From the Pastor – Summer 2007

When I arrived in July of 1998, I told a number of people that one of my goals was to tie Harvey Smith’s longevity record as your pastor. That goal will be realized! As of July 1, I begin my tenth year at First Community! I know, I can hardly believe it myself. Has it really been nine years? Wow!

As we begin year ten together, I thought it might be helpful to have a question and answer session as the “sermon” for July 1. I’m calling this “face the congregation” (get it? A take off of “Face the Nation.”). I have prepared some preliminary questions to help get the whole thing started (nothing worse than standing up in front of a group of people and asking “are there any questions?” and hearing silence.), but I’m hoping that most of the questions will come from you. So if you’ve always wanted to ask me (or any minister) a question, but didn’t know how to go about it, here’s your chance. Any question is “fair game.”

If, for whatever reason, you can’t make it on the first, you can call, email (fcumc02155@Yahoo.com), or “snail” mail your question to the church office, and I’ll read and answer it that day (I’ll even send you a copy of the answer).

As I look ahead to the upcoming year, I am looking forward to seeing progress on our Natural Church Development “minimum factor” of Passionate Spirituality. As I understand the process, we are supposed to take another “health check up” (i.e. survey) this fall. The results of that survey will tell us how successful we’ve been at addressing this issue. Members of our church’s Church Council/Health team have been working very hard to address the causes and propose solutions to our minimum factor. It may be that we might need more time to address the solutions, and may, as a result, not be ready to take the new survey in the fall. Whenever we do end up taking it, I am hopeful that we will see improvement.

Like our own faith, Natural Church Development helps us understand that church stagnation is not possible. We are either moving forward or backwards. The difference is that moving forward requires effort. Moving backwards requires that we do nothing. It’s kind of like being on a treadmill. The treadmill moves whether you move or not. If you move with the treadmill, you move forward. However, if you try to stand still on a treadmill, you’ll quickly find yourself moving backwards.

It is my prayer that FCUMC will move forward in the year ahead.