Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby (Photo credit: Messiah Lutheran (Mechanicsville, VA))

For many years now, one of my favourite quotes has been the late John Wimber‘s statement that ‘faith’ is spelt R-I-S-K. So it was a pleasure this morning while watching the live stream of the HTB Leadership Conference was to hear Archbishop Justin Welby say that ‘The church should be a safe place to do risky things in the service of Christ.’ How appropriate after that, then, to find myself listening to Esther Alexander‘s song ‘The End of the Land’, where she sings,

Is this the end of the land here
Or the beginning of the sea?

(You can listen to the song and download it here.)

Perhaps that’s our dilemma. We are more scared by being at the end of the land than we are by being at the beginning of the sea. What will it take for us to change, and why would we change? Too many churches want to change in order to save their skins. ‘We must reach out in order to keep this church going.’

Heaven help us. Really.

Welby also said this morning, ‘We cannot live for our cause to win, we have to live for his cause to win.’ May it be so.