Have you Given Up on Change in your Church?

The average established church knows how to train fleas.

Fleas are incredible jumpers. In fact, a flea can jump over 150 times its own size. If a man had the same strength, he could jump over 900 feet high. For some perspective, the Statue of Liberty is 305 feet high from base to the top of the torch. In addition, a flea can jump 30,000 times without taking a break. Imagine if we had that kind of strength and stamina. We could accomplish anything.

But if a FLEA TRAINER puts a flea in a jar with a lid on it, the flea will, of course, begin to jump, but after a while, the flea will lower his jump. Once they become accustomed to the fact that they cannot escape, you can remove the lid and the flea will only jump as high as where the lid was. He will never escape the jar because he has been reprogrammed to only jump so high.(1)

The flea limits it's incredible power because of conditioning and experience. The "school of hard knocks" has left its mark.

Pastors can wind up like a trained flea. Once a pastor of vision, of innovation, of giving it 100%, of God-honoring risk, of boldness and courage. Over time, resistance, complaints, anonymous letters, ugly business meetings, innuendo, criticism and disappointment take their toll. The lid on the jar is too much. They give in. And give up.

(1)cited from online reference