Jason Barnhart and I are spending the weekend in the Canaan Valley in West Virginia. We’re here to participate in an “Advance” hosted by Leonard Sweet. There are about 23 of us gathered in the living room of a mountainside house with a wall of windows looking out across the broad, flat Canaan Valley.  The Advance is a planned, casual conversation about spiritual issues, with no real agenda or objective beyond shared conversation.

One of the people invited to join us is Alan Jamieson, author of A Churchless Faith, and his new book, Chrysalis. Alan is a Kiwi who is spending a lot of time and heart seeking to understand and communicate Christianity as a journey. When describing the new book he says “Chrysalis was written for those who leave organized church but also those who loyally stay when the lights have gone out within.  But there was also one other major reader in mind – the church leaders/pastors. I wanted to include them so they might understand, validate and be able to accompany people in the midst of faith transformations…”

One of the most profound ideas Alan shared was a metaphor of the northern rata tree found in New Zealand. The northern rata usually begins life as a seed that floats in wind and settles in the humus that rests in the top branches of another species of tree. Its roots actually grow down the sides of the host tree, from top to bottom, finally reaching the ground and establishing in the soil. As the northern rata grows, its roots thicken and create a scaffold totally surrounding the host tree, enclosing it, but not feeding off it or harming it. Eventually as the the rata matures, its framework around the host tree strengthens and actually supports and upholds the declining, decaying host tree.  Eventually the roots all join up to form one single trunk around the host tree. This takes considerable time and when the host tree finally declines and dies a natural death, the rata establishes itself as a full-fledged tree up to 80 ft high with a trunk up to 8 ft through. The amazing thing is that neither the rata or the host tree harm each other. In fact, they support each other through an important transition from one expression of life to another.

Our generational culture and the nature of our church are in transition. Ready or not, it is upon us. This metaphor of the northern rata is a vision of the kind of transition that we need to make within the church:  cooperative, intentional, progressive, complete. Each generation and its expression of faith has to support the other- the host tree supports more at the start, the rata supports more at the end of the transition. Each generation should retain its identity, but there must be stages there too…the host more prominent at the start, the rata at the end. They both should be rooted in the same soil with the same purpose, but with a different look…same family, different species. Each has life and each sustains other life.

Every host tree in the world has a death. Every rata has a birth. It’s inevitable. This picture of transition should be one that we study and follow. The host cannot live forever. As it declines it should support the new movement. The old should lend its space, strength, height to the new. It should not change its identity, but it should not determine the identity of the new. It should finally succumb to the new, not begrudgingly, but thankfully. Its remains should feed the new, its heritage actually being nourishment for the future.

At the same time, the new expression should not kill the host.  It should not starve it or suck its nourishment dry.  The new should embrace and protect the host as they both mature. It should follow the outline of the old while not giving up its own distinct character.  It should honorably stand in the place of the host when the host has faded away. It should attract the other forms of life that the host was no longer able to sustain. It should be new life with roots intertwined with the roots of the old.

What would it look like if we would would allow nature to be the design for transition of our church and culture?