Quote du jour: Now, in order to answer the question, "Where do we go from here?" which is our theme, we must first honestly recognize where we are now. -Martin Luther King Junior
I am having a few hours of sheer unabashed celebration at the end of a very long election season. And then I begin - only begin, mind you - to answer the question "where do we go from here?" Dr. King gave some very good advice, as to how we begin. We begin in honesty. I think that rhetoric often substitutes for true and self aware honesty and I would very much like to see that change over the next months and years. I have hope that a new administration will be able to take the rhetoric of Washington and launch a true assessment of current reality, based in empircal evidence, not projection and fantasy. Where are we now? I think we need to answer that question as a nation, as a people and here in Swampscott, as a church.
As many of you may know, under the new system of church governance, I am now responsible - at the direction of Vann -for the social justice and environmental ministries of this church as well as the educational ones. In this role, I am asking in different ways and over and over again, where are we now? When I came to this church, a thirty year conversation had been taking place about "what shall we do about Lynn?" , essentially a "where do we go from here "conversation. I get the sense that the conversation has been one that puts itself solidly in the future, without assessing the capacity and potential and will of the congregation in the present. The present has become the past, and the future has become the now.
In this now, there are changes in the church. Many of them will not apply to you or to the children we teach. However, many of them will. And those changes won't take hold unless we can say with certainty that we know where we are. Who we are. And what we might be capable of. I am working with you on two significant efforts, one the change in the content and template of the religious education program and the other, what is being called the Lynn Initiative. We want to create a robust and vital Sunday experience for children and the leaders who support the ministry of Religious Education. We want to go back to Lynn in a way that makes sense to us and makes sense to the neighbors that we wish to support. That's great. We should do those things. And we should dream big. But we should know where we are now. Because if we don't place ourselves in the reality of our time, place and culture then there's a very good chance we won't know where to put our foot for the first step on the road to change - enduring change.
It's time. To know where we are. To know who we can become. To know where we can go. Step by step.
See you in church
I am having a few hours of sheer unabashed celebration at the end of a very long election season. And then I begin - only begin, mind you - to answer the question "where do we go from here?" Dr. King gave some very good advice, as to how we begin. We begin in honesty. I think that rhetoric often substitutes for true and self aware honesty and I would very much like to see that change over the next months and years. I have hope that a new administration will be able to take the rhetoric of Washington and launch a true assessment of current reality, based in empircal evidence, not projection and fantasy. Where are we now? I think we need to answer that question as a nation, as a people and here in Swampscott, as a church.
As many of you may know, under the new system of church governance, I am now responsible - at the direction of Vann -for the social justice and environmental ministries of this church as well as the educational ones. In this role, I am asking in different ways and over and over again, where are we now? When I came to this church, a thirty year conversation had been taking place about "what shall we do about Lynn?" , essentially a "where do we go from here "conversation. I get the sense that the conversation has been one that puts itself solidly in the future, without assessing the capacity and potential and will of the congregation in the present. The present has become the past, and the future has become the now.
In this now, there are changes in the church. Many of them will not apply to you or to the children we teach. However, many of them will. And those changes won't take hold unless we can say with certainty that we know where we are. Who we are. And what we might be capable of. I am working with you on two significant efforts, one the change in the content and template of the religious education program and the other, what is being called the Lynn Initiative. We want to create a robust and vital Sunday experience for children and the leaders who support the ministry of Religious Education. We want to go back to Lynn in a way that makes sense to us and makes sense to the neighbors that we wish to support. That's great. We should do those things. And we should dream big. But we should know where we are now. Because if we don't place ourselves in the reality of our time, place and culture then there's a very good chance we won't know where to put our foot for the first step on the road to change - enduring change.
It's time. To know where we are. To know who we can become. To know where we can go. Step by step.
See you in church
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