When a church is asked to change

I have a little online space where I keep some of my personal writing. I recently spoke here in church about our family's decision to include St John's in our annual philanthropic giving and I wanted to keep those thoughts so I added it to the website. When I got to the part where I had to put a title it took me a while but I settled on Church: It's Complicated. When thinking about what I wanted to say tonight, I kept coming back to that title. This is complicated.

Here's what I'd like you to know from me:

I'm not 100% certain what I hope to get from attending Sunday service or a Friday eve family potluck or a church event committee meeting. What I know is that those experiences and so many others I have here at St John's are grounding, familiar, uplifting and at times challenging. I'm content at St John's. I'm happy. I'm proud to be a part of this community, this space, this family.

Over the past few years, I have been asked, as a member of this congregation, to do many things: teach church school, shop for groceries, bring sandwiches, read in church, count bees in the garden, help plan the 5k race, volunteer at Saturday supper, be a member of parish council, be a part of the family & youth renew group, the membership committee, the stewardship committee. I have done all of those things. Sometimes I have been asked to do things and I've said no -- it didn't interest me, I couldn't make the time, other things had my attention.

You all have similar experiences - with likely one exception. At one time or another, you've been the one to do the asking and I have not. You take the lead - year after year or week after week and things get done. People are served. Families are welcomed. We strengthen our place.

Those people. That family. Our place. We need it all. And when we are asked to say goodbye to one it feels....well...complicated. Too much to ask and too difficult. We can't do more asking. We can't do more. 

But I think it's more complicated than that. This is a re-calibration.  A disruption. A fork in the road. The choice I hope we make is to see the opportunity. How can we rally? Rally around people like we have for so many years. Say farewell in a meaningful way. And come together - for a church that includes family programming, that welcomes children, that honours its tradition, that provides pastoral care and minsters to the most vulnerable among us. That provides space for our clergy to inspire and uplift and for our church leaders to be innovative, plan for the long term and consider all angles of solution finding. Let's be caring, inclusive and responsive. And let's be proactive and new. I'm proud to be part of an organization that is re-envisioning itself. That is thinking outside the box and I'm prepared to continue to be a part of our way finding. 

That's my bold ask.