I open this series of posts with a disclaimer. When I determined to examine and then report the strengths and weaknesses of the church I serve I was immediately beset by two difficulties. The first being that honest critique will come across to some readers as disenchantment and frustration on my part. Or, worse yet, I may be perceived as trying to attack the church I serve.
I can only hope that you will trust me when I tell you that I write out of a desire to take due diligence to cultivate a shared vision of the church so that we will better know where we should spend our time, our money, and our energy. I am not exaggerating when I say that Grandview is the healthiest, most outward focused, most generous church I have either attended or served. I can pay high compliments to the body of Christ that gathers at 300 University Parkway, and I'm not the only one who feels that way.
Back in 2006, when you granted me a Sabbatical, I noticed something interesting. There were a couple of ministers circling my office, sniffing for blood, asking my friends if I was leaving Grandview. They wanted in. Likewise, when a Methodist minister friend of mine visited Grandview on a Sunday morning, he later told me that if Grandview were a Methodist church I would have to be careful about other ministers wanting my job. I share these things with you because I want you to know that I am well aware that I am blessed to be a servant of Christ at Grandview Christian Church.
The second difficulty is simply rooted in the fact that I have been the minister at Grandview for over eleven years now. Like it or not, Grandview is who she is partly because of me. The great thing about beginning a new ministry in a new church is that none of the problems are your fault. When you've been there over a decade you can't say that.
I promise to keep these posts as short as possible. Nobody likes long blogs. What I ask of you is that you come to this space prepared to think about how Grandview can use your gifts to promote justice, peace, charity, and love in our communities. If we are going to go BEYOND where we've been as a church, we should be willing to do something different than what we're doing now.
You can be one of the people who leads us to become more like Jesus of Nazareth.
Tomorrow's Post: Aspect #1:
The Church of the Brainiacs
The Church of the Brainiacs
1 comment:
Can't wait to read tomorrow's blog. The first time my husband and I visited Grandview, we both wondered if all those Milligan profs remembered our grades. It ALMOST kept us from returning.
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