After that I will pour out my spirit upon everyone
your sons and your daughters will prophesy, your
old men will dream dreams, and your young men
will see visions. – Joel 2:28 (Wesley Study Bible)
Where there is no vision, the people perish. – Proverbs 29:18 (KJV)
The I in ALIVE stands for ideas that are both old and new.
I have been a member of two Joel Teams (2010 and 2013) at Trinity UMC in Southport. Each team met on a regular basis for approximately a year before presenting our report to the congregation. We took time to undertake a very thorough examination of our dreams and vision, missional objectives, a demographic study and our staffing and facility’s needs. Our pastor introduced us to the concept of BHAGs (pronounced bee-hags, short for “Big Hairy Audacious Goals”) from Jim Collins’ book Built to Last – Successful Habits of Visionary Companies (1994). This concept has you thinking “outside the box” so our final goals were at the highest level possible, partly because we were working with a very concrete set of facts.
I am now part of the Long-Range Planning Committee at Trinity. We started meeting a few months before the pandemic began to develop a set of goals for our church to achieve during the next five years, but as the months have gone by, we realize that our congregation today looks quite different from a year ago and in many ways, we do not even know “who” our congregation is anymore much less know where we are headed as a church. This great uncertainty has made us step back and re-evaluate our vision of where we thought we needed to go. Our path is no longer certain. We need to adjust to the new normal with an open mind, looking for new ways to approach “church” and new ideas to help us think outside the box. Our old ways of doing ministry may need to be re-defined with our new normal congregation.
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a terrible event for the entire world, but I think as a church we must look at the uncertainty of our situation as a real blessing. There are both familiar and new ways that we can spread the word of God to the churched and the unchurched. We can connect with people the old way (a telephone call to ask how they are doing) or the new way (a virtual worship service or Sunday school class).
John Scully, former CEO of Pepsi, and Apple Computer has said “The future belongs to those who see possibilities before they become obvious”. As Lay Leaders in the church we are called upon to envision, support and celebrate the future of the church but seeing the future is not easy because of the pandemic. Despite the rapidly changing facts of our world, we must help our church identify a way forward and then personally buy into that vision.
The playwright George Bernard Shaw once said: “Some men see things as they are and say, ‘Why?’ I dream of things that never were and say, ‘Why not?’ “ ‘Why not’ is a phrase that describes risk taking and thinking outside the box. This challenge pushes us out of our comfort zone, but it should be part of the conversations at our own church.
The church bulletin blooper for this month:
The Senior Choir invites any member of the congregation who enjoys sinning to join the choir.
If you would like to view past editions of Lessons from Out Lay Leader, follow this link: https://harbordistrictnc.org/category/from-the-lay-leader/