I have recently taken up Bikram Yoga. Bikram yoga involves posing in 2 sets of 26 poses over 90 minutes in 105 degree heat with 50% humidity. During that time a participant's heart beats considerable faster, he/she sweats off a good portion of his/her body's water content, one learns to manage his/her breathing and how to concentrate while in the midst of suffering.
Unlike my old basketball coach who constantly pushed me off the edge, these classes are designed to push a participant to the edge-that place between what the body has done before and has never done. At the edge you learn to balance, pushing forward but always with control, going boldly but carefully beyond the constraints and bounds of past, but being careful not to risk injury. “Achievements” are slow in coming, but over time your edge moves.
This idea of “edge” has application for a ministry like ours that desires to grow theologically and practically into a church that is poised to challenge the status quo by fully living out the motto of the United Methodist Church to have “Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors.” I invite you to the edge, not so that we can push you off. I invite you gently so that we can move forward unconstrained by the past, careful not to cause injury, discovering over time that our edge has moved.
The truth is good fences don’t make good neighbors, open doors do!
Pastor Lou
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