I am five days into my new ministry position and
the offices are just about finished being painted, the rotting stairs
have been replaced, my computer is functional and a special meeting has
been called to deal with some unexpected, necessary and expensive work
on the bricks of the sanctuary building. My first Sunday has come and
gone, complete with being part of a gathering of over 30 people
interested in the meaning and practice of hospitality in this new time.
Almost too much reality and symbolism to deal with in the first week!
Even though for most of it I was simply riding on the work of others.
This blog space will be occupied by others as well
as me. I hope to use it to reflect and prompt conversation about what it
means to be a leader of a United Church congregation in this place, in
this time. While Oak Bay United Church is a good congregation and I feel
privileged for the opportunity to practice leadership with its people,
we are still very much a church trying to lean into a new future without
losing that which we value and trying to find a way to pay for the
ministry to which we feel led.
In the Studio for Strategic Leadership at the
Vancouver School of Theology the first sessions are upon “Paying
Attention.” It sounds so obvious as to be laughable and yet, already, I
have a sense of the hurricane force of many immediate issues crying out
for attention and the seduction of problem solving versus listening to
the urgings of the deeper currents.
The sermon yesterday was on Moses and the burning
bush and raised the wonderful and fearsome possibility that God may want
to move in a powerful way even now within and through our congregation.
What might it mean if that proves true?
