marathon, sprint, or relay race?

i've been thinking a lot about the church as we've existed over time.

business people are fond of saying that we're wise to think of ourselves as being in a marathon, not a sprint, in an effort to generate some long term thinking.

i think this is a mistake for the church.

we're not in a marathon.

over the last 2 millenia, and even further when we embrace our hebrew roots in faith, an 80yr. life span can hardly be called a marathon.

instead, i think we're running a relay race - each generation passing the baton to the next. each of us running specific legs with a slightly different strategy and required skill set.

of course, we're now finding ourselves in yet another baton transition; and, unlike many of my contemporaries, i'd rather not focus on what the generation who came before us needs to do in order to give us the baton, but what we need to do to receive it.

p.s. i'm not going to give you any answers now