Resilience
We’re at cruising altitude and the beverage cart is finally coming around. Just as I asked of you all in worship a couple weeks ago whenever you’re in this scenario (or anywhere else out in the world), I wonder now: What is God’s dream for the future of First Church? Today, my wondering is around God’s dream for our resilience.
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The plane is headed westward after a week of learning with and from my Advancing Pastoral Leadership (APL) cohort. APL is a 5-year program that groups together high-capacity United Methodist elders to cultivate their gifts, deepen their capacity for executive leadership, and equip them for decades of impactful ministry.
I have gained a tremendous volume of relationship, skill, and insight for pastoral ministry over the last 4 years of learning as we have covered everything from visioning to conflict transformation to sustainable finances to community organizing.
This week’s learning theme was resilience.
Post-pandemic, the occupations that experience the highest burnout are teachers, medical health professionals, and clergy. Thus, in addition to getting the right building blocks in place for faithful and impactful ministry, the blocks must be put together in a way that ensures longevity in thriving. As we examined our relationships, mindset, gratitude, shame triggers, and boundaries, it wasn’t difficult to draw parallels to the church on the whole.
One parallel that struck me most was that to be resilient, you must have clarity of values.
You can have all the right people gathered and ready to build ministry together, at exactly the right time for the church and community, and even with the right gut feelings for exactly what ministry they’d like to build, but without clarity of your values, each obstacle and setback will compound in its toll.
If we have clarity in our values, we can collaborate toward this next stage of the life of our church with integrity and with longevity in thriving. We can roll with each obstacle and setback and bounce right back.
As Brene Brown shares, “there are no guarantees in the arena. We will struggle. We will even fail. There will be darkness. But if we are clear about the values that guide us in our efforts […], we will always be able to find the light.”
This is why our current vision process is so important. At the end of the process, we will be able to name the core values that guide First Church. Becoming clear on these values will enable us to move forward with integrity and resilience. Remember to sign up for the visioning event taking place this Saturday: Register Now
The prayer that has been rolling around as I’ve thought about the right way to put these building blocks of ministry together is about the spaciousness and holiness of sabbath- another key to building resilience:
Lord of Creation,
Create in us a new rhythm of life
Composed of hours that sustain rather than stress,
Of days that deliver rather than destroy,
Of time that tickles rather than tackles.
Lord of Liberation, By the rhythm of your truth, set us free
From the bondage and baggage that breaks us,
From the Pharaohs and fellows who fail us,
From the plans and pursuits that prey upon us.
Lord of Resurrection,
May we be raised into the rhythm of your new life,
Dead to deceitful calendars,
Dead to fleeting friend requests,
Dead to the empty peace of our accomplishments.
To our packed-full planners, we big, “Peace!”
To our over-caffeinated consciences, we say, “Cease!”
To our suffocating selves, Lord, grant release.
Drowning in a sea of deadlines and death chimes,
We rest in you, our lifeline.
By your ever-restful grace,
Allow us to enter your Sabbath rest
As your Sabbath rest enters into us.
In the name of our Creator,
Our Liberator,
Our Resurrection and Life,
We pray.
Amen.
- “Prayer to Welcome the Sabbath,” Common Prayer
As our church and our nation continue to look toward what the next years hold, we will all need to cultivate our resilience to ensure that as we walk these long roads together, we can make it to the next destination.
I look forward to seeing you all this Sunday as we continue our series We Can Do Hard Things and celebrate the lay leadership of our church who are completing their committee terms as well as welcome those who are starting new terms.
See you soon!
In gratitude,
Pastor Karyn
For a list of those in committee leadership at First Church, click here.
