Think on These Things

More than 2,000 years ago, Aesop told the story of the goose that laid the golden egg, and this fable has been rehearsed under various scenarios in both private and corporate life. Fundamentally, the motif is that care must be taken not to segregate or lessen the significance of the central player in the movie of life’s circumstances.

As we celebrated the centennial of the Church of the Nazarene, and as I heard stories of the movements of God around the world, I couldn’t help but juxtapose those stories with the oft-repeated claim that the church in the U.S. and Canada is not growing. The tincture from such proclamations can adversely affect the morale and attitude of the very goose that laid the golden egg. In fact, there have been great reports of God’s movement on many districts in the U.S. and Canada.

While it could be admitted that there has been collective growth stagnation here in the US/Canada region, it must also be recognized that this is the goose that continues to lay the eggs that provide the gold for continued missional initiatives around the globe. Consider for a minute these salient centennial statistics:

• Ridgefield on the Washington Pacific district – 61 new Nazarenes
• Nampa First – 113 new Nazarenes
• Miami Bethany, South Florida district – 251 new Nazarenes
• Tulsa Family Church – 20 baptisms and 45 new Nazarenes
• Warren Champion, East Ohio district – 20 new Nazarenes
• In 2007 the goose produced 32,609 new Nazarenes
• The Los Angeles area produced 1,738 new Nazarenes in 2007
• The New York area produced 969 new Nazarenes

The goose has great nobility when soaring in flight, but can get cantankerous when its detractors clip its wings and force it to stay on the ground. But those detractors eventually are forced to acknowledge that life without it is a pain in the neck. In fact, it is impossible.

This Thanksgiving might just be the time, in the midst of clamoring for global restructuring, to say “thanks” to the US/Canada Nazarene Goose that continues to lay the Golden Eggs.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 26th, 2008 at 2:17 pm and is filed under US/Canada Church. 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.