A Day to Remember -- Beginning of year 2 in Troy
One year ago today Cheryl, Brett, and I arrived in Troy, MI, having made a very long, multi-day journey (in 2 cars) from our home of ten years -- Santa Barbara -- to a new community, that of Troy. We moved into a new house, our first as homeowners -- was out doing a little pruning, mowing, and painting to start the day. The next day, with the furniture yet to arrive, I would check in to the office of our new church -- Central Woodward Christian Church -- and begin my tenure as pastor. Leaving California behind wasn't easy. Except for three years in Kansas it was the only home Brett had ever known. Our families are all on the West Coast. We were used to warm(er) winters.
The challenges are many, taking up a new congregation. As I look back a year, I'm pleased with what we've accomplished. We've made a lot of changes, probably more than the experts usually recommend -- but the congregation was at that point that they were prepared (after 4 years in interim situations) to move into a new chapter of life. Before I got here the church had begun to explore the prospects of being a missional congregation -- we're still working through that. They had been reading Martha Grace Reese's Unbinding the Gospel (Chalice Press, 2007) and were talking about ways of sharing their faith with the community. Since we've been here we've taken the next step with Gay Reese's series, working as a congregation through her Unbinding Your Heart (Chalice Press, 2008). We called a new minister of music and recently put in an order for a new digital organ (to be interfaced with a portion of the existing pipes brought from the original church in Detroit) that will replace our venerable, but dying pipe organ. We've made inroads into the community, hosting an interfaith event and a Good Friday Service.
So, a year later, despite some bumps along the road, I believe we're on the right path, that God's Spirit has set a path for us to follow, and we've taken up the call. The journey isn't complete -- indeed, it never will be complete. As Philip Clayton reminds us in the concluding chapter of Adventures in the Spirit (Fortress, 2008), our guiding principle should be: Ecclesia Reformata, Semper Reformanda (The Church Reformed, always reforming). Such a principle encourages us to embrace the day, and to pursue appropriate integration between tradition(s) of the Christian faith -- biblical as well as post-biblical -- with the experiences and knowledge of the present.
I'm looking forward to year 2, after I take 2 weeks off to rest and renew for the next adventure!
The challenges are many, taking up a new congregation. As I look back a year, I'm pleased with what we've accomplished. We've made a lot of changes, probably more than the experts usually recommend -- but the congregation was at that point that they were prepared (after 4 years in interim situations) to move into a new chapter of life. Before I got here the church had begun to explore the prospects of being a missional congregation -- we're still working through that. They had been reading Martha Grace Reese's Unbinding the Gospel (Chalice Press, 2007) and were talking about ways of sharing their faith with the community. Since we've been here we've taken the next step with Gay Reese's series, working as a congregation through her Unbinding Your Heart (Chalice Press, 2008). We called a new minister of music and recently put in an order for a new digital organ (to be interfaced with a portion of the existing pipes brought from the original church in Detroit) that will replace our venerable, but dying pipe organ. We've made inroads into the community, hosting an interfaith event and a Good Friday Service.
So, a year later, despite some bumps along the road, I believe we're on the right path, that God's Spirit has set a path for us to follow, and we've taken up the call. The journey isn't complete -- indeed, it never will be complete. As Philip Clayton reminds us in the concluding chapter of Adventures in the Spirit (Fortress, 2008), our guiding principle should be: Ecclesia Reformata, Semper Reformanda (The Church Reformed, always reforming). Such a principle encourages us to embrace the day, and to pursue appropriate integration between tradition(s) of the Christian faith -- biblical as well as post-biblical -- with the experiences and knowledge of the present.
I'm looking forward to year 2, after I take 2 weeks off to rest and renew for the next adventure!
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