Plymouth UCC Church
  • Welcome!
    • I'm New Here
    • I'm a CSU Student
    • LGBTQ
    • How Do I Join?
    • Staff Writings
  • Streaming Worship
    • Join Worship
    • Worship Bulletin
    • Newcomer Card
  • News & Events
    • Today's Schedule
    • Upcoming Events
    • Calendar & eNews
  • Living Our Faith
    • Worship Overview >
      • Sermons
      • Music >
        • Mark's Music Minute
      • Faith Statements
      • Dinner Church
    • Staff Reflections
    • Social Justice & Outreach >
      • N2N Sleepout
      • Grocery Cards
    • Christian Formation Overview >
      • Children
      • Youth
      • Adults >
        • Visiting Scholar
        • Sophia Circle
    • Calling & Caring
    • Labyrinth
  • Connect
    • Contact Us
    • Community
    • Clergy & Staff
    • Lay Leadership
    • Gallery
    • Building Rental
  • Give
    • Online Giving
    • Pledge Card
    • Evergreen Partners
  • Members
    • Forms & Resources >
      • General Forms
      • Calendar Request Form
      • Newsletter Submissions
      • Zoom Resources
    • Weddings & Funerals
    • Library
    • Constitution & Policies
    • F1Go >
      • Group Finder
    • Kathee Explains Everything
  • Welcome!
    • I'm New Here
    • I'm a CSU Student
    • LGBTQ
    • How Do I Join?
    • Staff Writings
  • Streaming Worship
    • Join Worship
    • Worship Bulletin
    • Newcomer Card
  • News & Events
    • Today's Schedule
    • Upcoming Events
    • Calendar & eNews
  • Living Our Faith
    • Worship Overview >
      • Sermons
      • Music >
        • Mark's Music Minute
      • Faith Statements
      • Dinner Church
    • Staff Reflections
    • Social Justice & Outreach >
      • N2N Sleepout
      • Grocery Cards
    • Christian Formation Overview >
      • Children
      • Youth
      • Adults >
        • Visiting Scholar
        • Sophia Circle
    • Calling & Caring
    • Labyrinth
  • Connect
    • Contact Us
    • Community
    • Clergy & Staff
    • Lay Leadership
    • Gallery
    • Building Rental
  • Give
    • Online Giving
    • Pledge Card
    • Evergreen Partners
  • Members
    • Forms & Resources >
      • General Forms
      • Calendar Request Form
      • Newsletter Submissions
      • Zoom Resources
    • Weddings & Funerals
    • Library
    • Constitution & Policies
    • F1Go >
      • Group Finder
    • Kathee Explains Everything

The Greatest Risk

1/22/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
“The greatest risk in life is not taking one!” -Anonymous
 
Proverbs 3:5 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.”
 
Matthew 14: 29 “He said, ‘Come.’ So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus.”
 
For those of us who sometimes struggle with the title and history of the name “Christian,” I might suggest that the coolest rebranding we could do as an institution would be to call ourselves Water Walkers! Can you imagine the logos we could develop?
 
In all seriousness, Scripture is all about risk-taking and learning to reinvent ourselves. From Genesis to Proverbs to Matthew, we find sayings and stories that remind us that life changes, God is with us, and we have to take risks to make a difference. Life is about learning to walk on the water… and learning to swim with joy when it just doesn’t work out the first time.
 
SPLASH!
 
At my recent younger clergy leadership cohort (The Next Generation Leadership Initiative) last week, we focused on the idea of adaptive challenge and adaptive leadership. One of the first lessons The Pension Boards wanted to relate to us before we could get into case studies was the difference between Authority and Leadership.
 
One of my cohort colleagues, The Rev. Kit Novotny, from First Congregational in Berkeley summarized our learnings this way at the end of the week: “Authority is about stabilizing, protecting the purpose of an organization/group, holding together. but LEADERSHIP is about opening up! De-stabilizing, disorienting. Creating disequilibrium. Expanding. Adaptive work is the problem for which we don’t have the solution. Instead, we ourselves have to change. We have to learn our way to the solution.”

In your life, in your relationships, in your spirituality…are you currently trying to be a leader or an authority? What are the things you are learning through? What experiments are you running to try to come to new solutions or ways of being?

Our religion is built on a tradition of stories about radical, adaptive experiments like walking on water. We have nothing to fear. We certainly should be hard to embarrass given the funny stories in our tradition and Scripture! We are the water walkers… and sometimes jubilant swimmers. It is Christianity that should inspire us to take risks rather than inspiring us to worry and stress.

I pray for all of us, with or without New Year’s Resolutions, that we all resolve to be leaders throughout our different contexts in these times of the unknown, unprecedented, and yet still emerging change.

Turns out, the greatest risk is forgetting that risk is our religion.

Splish Splash,
The Rev. Jake Miles Joseph (or just Jake)

Author

The Rev. Jake Miles Joseph ("just Jake"), Associate Minister, came to Plymouth in 2014 having served in the national setting of the UCC on the board of Justice & Witness Ministries, the Coalition for LGBT Concerns, and the Chairperson of the Council for Youth and Young Adult Ministries (CYYAM). Jake has a passion for ecumenical work and has worked in a wide variety of churches and traditions. Read more about him on our staff page.

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    December 2016

    Categories

    All
    2020
    Abundance
    Adult Formation
    Advent
    Alli Stubbs
    Alternative Giving Fair
    Animals
    Apocalypse
    Art
    Bach
    Bees
    Being Church
    Being The Body Of Christ
    Being The Church
    Beng Alive
    Better Angels
    Birthday
    Black Lives Matter
    Blessings
    Breath
    Calling & Caring
    Celtic Christianity
    Change
    Children
    Choices
    Choir
    Christian Formation
    Christmas Blues
    Church
    Church Governance
    Coffee
    Compassion Camp
    Consecration Sunday
    COVID 19
    COVID-19
    Creed
    CSU
    DACA
    Darkness & Light
    Database
    Discipleship
    Education For All
    Election
    Farewell
    Fences & Bridges
    Finance
    Flexibility
    Flora Cash
    Fort Collins
    Forum
    Forum Series
    Friends & Family Sunday
    Gender
    Generosity
    Getting Settled
    Giving
    Goals
    Go Deeper
    Godspell
    Goodbye
    Gratitude
    Guest Author
    Habitat For Humanity
    Halloween
    Healthy Congregations
    Hobbies
    Holy Week
    Hope
    Housing
    Impermanence
    Inauguration
    Independence Day
    Interruptions
    Interterm
    Jazz
    John Philip Newell
    Joseph
    Joy
    Jubilee Sunday
    Known & Unknown
    Labyrinth
    La Foret
    Laura Nelson
    Lent
    Letting Go
    LGBTQ
    Listening
    Longest Night
    Magi
    Mark Heiskanen
    Masterpiece Cakeshop V. Colorado Civil Rights Comm.
    Matthew Shepard
    Ministerial Transitions
    Mission Trip
    Music
    Music Program
    Nationalism
    Newness
    New Year
    ONA
    Ordinary Time
    Organ
    Pandemic
    Parking
    Pastoral Care
    Peace
    Pendemic
    Pentecost
    Pilgrimage
    Plymouth Grounds
    Popular Culture
    Prayer Service
    Psalm 126
    Psalms
    Reformation Sunday
    Releasing
    Rep. Joe Neguse
    Rev. Carla Cain
    Rev. Hal Chorpenning
    Rev. Jake Miles Joseph
    Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson
    Rev. Mandy Hall
    Rev. Mark Lee
    Ring Lake Ranch
    Risk
    Rocky Mountain Conference
    Rooted
    Rosebud Episcopal Mission
    Sabbath
    Sabbatical
    Search Process
    Signage
    Silence
    Singing
    Sleepout
    Solstice
    Soul
    Spiritual Growth
    Spiritual Practices
    Stewardship
    Stewardshp
    Stories
    St. Patrick
    Strategic Planning
    Students
    Suicide Prevention
    Summer
    Taize
    Teacher Appreciation
    Thanks
    Thanksgiving
    The Church Organ
    The Magnificat
    Thrive
    Top Ten
    Transfiguration
    Transformation
    Tricia Medlock
    Trump
    Truth
    Tulips
    UCC
    Values
    Vespers
    Video Reflection
    Voting
    Waiting
    Weird & Holy
    Wilderness
    Wisdom
    Work
    Yendra Tencza
    Youth
    Zoom For 7

    RSS Feed

916 West Prospect Road Fort Collins CO 80526

Worship Times

​STREAMING ONLY at 10 a.m. Sundays
Vespers 7 p.m. Wednesday

Contact Us

970-482-9212

​Members, log into F1Go here.

Subscribe to our eNews