A couple of weeks ago I wrote about adding and subtracting. Sometimes we add stuff until our project is complete as when we are making soup or building a house (you can find that post here). Sometimes we take away until our project is complete as when we carve a wooden scoop or prune a plant.

There were two comments on that post. One was from a person who noted that it can be tough to purposefully get smaller in a culture that sees success in terms of adding. The other was from a person who suggested that we gather as a church for an extended period of time to seek God's direction on what to do.

Gathering to seek God's direction is the first step in deciding whether we're going to carve a horse or a scoop. It's scary because it's possible some of us believe God wants us to carve a horse and some of us believe God wants us to carve a scoop and even after we decide whether to carve a horse or a scoop it's still not clear what kind of scoop we might end up with or whether we have the skills to make it happen. We are afraid that we might all have at it with our carving knives and with good intentions carve away everything until there's nothing left. That's called whittling – as something to do with your hands to pass the time you cut little bits off a stick until the stick is gone. There's no horse or no scoop at the end, just a pile of wood bits. This does sometimes happen to churches – one activity drops away followed by another and another and nobody intends for the church to come to an end but after a while, without focus or attention, there's nothing left and the congregation disperses. It's not bad to whittle or even for churches to disperse from time to time but if your intention was to carve a horse or a scoop and at the end of the day all you have is a pile of splinters that's disappointing.

At a particularly low point in the Old Testament book of Judges the writer notes in despair that, “the word of the Lord was rare in those days and everyone did what was right in his own eyes.” Our freedom-loving culture sees the ability of each person to do what's right in their own eyes as a high and lofty goal but the story of Scripture warns against it. It leads inevitably to whittling in its worst sense – bits are carved away with no intention or cooperation until nothing is left and all that remains are splinters isolated from one another no longer able to form a functional purpose.

Gathering to seek God's direction is the first step to avoid whittling once things start getting smaller. It's scary because we haven't yet decided what to carve away and what will remain. We risk disagreeing about what God wants for us. We risk using God as a weapon against each other by claiming what we want is the will of God and so things that don't fit in are obviously not. We risk being carved away ourselves. We risk disagreeing with our elected or hired leaders. We risk making a mistake.

So we don't only gather. A simple gathering of people is called a mob. Mobs do terrible things to each other and to everyone around them. And we don't only gather to seek direction. People do sometimes gather together seeking any direction available to them, as they did in the book of Judges and throughout history, and that leads to dictatorship, oppression, and the exact opposite of the kingdom of God's presence.

We gather to seek God's direction. We have clear guidelines for how to lay a foundation for that gathering process. The early church sometimes formed itself by adding (and multiplying) but also sometimes by carving away, as Paul urged the Corinthian church to do in light of some issues they were having. Paul's guidance for how to go about that gathering and carving appears in chapter 13 of his first letter of advice to that congregation. “Love never fails. But where there are prophecies they will cease; where there are tongues they will be stilled; where there is knowledge it will pass away … and now these three remain, faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

We are invited to gather and look for God's presence so we can begin carving. We are not carving a scoop or a horse we are carving out a recognizable presence of God among us. We realize with fear that under God's guidance we might carve away everything that isn't faith, hope, and love. Some very beautiful and good things may fall away for a time – prophecy, tongues, and knowledge are all gifts. They will grow again once they become rooted in love but my need to know and others' need to interpret or speak may get set aside for a while.

Ready. Set. Go.