Headwaters

On Monday I visited the headwaters of the Mississippi, or as I like to call it, "the little creek that could." I find it fascinating that the mighty Mississippi begins as a narrow shallow creek flowing out of Lake Itasca. One of the many things that I learned on my trip was the sheer quantity of water that flows out of the Mississippi. What was even more striking was how much greater the factor of water flow was at the gulf compared to at the headwaters. The Mississippi struck me as an interesting model for leadership. We often point to one person and talk about all that they have done to make something a success. The same is true with the Mississippi. We give the credit for this great river to something that on its own is little more than a stream. The Missouri river is in fact longer than the Mississippi and neither of this rivers would amount to much without the contributions of numerous major rivers and countless streams which feed into them. What makes the Mississippi so mighty is not what it is on its own, but what it is when it is combined with the efforts of some many others. I am preparing a sermon on Hebrews 12 at the moment and the line "Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witness ..." seems very fitting to this. What we do in the church is not simply the product of one person, or even one congregation. The works that we do are part of something much larger. Each of our individual contributions is added together to form a mighty Church. It is foolish to fight over what the true headwaters of this church are. What matters is what can be accomplished by combining together, then each of our little streams of faith becomes a mighty river.