There’s a scene in the1995 movie Apollo 13, that has stuck with me ever since I saw it. Things are going terribly wrong for the astronauts in space – they haven’t been able to complete their mission and they are just trying to make it back alive. The scientists on the ground are trying to problem solve with them. At one point they need a creative solution for the filter that helps to keep the air breathable. One of the scientists walks into the room and dumps out a heap of miscellaneous pieces and parts representing the only items the astronauts up in space have to work with. It’s not what they would consider ideal, but they have to come up with a way to make it work with only what they’ve got and nothing more.

They move from a mindset of “we don’t have the right tools to fix it” to a mindset of “we have what we need, let’s make it work.” The solution isn’t elegant, but it’s functional. They relay the suggestion to the astronauts, allowing them to fix that problem and move on to the next one. Spoiler alert: they make it back safely.

I think that’s where we find ourselves these days – feeling like things are going awry beyond our control and we don’t have the tools we need to fix it. Neither the world we live in nor the church we love is perfect. If any one of us dreamed up the ideal scenario it probably wouldn’t look like exactly what we have. All too often as I meet with churches the conversation turns to what is missing – not enough people in general, not enough young people in particular, not enough money, not enough volunteers. Those things create real challenges, for sure. But sometimes we focus so much on what is missing that we forget about the things we have. What if we changed our mindset to “we have what we need, let’s make it work”?

 We have a lot of congregations in our diocese in a transition of their clergy. While we continue to look for the right clergy leaders for those congregations, many are functioning with only occasional supply priests. That’s not always easy on congregational leaders, but many of our congregations in that situation are discovering gifts within the congregation for leading morning prayer and proclaiming God’s word. It’s not just holding space until the next thing, but being the body of Christ together in a way that is energizing and transformative.

 Many of our congregations across denominations are longing for more young people in their pews. And we do have places whose call right now includes outreach to young adults, creative Christian education for kids, and youth programming. But we also have places whose call in this moment is focused on older adults, or meeting the needs of young families out in the community with food or diapers, or creating community for veterans, or some other essential ministry. If we think we have to have kids on Sunday morning for a thriving church then we miss the opportunities for ministry that God has invited us into in the moment.

 Some of our congregations are looking at partnerships or moving forward with part-time clergy leadership. Often there’s an initial worry of what will be missed in that transition. But there can be tremendous gains as the community rethinks and reimagines itself, approaching ministry together in new ways. Sometimes that awakens some new energy or idea for how to do ministry.

I find myself falling into the same trap of thinking there isn’t enough. How can we ever have enough to meet the needs of the present moment? Not just for a changing church but a divided nation, a world in climate crisis, violence around the world in in our own neighborhoods. It’s easy to spin our wheels about the things we don’t have and the things we wish were different. But we believe in a God who has given us all we need, a God who can do marvelous things with what we often label as not enough. It’s not easy, but maybe we can practice together taking stock of what we do have and reminding each other to take a look at what we have in a different light and do the ministry we’ve been given in this moment and in this place with the gifts God has given us.

In a worship service years ago I learned a simple refrain that embodies this idea. It’s only five simple words sung over and over until it really sinks into body and soul: What we need is here by the Reverend Amy McCreath. You can listen to the song here. It is a prayer to recognize the things God has gifted us with in the present moment and that we might have the grace to celebrate and do ministry from that place instead of longing for what we don’t have. When I sing it I move between questioning whether we really do have what we need and sensing God’s reassurance that we do in fact have all we need.

As we begin this season of Advent, may it be not so much a time of waiting for God to come, but rather a season of active noticing and deepening awareness of what God might already be doing among us, what gifts are already among us. When Jesus was born, only the shepherds were made aware and few magi from the East perked up at the sight of mysterious star. The world mostly failed to recognize what had happened among them. But God was present nonetheless, giving the world what was needed. And God is present with us now, exactly as we are, with exactly what we need.