“But… what’s your Plan?”

Of the several questions most frequently asked me, one is easier by far to answer than the others. That easier question is “What is your plan for the parish?” My answer is always, “My plan is to build a consensus.”

But toward what, you may wonder. Is my plan to offer additional worship services either on site or off site? Or to add new staff? Or to add new buildings? What is “the plan?”

My answer remains the same – “Oh, if that’s what you mean, then I have no plan at all. You need to know that I do have a plan, but the plan isn’t about a particular strategy. Rather, my plan is to foster collaborative thinking."

Truthfully, I am not committed to any particular strategy for the future, so long as we do it together. Regardless of how we grow, the important this is that we continue to grow in healthy ways – that we grow deeper in our experience of God together and that we grow wider in our mission to the world together.

Often people say, “But I heard that you wanted us to acquire more land, or to rebuild our current building, or to rent space from a nearby church or school, or to start a Saturday night worship service.” Well, yes. Any of these. Or all of them. Or some other method.

I’ve tried to say, as often as I can and in as many settings as I can, that we hit our growth limits for Sunday school, youth ministry, parking at our largest service and worship at our largest service. So, “What if…? What if we did this… or that… or this other thing?” I ask these questions in order to stir up more questions. The more questions we ask, the more we begin to think together, converse together, brainstorm together, imagine together, debate ideas among ourselves – so that we begin to build consensus. More important than whatever solutions we eventually adopt is that we come to solutions collaboratively, together, as a community of faith.

Far and away the most difficult challenge for any congregation is never the coming up with solutions or deciding which solution to choose among several options. Every congregation has at least a few people smart enough to come up with good solutions for any question -- except one:

The most difficult challenge is:
how to create a critical mass of people who embrace together the reality

that we must always press toward growing our spiritual health and vitality as a parish

that we must always press toward growing our outward, missional focus

that logistical realities that block spiritual growth or mission must always be identified, faced and addressed, and

that sooner is much better than later.

That is by far the most difficult challenge.

So… what’s my plan? My plan is to keep pointing at reality, to keep us talking about reality, to keep asking, “what if we did this? Or this? Or that?” And then bit by bit, as we talk about things together, we build consensus and move forward, together. One step at a time, but always together.

What comes next? Honestly, I really don't know. I expect to find out after it happens -- when we all find out together! All I know for sure is that we must face reality together, we must discuss options together, and we must eventually embrace solutions together. As the Musketeers were said to say, “All for one, and one for all!”

May the Peace of the Lord be with you!