Windmills

This past weekend, I had the privilege of attending a spiritual retreat of sorts with my good friend, Doug Cooper.  These spiritual retreats bring together fellow travelers on the Christian journey from across the nation and across the globe.  The location was a cabin atop a mountain overlooking the Canaan Valley of West Virginia.  Breathtaking views, good conversation, deep sharing, and a plethora of food and drinks to go around.  By all means, this place was a conversational person’s paradise.

As you look off the terrace of this immaculate cabin, across the valley, and towards the next mountain range, these gigantic, tall, white objects stand spinning in the distance.  They are wind turbines.  Completely powered by the wind that roars through the valley, these turbines are only as powerful as the wind is strong.  If the wind ceases to blow, these turbines cease to be active.  They cease to generate energy.  They cease to do what they are supposed to do.  These wind turbines are entirely dependent upon the movement of the wind.

Wind turbines can teach us a lot about the relationship between Jesus and the Church.  Looking at most churches, if I may employ the wind turbine metaphor a little longer, it seems that we’re more concerned with the turbines being oiled and the blades being maintained more than we are with the direction of the wind.

Throughout Scripture, two words are used most often to describe the spirit.  In the Old Testament Hebrew we find the word ruach.  Ruach means spirit, breath and also wind.  In the New Testament Greek, we find the work pneuma.  Pneuma is the Greek equivalent to ruach in the Old Testament.

If you have ever spent any time outside before a storm, you know the power of the wind.  This raw force of nature has the ability to destroy things and displays in powerful ways how nature cannot be harnessed nor stopped.  The wind has captivated humans from the beginning of time.  So powerful a force was it in the ancient word, and in our own time, that the very breath of God is linked intricately and intimately to the wind that moves around us.

These wind turbines in West Virginia do not harness the wind.  They do not seek to redirect or stop the wind.  Instead, they position themselves in the path of the wind.  The wind generates the movement.  The moving blades activate the turbine.  The turbine produces the energy.  The energy is a product of the movement of the wind.  Stop the wind and the turbine is useless.

As I look around our churches today, I see a lot of worry about the maintenance of the turbine.  We’ve become obsessed with programs, structures, staffing, numbers, dollars, sermons, songs, agendas, and much, much more.  Do we ever sit back and ask, “Where is Jesus in all this?”  Where is the wind for our turbine?

Frustration and burnout come quickly when Christians lose sight of the reason we do any of the things we do.  Wind is a dangerous thing, it is not safe, but wind is also a creative force.  It can level down the structures and things in which we place our identity.  Wind can also, like with the great sand dunes of the Carolinas, change the landscape of an area over time.

All these awesome pictures of what the wind does and on a ridge overlooking the Canaan Valley of West Virginia stands miles of wind turbines spinning.  A beautiful picture of what worship should be for the Body of Christ; a positioning into the wind.  A deriviation of our power and energy from the mighty life force which is the Holy Spirit.  A community all about Jesus!

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This entry was posted on November 10th, 2008 and is filed under Jason Barnhart. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.