Weekly Clergy Letter From Mother Anne Turner

Dear Friends in Christ,

 

It’s 2035. Grace Church has made the newspaper headlines. (Or—this being 2035—it’s the top of your Instagram feed.) What does the headline say?

 

This exercise is just one of the many ways to engage with the vision process underway at our parish. If you come to the auditorium this Sunday, you’ll find the space filled with a number of different stations—and, in them, any number of different ways to imagine our future. Some of the stations are data-oriented questions meant to appeal to your rational side. Some of them are journeys in memory meant to tap your emotional intelligence. Some of them are creative endeavors meant to engage your artistic side. And some of them are conversations, meant to draw out the wisdom that can only be found in dialogue.

 

Did you participate two weeks ago? No problem. There’s plenty more to think about, and plenty more to say.

 

What these stations have in common is not only their ingenuity. (Hat tip here to Eleanor Reed and the rest of the visioning team for their hard work.) It is also their urgency. Although some of the stations may seem imaginative or even whimsical, they prepare us for the timely and time-sensitive job before us.

 

We need to build a new future.

 

Grace Church has a strong history of leadership, tradition, and service. We could easily float along with the past as our rudder. But doing so risks inertia, and it risks faithlessness to God’s call. Scripture teaches us that God is constantly doing a new thing, and church history reminds us that the church is made afresh in each generation.

 

Now is our time. This is our moment to be new and fresh. We do want not lose our tradition. But we honor that tradition by building on it, by trusting that it is a sturdy foundation for God’s new creation.

 

I have no idea (yet) what the headline will say. But I’ll see you on Sunday, as we try to dream it up together.

 

Yours in Christ,

Anne+