Category Archives: leadership

HOLY, HOLY, HOLY

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FR RICHARD ROHR is one of the great inspirations of my life and I’m grateful to my friend Ivon Prefontaine for reminding me recently of Richard’s Daily Meditations.

In a series of Meditations on his “lineage”, whilst planning the opening of a new Living School for Action and Contemplation Fr Richard’s meditation on Sunday read

Orthopraxy in much of Buddhism and Hinduism

Orthopraxy is usually distinguished from orthodoxy. Orthodoxy refers to doctrinal correctness, whereas orthopraxy refers to right practice. What we see in many of the Eastern religions is not an emphasis upon verbal orthodoxy, but instead upon practices and lifestyles that, if you do them (not think about them, but do them), end up changing your consciousness.

This was summed up in the Eighth Core Principle of the Center for Action and Contemplation: We don’t think ourselves into a new way of living; we live ourselves into a new way of thinking. I hope that can be a central building block of the Living School.

And – joyfully – today I’ve been chestily croaking ALLELUIA! upon reading today’s thoughts about the witness of art

Unique witness of mythology, poetry, and art

My earliest recordings often included mythological stories, poetry, or art to make the point. Many people are more right-brained learners than left-brained. When you bring in a story, or a poem, or refer to a piece of art, you can see people’s interest triple: “Wow, I’m with you!” Whereas, if you stay on the verbal level all the time, their eyes glaze over, they lose interest, they lose fascination and identification with the message.

I don’t think Western preachers and teachers have really understood the importance of art in general. Until people can “catch” the message with an inner image, it usually does not go deep. We’ve also been afraid of myths that weren’t Christian. In fact, we were afraid of the very word “myth.” We thought it meant something that wasn’t true when, in fact, it’s something that’s always true—if it’s a true myth. This will be a very important substratum of the Living School curriculum.

One of the things I most love and admire about Richard Rohr is his generosity of heart, mind, soul and body. He’s open to seeing the Divine all around us, open to contemplation and to receiving the Wisdom from traditions other – though as he shows us, not always so very “other” – from his own. I love that Fr Richard balances the importance of both orthodoxy and orthopraxy; that he both thinks deeply and feels profoundly. That, it seems to me, is what the call of Jesus Christ – and of other great spiritual masters and teachers – is really all about. As Richard has it, “living ourselves into a new way of thinking”. That’s something all of us can do, all of the time, with or without particular religious frameworks – though many, in the living, will thrive in the kind of religious environment that seeks – as the word religion intends (from Latin religare - ”to reconnect, to bind together”) – to bind up the whole.

My friend Mimi is a generous contemplative - Between Night And Day; as is the marvellous Rebecca Koo - Heads or Tails; and Bill Wooten’s - The Present Moment brings a wonderful word from Thomas Merton – and a stunning photo; Francesca Zelnick is as special as her Today’s Special; David Herbert is one of my diocesan friends and I love his latest post (and we share affection for Parker Palmer); and Rachael Elizabeth’s been having a good time doing Christology and incense-sampling ( ! ) in Durham; James Fielden – always showing us “The Way Home” – meditates exquisitely upon Time; Ginny at “Chasing the Perfect Moment” writes about Re-creation; Ria Gandhi has been wondering about who and what’s Beautiful and has flagged up one answer here; Jenni has been Watching the Symphony here.

What are we looking at in all these human “works of art”. What do I see as I reflect upon the colours, upon the wide spectrum that arches over the whole of my life?

Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus

Holy, Holy, Holy

Multi-coloured and blessed sanctity – God’s art: whether we’re always aware of it – or not …

LIBERAL / RADICAL

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BISHOP ROBERT ATWELL and I touched on the convergence of the words ‘liberal’ and ‘radical’ in a stimulating conversation the other day. Both of us were speaking of inclusiveness, accessibility, direction, purpose, of a church’s special charism or gift of grace – of getting back to grass roots. And “the Spirit is moving” it seems, because ‘liberal’ and ‘radical’ featured frequently and prominently in our excellent Church Council deliberations about Growth Action Planning here last night. (Where are we? What are we? Why are we? Where are we heading? Where could we be in 5 years? Where do we want to be in 5 years?)

Sandcastles and temples

It doesn’t take much effort to enumerate some of the ways in which church and society are changing before our very eyes, and at a rate of knots. Frenetic building (or perpetual ‘repairing’) of even our strongest sandcastles is – history shows us time and again – sooner or later to be inundated. Baptism. The ocean prevails. The proud are scattered “in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seat: and hath exalted the humble and meek”. (Magnificat – Luke 1)

Justice and peace

O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

O light that foll’west all my way,
I yield my flick’ring torch to thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.

O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.

George Matheson

It’s no accident that ocean breeze and flow keeps blowing the words ‘justice’ and ‘peace’ back into the faces of a Church comprised of many who lived through the human turmoil of the twentieth century – during which more human beings killed members of their own species than at any other point in history. We simply MUST aspire to richer, fuller, brighter, fairer, tearless promise. And our Growth Action Planning last night had the current atrocities in Syria as a backdrop to concentrate the mind, whilst one of our Council reps teaches in a school in which over 35 languages are spoken amongst the small children.

Open plan … and the old glass ceilings

Oceans level sandcastles and temples and leave beaches washed clean. And golden. An invitation. Like fresh snow the shoreline swept clean invites new footprints. “And we therefore will not fear, though the earth be moved and the hills be carried into the midst of the sea” (Psalm 46). And we ask the question, “so where are we headed now?” Levelled, shaken up a bit and cleaned, both the ocean and the land are still here. Shall we build the same old castles or shall we have a rethink? Shall we go for a bit more “open plan”? Shall we leave out the old glass ceilings? Shall we thank God that all the Synodical and Parliamentary minutes about the difference between men and women, and straight and gay, and the world’s faith traditions, and political ideologies, and representation rules – got washed out to sea, whilst the ocean and the land and the better memories – one might almost say the “divine memories” – are still here.

Parables

Once again there’s a fabulous little parable in this week’s UK Church Times. The visionary and prophetic Bishop Kelvin Wright of Dunedin, New Zealand, is reported as saying

my diocese faces extinction … but I’m not losing any sleep over this. I think several other dioceses will be watching what we do with interest

We are. And thankfully Kelvin will be as familiar as I am with an older parable

unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. – John 12.24

What will it mean for the Church – “the Body of Christ now on earth” – and for the World of the future to be both liberal and radical? Bring on the ocean – an inundation worth learning to swim in, and that right early.

Jerusalem the golden with milk and honey blest beneath thy contemplation sink heart and voice oppressed. I know not, O, I know not what joys await us there, what radiancy of glory, what bliss beyond compare

WE NEED EACH OTHER

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Blessed are you, Lord God,
our light and our salvation;
to you be glory and praise for ever.

From the beginning you have created all things
and all your works echo the silent music of your praise.
In the fullness of time you made us in your image,
the crown of all creation.

You give us breath and speech, that with angels
and archangels and all the powers of heaven
we may find a voice to sing your praise

from Eucharistic Prayer G, Common Worship

A HAPPY AFTERNOON. Good house visits with good conversation about allsorts in the sunshine. I always come back from afternoons like this one reminded that there are some really wonderful people in the world, people of faith, people of courage, kindness, and solid down-to-earth goodness. And I often come back feeling that many people go out of their way to encourage and affirm.

The job of parish priest in a fairly large place like Bramhall often involves being what the parish profile, six years ago, called “the conductor of an orchestra”. I think that most parishes need the sort of leadership a conductor provides. It’s usually an unhappy, or at least a “going nowhere” sort of a parish where the only voice to be heard is that of the priest, (or any too-vocal individual for that matter) just as the sound of an orchestra requires vastly more than the voice of the conductor.

If the pastoring and other work of the Church in this place had to be done by the priest alone there’d many more thousands who’d have little or no contact with the parish church at all. Being “the Body of Christ” in this place involves every person’s call to pastoring of some kind or another, and to each is given a particular gift, a distinctive, discipling voice. A good translation of the word discipling might be “learning on the job!” - in our case within a big, big orchestra.

A large team

Bramhall Parish Church relies upon the gifts of a large pastoral team, and upon teachers and encouragers, and upon buildings and financial specialists. And we’re always actively hoping and praying for candidates for ordained ministry in the wider Church (currently four such people engaging with training and the processes of discernment, study and formation). We rely on praying people, and visiting people, and musical people and other artists and contributors of every conceivable kind.

And we’re constantly on the look-out for the ways in which all our members might be encouraged in life and ministry in the world, and right here in our own neighbourhood. (Not all of it church-based of course – we ought never to limit the word “ministry” to purely church-related sending or activity. The work of God is not confined only to the Church, or to any other religious body).

But in exactly the same way that an orchestral conductor likes sometimes to actually play an instrument or instruments, so, too, this “conductor” likes, whenever possible, just to get out and about amongst the people of our parish. It’s good to get alongside the different instruments and have a chance to play one’s own.

Whatever I’m doing here in Bramhall, and on whatever the day of the week, or the particular nature of the activity, there’s one thing I am certain of: we need each other. Every child, woman and man upon earth has a contribution to make towards the good of all. Whatever our faith tradition (or the lack thereof), whatever instrument we play or the song we sing, wherever we’ve come from and wheresoever we think we’re going, each and every one of us is made for and called to good conversation, thereby co-creating “the Peace that passeth all understanding”. Making great (and sometimes silent) music.

THE HEART OF YOU

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please click image to enlarge

YOU WERE good at it
No doubt about it
The things you did and were
The things you wrote and said
They came, then, right out of the
Heart of you
Ah
They said
Who’d have thought it
Eh?
A gentle, gracious, humane
Overseer

And you could be good at it again
No doubt about it
If the things you do and are
The things you write and say
Come right out of the
Heart of you
Ah
They’d say
Who’d have thought it
Eh?
A gentle, gracious, humane
Seer overseer
Here, today

simonmarsh, 5/12

audio file here

WHAT’S GOOD NEWS?

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I’M OFF TO A DAY CONFERENCE on “Catholic Evangelism” tomorrow. I’m not wholly sure whether it’s going to be about Catholic Evangelism (capital C, capital E) or catholic evangelism (small c, small e), and I’m rather hoping for the latter … hoping, that is to say, for a catholic evangelism that really is about good news (evangelism) universally applied (catholic), ie, for everybody – no matter their “faith tradition” or lack thereof – everywhere.

I’ve spent a very great deal of my life passionately pondering what exactly constitutes good news, and in particular why having some sort of acknowledged relationship to / with the Source of our lives might matter – to individuals, to communities, to nations, to our world, to the whole created order – some of these whole and healthy, some desperately broken, hurting, and in need of that Divine touch that brings healing. And I’m consistently finding that old definitions of what it means to be Catholic, or Protestant, or Christian, or shades in between all of these, don’t fit all sizes any more, if they ever did.

Christ everywhere …

What constitutes Good News in a ‘catholic’, pluralistic world? Where is an / our anointed Christ to be found? (as I’m sure such a Christ is indeed to be found, anywhere in the world, and across the world’s faith traditions). And the questions are so important to me because as a Christian priest, seeking always to live and learn – to be a disciple – after the pattern of Jesus of Nazareth, I have observed that some kinds of Catholic, some kinds of Protestant, and some kinds of “Christian” plainly do not represent very good news for many people at all. So catholic evangelism must be something quite different, something much more open, something prepared always to be held to account as to the reach of what it purports to be good news. Catholic evangelism will not, I think, be too prescriptive.

Feast of life for all

Catholic evangelism will offer the “feast of life” to people in the “highways and byways” won’t it? Catholic evangelists, personal and corporate, will have dismantled their drawbridges. Catholic evangelism will be less concerned (although not wholly unconcerned) with the Faith of our Fathers and hugely more concerned with Faith Being Received Today. When I’ve asked adults over the past thirty years whether they’d like to come to confirmation classes, so that they can be presented to the bishop, confirmed, and thereafter receive Holy Communion many have politely declined. When I’ve offered the Sacrament of Holy Communion “no questions asked” it has been the case, more frequently than I can count, that the recipient has ended up doing the asking, seeking to confirm a present and acknowledged reality – satisfied hunger – in their lives.

Let’s explore!

And I remember that Jesus was ever ready to go the extra mile for children, too. “Do not try to stop them for the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these”. Catholic evangelists will work hard at becoming more, well … catholic – so that they’re more plainly seen to be, well … “Christian” or “Anointed”. Catholic evangelists will be interested in marginalised multi-tasking-capable women, tax collectors, prodigal sons, unimaginative but very opinionated men, quieter and more imaginative men, too, and in lost sheep. Catholic evangelism won’t chastise the lost sheep for having left the fold in order to “explore”, still less tell the poor creature that God forbids it. Instead truly catholic evangelists (like Jesus of Nazareth) will make the fold larger so that there’s the space for MORE sheep to engage in the business of exploration, to engage, that is to say, in their God-given Life!

The Sound of Silence

One of the biggest growth areas in our parish (liberal Catholic with blurry edges – a bit like my paintings!) – has been a call to shared and silent meditation in the parish church – arriving and departing in companionable silence. No coffee or handing out electoral roll forms afterwards. And numbers in excess of many a church’s entire Sunday congregation have responded to a call – we believe a Divine call – to dwell for a space, together in the “house for the Church”, to wait upon the Word that touches life in silence. (The Word – not words. There’s not “even” a Bible reading). It’s life-changing, say many participants. It’s the only occasion in my month when I’m really and deeply aware of the heartbeat of God, the pulse of life, say others. This silence, this “that’s not very Catholic” but absolutely catholic encounter is breathing into our common life new elements of what it means to bear good news in our lives today, what it means, first and foremost to BE the Body of Christ now on earth, what it means to be religious in the original sense of the word (religare) – reconnected, re-membered. Restored to what we’ve forgotten.

Old assumptions yield

So whether tomorrow proves to be slanted more to Catholic Evangelism, or to catholic evangelism, I hope we’ll be asking the same question – What is Good News? – at least sometimes. Because, remembering Louis MacNeice’s Mutations again:

… old assumptions yield to new sensations.
The Stranger in the Wings is waiting for his cue.
The fuse is always laid to some annunciation …

HOW SHALL I SING?

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Coe Fen from Salisbury

ONE OF OUR ORDINANDS has been longing to get up to Durham for Evensong in the Cathedral there for weeks. Rachael Elizabeth has described the experience (happily on St Cuthbert’s Day) as “cloaked in a golden embrace” – and was thrilled then, and will be again, by a hymn we’ll sing here on Sunday – John Mason’s How Shall I Sing That Majesty? sung to Ken Naylor’s Coe Fen. Huddersfield Choral Society have recorded the hymn and an mp3 is here. I play Winchester Cathedral’s version from Hymns and Psalms Volume 2 constantly. It’s available here.

It’s a question that’s on this parish priest’s heart every day. How shall we sing? How shall the Body of Christ in the 21st century be blessed with resources in hymnody that speak the Word of God for our day? Our theology is a living thing and God speaks “New every morning … our waking and uprising prove”. I’ve written before about some of the hackneyed old stuff – stuffed full of outdated theology – that I believe is positively dangerous in today’s searching and pluralistic society; I’ve written before too of the divisive repetition of carefully selected chunks of Scripture that are then misused to patronise, chastise and exclude. These things will only be replaced, though, when hearts are captured by something that better describes where the people of this contemporary world have got to in their journeying with God and with those many and diverse “others” who make up the one humankind.

The Church of God, like humanity herself, is in the hands of God and will therefore end only if and when God wills it. That’s wholly better news to my eyes and ears than the fulminating “evangelicalism” that bleats on and on about the certain destruction of a Church led by “non-Bible believing liberals”. Dear God help us! They’re not talking good news. There’s nothing truly evangelical  about their perpetually prophesying destruction – and wilfully abrogating the responsibility of all human beings for “salvation” by turns either to Jesus of Nazareth or Rowan of Canterbury. The Primate of All Nigeria, in a statement about Archbishop Rowan’s new appointment says

For us, the announcement does not present any opportunity for excitement. It is not good news here, until whoever comes as the next leader pulls back the Communion from the edge of total destruction. To this end, we commit our Church, the Church of Nigeria, (Anglican Communion) to serious fasting and prayers that God will do “a new thing”, in the Communion.

For 2000 years no single person has shown themselves capable of pulling back an entire communion from anything at all. For pity’s sake let’s not burden Rowan’s hapless-even-before-named successor with this pretence of an expectation – only to knock them down when they don’t meet the mark either. Can’t we stretch our imaginations a bit further? Could we stop looking for unique messiahs and archbishops “possessed of unique qualities”?  Could we stop insisting that our version of messiah – already come or still awaited – is the one and only – the unique possibility? Couldn’t we “apply our minds to Wisdom”? – recognising from henceforth that Divine Sophia is to be found in every atom and fibre of every created thing? “Consider the lilies of the field …”

Could we rewrite the myth (as it has been rewritten so many times before) so that instead of making scapegoats we shared responsibility, under God, every child, woman and man alive, for the “salvation” of our supremely beautiful but tired and aching world and her humankind?

Jesus has never given me the impression that he was or is chiefly interested in our recognising his personal “uniqueness” (apparently keener on being thought of as “son of man” – one of us – than as “Son of God”) ; never implied that (long after his lifetime) “Bible Believing Christians” and their myths and theologies should take precedence over the primacy of experience in the Life and Love of koinonia. The arms wide-open embrace of Jesus of Nazareth was surely an invitation to all humankind to offer similar self-emptying healing and hospitality – and especially, if an “especially” there was ever to be, for those hitherto consigned to the anguish of life’s margins.

So tonight’s music choosing meeting here in little Bramhall was heartening. 5 people engaged in some depth with a shedload of hymnbooks and tunes. We grappled with what the hymns were trying to say alongside what we believed needed to be said to elucidate the Lectionary and to inspire hearts and souls at worship in the next eight weeks. It’s a tough collaborative exercise. It takes time, effort and forbearance – even  choosing how to celebrate Resurrection relevantly, worshipfully and well – but there’s no avoiding the question – Christian people who are liberal and inclusive in heart, soul, mind, body and intention must continue to ask How Shall I Sing? For

Thou art a sea without a shore,
a sun without a sphere;
thy time is now and evermore,
thy place is everywhere.

MESSY MOSES

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MESSY MOSES reminded me today of a couple of things: that we’ve got a wonderful bunch of people at St Michael & All Angels Bramhall. And that Messy Church – albeit Messy – needs all the marvellous and extraordinary organisational skills of a Messy Moses! There has to be some order and some organisation to keep the Messy afloat! And our needs were well supplied.

Let my people go!  said Moses to Pharaoh. Let people go to Messy Church was the cry donkeys year later in Bramhall. Major adventures involving patience, perseverance, pragmatism and prayer got underway in both cases. Manna from heaven was supplied to the wandering Israelites. Chicken noodle soup and apple pie was supplied to the happy assembly gathered to hear about the basket and the bulrushes, the burning bush, the encounters with power, the people who consistently moaned like drains, and the vision of better times, better places and higher things.

Messy and magnificent: both the Exodus and a richly laid Saturday afternoon in Bramhall. Congratulations to all involved, then, now, and in the future.

ALMOST SPELLING ‘HOLY’

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WRITING ABOUT stained glass fragments “blown apart in wars” and haphazardly reassembled later, the priest poet David Scott, in the second stanza of his A Window in Ely Cathedral, tells of

A leering bit of face with twisted lips,
a bit of beard, and letters almost spelling ‘holy’,
a sheaf of corn, a leaf, and then the sun dips,
lighting Mary in her simple glory.

Piecing Together
 A Window in Ely Cathedral,
stanza 2 of 3, page 29

In the economy of God there’s something afoot. I can feel it in my bones. The downtrodden, the dispossessed, the shattered, the fragmented and the forgotten, wherever they are in the world, are raising their voices. They cry for the reconciliation, resurrection and restoration of a humane humanity – for people of every race and nation, and of every creed (or lack thereof), or “class”, or colour. Too much has been blown apart by wars and for too long. But days wear on, the sun dips in her course, illuminating that which speaks of life’s real glory, and is thereby truly holy.

This is exciting. This is the stuff of the reign of the Source of all of our lives, to whom we have prayed, and with whom we have yearned, in every time and place, in every political and religious tradition, for so very long. Whether we’re speaking of ordinary Libyans standing up to be counted, intent on “occupying” their own entitlement to a bit of their own space as human beings; whether we’re speaking of Occupy New York, or Occupy London, or occupy-a-space-in-the-queue for fresh air, or clean water, or a bowl of rice, something is most assuredly afoot. The sun dips, lighting Mary in her simple glory, and because at evensong we’re rather quieter than usual we may hear her softly say and pray

he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He hath put down the mighty from their seat: and hath exalted the humble and meek

Come Christ-Mass this year the stable and the tent will not be featured only in hand-picked and glossy Christmas cards. Tents and stables are being raised up alongside cathedrals and churches. Tents and stables are being raised up in our dreams and in our slowly-awakening hearts. Here are opportunities to catch real glimpses for the possibilities of life’s glory, opportunities that are thereby truly holy. Some amongst us, nonetheless, will not look any more kindly upon such fragmented opportunities than they would ever have looked upon the teenage mother in the stable of Bethlehem.

But something of and from the divine is afoot. The leering bit of face with twisted lips, a bit of beard, and letters almost spelling ‘holy’, must give way to the sun’s dipping

lighting Mary in her simple glory.

MORNING GLORY

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THE LATE CANON W H VANSTONE, one of my early mentors, comes to mind at this time of the year in much the same way as Woodbine Willie, the legendary WW1 padre, does too. Both were famously fond of their cigarettes. Both are numbered amongst the finest of poets, both engaged in the most profound theological reflection – right “in the thick of it” where an aching world lifted up its hands beseeching mercy and love. Here’s the view from my study window at 7.15 this morning. Probably the particular reason I’m thinking of Canon Vanstone today, who wrote, in Love’s Endeavour, Love’s Expense

Morning glory, starlit sky,
Leaves in springtime, swallows’ flight,
Autumn gales, tremendous seas,
Sounds and scents of summer night;

Soaring music, tow’ring words,
Art’s perfection, scholar’s truth,
Joy supreme of human love,
Memory’s treasure, grace of youth …

Love that gives gives ever more,
Gives with zeal, with eager hands,
Spares not, keeps not, all outpours,
Ventures all, its all expends.

Morning glory, starlit sky | stanzas 1, 2 and 4 of 7

There were times in their lives when Geoffrey Studdert-Kennedy and W H Vanstone came as near to breaking point as any of us dare imagine. They followed the pattern and example of Jesus of Nazareth. They spared not, all outpoured, ventured all, spent. Such a following may raise up a new morning glory in the life and witness of the Church today if we, with humility like theirs, could only learn afresh to live and love and work alongside all humankind, and to rest, to play, and of course to pray.

TEXTURES AND CONTOURS

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Website for this image
Collection of the Whangarei Art Museum. Acrylic on canvas

WRITING in her new Making Sense of the Bible about the works of the New Zealand artist Philippa Blair, Helen-Ann Hartley says:

no two displays of her work will ever look the same. In order to view her work, therefore, one has to study the textures and contours and observe the ways in which the colours reflect off one another in that particular context: the art is not flat, nor is our viewing of it!

Absolutely. That’s why we need art and poetry in our lives. And that’s why we need books like this one. For exactly the same words might be said of the Holy Spirit, and that, in turn, is exactly why I find it exciting and inspiring to be a priest in the Church of God today; exactly why biblical exegesis and the wider theological enterprise holds my daily attention. No two displays of Holy Spirit’s work will ever look the same. Her art is not flat, and will and must be viewed from innumerable angles and approaches.

Dr Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States, recently preached a sermon about leadership – another human “art” that is not flat, nor is our viewing of it! –  at the end of which she quoted the murdered Archbishop of El Salvador, Oscar Romero:

“It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view. The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.

Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us. No statement says all that can be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings perfection. No pastoral visit brings wholeness. No program accomplishes the church’s mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about. We plant the seeds that will one day grow. We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there’s a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not the Master Builder; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.”