Day one - Doctorate of Ministry (DMin) Project
Two and a half years ago, following a succession of two lead, two interim and two associate pastors in five years, I was asked to return to Westminster United Methodist Church and serve as the lead pastor. Return? Yes! It is unusual to be asked to return to the church you are called out from but it seems that resident bishop decided to set aside tradition and send me back home.
Six months into my new appointment, I enrolled in a Doctorate of Ministry (Dmin) program at Wesley Theological Seminary which teamed up with Wesley House of Cambridge England. The program is titled, "Creative Ministry for Church Renewal in Changing Times." It seemed that the program's focus would work well with my opportunity to return to Westminster.
Last evening, I received word from Wesley's doctorate that my DMin project proposal was approved. My coursework is completed (well, nearly completed as I have one more final paper to write) and now the work begins to work on my own project. I have truly enjoyed coming home to Westminster UMC, we have seen God moving mightily as together we are seeing God's vision and we are dreaming new dreams in Joel-like fashion. We have put into practice some time-honored techniques to revision our congregation and we are seeing 'a new thing' come to light. I am so excited about what God is doing, the faithfulness of our leadership and congregation that I.have asked and sought approval for our story to become the basis for this DMin paper (more on this in future blog entries) In many ways this is a case study of our congregation and yet it is intended to provide a witness to God's action that may inspire other congregations that find themselves desiring to do a new thing for God and the community they are called to serve.
This blog is for the benefit of all of us. For me to share with you our journey together, to share with you the work of our leadership and our congregation's continued work in our community. You are welcome to comment on the way as this is our story.
Peace,
PM
Today, we had an interesting opportunity to re-engage in our Joel-like vision, which my part in this began two years ago. For the first time in several months, I feel reinvigorated in my work as lay leadership. As a lover of the water, the metaphor of tides is on my mind, and my heart feels the need to lay it out here. For all things, the trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit bring a clarity to me. In the case of tides, we think of an incoming (flowing) tide, the outgoing (ebb) tide and the slack tide. When drawing a comparison like the trinity and tides, it's would be easy to lay out my view of which is which, but as is evident below, each of the tides is a trinity unto itself.
ReplyDeleteAs I reflect on the most recent period of time for myself, I have been in an slack tide, which is to say there has been no movement either up or down in my journey with OUR vision. Prior to that time, I spent a portion of the year in an ebb tide, where the visions of the flow the previous year had brought tremendous replenishment to our church family and myself. Slack and ebb tides are blessings as well. We love the incoming tide and its nourishment. We often curse the stagnant slack tide or the ebb tide which exposes the muck underneath the water and the "smell" that can accompany it. But I understand the slack tide is the shortest of all. The ebb tide is its own blessing, because the nutrients settle in the muck. From the muck, comes new life and when we realize the richness of the muck, we realize the richness of a life in Christ sometimes requires us to endure the stinky parts too.
Anyway, I know that one needs some development to become whole, but you get where I'm going with it?
Great metaphor. I like the image of tides, may be a good sermon in there sometime Lay leader!
DeleteBy all means, take it and run with it. Always happy to help a Pastor. Also, please send Saturday's notes.
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