The Star Trek sequel is being filmed as I write this, and this little bit of future cinematic joy brought to mind a post I wrote back in 2010:
Last night, we had a joint elders meeting. Our merged congregation has been such a miraculous thing to start with that I think all of us are still kind of trying to keep up with the Holy Spirit. It is such a privilege to serve with these guys, and I’m not just saying that to impress people or convince you how cool our church is. They are just great guys who love the Lord and want to see Christ’s vision for our church.
But I digress…
As we were talking, one of the guys referred to a particular situation as a Kobayashi Maru. That reference alone made me love these guys even more!
Now, if you’re not a geek, you probably don’t know what that is, but as you can probably figure out from the picture, it comes from Star Trek.
The Kobayashi Maru is a training scenario which, according to the alternate timeline presented in the most recent Star Trek, was designed by Spock. It is no-win scenario designed to push cadets beyond their training and make them accept inevitable failure. Cadet James T. Kirk tackled the scenario three times and the last time he altered the programming of the simulation to allow him to win it.
When Kirk is accused of cheating he insists, “I don’t believe in no-win scenarios.” In other words, there is always a way out. In his case, he did to the simulation what the situation was doing to him.
Back to our elders meeting. When the Kobayashi Maru was referenced, Greg Jones said, “So, you have to cheat?” And I instinctively responded, “Kirk did not cheat! There’s no such thing as a no-win scenario.”
I believe that. I don’t believe there is such a thing as a no-win scenario. Sure, some people are challenging and some situations result in less than the best results, but ultimately, a ‘win’ for the church is glorifying God through Christ. And THAT can happen anywhere and in any situation.
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