I have been on the road for work most of this past month. I haven't been disciplined enough to write after each event I attended. But I like to share with you "bits and pieces" that I heard from my travel.
I heard a lot of folks talk about being the missional church at the Presbyterian Church Transformation Conference in St. Petersburg, FL , the Urban Presbytery Network meeting hosted by the Presbytery of Baltimore, the Wee Kirk conference at Montreat Center, and the "Conference on Congregational Transformation For Mission To a Post-Christian World," co-sponsored by the Presbyteries of Chicago and Blackhawk.
Ann Philbrick with Heartwood LLC, described the importance of having healthy effective leaders to lead the "deep shift" that congregational transformation requires. The Presbytery of Baltimore's congregational development strategy is titled "Deep Shift." Bill Stewart, pastor and former Executive Presbyter, and Craig Van Gelder, author of A Field Guide for the Missional Congregation (Augsburg Press) both said that the congregational transformation process might take at least seven to ten years to make it happen! So what does that say about longer pastorates?
Andrew Purves, Professor of Pastoral Theology at Pittsburgh Seminary, said that we need to become ablaze with the fire of the Holy Spirit and not be burnt matches if we are going to become missional churches.
Craig Van Gelder also said that the church must move from being a "church-centered view" - maintenance and building up the church membership to being a "God's reign centered-view" - being a sent church.
Let me close with a prayer by Kathleen Norris that I believe captures the deep shift that we need to make in our congregations if we are going to become ablaze with the Holy Spirit and make the transformation to become missional congregations -
"Prayer is not asking for what you think you want, but asking to be changed in ways you can't imagine." (pg. 11, Grace (Eventually) Thoughts of Faith by Anne Lamott)
