My Father used to love to repeat a little morality tale from the management world, called “The Abilene Paradox.”

It’s a short story, created by management guru, by Jerry Harvey, who tells the story just like this:

On a hot afternoon visiting in Coleman, Texas, the family is comfortably playing dominoes on a porch, until the father-in-law suggests that they take a 50-mile trip to Abilene for dinner. The wife says, "Sounds like a great idea.” The husband, despite having reservations because the drive is long and hot, thinks that his preferences must be out-of-step with the group and says, "Sounds good to me. I just hope your mother wants to go." The mother-in-law then says, "Of course I want to go. I haven't been to Abilene in a long time.”

The drive is hot, dusty, and long. When they arrive at the cafeteria, the food is as bad as the drive. They arrive back home four hours later, exhausted.

One of them dishonestly says, "It was a great trip, wasn't it?" The mother-in-law says that, actually, she would rather have stayed home, but went along since the other three were so enthusiastic. The husband says, "I wasn't delighted to be doing what we were doing. I only went to satisfy the rest of you." The wife says, "I just went along to keep you happy. I would have had to be crazy to want to go out in the heat like that." The father-in-law then says that he only suggested it because he thought the others might be bored.

The group sits back, perplexed that they together decided to take a trip that none of them wanted. They each would have preferred to sit comfortably but did not admit to it when they still had time to enjoy the afternoon.”

While it seems like a folksy tale, it also illustrates a true issue in human dynamics. We often don’t say what we’re really thinking, just to “go along;” and sometimes, that does mean we end up in a place nobody really wants to go in the first place.

Church folks, because we want to be seen as kind by nature, are often especially bad at succumbing to this “paradox.”

In its most horrific use, The Abilene Paradox became part of the explanation of a truly tragic event in US history: the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger.

This is where my Dad first encountered the story. It was widely believed the Challenger crash was an horrific example of the Abilene Paradox; and it was after this disaster that Dad first started telling the story to me.

In the original story, of course, the passive decision to drive to Abilene doesn’t really hurt anybody. In the case of the Challenger, the passive decisions to go ahead with the launch ended up being a horrendous tragedy.

But it’s a useful little story, for sure.

To this day, Dennise and I still use it all the time. When we both seem fairly bored with something we are about to do. We ask:


“Are we about to go to Abilene?”

That’s actually pretty helpful shorthand to force us into thinking about our decision and making sure that, whatever it is we’re doing, it’s something we really *want* to do.

So, every time I think of “Abilene, Texas,” because I am the son of a rocket scientist, my mind immediately goes to “The Abilene Paradox.”
I can’t help myself.


This is all on my mind today because, as you reading these words Pastor Kay and I will be traveling to the actual Abilene, Texas for the organizational meeting of “The Horizon Texas Annual Conference” of the United Methodist Church.

This is our new annual conference being created out of three old ones:

North Texas.
Central Texas.

Northwest Texas.

We will be meeting Thursday and Friday, in clergy retreat.
And Saturday, have the organizational conference to create this new structure.

This is another key step in the rebirth of our United Methodist Church for its next era of life, following the painful split of the past few years.

UNLIKE “The Abilene Paradox,” my sense is that there has been a great deal of thought put into this “trip to Abilene.” Many, many United Methodists —throughout Central, North, and West Texas— have worked very hard to make this new conference a reality. So, the merger is happening with great thought and intention.

UNLIKE “The Abilene Paradox,” people seem genuinely excited about the future of our denomination. People in the greater world seem to be giving us more attention, now that our homophobic polity has mercifully been removed. That, as you all know, was also a very un-“Abilene Paradox” movement…one of great intention and commitment to social justice for all God’s children over many, many years.

So, I have a hopeful sense that this will be a very un-“Abilene Paradox” trip to Abilene.

Continue to pray for the future of the new “Horizon Texas Annual Conference” and the part we, in North Oak Cliff, will play in it.

Eric