Pastoral Ponderings— A Griswold Christmas

Though I don’t know if I’d show it at a church movie night, the Griswold’s Christmas Vacation with Chevy Chase may well again be showing on your TV screens in the coming month, accompanied by much laughter and jolliness.

While not the kind of vacation the family might ask “Where are we going?” this time, as it’s more of what we might call a “staycation,” we still get a sense that Clark (Chevy Chase) had a pretty clear vision of what kind of Christmas vacation he was hoping to bring—or where they might be figuratively “going” with this vacation.  His vision didn’t quite materialize as planned, but this fact doesn’t change the importance of his vision (though it does bring a lot more laughter!)

Likewise, the vision of “where are we going?” for we churchy folk is equally important, even if we don’t get it quite as expected.  If we don’t know where we’re going, or if we can’t agree on where we’re going, our efforts might look as crazy as the Griswold’s Christmas!

On Saturday, December 7 from 9-3, all three of our congregations’ leadership groups will be meeting together to help each other shape our somewhat similar, somewhat different visions of “where are we going?” in the coming year.  Save the date—and look for more details in the coming week, and please plan on coming and contributing, even if you’re not normally on the leadership team.  Maybe Clark’s Christmas vacation would have gone better had he SHARED the creation of the vision with the rest of the gang!  Let’s share on this together so we can perhaps come closer to our vision that the Griswolds did, and maybe bypass some of the explosions and calamities they faced!

Pastor Jim, for a not-so-Griswoldy Christmas