So many of you have asked, “What can I do?”

Or you have just left the door open… “I am ready and willing to help!”

The question/offer means a lot to me. First of all it tells me that you realize that being the Senior Minister requires the love and support of a congregation. And secondly it tells me that you know full well that a church is not run by a pastor but by a community. I might stand up to preach, but the real work of the church is carried by a thousand hands and hearts working together synergistically.

I have been asking a similar question. Given that we have almost 100 years of vitality as a church, what might I do in this next chapter to help us meet the latest challenges? Before we answer the question, let’s push a little harder on what is behind the question. Maybe you and I want more than a strong and thriving church. Maybe what we are asking is how to be an extraordinary church. We’d like to be more than a collection of folks with similar values who love God. What we really envision is becoming a community where the spirit of God dwells. The apostle Paul put it this way, “you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” Whoa.

I remember a few years ago when a young family joined the church. They had a toddler and a baby on the way.To everyone’s surprise, he was deployed for a full year. She was starting a new business and juggling two little ones here in Kansas City. Someone set up a food train so that a different church member delivered a meal to that household every week for nine months. After that year, the family got a transfer to another state and packed up and moved away. The following year at Christmas time, I received a package in the mail from this family. It was filled with Christmas goodies including a package of holiday tea bags called “comfort and joy.” Included was a note that said, “The church gave us comfort and joy when we needed it most.”
Wouldn’t it be great if we were just drowning in delivery of tea bags called comfort and joy?