Planning the Direction of our Ministry
Valerie A Lowe, First
Church Member
January 27, 2003
French
poet Paul Valery wrote “The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to
be.”
This is true of many
things – our lives, city, our church community, our families and our
selves. We may have envisioned one
future, and circumstances and life situations may have altered our plan. The truth is, we’re always at a
crossroad… of looking at now and the future. Of now and the past. And perception of what we see in either
direction – past or future … can and often does change.
Today we discuss planning
the direction of our ministry – I thought you might have a few questions for me
about why I am even talking about this topic today. Why would I want to address this business
topic from the pulpit?
Surely it’s not a lamp of spirituality. But, in the context of our liberal faith, this is an address
about how we can foster the requirements for a search of our truth. By
discussion of what we need and want for our ministry, we claim our spirituality
and search for truth and meaning. This is a tenant of our faith.
Why am I in the pulpit today to discuss this? Surely I am not
a minister, at least I am no more a minister than you – and still, I am no less
of a minister than you. In late November or early December last year, Board members Claudia
Barker and Alice Kemp approached me. The Annual Budget Drive was nearly complete;
the large pledges were made. They
realized that funds were not adequate for a full-time minister, and they knew that this would affect the congregation. So they asked me if I would lead a series
of discussion about professional ministry with members of the congregation to define what we
want. I drafted a plan to host these discussions and presented it to the Board
in December. They approved it and also suggested I offer a sermon or homily in
late January about what I am doing.
Another question you may have is “What are Valerie's qualifications to lead talk
about this or lead any discussion on the direction of ministry?” A fair question. For the past
seven years, I have served as an organizational change managers for a large
company of 70,000 employees. I am certified in change management and I facilitate
change through planning, communications, discussions and education. This is
what I do for a living, and I believe my skills will serve us well here, too.
So, what will I talk about today? I’ll address:
·
Why this process is challenging, providing some context on the nature of
change and small church interests.
·
How we are conducting these discussions
·
Some benefits for you to participate in these discussions on ministry
·
And how I hope to engage you in these discussions
Why is this planning process challenging and important?
·
Just being in community places us in a consistent state of flux. What
one person says may influence you or others, even enough to change our thoughts
and behaviors. We affect each
other and we can change because of that
· We are small church and
attached to our past
o
In a newsletter from the Lewis Center for
Church Leadership, Lovett Weems addresses “Leadership and the Small Church,”
stating that people in small congregations who may have experienced pastoral
changes, and/or political and economic changes, view such changes negatively. Citing Denham Grierson, Australian religious educator, Weems concludes that
small churches live either in the past or the future. I believe it is human nature to grasp what is familiar and hold it close.
· Change
is hard – we’re all challenged by this, some more than others. The dynamics of change on a group may
be even more challenging than to individuals Surely you’ve seen this in members of your family: some
people may really find a change to routine extremely difficult, where another
family member adapts. Particularly
as we age, we become less flexible and adaptable to change.
o
Anthony Pappas in his book Entering the
World of the Small Church says “For small church people, history goes the
wrong way… It goes toward the good that was or that was thought to be.” Pappas
discusses how leaders in small churches often link a future vision to what it
used to be.
· Again
I hear the poet Paul Valery whispering to me “the future is not what it used to be.”
· Unless we plan with intention, change will take its own
path. Tenable change – the kind that
grabs hold and people adopt – is done with intention, not just by
circumstance. Companies like
certainty and to control change. I
hold that small churches – if pushed to make changes – also like that to be
predictable.
· Social
commentator Lewis Hyde defines how the individual might be able to encapsulate
the thoughts of the collective group he or she lives in. “In anthropology, there is a interesting
resurrection of an old word 'dividual' So we live in a nation that values
individuality, we live in a nation of individuals. But a dividual person is one who is imagined to contain within himself or
herself the community he or she lives in.”
· If
we look at the transitions we’ve been through, and collectively discuss a
direction forward in our ministry – can we collectively plan a future that
benefits us collectively? Not just
a future that benefits me or you individually, but one that benefits US.
· To
plan our future, we need to communicate, that means – talking, listening,
reflecting, discussing. In order for this to occur, we need a comfortable
environment of trust.
· So
here we are at a crossroad – with some of us struggling to see our future, some
struggling to let go of an idealized past and projecting that on our future. Some of us, like me, struggling to define the difference between an ideal
spiritual and ministerial direction and what we can collectively afford. Others among us are challenged to
communicate their ideals, because of perceived and real miscommunications
· To
achieve that, I pose that we must come to these discussions with our own
“individual interests” in mind, but be open to the “dividual interest”
on our ministerial direction.
So, let me talk about how
I hope this series of discussions on the future direction of our ministry will
go
·
We’ll meet in small group gatherings
o Covenant groups, committees
– groups that exist in the congregation already
o Attendance one time – so
people who belong to a few different groups will only attend one session.
o We will have groups of 4 –
6 people in each session – any more would make the duration of the meeting too
long to assure each person is heard.
·
We will have an agenda and establish our ground rules, then begin a discussion
of 8 prepared questions.
·
Afterwards, I will transcribe your comments to the
questions and publish agreed summary statements. We will define other common
statements across groups that may be important to share anonymously.
·
What will we do with those outcomes? We’ll forge another discussion on plan development
How will this discussion benefit
you?
·
First, there’s benefit just in participating – your voice, your
collective voice, your needs and wants will be heard.
·
Small group communications yield improved communications
·
Intentional discussions provoke us to
listen to others
·
This process will help us build up our relationships and create the
foundation of healing of any wounds
·
By understanding the vision of a future - Creating a collective
awareness of our condition and hopes for the future:
o We find a sense of
certainty in that vision
o We face the future with
intention
o We affirm a shared sense
of hope
·
And finally, this process makes us all stronger: you can’t
forge steel without putting it to the fire.
In response to Paul
Valery’s “The trouble with our times is that the future is not what it used to
be. ” My hope is that by
engaging in these discussions on the direction of our ministry, our future will
be whatever we intend it to be.
And so it shall be … Amen,
Ashe, Shalom, Salaam, Blessed be.
