Editor’s Note: This article is based on the second chapter of the author’s book: Azure Sails: Lessons for Ministry from Under Sail.
I am a planner. I have learned to think ahead, to anticipate, to consider various options and possibilities and to make choices that meet a goal. I’ve planned programs, workshops, meetings, fund-raisers, and construction projects. When I began planning for my sabbatical, I brought those same skills to the table.
For eighteen months I had been working toward a sabbatical that was to include an active adventure–sailing–and a reflective experiences–reading and writing. I wanted to do this with friends and family and I knew that I would have to organize and plan for this moment with great care. I looked up charts and measured miles and averaged boat speeds, based on the reading I was doing.
My initial dream was to sail and sail and sail–from Galveston to Panama and the San Blas Islands and back (Mexico, Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama)–in twelve weeks. Then I re-calculated the distances and made a schedule to Honduras and back (Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras), approximately 1,100 miles each way. I created eight segments for this voyage. (Voyage sounds so much better than trip, so much more nautical, but everyone keeps asking about my “trip,” sigh.) I maximized my time for each segment and minimized the breaks in between. I recruited my crew and by the end of December 2005, two months before my departure, I had the schedule in place–on paper.
Then I was challenged about the “down” time between segments: too short. So I readjusted the schedule. I figured that if the crew needed to sit at the dock for a day or two while some repair was being completed, that would be OK. We would just have to sail a bit harder to make the next destination. So all was in place and ready on February 28 when we set sail.
Then the fun began.
It took us seven days to cross the Gulf of Mexico. No problem, I had planned for nine days. However, Azure Wind was not holding up so well. Though twenty years old, this was its maiden voyage. By the time we reached Isla Mujeres, we had water pressure problems. We had battery problems. We had a mainsail problem. Within 24 hours of arriving, we had more issues to add to the list–the fuel line had a small leak somewhere and the bilge was full of water and oil. Now if there’s one thing a planner does fairly well, it is to make lists. My repair list kept growing in those first few days. I’d fix one thing and then notice something new–or two somethings new. For all my efforts, the list kept growing.
I was distressed because my carefully planned schedule was collapsing. After four days of repair work, the biggest problem remaining was the mainsail. We had patched the main with sail tape and cloth strips, and then went searching for a used replacement sail. We found one on the Internet and made arrangements to have it brought south with the next crew. But when we laid it out, it didn’t fit. It was a racing sail not a cruising sail. So my son took it back with him. We found out that to have a new sail made would take four to six weeks.
That’s when it occurred to me: the lesson God is offering is flexibility. For all of the planning, I needed to stay flexible. Go with the flow. Relax. Let it be. Make the decision to deal with what you’re dealt. And I did. There was disappointment, but it was mixed with feelings of success, too. I’d just crossed the Gulf of Mexico and was making the safe decision not to go farther south where it would have been even more difficult to face the total loss of a sail. After a couple of day sails in Cancun Bay, I knew I could nurse the patched main back to Galveston, which is what we eventually did.
In the meantime, I had five great weeks in Isla.
In the church, too often we want the reassurance that our plans will not fail. Our efforts to nurture discipleship and equip people to be sent into the world to serve others, to expand the community and fellowship with new members, to grow the budget, all come with the unspoken expectation that good planning won’t fail us. The problem happens when we try to plan more than one step at a time. There are no three-step, or nine-step or twelve-step programs for changing the church. There is vision and planning that takes us to the next step and–flexibility to adjust to emerging realities.
The sailors who get in trouble are the ones who make their plans and can’t adjust to the unpredictable weather patterns, mechanical failures, and changes in the human spirit. The ones who survive on the water learn the lesson of flexibility, dealing with what they’re dealt.
Just like the palm tree that is pliable enough to bend in the storm force winds, church leaders serve best when they are strong enough to commit to some plan and flexible enough to adjust that plan as needed.
God may be in the planning, but God is also in the flexibility.
David H. Wasserman is executive general presbyter of Grace Presbytery in Irving, Texas.
