by David Wesley
I recently read a blog by Len Hjalmarson in which he quotes Eddie Gibbs who states, “The Church needs navigators tuned to the voice of God, not map-readers. Navigational skills have to be learned on the high seas and in the midst of varying conditions produced by the wind, waves, currents, fogbanks, darkness, storm clouds and perilous rocks.” (Leadership Next, 66).This is a significant insight. While we have generally located ourselves on maps based on a predictable rate of change to the surrounding landscape, we are now in a time where the pace of change outstrips our ability to locate ourselves. Moreover, the increasing fragmentation of western culture makes context king - adaptive responses must be local and not something that is developed in the U.S. and passed on to other cultures. (Perhaps this was already true twenty years ago and the universalizing tendency of modernity simply made us blind to the fact.)
Navigation is a significantly different skill than map reading. The points on a map are fixed, and so when one wants to locate a point in the real world one simply locates oneself by known geography or artifacts, and then proceeds step by step methodically to the next point. If you have a compass, this is really, really easy.
But navigation requires no fixed planetary points and requires no compass. Instead, one learns to read the sky - the stars, really. Map reading is a skill that can be learned on a table top in any school room. Any ten year old can master it. And with a compass, any ten year old can go out and use that knowledge with a high degree of confidence. This skill is only useful, however, when the landscape is not changing.
Navigation, on the other hand, is a skill that does not ask for a predictable landscape. And it is learned in the wilderness or on the ocean. It requires courage and the ability to withstand harsh conditions. And it requires something that is never required of map readers: faith and a fundamental inner restfulness. When there are no physical points to locate ourselves, we rely on an imaginal map - an internal compass. That internal compass is tuned not to earthly points, but to a fixed purpose and an external reference point - the North star.
In times of global instability such as these, our true source of direction must be in something beyond finances, politics, or stability.
