The Church: an Aircraft Carrier

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While this blog often hosts stories of God’s mercy at work in and through people, it will also take moments to “zoom out” and see the bigger vision for how and why we respond to God’s mercy. Our recent focus at OMC on generosity brings to mind a picture our senior pastor has previously used of an aircraft carrier to illustrate how God’s mercy not only fills us, but also compels us to share His mercy with others.

To break down the analogy, let’s start with a little background on aircraft carriers:

• An aircraft carrier’s purpose is to enable specific missions to be carried out. 
• It is strategically located in the position of greatest effectiveness.
• Its commanders convey essential information and keep crew members aware and trained in order to be prepared.
• The service crew keeps the planes conditioned: evaluating, tuning and fueling.
• Skilled pilots understand their role.
• It has up-to-the-minute intelligence of the greatest need.
• The unity of purpose among commanders, crew and pilots in order to most effectively launch the aircraft for their appointed missions is crucial.

Our church and the Church universal are to function in a similar way, both locally and globally. 

• We come together at church for information, training, and fueling. 
• Then we are launched into the world into positions of greatest effectiveness, using the gifts and passions and callings God has given us. 
• We return regularly to evaluate effectiveness and to make necessary corrections, for new information, for R and R, for refueling and subsequent re-launching.
• And teamwork is essential; we need the whole body of Christ.

The idea is that the church is BOTH a place of rest and refueling AND a place to launch into Kingdom work. Refueling without launching is both pointless and lethargic, while launching without fueling leads to burnout. The church’s role is BOTH receiving and giving, a constant flow back and forth: receive from Christ, give to others, receive from Christ, give to others. One cannot exist without the other.

This is especially applicable in our season of stewardship with its fresh focus on generosity. Giving isn’t just financial. Francis Schaeffer said, “All of life is spiritual,” so God calls us to steward our money, yes, but also our time, skills, talents, training, expertise, energy, and passions.