3. (Leadership - phase 2)

Leaders in the world know how to direct a train. They know how to get all the people on board. When I say all, realize that there may be people who get off because they don’t want to go to Cincinnati. And we have to accept that. There may be people who get off because they just want to go to Columbus and they don’t want to go over here. And we accept that. But we do whatever we can in love to get everybody on board and that takes time, and it takes patience, and it takes people who are being led by people who say, look we may have to divert a little bit here. We may have to fly around the storm. We may have to scoot over because we don’t want to hit headlong into an iceberg, but our basic direction is unchanged, and everybody knows where we are going. That’s all I’m going to say about leadership. Umm --- let me say when I say that too, I think we have some wonderful leaders here. I really do.

4. (No surprises, a morning shower and a surprise birthday party, & surprises in worship.)

No surprises. That was one of the things I had. No surprises. Sometimes you say you want us, you know, well you know when, let’s just surprise people when you get on an airplane an, an they think they are goin’ to Columbus an, but let’s just send them to Cincinnati. You don’t want to be surprised. A lot of us know what it’s like to be surprised, don’t we? Surprises --- you know how would you like a surprise shower --- a surprise birthday party when you stepped out of the shower one morning? Sometimes that’s what surprises in worship are like. You just feel violated all of a sudden you know. You just uh --- uh. We don’t want surprises.

5. (Teach, teach, teach, teach, teach, teach, teach, teach ----.)

We want to teach about where we are going. We want to lead people. I was hopin’ an prayin’ I could say this in a way that didn’t turn people off. And that uh, that uh, that was humorous and still got a point across. We need to teach, teach, teach, teach, teach, teach, teach, and then when we are through teaching, we need to teach some more. And many times it can’t just come from our pulpit. And we’re in a precarious situation right here because we have no fulltime pulpit minister and that means we have to become teachers ourselves. And when we see people hurting we need to be about the business of healing those hurts, and helping those hurts.

6. (Conflict, painting in black and white, now color is out, the struggle, and the clash.)

--- And the conflict comes in there because what’s the best way to me is not the necessarily the best way to others. And I have people who come in you know and they say can’t you just paint this in black and white? Can’t you do that? You know it’s been black and white for years. It’s been ---
you know this, this is the way it is, --- black and white.

And, and there’s a part of me that wants to rise up and say, you know we can paint it in black and white, yes --- but have you ever seen color? Do you know color is out? You know the large screen tv’s are out. You want to say I can paint it in black and white but there’s so much more.

We have a group of people who go to your leaders and say you know black and white is what we have had forever. Black and white is, black and white is what I grew up with.

--- And there comes the struggle. The issue of a generation raised with color and a generation raised to believe that black and white is reverent and black and white is holy. And you have a clash. You have a clash with the up and coming with what I call their sponsors. And many times these sponsors want to come in and say you can paint in black and white because, you know what, we paid for the brushes. And we paid for the canvas. If you’re gonna paint, please paint like this. And you know in many ways they are right. And in many ways they are not right. How can we best do that?