WHAT' S NEXT FOR WOODLAND CHURCH?

Our church, under the guidance of a committee in which I will be participating, is about to enter into a six-month period of determining its mission. Specifically, we are undertaking such a task to help us as we seek to hire a new senior pastor; but I believe this activity is of utmost importance for our church's overall health. Throughout this process, we will no doubt unearth various strengths as well as weaknesses; we will identify core values that our congregation has demonstrated over its 137-year history, as well as dysfunctionalities old and new.

But I think there is something more profound going on here than simply building on strengths and shoring up weaknesses. Each of us elders has been given a copy of Rick Warren's "The Purpose Driven Church" to help us in our brainstorming. And in the very first chapter, Warren reminds the reader that the goal of a church is not to ask God to bless what it is doing. The goal of a church is to do what God is blessing. To use his surfing analogy: God makes the waves, surfers merely spot them and ride them. And so it is that God's Spirit is at work in our day; will we as a church be humble and perceptive enough to discern where that work is taking place and put ourselves there? I pray so.