Suddenly, I am the "tenured one" or "the old guy" depending on your frame of mind. While one of the eight elders is my same age, the rest are much younger. We are as diverse as we have ever been. That's good.
We have also had a change in Pulpit Ministers over the past 18 months and our longest tenured minister is leaving later this year.
I once looked at myself as an outsider because I did not have a long history here and spent most of my life elsewhere. Now I'm the token insider for I know "where the bones are buried". I don't want to be the church historian but their is some continuity needed for a while.
Here's the deal: Our church doesn't like organization. We don't write enough things down and we don't keep many records. We sometimes question why things were done a certain way and if the memory is bad, we have no answer. I'm not talking about traditions, but events.
We also in the past adopted for a while "The priesthood of all believers". This is a Bible based idea but tended to say "everyone is in charge so no one is!" This caused the members to ask, "What is our direction and where are we heading?" We slowly changed from that idea to the idea a being more "Shepherd-like". The theory is easy but the application is not.
I am excited about the future and believe we will face many things former leaders did not. Among them will be the Women"s role in worship, what to do with the College Ministry, what is the future of the Youth Ministry and what will Missions become for our church. I also believe that we will be called on as a body to minister to the least fortunate of our community. The Apostle Paul "The Patron Saint of the CofC" did not help us much in these areas (Actually he did, we just chose parts of what he said!) but thankfully Jesus did.
"I tell you the truth, whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me."
He's not just talking about the poor, he's talking bout the dis-infranchised.
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