Dreams for the new church
I really appreciated the discussion we had the other night about our dreams for the new church. You all had great things to contribute. Here are a few comments from you all (as paraphrased by me):
Karen said that she dreams of a church where people's lives are forced to rub up against each other in a good way. Where we share the substance of life together. Where we can each just bring who we are and what we have to offer without trying to target and market to a particular demographic.
Josh said that he and Karen had talked about a church where people communicate and deal with conflicts openly, and where differences of opinion are welcomed and appreciated.
Monaca said she dreams of an intergenerational church, and Luke added that he dreams of a church where young adults in particular feel welcomed, valued and integrated into the life of the church.
Char said she dreams of a church where we value people for who they are beyond the stereotypes and demographics. (And Wendy clarified that we do still value diversity and differences too.)
Wendy also said that she dreams of a church that is interactive and where people are committed to being engaged and passionate and not just passively receiving.
I wrapped up the discussion saying that I dream of a church that values the voices of those on the margins and those who have traditionally been excluded from being heard in the church, especially women. We also ended up saying that we want to be a church that values messy people.
While we had a good discussion I regret that we ran out of time to get in depth on the Vision that Julie and I have already come up with. I hope you didn't come away from our meeting feeling like all we talked about was what we don't want to be like. We really do have a very detailed positive vision and set of values that describe what we do want to be like. I'd really like for us to think and dialogue more about that here on this blog and at our next few meetings. Specifically check out pages 9,11,15-17, and 21-23 of the Vision Document.
Tell you what, I'll post segments of those statements here on the blog every few days of the next two weeks and I'd like for us to answer a few questions together:
1) What do you think of each statement?
2) What would you add or leave out?
3) What questions for clarification do you have about them?
4) What do you think it will look like to live out each aspect of our vision statements in specific and practical ways?
For our first discussion let's talk about the section on page 11 entitled "Our Vision". We've said:
Our vision is at the heart of who we are and what we are trying to be as a church. These are our dreams for the kind of church we can become. We dream of a church that is...
Mission Driven
...an active community that doesn't just seek to enjoy God's blessings for ourselves, but to also be a blessing to the people, the community and the world around us.
Worship Centered
...a worshiping community that values creativity and diversity in the multitude of ways that we seek to experience the joy of God's presence.
Grace Giving
...a warm, welcoming community that extends the love of Christ to people of all types and at all points on their spiritual journey towards God.
Culturally Engaged
...an open community that interacts with our emerging postmodern culture in humble, relevant and constructive ways, believing that we will often find God outside the walls of the church.
What do you think of these? What questions do they raise in your mind? What do you think it will look like to live them out? I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
Shalom,
Mike
Karen said that she dreams of a church where people's lives are forced to rub up against each other in a good way. Where we share the substance of life together. Where we can each just bring who we are and what we have to offer without trying to target and market to a particular demographic.
Josh said that he and Karen had talked about a church where people communicate and deal with conflicts openly, and where differences of opinion are welcomed and appreciated.
Monaca said she dreams of an intergenerational church, and Luke added that he dreams of a church where young adults in particular feel welcomed, valued and integrated into the life of the church.
Char said she dreams of a church where we value people for who they are beyond the stereotypes and demographics. (And Wendy clarified that we do still value diversity and differences too.)
Wendy also said that she dreams of a church that is interactive and where people are committed to being engaged and passionate and not just passively receiving.
I wrapped up the discussion saying that I dream of a church that values the voices of those on the margins and those who have traditionally been excluded from being heard in the church, especially women. We also ended up saying that we want to be a church that values messy people.
While we had a good discussion I regret that we ran out of time to get in depth on the Vision that Julie and I have already come up with. I hope you didn't come away from our meeting feeling like all we talked about was what we don't want to be like. We really do have a very detailed positive vision and set of values that describe what we do want to be like. I'd really like for us to think and dialogue more about that here on this blog and at our next few meetings. Specifically check out pages 9,11,15-17, and 21-23 of the Vision Document.
Tell you what, I'll post segments of those statements here on the blog every few days of the next two weeks and I'd like for us to answer a few questions together:
1) What do you think of each statement?
2) What would you add or leave out?
3) What questions for clarification do you have about them?
4) What do you think it will look like to live out each aspect of our vision statements in specific and practical ways?
For our first discussion let's talk about the section on page 11 entitled "Our Vision". We've said:
Our vision is at the heart of who we are and what we are trying to be as a church. These are our dreams for the kind of church we can become. We dream of a church that is...
Mission Driven
...an active community that doesn't just seek to enjoy God's blessings for ourselves, but to also be a blessing to the people, the community and the world around us.
Worship Centered
...a worshiping community that values creativity and diversity in the multitude of ways that we seek to experience the joy of God's presence.
Grace Giving
...a warm, welcoming community that extends the love of Christ to people of all types and at all points on their spiritual journey towards God.
Culturally Engaged
...an open community that interacts with our emerging postmodern culture in humble, relevant and constructive ways, believing that we will often find God outside the walls of the church.
What do you think of these? What questions do they raise in your mind? What do you think it will look like to live them out? I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
Shalom,
Mike
posted by Mike Clawson at
12:29 PM
6 Comments:
Thanks for your recap, Mike, I should have taken notes. It seems that most of our comments about values center around relationships. Karen's, Mike's and mine seem to value interpersonal relationship vs. demographic/outward identifiers, Josh, Monaca and Wendy's seem to emphasize personal engagment/investment in relationships. To see if I understand, are we all saying that we want our church to engage people on a personal investable level in positive/life altering relationships with each other?
If so, it would seem that we need to think about two things - how to have a relationship with others the way God intended, and how to give people an investable interest in the church. Maybe we should talk also about relationships with God. Thoughts?
But as a church we're about more than that aren't we? Are we looking at these values as reactions to negative experiences we've already had? What positive experiences would we like to replicate?
For myself, I want to change people's paradigm from the societal view of "get what I need for myself because no one else will take care of me" to "God has an incredible vision in mind of who he made me to be. All my life is aimed at that transformation from the old self to the new self. God has an intimate and compassionate plan for how he will accomplish this with me and it's for my good, not to harm me, but to give me a hope and a future. This new self is Christ-like and a true son/daughter of God - loving, giving and sacrificing for others from the wealth of what God has instilled in me."
Whew!
Hmm, another question - should something about truth be one of our values? Dealing truthfully with scripture and sin, but acknowledging that while sin is wrong, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Some sin is simply more visible than others?
I guess I'm having a hard time balancing the vertical and horizontal sides of the vision...
I can't wait to hear more of the ideas out there, this is really great y'all
By
Charlotte Wyncoop, at 5:25 PM
Mission Driven ... an active community that doesn't just seek to enjoy God's blessings for ourselves, but to also be a blessing to the people, the community and the world around us.
just a variation to think about - Mission Driven ... a faith-filled active body following God's commission by sharing our personal understanding of Him and encouraging personal relationships whereby blessing and transforming our community and world while loving Him more dearly ourselves.
My initial thoughts reading the original wording is that it starts self-centered. I would like to see a tweak to show more of an outward focus that brings the personal growth along as a result.
By
WarePhreak Wyncoop, at 10:55 PM
Grace Giving ... a warm, welcoming community that extends the love of Christ to people of all types and at all points on their spiritual journey towards God.
another variation to think about
Grace Giving ... a loving community that extends the grace and mercy of Christ to people of all types irregardless of (position, progress) on their personal spiritual journey.
One thought behind this being that we should be open to a person (i.e. Wiccan, Hindu or some other religion) that is wanting to join us at which point they are not necessarily currently journeying towards God.
By
WarePhreak Wyncoop, at 12:22 PM
Culturally Engaged
...an open community that interacts with our emerging postmodern culture in humble, relevant and constructive ways, believing that we will often find God outside the walls of the church.
To me this is more reiteration and details of the mission driven vision statement. Anyone else?
By
WarePhreak Wyncoop, at 12:37 PM
That's an excellent point about the "Grace Giving" thing. I did actually think about whether it might be offensive to imply that everyone's spiritual journey is "towards God". While I think that everyone actually is seeking after God, whether they realize it or not, the truth is that a lot of people wouldn't describe it that way themselves. Thus, as you say, a Wiccan wouldn't claim to be seeking after "God", though they would say they are on a spiritual journey. Part of our task as a Christian faith community would be to help people start to recognize that God is the source and fulfillment of their spiritual longings, but we can't do that if we offend them before they get in the door.
Perhaps we should just drop the "towards God" bit at the end of that phrase? We would know it's implied, but we wouldn't risk turning off people who don't see it that way yet.
What does everyone else think?
By
Mike Clawson, at 12:33 AM
I see the "Culturally Engaged" thing as the flip side of "Mission Driven". Mission Driven is about us taking the love of God out into the world. Culturally Engaged is about recognizing those places where God is already at work and waiting for us out there in the world.
By
Mike Clawson, at 12:40 AM
Post a Comment
<< Home