100 years ago today the Wright brothers made their historic flight. Today a team of aviation enthusiasts tried to reenact that flight. Unfortunately their replica flyer ended up in a mud puddle at the end of the takeoff rail never making it into the air. All they were after was a 12 second flight. They had spent an enormous amount of time and energy (not to mention money) to try and replicate that flight only to fail

I think one reason is that they hadn't learned the subtle nuances that the Wright brothers did as they prepared for their flight. Preparing a reenactment skips several of the steps that the Wright brothers needed to take. Those steps seem simple at first but experiencing those steps probably taught the Wright brothers valuable lessons they never realized they were learning. Little things like exactly how to position your body just right to maintain control would have been valuable.

Churches also have this problem. We look at those around us and try to reenact what they are doing in our church. When it fails to produce similar results we look up from our mud puddle asking why it didn't work. To some degree we all have to discover our way on our own. We balance this with the fact that because others have gone before we don't need to start from scratch. Finding that balance between learning from others and using our own experience is the key.