Episcopal Church Foundation Vestry Papers - for leading congregations

The past six months have been full of discovery.

It started with a week at CREDO, a program by the Church Pension Group that promotes health in spirit, body, vocation and finances. Then I began a year-long program with the regional chamber of commerce for women leaders. Between the two programs, I spent a lot of time talking about and figuring out my definition of success. I wrote personal mission statements and haikus about my five-year plan. I explored ways to find the elusive work-life balance, techniques for de-stressing and goals for setting aside me-time.

And despite the saccharine sound of our activities, it has been an amazing journey.

I turned 40 this year. I fretted about how old that sounded. I can still remember as a teenager thinking my parents were ancient. And it doesn’t help when my 8-year-old son tells his fellow second graders that his mom is 40 and they turn to me with incredulous and suspicious eyes, as if waiting for me to crumble in a heap of old ashes.

Perhaps by chance or by wonderful coincidence, these two programs entered my life at just the right time: Having completed my first 20 or so years of work, what is next? What is my heart’s desire for this part of my life? What is God calling me to? What are the gifts, identified and honed over the past two decades, that I should put into play for this next chapter? What are the opportunities for growth and challenge?

For me, this journey led to a change in jobs, from communication ministry at a diocesan level to editing and writing for Forward Movement, a national non-profit committed to re-invigorating the church. I am being stretched in all kinds of ways, discovering muscles and resources I never knew I had. It’s exciting and scary and wonderful, all at the same time.

I’ve been thinking about how churches might benefit from similar introspection. We often celebrate special anniversaries with cake, punch and nostalgia. That’s a good and right thing to do. We should honor and remember the past. But I wonder if we might also take these anniversaries as a time for visioning the future. At the 50th anniversary of a congregation, we should definitely throw a party. But what if we also invited discussion about the next chapter for the church, members and community? Too often, I think, we do this only in times of crisis or significant transition. Finances are forcing a downshift, or a priest leaves for a new gig. While these are natural times for discussion, I fear we focus too much on the problem at hand – how do we pay our bills? Where can we find our next priest? – rather than opening our hearts for discernment and our ears to God’s call.