Why is it that God's way of doing things differs so often from my own? I certainly wouldn't have chosen to send a messenger dressed in his underwear to deliver a key message about the nation's future. But God did.

I'm not sure I would have endorsed the plan to march around the walls of a hostile city for an entire week and then trust trumpets and shouts to bring the walls down. But God did.

I find the same is true in our church life: what works most effectively is often not what my common sense would have chosen. In our congregation, for instance, we don't pass an offering plate, I share authority with a co-pastor, we've eliminated our membership program, and we've stopped holding a Sunday evening service. None of these things makes sense, from my point of view, but they seem to be God's will-and they fit our congregation.

I remember resisting many of these when the suggestions were first offered, but now I'm ever so grateful that we made the difficult choices to follow God's leading. What ...