The ways in which Katniss and Jesus are really quite similar: They were willing to lay down their lives for their friends. Neither had anything to lose, nor anything to fear. And it’s not just these two…

Harry Potter walked back into the woods. Firefighters run back into the fire. The Mayor of Newark ran into a burning house last week to save his next door neighbor – after throwing off his bodyguard.

And all of these people aren’t ‘one of them’, they’re one of us. They’re no one particularly special… until afterwards when you hear their story and you realize that in the moment that that totally normal person had no fear and nothing to lose.

Nothing to fear, nothing to lose – The stockbroker who decides the Wall St. rat-race isn’t worth it, takes a 90% pay cut, buys a farm and lives a happier life?

If your church ceased to exist tomorrow, other than your core members, who would notice? Who would care? If the answer is nobody, it’s not looking good for your church.

In crisis we have two choices – which are actually the two choices we always have, but are put in stark relief in in the midst of crisis – we can hold on tight or let go. If we hold on tight, we break, we are inflexible, we have everything to lose and everything to fear and when we lose even part of it much less all of it, we ourselves feel as if we are breaking. And if we let go, if we release we still may lose things – items, reputation, money, loved ones – and yet we are able to weather it like a palm tree in the wind, bending and swaying. But the perspective we have when we hold on is so painful, so full of suffering. The perspective we have when we let go is one of freedom and expectation.

So – will you wait for a crisis to let go, or are you willing to do so now and live a gentler and easier life?