Frogology



"Thousands of years ago, tribes of human beings suffered great privations in the struggle to survive. In this struggle it was important not only to be able to handle a club, but also to possess the ability to think reasonably, to take care of the knowledge and experience garnered by the tribe, and to develop the links that would provide cooperation with other tribes. Today the entire human race is faced with a similar test. In infinite space many civilizations are bound to exist, among them civilizations that are also wiser and more "successful" than ours.
Yet this should not minimize our sacred endeavors in this world of ours, where, like faint glimmers of light in the dark, we have emerged for a moment from the nothingness of dark unconsciousness of material existence. We must make good the demands of reason and create a life worthy of ourselves and of the goals we only dimly perceive." (Last paragraph of Andrei Sakharov's Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1975)



“Frogology” is my invention, my theory of life. The fairy tale of the Russian writer Garshvin comes to mind. It is my favorite story, Ligooshka-Puteshestvennitsa, or “Frog the Traveler,” with a moral lesson.

Becoming the first woman pastor in Russia, I was exactly like the frog that decided to learn to fly. The ambitious little frog bravely approached some geese one day and asked them to teach her to fly. The geese found a simple solution for the little frog’s dream: a stick. The frog was asked to take that stick into her mouth; then the two strongest geese lifted her up into the blue sky on the stick. At first, the little frog kept her mouth shut. She observed the earth from the sky and was amazed how tiny everything looked compared to her; she was bigger than even her swamp. The freedom made the froggy’s head spin. No one from her relatives and friends could ever even imagine how high she could fly. When the geese made a circle before leaving for a foreign land, they flew over the swamp. The frog saw her little village and her community from above and, naturally, wanted to let them know that she could fly.

She opened her mouth to proclaim her achievement and, at the moment when all her relatives and friends looked up at her, she fell into the swamp. Fifteen years ago I lost everything and had to start from zero. This theory supports scriptural teaching, "He that keepest his mouth, keepest his life. He that opens his lips too wide shall bring on his own destruction." Proverbs 13.

I see analogy between my life and the life of my denomination. I think, our denomination got too proud announcing to the world that we became the biggest denomination in the nation. Instead of being humble and continuing intentional spiritual development and pursuing risk-taking missions and practicing radical hospitality, we got too big and too business minded. The result didn’t have to wait: United Methodist Church was in decline for the last twenty years.

My second hypothesis of “frogology” came out of a scientific experiment that was done also on frogs. A frog was placed into a pot with boiling water, and as you would expect, he immediately leapt out if it. Who wouldn’t! The paradox was in the same frog’s behavior when it was placed into cold water first and then the water was gradually heated up to the same boiling point. The frog remained still, oblivious to the heat.

I applied this experiment to human life and found some similarities to us slowly being boiled, but noticing little. We were all like hard-boiled soviet zombies, not only ignoring the danger but even enjoying it. My American Methodist friends would come to Russia to visit my first church and look at us Russians like we were insane, “Why don’t you ask for political asylum?”

“For what reason? I am not a Jew.”

“Religious! Ecological! Political! You name it! You have all the reasons to ask for political asylum!”

“Then the whole country should emigrate.”

“Why do you Russians keep silence, then? Why don’t you rebel? It will take several generations to rebuild Russia, why don’t you leave it behind?”

Americans, as well as other foreigners, wanted to jump out right away when submerged into the Russian boiling pot, but we stayed there for life, because we were unable to see the gradual degradation and inevitable death from where we were. The problem is that frogs like their own swamp that is always warm and familiar. We don’t see much of a difference, because all the changes happen gradually, from one generation to the other.

When I first came to America, I realized that church people around me were afraid to express their opinion no less than in the Soviet Russia. They don’t even notice that the water is already too hot. Americans are afraid to step on somebody else’s toes, as if they will be physically persecuted for that. Creativity is choked, simply because people are more concerned about not sticking out their heads. American Christians never had genocide like Soviets had under Stalin, Germans under Hitler, or Cambodians under Pol Pot. What did they fear? It was my turn now to ask, “How, in this whole world, did you learn to keep your mouths shut? Why fearing?” I learned that “once bitten; twice shy.” People are afraid of conflicts, especially in the church, letting same leaders to control congregations for decades, rather leaving than learning new ways.

When Americans complain that they have countless immigrants and have to feed and educate us on their tax money, I want to argue, “You need us for our fresh perspective. We can save you as you saved us! And maybe together we can save at least something that can be still saved.”

My coming to Kansas City was exactly like that scientific experiment, a frog thrown into the already-boiling water. I felt everything with my skin: racial prejudices, social classes, county lines, healthy and vibrant congregations and small internally focused stagnant churches. If I had grown up in the Midwest, I would have missed lots of things. And here is my point: United Methodist churches can still get out of a decline if there are enough leaders, who can help local churches to sense that the “temperature” is way too high in our denomination right now without vision, purpose and strategy. Churches are too focused on keeping their doors opened instead of taking risk to get out into a mission field. Revitalization starts with telling the truth.

My Raytown Wednesday Night Alive group studied Adam Hamilton’s book Seeing Grey in a World of Black and White. The most important question was to ponder why Christianity has become a wedge that drives people from Christ, rather than drawing them to him. Churches are polarized because Christians treat each other in distractive ways. Every time I take a new member into our church, I ask myself, how this person will be treated when I am not around and how soon this woman or man will leave. How can I, as a pastor, prevent rude comments, arrogant attitude, and yelling that makes normal people want to run away? How many people left the church because they refused to be treated in unchristian way?

Unfortunately, too many churches act and live their Christian lives like tribes that try to survive, competing with other churches rather than cooperating and learning from each other. “Without the vision people parish.” (Proverbs 29:18). The role of leaders is to educate, lead and empower local congregation away from survival toward effective ministry to glorify God. The church is not about paying bills and keeping its doors opened, but about bringing people together in the name of God.

Adam Hamilton writes, “part of the polarization we are experiencing in our country today is a result of pastors and church leaders who have abandoned the teachings of Jesus and the apostles regarding the way we speak of those with whom we disagree. Part of the healing of our nation must come from the church modeling for our society how we are to love those with whom we disagree. Right now we’re modeling for society how we destroy with our words and actions those we disagree with.”

Why can’t we do better? Why shouldn’t we? Don’t we want to see those signs of fruitfulness? Radical Hospitality – Passionate Worship – Extravagant Giving – Risk-Taking Mission – Intentional Faith Development? The first fruits cannot mask what is missing in our church. "There is one body, and one Spirit, even as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is above all, and through all, and in you all." Ephesians 4:4-6. We need to be of one Spirit and of one calling to transform our church otherwise we are not the church of Christ.

What do we model as a church? While Adam Hamilton is trying to unite Methodists and teach them to accept different positions on evolution, homosexuality, abortion and etc, our church continues arguing about the money, and arguing about the money, we see the world as black and white only; we see the world in dollars and cents. Churches worship their bank and investment accounts more than they worship God. They rely more on money. There is little space left for love and acceptance. There is little space left for God.

Do we even remember why we are Christians, sitting in our small pots or our small swamps with the temperature rising to its boiling point…