“Therefore encourage one another and build up one another, just as you also are doing.”
-Paul to the church at Thessalonica, in 1 Thessalonians 5:11
If you pass a car from North Carolina as you drive to your
beach vacation this summer, you will
Image from: www.shoplicenseplates.com- |
North Carolina’s “First in Flight” slogan refers of course to
the Wright Brothers, Orville and Wilbur, who made the first successful powered,
controlled, sustained flights on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, 4 miles
south of Kitty Hawk. Their flying
machine success would soon be shown to the entire world, changing aviation and
moving human technology several leaps forward, and those quiet, barely-noticed
first flights in North Carolina would become legendary.
But one thing that’s interesting to me about North
Carolina’s rightful claim as “First in Flight:” the Wright Brothers actually
lived in Dayton, Ohio (where the local university today is appropriately called
the Dayton Flyers). Orville and Wilbur
Wright owned a bike store there in Dayton, where they made their own personal
study of aviation and worked on their flying machine on the side.
Many of the big steps in aviation history were made right there
in that bike shop in Dayton, Ohio. So
how did they end up in North Carolina, making those first historical
flights so far from home?
Image from: www.flickr.com |
Well, when the Wrights felt that they had their first glider
ready, they began looking for a place to test and practice it, and they decided
they needed somewhere with consistent wind.
They wrote letters to the weather stations at several locations along the eastern seaboard, asking about wind, weather, and lodging. It was a time when many people made fun of
flying machine attempts (since they always seemed to end with a big crash and
someone getting hurt), so it’s no surprise that they didn’t get many
replies. But the Wright brothers did get
a reply from the weather station chief in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. What’s more, they also got another Kitty Hawk
reply from William Tate, the area’s county commissioner and former
postmaster. Tate wrote the Wright's a
long letter, confirming that the beaches near Kitty Hawk had plenty of wind and
dunes, and not many trees to run into.
And as I first heard in David McCullough’s book The Wright Brothers,
the clincher may have been the end of Tate’s letter, where he said: “If you
come down here, I can promise you one thing, you will find friendly people who
will do what they can to extend a hand and help you with your experiments.”
And that sealed it.
Kitty Hawk was a place where the wind was good, and what’s more, they
were being welcomed, assured that both in the weather, location, and the
hospitality, this was a great place to fly.
So what made North Carolina “First in Flight?” It wasn’t that North Carolina developed
flight or even had people who studied aviation seriously. But what they contributed to the cause was just
as important: they offered an environment and an encouragement to those who
wanted to fly. The Wright brothers were ready to do great things - they just needed the right environment in which to do them. North Carolina provided it, and soon they were flying.
Learning From North Carolina
There’s a great lesson for the church in that story, isn’t there? I’d like to think that there are many people
who are ready to grow in their faith and draw closer to God. They want to serve in meaningful ways. They want to be transformed in Christ, with Christian
teaching and Christian relationships that will elevate their faith. What they need is a place to help them in
those goals – a place to grow, to fly.
The church is supposed to be that place.
If we are teaching and serving and living in the church as God intended,
we will grow into a church ‘culture’ that provides the environment, the
hospitality, and the encouragement for true spiritual growth.
Image from: www.lightstock.com |
Is that culture present in your church? If it isn’t, recommit yourself to building
that spirit. I truly believe that one of the first big “outreach” steps for a church family is to begin by building a culture of genuine, Christ-like encouragement among themselves. And that depends on you and me. Will we be a place of criticism or a place of
encouragement? A place of complacency or
a place of mission? A place of following
the surrounding culture, or a place of real faith in a real God? God has set His goals before us in Scripture,
but then you and I must decide whether the church will grow into the type of
culture God desires.
When the church grows into that culture God wants, we become
that all-important place where faith can flourish. We become a place where anyone of any
background can walk in the door and find kindness, genuine love, and friendly
faces. A place where there are
opportunities to deepen fellowship, to serve others, to learn about
Christ. A place full of encouragers –
not just people who pat us on the back, but people who also encourage us to really
know and obey Christ, including all the difficult steps of life change that are
sometimes required of us.
Do we want to reach out to our communities, and help each
other grow in our faith? It begins by
building a culture inside our church family that encourages people’s faith the
way Jesus did. Because when a true
Christ-like culture is present, people who want to be more in their faith will find
strength and growth. Lives and
eternities will be changed, and souls will draw near to God. All because the church followed God’s plan
and provided the Christ-centered family that God knew we all needed.
As North Carolina’s license plate reminds us, simply
providing the right environment may be all someone needs to do great
things. Let’s become the encouraging
church culture God wants us to be, and people will soon recognize that this church is a good place to fly.