Happy New (Church) Year!

White. A blank page or canvas. His favorites. So many possibilities
~Sunday in the Park With George (Sondheim/Lapine)

I love a new beginning — the combination of hope and uncertainty it brings, all the nervous and creative vibes. It feels like a roller coaster right before that first drop, when you hover over the edge and wait for the release of potential energy and the momentum carries you through all the twists and turns and loops.

Every year, as a new church year approaches, I buy myself a new blank journal (I think I may have mentioned my notebook addiction before) and use it as a repository for every idea and possibility that arises. Some may never come to fruition. Others see the light of day before the year is out. Still others may have a long period of labor and delivery, only emerging in full years later. It’s something like buying new school supplies as the summer winds down, a yearly ritual I find myself missing more and more as my kids grow closer to thirty than they are to their teenage years.

I have my new journal in hand. The pages are already starting to fill. I keep a rainbow of pens (Pilot G2s – they can write upside down!) and highlighters close by. I’ll start the year color coding my thoughts, and then by January I’ll forget what the code meant and just enjoy the shifting colors of ink. A random thought may turn into a to-do list, then a long-term project. In this moment, anything is possible.

It’s with that spirit of possibility that I recently led our Board and Ministry & Operations teams through an improv-based retreat for idea and goal generation for the year and beyond. We learned to tell stories together — about who we are at our best as a congregation and how we want to be known to our members and the community at large. In the spirit of “yes, and” we let all ideas out on the table and focused on what was possible within those stories. We are still in the process turning those stories into workable goals, and we’ll have more to report before the autumn is over.

Meanwhile, our covenant team continues its work. Very soon, you’ll be receiving what we’re calling a “skeleton draft” of a congregational covenant. This won’t be a complete and finished product, but a statement of ideas — the bare bones — of what we heard from all of you at our covenant gathering service. We’ll be presenting an opportunity for group discussion of those bones very soon.

Happy Fall. Welcome back to the flow of the congregational year!

See you in church!