A key denominational leader of the denominational Conference I service in presently, sat before me many months ago. Essentially, his words, "Brian, I've thought about you. Your pastoral style does not fit Florida. Your style needs a more stable culture. This is a strip mall culture. ..."

I interpret, as I sense his meaning - right or wrong: "Brian, the churches of our Conference do not have the patience for the kind of pastoral leadership that takes seriously that spiritual unfolding takes time, perseverance, and dogged patience."

My response is, now... Then, these churches would not have a virtue essential - not optional - to be being formed into the likeness of Christ as persons and faith communities. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, would agree with me - as would every other eminent Christian leader in the history of Christianity.

Possibly, we need to examine the stability, time, and patience that, indeed, it does take to grow churches and persons spiritually. Maybe, we need to reflect on how our being conformed to the surrounding style of culture is not in accord with the style of true Christian spirituality - living in Christ with depth.

The century plant is spread throughout the Southwest desert in the United States. The plant, Agave Americana, thrives in rocky, mountainous, desert places.

What makes the plant unusual is its reproduction cycle. For twenty to thirty years - not one-hundred -, the about six-foot-tall plant puts forth no flowers. Without warning, one year it sprouts a new bud. The bud, resembling a tree-trunk-size asparagus spear, lifts into the sky at a rate of seven inches a day. It reaches upward to twenty to forty feet. Then, it places on itself several clumps of yellowish blossoms. These last up to three weeks.

We need to reexamine our view of Christ. A popular "Christ" today is one ready, with an affirmative prayer, or special pleading, to answer our every want. We call this want "need," to justify our right to appeal. Christ becomes our servant, a servant to our wants, rather than a servant to shaping us into the likeness of Sacredness. This "Christ" is to help us have what we feel entitled to have, what our society, and often our religion, says we deserve. And this "Christ" is to answer our greedy pleas, even spiritual lust, and soon.

Every one of us forms an idea of Christ that is limited and incomplete. It is cut according to our own measure. We tend to create for ourselves a Christ in our own image, a projection of our own aspirations, desires and ideals. We find in him what we want to find. We make him not only the incarnation of God but also the incarnation of the things we, and our society and our part of society, happen to live for.