Pastoral Ponderings—Puzzling…
I’ve always wanted to have a table dedicated to a jigsaw puzzle that I could stop by and work on a few minutes at a time in passing, but between kids and cats, that hasn’t really happened. Now that we’re getting settled in to our new place (it’s been a LONG process…) and with my mom visiting, who also loves puzzles, we’re starting to make that happen. It’s a wonderfully relaxing thing, even a little bit at a time, and fascinating how addicting it can be!
Other than kid level puzzles, they’re always a bit of a challenge, though some more than others. Could you imagine trying to do a puzzle though, without having the picture on the box to guide you? It MIGHT be possible, but you certainly wouldn’t be getting anywhere fast!
The picture on the box functions as the guiding vision—it shows you where you’re going, and gives you a constant reference to check back with for every piece, if needed. Without that guiding vision, though, you’re not getting anywhere.
We in the church also need a guiding vision. Often we remember in some fuzzy way some semblance of a vision from way back when, even if it was never clearly laid out. But that’s not the most helpful way to do church—it would be like trying to do a puzzle from the fuzzy memory of a picture, or not even a picture sometimes, just the image as someone may have described it. The current puzzle we’re working on at home is a winter scene with a snow-covered creek, and the buildings of a farmstead in the background—is that adequate for you to help put it together? I doubt it!
Any organization’s vision is a living thing that needs to be re-visited regularly to ensure it still resonates with the body, or to adjust as needed. With our new organization of three congregations working together, now is a great time to do that revisiting!
So how would you describe the vision that drives our congregation? Each congregation’s will be a bit different, but we have been discerning the commonality of an eagerness of each to connect and engage with our differing communities. That’s a rough picture, not enough to get us very far, but enough to get us started. Please be in prayer and conversation with us as we seek to find the picture on the box to help us put together the puzzle of each of our ministries to our communities. Sure, it can be a bit puzzling– but as it takes shape, it will be well worth it!—Pastor Jim