Looking Around and Looking Up

Last month, I reported about the planned “Listening Tour.” We held it, and while it didn’t yield immediately actionable items, other than to highlight the scarcity of our ministry with children (which has been notable since the dust of covid began to lift) it did yield some other useful things. First, we have a way to engage our congregation in dialogue for the future, so we will be looking at a second listening tour later this year, focus to be determined later. Second, while we do have disagreements about how we interpret scripture and our priorities for ministry, we have broad agreement that what we do is valuable enough to keep doing it. Specifically, we need to continue to do things that connect us with the community, such as the pumpkin patch, involvement in community events, and the like. To be clear – we don’t have to keep doing the same things, but we do need to keep connecting with our community. Third, and this one is me reading into the dialogue a bit, we need to gain more clarity about who we are and what unique role we can play as the church in the middle of our village.

My personal hunch is that we can be an anchor for people who don’t have an anchor. We can provide a nurturing, warm, enriching environment where people can grow – whether they are lonely, isolated, or hurting, we can bring people together and we can bring them to the cross, to where Jesus brings forgiveness, hope, and new life. We will need some training and encouragement, but much of this ministry can be done simply by being more intentional about inviting and bringing friends and neighbors to things like Bible study, 50+, youth ministry, and special events. And we can also think more deeply about connecting with scouting and AA on places where we already have common ground. I don’t think we realize just how amazing our breadth of small groups already is, how many accomplished leaders we already have, and how we don’t have to do more – we just need to be more thoughtful about what we are already doing.

As an example, one of the ministries we highlighted about the recent past was the vibrant Thursday night dinners we used to hold. We don’t, right now, have enough people to pick that ministry back up. But what if we partnered with our scouts and AA groups to host one or two dinners in the fall? And what if we also offered a community Thanksgiving dinner at the neighborhood center down the road where those groups could work with us and spark conversations about the future?

That is one possibility – there are others – but trying a few things where we expand our outreach by linking our arms outward to the community could lead us to a place where we can reach more people naturally. By doing so, we expand both the community’s awareness of our presence and our awareness of the community. The more we see our community clearly, and the more they see us clearly, the more we can grow.

In the meantime, I have just planted one set of seeds: To work with our existing groups to do a few meals at our church and in the neighborhood center. The second set of seeds is both simpler and more complicated: Years ago, we had “tables of 8,” which were groups of people in the church who had monthly meals in each other’s homes. What if we expanded that idea and created “tables of 8” across a broad swath of our community, bringing together people across a broader spectrum of our community? If that’s an idea that has some appeal for you, let me know! I’d like to start building a team to dream it, try it, and figure out how to make it both succeed and help it become something our community will talk about.

And, in the meantime, don’t forget that we have an exciting week planned the first week of August with Pastor Evelyn Yazzie, and Robert, Sharon, and Mariah Yazzie from the Navajo! To help us make the most of the events, I will be working with several people to have a special time of prayer the week before they arrive. I invite you to be part of all of it!

It is an honor to be part of a vibrant church, making Christian disciples and enriching lives through outreach.