Looking Ahead

I am writing from Vancouver, British Columbia where I am participating in the Start Up! Start Over! as part of my new job. Some of this work will be part of what I do going forward, but probably not all of it. However, my new boss as of April 7, Suzanne Watson (Director of the Evangelism and Congregational Life Center), felt that it would be a good opportunity for me to meet some of the folks involved in this work.

I left New York this morning after having spent two and a half days looking at the future of the new Center and of my parish. Thursday and Friday most of the soon to be Evangelism and Congregational Life staff went on a two day retreat at Stony Point. Mostly, it was a chance to get to know each other, but we did do some looking at the future of our work. I was not looking forward to the Scenario Planning work, because of my previous experience with it when I worked in a corporate setting.

That time the group I was in came up with a scenario that was presented with a poster that read "Will The Last Person Out Please Turn Out The Lights." Within five years the part of the organization for which I worked no longer existed.

The experience at Stony Point was very different. We worked through the process in small groups and as a whole group, and then four groups developed scenarios based on that work. We actually approached the assignment of writing a newspaper article describing the result of the 10 year scenario we developed. Our headline read

Episcopal Church Loses Tax-Exempt Status

which we saw as being the result of the church's work against isolationist policies of the government. We pictured the church as being vibrant and not needing tax-exempt donations to be fully self-sufficient. We even created a sidebar in which one of the members of our group was in prison for protesting against President Chelsea Clinton's tax policies at the George W. Bush Friendship Wall in San Antonio (the wall built along the border to stop illegal immigrants from crossing).

We had fun with the project. Will the scenario we developed inform our work as we move forward? Mostly in the fact that we are moving forward. As a group we began to pull away from our focus on the upheaval of the reorganization. That doesn't mean we won't be frustrated, mystified, and confused by what's going on at present. Only that we can see that it is possible to move forward.

Yesterday morning I spent nearly four hours at a meeting of parish leadership. This group has been looking at the future of our parish, which has become a small church over the last 10 years. Most of the meeting was frustrating and painful to participate in. But we finally named the elephant in the living room. The majority of the parishioners do not want to change the church. They are happy with it the way it is, but where does that leave the handful of us who envision a very different church?

Then we started to tell stories. Why are we at Grace Episcopal Church? What keeps us here? What would drive us out? What were our hopes and dreams? A new picture began to emerge. We need to stop trying to "fix" a church that doesn't want to be "fixed," because there isn't anything wrong with it. Instead, the smaller group at yesterday's meeting realized that we needed to minister to the parish where they were and figure out what things we could do that would feed and nurture us and our ministries. For the first time there was a concrete sense of hope in this small group. We have even begun an outreach project we believe will make a difference in the greater Norwalk community.

Pray for us.

Tomorrow morning I will immerse myself in the work of renewing churches and learning new things for my new position and my new/old parish.

Peace,
Jeffri