God Moments re: co::Lab

by Jerry Stuart

 

Following the January meeting, pastors and leaders from the three churches approached their respective congregations and Church Administrative boards to present the benefits of sharing the cost of a discernment process with each of the other churches. After discussion and board approval, Rev. Jim Randall from Auxano was hired in February 2011. 

Rev. Randall’s plan was to take representatives from the 3 churches through a discernment process nicknamed co::Lab (collaboration lab). The discernment program took the co::Lab team (3 Pastors and 36 members) through a structured 9-month process of energetic interactive meetings.

It was clear from the first meeting that the three churches had so much common ground between them that they became a team immediately.  Members were comfortable speaking frankly and openly about their challenges and fears. We were a family – a family with a shared passion for facing the future not simply to survive, but to FLOURISH and GROW! Monthly progress reports were provided to each congregation by their representatives.  

At the completion of the co::Lab process, a master presentation was created by the co::Lab members to include the Imagine vision brochure and a combined 3-church meeting presentation of the co::Lab findings and recommendations. The recommendation was to unify the three churches into a new United Methodist community of faith. The presentation was coordinated and held at the Carlisle High School auditorium. The current state of our churches and congregations was reviewed, the impending storm or death tsunami that we faced, and a unified vision for the future centered on the strategy concepts of Worship, Connect, Serve, and Grow.

In the months after the presentation, the congregations were invited to numerous open meetings within their respective churches to openly discuss the challenges and solutions presented from the co::Lab.  A second combined congregational meeting was scheduled at the high school to vote for or against the unification plan. On March 4, 2012 at Carlisle High School, each respective congregation met under the supervision of our District Superintendent, Dennis Keller, and cast a deciding vote to unify Allison, First, and Grace UMC churches.

The talents and gifts of our United Methodist congregations tripled that inspiring day. The journey had begun!  The next phase was to create an equally represented Transition Team to begin the process of physically, financially, and administratively bringing the three churches together.

Transition meditation 3/3

Pioneering:  Meditations for Transforming Our

Carlisle United Methodist Church

Number 19                                                                March 3, 2013

Waiting for…

Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him…Refrain from anger, and forsake wrath!  Fret not yourself; it tends only to evil.  Psalm 27:13-14

I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.  Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!  Psalm 37:7-8

It’s nearly midnight on Saturday.  I am facing what I believe is a deadline to submit this meditation. The cycle for me has always been receive the last meditation in my mail slot on Sunday morning, and start the next one that Sunday evening so I can submit to the office staffs in time for them to publish it and distribute it in bulletins or mail slots.

But things (stuff) piled up this week that made so much noise that my soul could not hear the message.  Along with many other folks, my mind and body were working on “The Bridge,” the first newsletter for Carlisle, our new baby Church, to make sure it got into the publisher’s hands in time to get into the three campuses’ newsletter cycle.

As three families, we are also feeling the steady pressure of deadlines.  I’m sure the Pastors, the Transition Team and the Focus Groups, and the newly commissioned Leadership Council are looking at deadlines for far more important activities and events than these meditations.

Each of you can relate to the subtle (and not so subtle) pressure of deadlines, especially those imposed by a boss, or a spouse (is that another word for boss?), or children (adult or younger), or the government.  After all, April 15 is only six weeks away.

Some birthdays or anniversaries call for the perfect gift.  The boss needs your report, or that car repaired, or those supplies ordered.  Your creditors insist on you paying your bills.  A teacher expects your homework (is there still homework, I wonder.)  You get the picture. 

Now, it seems that our three churches are imposing deadlines that affect us.  Is there no escape?  We’re facing deadlines on cleaning our buildings, on making room in buildings, on handling ordinary business stuff, on getting ready for big events.  And then there are our own decisions on what we personally are going to do.  Sometimes we feel we’re stuck waiting, waiting, waiting.

Did you ever get the feeling that God just put you on hold?  Doesn’t God know we need some guidance down here?  We’d like to get something done today.  After all, we don’t have all day.  Does he know who I am?  Should I just hang up and call back?  (By the way, If God does have a Hold button, what sort of music would you hear while you wait?

You know, as humans we do get a little frustrated with Adonai, the Lord God and King of the Universe. 

Although Psalm 8 declares that God has given us dominion over the works of God’s hands and has put all things under our feet, God did not give us dominion over time. 

Only the Everlasting God has dominion over Time.  Time is God’s.  All time is God’s, even the idling time we believe is wasted and prevents us from meeting deadlines.

We do the same thing with the seasons.  Right now most of us are eagerly awaiting the arrival of Spring.  We’re tired of Winter.  We want to move on to more pleasant days of more sunshine, warmth and the beauty of nature – things that we are told we have dominion over, but really don’t, or we’d botch them up for sure.

But winter has its full course to run, Phil or no Phil.  Spring does not come overnight.  There are many subtle changes that must have time to happen before soil and sky, flora and fauna are ready for the rapid pace that sometimes seems like a sprinter shooting out of the starting blocks.

And now I believe I’m getting a glimmer of the message God is imparting to me.  God is silent until I am able to let go of all my frustration with time and learn to await God’s presence.

Our waiting should not be waiting in dread, like waiting for a root canal procedure to begin.  It should not be time spent in frustration watching the second hand sweep by, or days of the calendar fall like leaves.  No, our waiting should be spent in hope, in eager, growing anticipation of a momentous event, like the birth of a child, like the walk down the aisle, like enduring Lent for the celebration of another glorious Easter.  Our waiting needs to be based on the never-failing promises and immeasurable love of the God who created us as the crowning achievement for God’s glory.

Why do they call them deadlines?  Will we be goners if we miss them?  Our earthly bosses might look at things that way, but the ex-carpenter whom we have pledged to serve has a different view, especially if we are waiting in trust for His instructions or answers, and especially when we use our waiting time to remember how we have been blessed at all times and in all things before.

I wait for the Lord; my soul waits; and in his word I put my hope.  My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning.  Psalm 130:5-6

Common Prayer.  O Lord of all good life, we pray that You will purify our lives.  Help us each day to know You more deeply, and by the power of Your Holy Spirit use us to offer You to all we meet.  Make us humble, brave, and loving; give us the blessing that can only come from learning to wait patiently for You.  And reward us by making us ready for adventure.  We do not ask that You keep us safe, but that You grant us growing loyalty and boldness as we follow the example of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  AMEN.

To think about:  If you are waiting without praying, is the waiting time wasted?  Maybe I should carry the weekly Prayer Request list with me and pray it while I wait.

Prayer emphasis for the next two weeks:

The Leadership Council; the concluding work of Focus Groups, especially Transitional Facilities; Grow; Worship; and Serve; the upcoming combined worship events; a Sacred Lent.

Please address your feedback and comments to Charles L. Reynolds at papoo99@comcast.net. I’d really like to hear from you!

Transition Team meeting overview 2/14

Overview of Transition Team Meeting

On Thursday, February 14, 2013, the Transition Team met for the fifteenth time.  Since we established our meeting dates, an Overview has been published and released shortly after each of our meetings.  Starting with this issue, an Overview of our meetings will be included in The Bridge.  A special edition of an Overview or Update will be printed if there is urgent news which needs to be communicated and the newsletters are not scheduled in a timely fashion.  As always, we want to remain totally clear, transparent and timely in all of our communications to you.

At our meeting, the Transition Team accepted the Heritage Focus Group’s recommendations. For you this will mean watching short videos during services in April, May and June.  You will learn about the rich histories and heritages of our three churches.  Items of historical significance from Allison and First have been identified and will be displayed in the main hallway leading into Grace’s Gathering joining similar items already on display from Grace.  The Cumberland County Historical Society has agreed to help us archive materials at our transitional facility or at the CCHS.

The SERVE Focus Group has identified a number of local and international partnerships they believe our new church will want to foster as we live into our vision of becoming a bridge to and from the community.  The team plans to lead the church to not only fill gaps in local service, mission and ministry, but to partner with groups and organizations that share our vision so we can help them do what they do more effectively.

The Transition Team received a recommendation from the Legal Focus Group to hire an attorney to perform all of the legal requirements for incorporation in our Commonwealth. This is being forwarded to the three Administrative Boards/Councils for official action. It learned that the Communications Focus Goal has established a goal of having a pictorial directory into every member’s hands on Pentecost, May 19.  The LAMS, a CONNECT project, have been totally funded.  Plans are underway to conduct our very first Carlisle United Methodist Church service on July 7 at the Carlisle Fairgrounds.

Our next meetings are scheduled for Tuesday, February 26; Thursday, March 14, and Tuesday, March 26.  The latter meeting will be a joint meeting of the Transition Team and the Leadership Council.

God Moment re: Unification by Randy Noaker

It was a dark and snowy night – a God moment.

As most of you know, Jeff Barnes chaired Grace’s Master Plan / Visioning Team from its inception in early 2010.  One of the recommendations coming out of this team was to employ a consulting organization to help us plan a strategy for achieving the goals that the team developed.  A company that came highly recommended was one named Auxano, which from the Greek lexicon means to grow, increase and become greater.  The leaders of Grace had conversations with one of the principals from Auxano, the Rev. Jim Randall, in early January, and decided to contract them to help guide us through this planning process.  However, before we actually set up the first meeting date, we thought we would have conversations with the clerical and lay leaders of Allison and First, to see if they would like to sit in, as we thought their individual church goals were probably similar to ours, and that perhaps we could all benefit from this venture.  They agreed, accepted, and Wednesday evening, January 26^th, 2011 was set as our first meeting date.

It turned out to be a dark and snowy night.  But we braved the weather, and convened a group Carlisle United Methodists for what we thought would just be some general conversation about what and where our three churches were, what and where we wanted them to be, and how we might individually get there.  Participating in the conversation, led by Jim Randall, were, from Allison, Pastor Tom Maurer, Ed Owens, Bill Bunt and Jay Layman; from First, Pastor John Shellenberger, Jerry Stuart and Ken Gossert; from Grace, Pastor Bruce Fensterbush, Jeff Barnes, Earl Keller and myself (Randy Noaker); and our District Superintendent, the Rev. Dr. Denny Keller.

The meeting started with the representatives of each of our churches describing our current situations, including attendance, building maintenance, programs and ministries, worship services, trends, and most importantly, what we would like to do and see in our respective futures.  Now you have to realize that by this point in time, the “Co-operative Ministries” initiative, which included our three churches, was already well underway, and was being successfully led by Joanne Reynolds. I had attended the first couple of meetings of this group, and remember the primary ground rule that was set – “There will be no talk of merging our churches”.  So, despite the fact that there were some of us from the three churches who had been privately discussing the pros and cons of such a merger ever since the results of Allison’s January 2010 vote to sell their building, we were not about to bring it up at our January 26^th meeting.

As the meeting progressed, it became clear that all three of our churches had so much in common.  And then it happened.  One member of the group – and I can assure you that as far as I know, it was not one of the folks that had been discussing it – said “What if we decided to merge our three churches?”  For an instant, there was dead silence in the room with everyone just looking at each other.  It was at that moment that we all realized there was a 13^th presence in the room – God was clearly there, listening and ultimately guiding us!  And from that point on, it was as if the twelve of us mortals were speaking as one.  This was truly a “God moment”.

The rest, as they say, is history.  Thirteen members from each of our three churches formed a team known as the co::Lab, and on February 22^nd, 2011, we held our first co::Lab meeting.  Nine months later, on November 20^th, we rolled out the findings and recommendation of the co::Lab team for unification, and on March 4^th, 2012 we voted for that unification.

After that first dark and snowy night meeting, there was a flurry of emails between participants and other members of our respective churches expressing awe and amazement about what had happened there.  I’d like to share just a few selected comments pulled from some of those emails. 

From Jerry Stuart:

Last night, I had the pleasure of attending an inspiring preliminary discussion about the future of Methodism in Carlisle. I say “inspiring” because there was a genuine desire by every congregation to breathe life back into our struggling denomination and to serve downtown and surrounding Carlisle in a new and profound way in Jesus’ name. My gut feeling is that a greater United Methodist vision or ship is going to be sailing here in Carlisle. We are not mandated to be on it by any means. However, for the benefit of First Church, I think it is in our congregation’s best interest to be on board.  Wherever that ship ends up sailing, we want to be riding the wave.

From Pastor Tom:

I think everyone present was shocked with how God's Holy Spirit moved mightily among us and directed us Wednesday night.  I certainly never expected such a dramatic leap.

From Ed Owens:

I also feel the work of our Lord at work as we move forward with this great and fantastic journey.  I am in awe of what happened Wednesday night and am thrilled to be able help in this journey in any manner that I can.

From Jeff Barnes:

God had other plans for us on that snowy winter night.  God was in the house!  Everyone present was and continues to be stunned and amazed at what took place.  We couldn’t believe what had just happened.  And, I love this one.  Jim Randall said to me after the meeting (and this is a quote):  “Dude, what just happened in there???”

Presented to the congregation of the Carlisle United Methodist Church February 10, 2013 by Randy Noaker