Where is the tipping point between doing faithful work on behalf of your church and thinking it all depends on you? Not just you individually, but your whole board? You don’t want to let your fellow congregants down and you certainly don’t want to let God down. So, the work of the board … is work. And the striving for the perfect—perfect solution, perfect pastor, perfect youth group—can grow intense. Many church board meetings carry this heavy intensity from item to item.
In the midst of the intensity, here’s what you probably didn’t do: pause mid-agenda to watch a condensation trail dissolve across the sky. Or consider what the robin in the courtyard might be finding in the wet grass.
This poem showed up in our reading this week, and we haven’t been able to stop thinking about what it asks of church leaders. We are grateful to the author for allowing us to share it here.
How to Become a Saint When You’re Not a Perfectionist
by Timothy Larsen
Try imagining
That it’s God’s work
And not yours
Instead of making
A list,
As others do,
Try unmaking one
Be encouraged:
Past performance
Does not necessarily
Predict future results
Still, the would-be faithful
Of every tribe, tongue
And income bracket
Have truly learned
That results may vary
Instead of always examining
Your own heart
Try tracing
The condensation trail
A jet has left
Across the sky
Maybe that’s not
A very good example
But I think you
Get the idea
It could have been a robin
Patiently pecking at
A wet patch of earth
It’s interesting to imagine what would ensue in most church board meetings if this poem were put alongside Robert’s Rules of Order. Of course, a board needs order and agendas. It needs a plan. And lists are the lifeblood of most organizations. But what is the opportunity cost of investing too heavily in those things?
Instead of making / A list /As others do / Try unmaking one
What if your next board meeting began with this question: “What should we stop doing?” Not because it failed. Not because funding dried up. But because its season has passed, and we’re clutching yesterday’s dream. What if every board meeting agenda had the following question beside each line item: “If we weren’t already doing this, would we choose to start it today?”
Try tracing / The condensation trail/ A jet has left / Across the sky
We spend most of our board time looking at flight plans. This poem asks us to look at vapor trails instead, and the difference matters. A flight plan shows intention, destination, control. A condensation trail shows where something has moved, where the air has been disturbed, where passage has already occurred. You can’t follow a condensation trail to catch the jet—it’s already gone. You can only witness that something powerful passed through.
What if our primary work isn’t directing God’s movement but learning to notice where that movement has already happened—and is happening still—outside our meeting room windows?
But it is between those two stanzas that the poem shows its wisdom:
Be encouraged: / Past performance / Does not necessarily / Predict future results
Every investment prospectus includes this disclaimer. The poem brings it into spirituality. Your church membership numbers from 20 years ago tell you almost nothing about what faithfulness requires now. This cuts both ways. Past disappointment doesn’t predict future barrenness any more than past success guarantees future fruit. The would-be faithful have truly learned that results may vary. What a gift of freedom this is for your role on your church board! You’re released from both nostalgia and despair. The board meeting isn’t a referendum on whether you’re winning or losing. It’s a gathering to ask: What is ours to do now, in this particular moment, with these particular people?
And then there is that robin.
It could have been a robin / Patiently pecking at / A wet patch of earth
When facing a major decision, ask: “What’s already pecking at the wet ground?” What small, persistent thing is already happening that we could pay attention to, rather than engineering something entirely new? God often grows the next thing from seeds already in the soil. What if your next board meeting included ten minutes of simply reporting what you’ve noticed? Not discussed or debated—just witnessed.
Who showed up for worship on Sunday that you didn’t expect?
What did the youth pastor mention offhand about sixth graders?
What’s happening in the neighborhood that you’re only now seeing?
The robin isn’t soul-searching. It’s working the ground, attentive to what’s actually there.
The poem ends with a wonderful shrug of humility. The condensation trail may not be a perfect metaphor … it could have been a robin instead … but you get the idea. That casual “you get the idea” is itself instructive—and exactly right for board work that trusts God’s work. You’ll find your own robins, your own vapor trails. The posture is what matters: less directing, more noticing. Less accumulating, more releasing.
Try imagining that it’s God’s work and not yours. The relief in that sentence could change everything.
What passage stands out to you most in Larsen’s poem?
What do the jet trail and the robin have to do with one another?
Have you ever unmade a list in your own life? How about in the work of your church board?
Which of the following questions (all posed in this blog post) would you like your church board to take up in some way at its next meeting?
What should we stop doing?
What has just happened outside our meeting room windows?
What’s already pecking at the wet ground?
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