Written by Julie Long, Interim Director of Staff and Congregational Life
Back in 2015-16, our church embarked on a visioning process that engaged our entire congregation in conversations around who we were and what we sensed God was calling us to do next. We spent several Sunday afternoons gathered around tables in the Fellowship Hall discussing our church’s history, assets, challenges, and future possibilities. Out of that process emerged a plan for our future that included the affirmation of our core values and vision as well as some particular ways of implementing this renewed identity.
While we continue to embody and affirm the core values and vision statement we adopted then, so much in our church’s life has changed in the years since. In 2017, we made a bold move towards clarifying and naming our commitment to full inclusion for all persons, particularly those identifying as LGBTQ, in the life of the church. We lost members in response to our inclusion vote, impacting attendance, finances and morale. We also celebrated new members who came here out of a desire to be a part of a congregation who would welcome all and engage in courageous conversations. Then, the Covid pandemic completely upended how we gather and how people engage with church, a paradigm shift within religious life that continues to unfold. And now, of course, the departure of full-time ministers marks yet another major change that shapes who we are and how we do life together.
We find ourselves at a different place than we were the last time we set aside intentional space and time to talk about who we are and where we are going. One could argue that we are at an historic moment, a threshold in the life of this nearly 200-year-old church. We have significant decisions to make as a congregation in these next months and years related to our pastoral leadership, our staff structure, the usage of our campus, our financial stewardship, and our missions and ministries. All of these areas of our congregational life are integrated; what we do in any one of these realms affects how we approach the others.
Our pastor search committee has invited us into congregational conversations over this next month, three occasions to gather around the tables in the Fellowship Hall once again to talk about who we are and to discern God’s call for us in this next season. This is not a formal visioning process like before, but these opportunities create space for us to talk and listen to one another, to recommit ourselves to who have been and who we want to be, to find new ways to live out our vision.
We need you at the table on each of these Sundays, February 11, March 3 and March 10. Each one of us has a perspective that needs to be shared and a voice that needs to be heard. Two of the core values named during our last visioning process are that we accept, include and value all people, and that we embrace differences in thought and background. So come, ready to share your unique perspective, trusting that you will be accepted, included and valued. Come ready to listen with understanding and respect to those whose ideas and experiences differ from yours. It is when we are living out these two core values in practice that we are doing our best work, that we are being church together.