hopes and dreams for wpc 2010

Since becoming part of my beloved community, wpc, santa fe, i have learned to function on a perpetual five year plan.  If I see something that needs to be done, if it's done within the next five years, I'm okay with that, and the five year span is always five years out...this keeps me somewhat patient and sane.

Here are some hopes and dreams that I put on that five year plan, for 2010.

Spiritual aspects of community life together:

1. The session transformed into a "community of spiritual leaders"

2. The session continue to discover what it means to "run the church," and not function with a pastor as CEO mentality (we are presbyterian after all).

3. Healing services happening again

4. Deacons model a lives of radical prayer and radical hospitality.

5. Becoming a "green" church, (i.e. Lenten discipline on "the moral math of climate change", more outdoor worship opportunities, etc)

6. Worship leaders (mostly me) leading worship with a non-anxious presence.

7. Growing into profoundly deep relationships as a community and enjoying one another even more (including small group gatherings).

8. Music continuing transforming our relationship with God.

9. Continuing weekday Taize services, and possibly a Sunday 8:30 am prayer service.

10. Congregation live with radical hospitality as they encounter others within and outside the church the neighborhood and surrounding community.

Physically (not numbered in any particular order):

1. 25 new participants (members and friends) who become involved because we are being church as described by Joanna Adams below.

2. Remodeled nursery--demonstrating our care and nurture for the little children (Mark 10:14)

3. Priority list and 2-5 year plan of building improvement projects.  (floors, baseboards, bike rack, painting, repaint of wooden columns and panels outside, window screens, sliding doors in fellowship hall, portal on the north side, prayer or vegetable garden on east side, kitchen remodel, tween gathering place, gateway entrance from the east side of the sanctuary on Juanita St., landscaping)

4. Seasonal "beautification" of sanctuary, and art.

5. Clean the STAGE (and shed),

6. more user friendly sound system (and new operator)

7. Better use of chancel area...even a remodeling/ reordering of chancel area?

8. The Sign

9. Website fully functioning

10. Usable B-Ball court!

11. Art in the building

12. A history of the church on display.

13. Find a loaned home for a piano.

Day1.org host, Peter Wallace, asked Joanna Adams, the week before she was to retire from an admirable life in ministry (http://day1.org/1678-god_believes_in_you):

"What are some of the ways you think Christians will be worshiping and serving and being church in the years to come? Where is the church headed?"

Joanna Adams: "I think the church is headed into an era when there will be more and more emphasis on parish ministry.  Communities of faith that are grounded and directed in their mission by the needs of the communities in which they sit.

"It goes without saying that a lot of our mainline protestant churches have lost membership in significant ways. But, I see the tide turning: where the gospel is preached clearly and in an irenic spirit; when people are given away to serve their neighbor; when they have an opportunity to have the experience of the transcendent God--they will come and be part of a faith community.

"What churches need to stop doing is looking at every visitor who comes in the door, 'Oh my goodness I hope you'll come to church and pay your pledge and help our numbers grow.'

"People aren't interested in helping your church grow or your budget grow. People need the experience of God. They need a way to worship. We were made to worship. We've got to express our awe and our gratitude before the transcendent God. And we were made to serve our neighbor, God gave us that capacity. A church that stays joyfully connected to those two key missions is going to thrive. They might be large churches, they might be small churches. But, our job is to be hopeful, joyful, generative, always thinking about what might happen if we come together in the spirit of Christ, the Spirit of compassion."