Boiling frogs and church life

One of that reasons that I find working with the ministry of ACCD (http://accd.org) so satisfying is their focus on current reality. So much mischief happens in life when I want to avoid what is really happening with me.

Now why would I want to avoid what is really going on? It might have to do with the propensity we humans have to;
1. being right,
2. feeling good,
3. looking good, and
4. being in control.

Thus staying out of touch with reality, at least in my illusion, seems to allow me all four of the above mentioned. The problem is that to support this illusion I have to work harder and harder to ignore signs in the physical universe around me. Thus the gratitude surprisingly that many of us have felt about reaching "bottom" (as 12 step groups put it) and hopefully recovering to some degree.

"Bottom" for those of you who either have lived charmed lives or are still blissfully ignorant of reality is what it's called when our or others blindness, dysfunction, propensity to humanness and evil takes us to a place where consequences finally strip away illusion. Often we're talking really painful consequences that not only do us damage but severely hurt those around
us.

So sociologists have a belief that organizations can exhibit personality much like a human being. So all this to introduce some thoughts about my church, Greenfield Congregational Covenant Church. I am currently serving on a committee that is conversing about the vitality of our church.

I'm wondering if the proverbial frog immersed in the slowly warming up pot of water can really get much of a philosophical, existential grip on his
reality. If there were two frogs in this potential stew and they were contentedly assessing their reality, the whole point of the proverb is the difficulty of noticing where they really are. And even if two frogs should suddenly, inexplicably start to have concerns about the warmth of their environment, could they communicate this perhaps vague concern to a third frog in the pot?

Stand by for more musings from the pot.