September 22, 2006

“Plowing Water, Pushing Ropes,
and Other Futile Acts”

I was driving to Chicago last week for a meeting at Garrett Evangelical Theological Seminary. It was raining very hard, and I came upon a detour on the Indiana Toll Road as I headed toward the Chicago Skyway. Water had flooded across the roadway, and we were detoured around it via one of the exit ramps. While sitting in the traffic jam caused by this detour, I rolled down the window on my car and asked one of the highway workers about the problem. He replied, “The road is flooded, but we are bringing in a snowplow to move it.” I thought he was kidding, but sure enough, as I crossed the overpass on the detour I looked down and saw a highway department snowplow trying to remove the flood waters from the main roadway. The plow would push the water, and then of course the water would rush right back onto the roadway. Talk about futility!

It reminded me of a phrase which my daughter Laura tells me that they use at General Electric to describe any futile act (including useless meetings). They call it “pushing the rope” – as opposed to pulling a rope which is the proper way to use it.

Plowing water, pushing ropes, and other acts of futility are all around us. It happens in the church and in our ministry, too. Usually these futile acts are performed over and over again because “That’s the way we have always done it.” Sometimes we continue doing programs, or ministries, or worship styles which were once effective but no longer achieve results. We keep doing those futile acts because they are familiar, but they become more and more frustrating as they fail to achieve their intended results. Such futility is actually a small form of insanity, for at least one of the definitions of insanity is “doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results.”

In the book “From Good to Great,” author Jim Collins suggests that one of the characteristics of leadership in great organizations is the willingness to develop a “Stop Doing” list. Rather than simply adding more and more activities to a “To Do” list, he says that leaders need to develop a “Stop Doing” list in order to eliminate those futile acts which no longer produce results.

So, let me ask you, what needs to go on your “Stop Doing” list? Perhaps it is time to stop plowing water or pushing ropes. Maybe if we stop doing those futile and useless things, then we will have more time and energy to do the new things God is calling us to do.

from Bishop Michael J. Coyner

Indiana Area of the United Methodist Church
"Making a Difference ... in Indiana
and around the world"

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