Paintball Lessons To Remember

the men at my church went on a paintball adventure after the service on sunday. they've been going through some of the 'wild at heart' material and decided to have "man time" in a cool pseudo-killing field. what an awesome thing to do! more stuff like that should happen in my opinion. "together" is the important goal.

well, my uncle was telling us all the tales of war and "splat", and i thought there was a great illustration in there. one that generation after generation in the church (heck, western culture as a whole) has really neglected.

when the games began earlier in the day, it was mostly mass chaos. everyone would take off in a direction with their own plan to advance and "kill". as the day progressed, though, the chaos turned to strategy...one that allowed each man to express his particular bent. interestingly, the strategy was one that just happened...it wasn't discussed, planned...it just occured naturally.

when the whistle would blow to begin...the older guys would form a line up the middle...they'd advance slowly...usually crawling through, over...but progressing at a steady pace. the younger guys would run out on the sides...full of energy blasts...and "charge" out in hopes of flanking the enemy.

both groups totally needed the other to do what came naturally...how they approached the battle...in order to achieve success.

have you noticed how much animousity there is sometimes between the generations? the older generation usually thinks the younger is undisciplined, unwise, "rogue"... and the younger generation believes the older is slow, cautious, "stuck in their ways"...

and no one works together...and instead becomes distracted by the "other's" obvious issues...

stagnation...due to both sides...!

i thought the illustration was such a beautiful one...in the event that both groups could actually see the worth in the other...

and advance while fully respecting and expressing the passion of youth and the wisdom of age...

i wonder what it would be like for the younger generations to let go of the fact that "they know how everything should be done" AND the older generations to let go of the fact that "they've seen how everything's been tried and not done"...and instead, combine forces...passion joined with wisdom...energy and mentoring...

that's the kind of ministry, community, life that i want to be a member of...and it's completely possible!