In my early years I lived in a house on a cul-de-sac, which was a nice safe place to learn to ride a bike. The narrow, winding road beyond was not at all safe for children, but the little bubble of Emma Lane was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had little interest in riding a bike, however\u2014I was too afraid of falling. Finally, my father offered me $10 if I would learn. So I did. (Now that I realize how much $10 is worth in today’s dollars, I can imagine how long he tried to teach me before resorting to bribery.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I accepted the money, and then quickly abandoned the bicycle. I did pick it back up later, when I lived in a neighborhood where you could actually go somewhere on a bike. But I stopped altogether when my family moved across the country to another place where the roads weren\u2019t made for amateur bicyclists. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So the idea “it\u2019s just like riding a bike” never resonated with me. The phrase refers to something that you don’t forget how to do. Even if it’s been a long time, you’ll remember how to pedal, balance on two wheels, and lean into the curve. It\u2019s second nature. It’s effortless and fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It may seem that doing church used to be like riding a bike: Activities hummed along like wheels on a bike path, and there were committees and volunteers to keep them turning. People showed up every Sunday for the weekly ride.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But it turns out that church is not like riding a bike. It is possible to do it well for a long time and then discover that one’s center of gravity has shifted and balance is harder. Traffic is faster and closer. A smooth road has become gravel. When everything is changing, who wants to start over with learning to ride? Who wants to risk falling?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A few years ago, the Church of the Brethren committed to being “innovative, adaptable, and fearless.” Of those three aspirational adjectives, surely the most difficult is “fearless.” This is certainly a time that induces fear. But we will not move forward if we are afraid of falling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear,” says the apostle Paul, “but you received a spirit of adoption” (Romans 8:15). When we practice being fearless, we will have the freedom to be innovative and adaptable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
How is doing church like (and unlike) riding a bike? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4482,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[384,567,49,38],"class_list":["post-4483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-from-the-publisher","tag-change","tag-fearless","tag-from-the-publisher","tag-wendy-mcfadden"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4483"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4820,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4483\/revisions\/4820"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brethren.org\/messenger\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}