million excuses people give for not being a part of a church. On a daily basis, there are that many or more excuses we give for not fully following Christ in total surrender. If we had the dedication and determination and commitment of the crazy, insane fishermen, what could we see happen for the Kingdom?

If you fail to have patience, you're not likely to get into fishing. If you aren't committed to it, you won't give yourself to it and won't get into it. Don't the same principles apply to following Christ, to church and ministry situations? What would happen if we had the patience and dedication of the fishermen?

Soundtrack for a note: "Volume II" by She and Him