Piloting Faith: Playing to win or trying not to lose...

A Word for the Day...

Trying not to lose is different than playing to win. Trying not to lose ties you to scarcity. You adopt a low tolerance for risk. Your willingness to innovate, pivot, and dare to create something new is nonexistent. You are trying not to lose what you have, so you hold on tight and don't make any sudden moves.

Playing to win is the opposite energy. If you want to play to win in your company, you hire people smarter than you. You create an environment that rewards creativity. You articulate a vision that both inspires and propels your organization forward.

Playing to win in a congregation means you invest in your community while also investing in yourself. You show up for the protests, feed the hungry, write to your elected officials, house the homeless, and repurpose your building for the collective common good. You also pray/meditate, take care of your body, learn from our sacred texts and listen to your "still small voice" within.

Playing to win means you believe your best days are ahead. Trying not to lose means your best days are over.

You choose.

- Rev. Cameron Trimble, author of Piloting Church: Helping Your Congregation Take Flight

Prayer for the Week

Gracious God,

You have said that the meek are blessed, that those who choose to serve others for no personal gain will inherit the earth.

But how can this be? Show us how. In our world, the meek get ignored. The humble end up trampled and left for dead.

Yet meekness is what you modeled. Show us how to live with faith and confidence in your upside-down kin-dom. Change our imagination, rearrange our priorities, re-create our very way of seeing. Otherwise, pride and power make so much more sense.

Show us the giant promise of your "little" ways. Help us to desire humility, honor it in others, choose it for ourselves, that we may look more like you in this world.

Amen.

- (adapted from The Prayer Wheel by Patton Dodd, Jana Riess and David Van Biema)