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Hi Friends, Today I'm beginning a new series of blog posts that will run this fall as our parish continues, or should I say, ramps up, the good work of imagining/reimagining our common future.  By the end of next week's post, I will have defined the terms "Mission" and "Vision" with the hope that this will lead to a common understanding so that our work together might be more fruitful and enjoyable.

But first, if you don't mind :),  let's address a theological question.  If we "imagine," or "construct," or, to use a more nuanced term, "discern" a common mission/vision, are we not trying to do the Lord's work; are we not trying to plan for God?  People might say "let things happen 'naturally'," or "we should let things develop organically," sometimes accompanied by a verse or two of scripture like the following from Proverbs 19:21: "The human mind may devise many plans, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will be established," or Psalm 127:1: "Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain." 

Of course, if we think about it for even thirty seconds, it dawns on us that these cautions are not about "imagining," "discerning," or "acting" per se, but about how we do those things.  If we rush ahead rashly, or if we proceed without humility; or fail to consult the best available wisdom on the topics at hand; or if we don't hold our plans with a certain kind of lightness, recognizing that we are finite creatures who need God's help, wisdom, and power, then yes, these verses might give us reason for pause.

But the entirety of our Scriptures enjoin us to act!  We are individually and corporately God's image, designated as God's regents so we might be stewards of the earth, cooperating with God's purposes.  We are surely the junior partner, but we are full partners nonetheless!

When Jesus said to Peter and the disciples in Matthew's Gospel, "I will build my Church and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it," he was not inviting his disciples into a kind of passivity but something like the opposite, for in the next verse he says, "I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

The early Church took this partnership seriously and planned their mission accordingly.  Paul had a clear mission (preach in the synagogues first, the Gentile markets second) and a desired vision (little house churches which consisted of mixed congregations of Jews and Gentiles dotting the Mediterranean basin as seeds of Christ's New Humanity).  

Sometimes, by fluke, churches gather a bunch of people almost by accident, without guiding principles or a clear mission or vision.  I was once part of a congregation in Langley, B.C. that grew to 800 purely by word of mouth; people were agog with the rolk/folk music we sang.  But without a clear sense of vision and mission, it very quickly dissipated; we were like a large amoeba and not a body.  Only after the leadership perceived that we needed to plant new churches in the cities around and train many group leaders was there a sense of growing maturity and pupose.

St. Philip once was the receptor church for a whole bunch of disaffected evangelicals.  For those gathered in our space, it was a wonderful experience.  But that has now dissipated; we are in a new time in our culture and in our parish life cycle.  We are now in need, not of passivity, but of a fresh and revitalizing mission and vision.

In next week's blog, I will report on the work of the Wardens and myself, our Parish Council and the input of parish members as we have been working on this sense of where God may be leading us.  The input from the Parish Council and congregation has come over multiple retreats and congregational meetings.  It has been the privilege of the Wardens and me to mull these "data points" and seek to discern not just our "status quo preferences" but the "fresh call" that the Spirit seems to be inspiring.  I say "seems to be inspiring with humility but also conviction for we have experienced that we come to the meetings with misgivings, a lack of energy, and sometimes discouragement, but as we commune, reflect, and discern together, we all sense a new excitement about St. Philip.

One last caveat.  Our work on Mission and Vision is not about which building we should choose as our future home; whether to continue at Eastdowne or move to Richmond Road; rather, we hope that a renewed sense of Mission and Vision will be possible in either location. To be fair, the challenges at each place are somewhat different; so it continues to be our aim to come to some sort of decision around buildings by the end of this year or shortly thereafter.  At some level, we have to admit that facilities and Mission/Vision intertwine and inform each other, but that's not the first step.

This is already a long post but for those of you who have read this far let me end with the motto for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America "God's Work, Our Hands." That says it pretty well!

As always, serving with you in hope,

Allen+