Happy New Year to you!
As we observe the rather arbitrary transition or turning point of the new year, it seems fitting to What do you imagine the new year will bring as you consider the ministry and mission of Beautiful Savior? It would be fascinating, I think, to have everyone write some of our hopes and dreams for BSLC in the coming year, especially those we each personally intend to participate in making happen. With Jill’s help, we’ll be able to share our hopes and dreams with one another not only as a paper chain (first step, January) but also in a consolidated format in February.
Here’s how we will start – if you are on site, you are invited to write out hopes and dreams for BSLC, please put your name somewhere on the provided slips of paper. Those of you who participate from offsite may send in your thoughts to Jill (bslc@beautifulsaviorlutheran.com) and then she’ll write your words on a strip for you and add your link to the chain. In this way we will create a chain of possibilities that will surround us as it grows, for the month of January. At the other end of this year, we will return to this activity by creating another paper chain recording how God has been at work in and through us – a picture of how our life together actually unfolded, and what unexpected discoveries marked our way.
Beyond our envisioning future directions we want to discover or (re)create with God’s help, there are already some “work of the church” activities we will know need addressing or further exploration (see the article below re: Land Stewardship Discernment). One is to rethink how we are organized as a congregation. For example, the extensive committee, team, and ministry structure used for some time at BSLC, has become unwieldy for our purposes within the realities of a changed society with vastly different expectations and assumptions around faith and life in the church, as well as the changed makeup of the congregation with very different demands on our lives than even five years ago, let alone ten or twenty! WIth the Council’s approval, I am forming a task force to imagine together a different and more effective (for this time) infrastructure through which we can carry on and grow the ministry and mission of Beautiful Savior Lutheran Church within the realities of our shared life as a faith community. If you have experience with restructuring and want to help shape how we move forward in this area, please let me know.
With you on this journey of discovery that is faith,
Pastor Jean
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