My wife, Lori, and I are sitting on the back porch early in the morning. It’s quiet, except for the birds singing Lauds to the rising sun. We stare into the field behind our house, absorbing God’s gift of nature — the grass that melts into the Kentucky knobs, the low-hanging clouds whispering that a morning shower is possible.
Then the geese flew. We love their honking; unlike the early-morning traffic only a few miles away. The sound is a gentle wake-up call for our day.
But something was “off” with this flock.
We always admire geese in formation. Scientists tell us there’s more to that V-shape than good manners — each goose, by flying just behind and to the side of the one in front, catches a lift from the wingtip vortex, so the whole flock burns less energy than any one bird flying alone. It’s aerodynamics built on togetherness. Only these geese were, well, derelict in the pattern we’ve come to expect. In fact, they were straggling. It was either an audible from the lead goose for an innovative formation, or, perhaps, they had partied too much last night.
“I think these guys needed to stop at the Goose Café for some coffee,” I quipped.
“C’mon guys, get it together,” Lori said to them, and then, mocking them, “I want to be first, no, I want to be in front.”
My mind drifted to the churches I’d pastored. Somewhere, in each church, there was a time when it seemed the congregation would suddenly start flying out of formation. Someone drifted left while another pulled right, all amidst a small contingent — but vocal few — that honked their own agendas on how everyone else should fly. I would have to have a “come to Jesus” moment with some, while acknowledging that others would fly off to other flocks.
Someone once said, “If you are looking for the perfect church, you couldn’t join because then it would no longer be perfect.”
The Scriptures have something to say about church leadership and unity. Paul urged the Ephesians to make “every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3), reminding a fractious young church that it was called to “one body and one Spirit… one Lord, one faith, one baptism” (Ephesians 4:4-5). He told the Philippians to be “like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind” (Philippians 2:2) — not uniform, but united. And the psalmist simply marveled, “How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!” (Psalm 133:1). None of these texts imagine a church without disagreement. They imagine a church that keeps choosing the formation anyway, trusting that the lift comes from flying together, not from flying first.
That afternoon, Lori and I were on the back porch again, not staying long because of the heat, but long enough to see something amazing: a flock of geese flying in perfect formation.
“What do you know?” I said rhetorically. “They got it together.”
“And look at how beautiful it is,” Lori concluded.
She was right, and I think Scripture would agree. Formation isn’t about every goose falling in line out of fear or fatigue — it’s about each one discovering that the lift is better shared. Churches are no different. We will have our straggling mornings, our honking disagreements, our seasons of flying an audible nobody quite understands. But grace has a way of resetting the pattern, if we let it. And when a congregation finally does get it together — imperfectly, but together — it is, as Lori said, beautiful to see.
Maybe that’s the whole point of formation: not perfection, but proximity. Not everyone facing the same direction by accident, but everyone choosing, morning after morning, to fly toward the same sun.