Humility Leaves Room for Complexity

Nancy Gibbs, a long-time editor-at-large for TIME magazine, has written, "The problems we face are too fierce to accommodate arrogance. Humility leaves room for complexity, honors honest dissent, welcomes the outlandish idea . . . that feeds invention."

Nancy has authored over 100 cover stories for TIME, including four "Person of the Year" essays. She wrote TIME's September 11th memorial issue as well as weekly essays on how 9/11 impacted the nation. Her article, from which this comment is taken, "If You Want to Be Humble and Empire . . . ", won the Luce Awards' 2002 Story of the Year. 

Nancy Gibbs spoke of American imperial ideals in her quotation. But I apply it to my own life and that of my work. The problems I believe the church faces are too fierce, too complex and too challenging to accommodate the arrogance that so many of our leaders bring to the table. We need the kind of humility that really leaves room for complexity and honors real dissent among fellow Christians. 

My big idea is missional-ecumenism. This is why I wrote Your Church Is Too Small, my forthcoming book which can be pre-ordered now at Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Christian Book.com. My thesis is an outlandish idea. But it feeds invention and we desperately need some voices that will keep this kind of invention before the church. I am only one small voice but I resolutely give myself to this task every single day. I have no simple, single solution to all our complex problems but I offer missional-ecumenism as a truly big idea that has not been seriously tried at all.