LEGO

Etched into my mind is the very recent image of one of my grand-daughters on Boxing Day, her brow furrowed in concentration as she worked around the table with her cousins, each one feverishly attempting to build something using her or his new Lego set. It is, for me, a wonderful moment.

Call this a post-Christmas reflection on Lego; the little multi-coloured, interlocking building blocks so popular with children everywhere. You know the ones, the little blocks with the bumps on top that fit into a groove on the bottom of the next one. No matter the colour or the size, each bump fits perfectly into the groove of the next one in the hands of the child. It all reminds me of Dr. Larry Dossey saying that each of us has a God shaped hole in our lives that only God can fill. I find it an effective simile.

When our children first discovered Lego, the systems were pretty simple. There were blocks with eight bumps, six bumps, and four bumps, and there were different colours, but the system was pretty basic. Then one day, more creative minds at the Lego Group in Denmark got the idea of designing the pieces differently. Instead of building simple little walls, and houses, children would be able to build spaceships and castles! Suddenly the limits were removed and children could use the Lego system to build whatever their imaginations could conceive! Yet, despite all the advances, the little bumps still fit perfectly into the little grooves, just the way they always had.

Somehow all of this seems to me to be so much like the church. It used to be that each congregation looked pretty much the same. They were like basic building blocks; each doing the same things in much the same way. Now, however, more creative minds find new ways to express the gospel message, and congregations are beginning to do things differently. They find new ways to reach out to others, design 21st century entry points for people to come into fellowship, and think of inventive ways to serve their communities. Still, underneath it all is the same basic principle of the gospel: God is love and wants to fit into our lives. And people, despite all our modern or post-modern sophistication, still have the same God-shaped hole that was designed to be filled by the same loving God.

I do not know what form church will take in the future, any more than I know what the creative minds of children will build using Lego, but the possibilities are endless, only limited by our own imagination. It is as if God has provided the building blocks with the bumps and grooves of our lives, and invites us to come and play. What a wonderful, creative inventor!

So…what would you like to build?