That was one of the prayers of one of Ruling Elders-Elect at our session meeting last night, and I thought it was incredibly insightful.
The session met last night. For those of you that don't know, in Presbyterian Churches, we do not make decisions with the entire congregation, and we certainly don't let the pastor make decisions on her own. Calvin believed discernment and leadership should always happen in groups, because the Spirit moves more faithfully and we are held to a higher accountability that way. Our session is made up of Ordained Ruling Elders. Other churches may call them lay leaders, because they are not pastors and most do not have seminary educations. But we believe they are called by God and we put our trust in them to discern the will of God and thus lead the congregation and make the leadership calls for the congregation.
Our session at Gethsemane met last night. We could have made decisions about finances and buildings, but instead, we did a lot of discernment, which takes longer.
For instance. We talked about Gethsemane's music ministry. We talked about hiring a musician... that is a decision. It could have been pushed through, we probably could have had a unanimous vote. We could have identified the problem and fixed it and figured out budgets and amounts. Instead we did discernment, or at least started it. Discernment demands that we consider, proactively where we are called, not reactively how to fix a problem. So, we began to talk about what musical talents we have at Gethsemane. We have folks that like to sing, but we don't always organize well, and we don't always sing with passion. We have a praise band, but it doesn't always practice. We have a guitarist, a violinist, several drummers, several pianists, youth that play a variety of different instruments, younger youth interested in learning instruments. We talked about what we would dream for us... special music, solos, individuals sharing gifts once in a while, special programs... what would it take to make those things happen? What are we missing? How do we keep on missing it?
Unfortunately, I think a lot of the session members got frustrated with myself because I wasn't able to explain clearly what discernment was or how we could be sure that what we came up with in the end was from God.
Discernment is a struggle. It is analyzing what God has given us in particular, both gifts and passions, and based on those figuring out where we want to go. It doesn't just solve a problem, it identifies a destination that grows people closer to God, not just passively, but actively.
So, this is what we did overall:
1 - we determined to gather folks in the church who had music talent or passion and talk to them to figure out what our gifts are and what our dreams are and come up with a plan that develops those gifts and works towards those dreams... then we can figure out how much it may cost, and THEN we figure out how to support that financially.
2 - Financially, we determined that we should have 3 bank accounts for the church.
A general fund where we do our regular expenses. This is where ALL offerings, registrations, fundraisers, and other income goes in, and all expenses, bills, salaries, ministry expenses, reimbursements, donations to other organizations, and gifts on behalf of the church come out.
A short term savings fund where we save for somewhat bigger expenses. Maybe in the budget we determine to transfer an amount every month or every year into this account to save for future expenditures that we know will be happening. At the end of the year, we can determine how to take part of surpluses and set them aside here to plan for those expenses that might take more than one year to save for.
An endowment fund. This is for the big future. It is to take care of large needs and big dreams. We talked about how to encourage good stewardship and ways to make sure that an endowment doesn't end up discouraging offering. We talked about how to use this fund to encourage innovation and experimentation, because a congregation that doesn't try new things is going to get stuck in the mud. We also talked about how in some churches endowments have ended up being morphine drips that keep doors open at churches long after they have stopped being creative, missional, or effective in sharing the Gospel with their community.
3 - We talked about elder training being first and foremost a plan for helping new elders to learn how to identify what they believe and how it changes how we lead and how we serve... but most of all, elder training is going to be learning how to visit and spend time with congregation members, because discernment doesn't happen if we don't have relationships that speak to us about what the fears, needs, dreams, and gifts of our church really are. If we don't know our congregation, we only make decisions. So, our new elder plan is largely a plan on getting our elders out to visit the church, to listen, and to pray for others. I thought THAT was awesome.
4 - We talked about how to intentionally reach out to those who are isolated in different ways: taking them on errands with us, calling, visiting, building new relationships, bringing meals to those who might want them. We talked about the different folk we may have forgotten about, but who need love and care more than anything right now.
5 - We closed in prayer. We prayed for folks that we knew were hurting. We prayed for their caretakers. We prayed for ourselves. We prayed for marriages. We prayed for children. We prayed for our fears and anxieties. We prayed for our hopes and new worshiping community. We prayed for our parish associate and our dreams for him. We prayed for the families who are grieving this holiday season... because a meeting that is decision making only seeks to close a meeting as fast as possible when the business is over, and a meeting that is discernment closes with prayer that upholds one another and ourselves in the Lord's hands, opening ourselves to more opportunities to serve.
So, as much as my ruling elders may be frustrated that our agenda seemed more like a paper drawing of a path instead of a roadmap, as much as they may have been disappointed in their pastor's ability to guide them, as much as they may have been sincerely disappointed in the fact that we took an hour longer than we had planned to take... I think we had a faithful meeting, which is a lot better than a good one.
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