Curves

    I ride a motorcycle and not just any motorcycle. I’ve been riding since 1973. Mine is probably a familiar account. Growing up, my mother was as opposed to the idea of her children ever owning a motorcycle as any mother might be, until. The big ‘until’ was when Dad bought one. “Thank you Dad!” Climbing onto the back of a motorcycle cured our Mom of any anti-motorcycle thinking. Even today, at age 79, she loves riding as much as anything else in her life. Dad and I began with Honda 350s and worked our way up. I’ve never owned anything but a Honda. Never needed to. My current ride is a 2002 Honda Gold Wing. What makes a Gold Wing so special is that it is super smooth, super quiet, super quick and it really loves curves.
    If you’ve never ridden, chances are you can’t appreciate the appeal of curves to a motorcycle enthusiast. My greatest riding days are when I see a road sign with the familiar “Curves Ahead” symbol. I guess that the appeal is that you can take curves at a much greater speed on two wheels than on four. There is an adrenalin rush that comes from left, right, left at high speeds feeling the tug of gravity that does it. Perhaps the most famous curved road in America for bikers is known as the “Tail of The Dragon” at Deal’s Gap, North Carolina: 318 curves in 11 miles. While I may love the curves, my wife does not. Obviously, curves aren’t for everyone.
    Church work and especially church planting is about dealing with curves. While it may be theoretically possible for someone to go from 0 -1000 in church growth in a straight line, I haven’t met that person. In Kingdom work, curves are those unexpected challenges to a perfectly good plan of getting from here to there. It all looks so easy and simple on paper. It all sounds so effortless in the books and at the conferences. The book that needs to be written and the conference that needs to be offered is “Curve Management in Kingdom Strategies”. There is a famous Tree of Shame that stands outside the Deal’s Gap Hotel decorated like a Christmas Tree with various parts of motorcycles that have been recovered from the bikes that didn’t make a curve.
    When we were looking to plant in 1993, our first curve was a law making it illegal for churches to occupy commercially zoned space. I didn’t see that one coming. Along the way another curve was the Life Safety requirement for a voice evacuation fire alarm system that added another $7000 to an already over-extended budget. I didn’t see that one either. The biggest curves have become County Inspectors who have their own set of rules, not even on the books, that have to be met before they will approve construction. If you haven’t figured it out yet, curves can make you or break you. While I may love them on a motorcycle, I don’t love them in life. How many church planters crash and burn because they can’t take the curves? The solution?
    Major League Baseball is all about hitting. If no one hits, no one wins. The greatest hitters in the game do so by anticipating the pitch. Most big hitters love fast balls because they are straight pitches and require the least amount of solid contact to clear the fences. A good curve ball or slider may be the hardest to hit yet some have made it their bread-and-butter. Casey Kotchman plays first base for the Cleveland Indians. While the average player aspires to a .300 hitting average over a season, he has raised the bar. In 2011 Casey hit .453 against slider and curve pitches. When you figure it out, a curve can be an asset. If you wonder why it’s been two months since I last wrote, just think c-u-r-v-e.