Thinking about our preferred future

At our last TT meeting, a week ago Sunday, we again had quite the agenda.

1. Further discussion of the personality of our congregation.

2. Plotting the pastoral search process.

3. Proposal to resolve the issue of women in leadership.

4. Picking up inadequately processed items.

Our transitional pastor views our congregation as declining and he feels that unless we change our ways we won't be around much longer. Our congregation has been in existence for 180 years. It was the founding church in our area for our denomination.

After our discussion of the above agenda our transitional pastor distributed a form for us all to fill in. It was titled "Thinking about our preferred future."

1. Paint a picture of what we would like to see at our congregation five years from now.

2. Define a path to get us there.

3. What strengths do we already have?

4. What additional strengths will we need?

We really enjoyed filling this form out because it gave us hope. First, we were encouraged to dream, and then we were asked to submit our solutions.

Basically our suggestion consisted of three steps:

1. Revival: Everyone needs to take seriously the call to bring others into the Kingdom. This will take self-sacrifice and much love.

2. Evangelism: Opening up ourselves without compromising our understanding of Scripture. "Seeking" people will see Christ in us.

3. Discipleship: Accountability with each other and those new to the faith. No accommodation of anything that would lead us away from Christ. We must teach from Scripture always.

That's our idea about how to grow our congregation so that we will have a need to install a balcony and have two services to accommodate all our members. We like to dream big!