Progress, Prayer and Patience

While this post could easily be a quick report of great progress, since we will soon be sending the Church Information Form to the WCPC elders for their input and eventual approval at a session meeting in the near future, it is important for those of us on the PNC that you understand something even more significant to us.

Bill Yakely is a member of the PNC who has been tabbed by chair Gary Carlsen to serve as our "spiritual guidepost" and he begins each of our bi-weekly meetings with a short devotion and prayer time. Last week,  Bill shared a prayer, inspired by Thomas Merton, that he wrote several years ago: "Let me abandon my way, Lord, seeking the course you have set before me through your still and quiet voice. You move in mysteriuous ways with a kind and gentle way. Lord, in my wandering circles, help me to come to you each and every day....Lord, thank you for your direction, answer to prayer, glimpses of your kingdom, direction and path and the peace that transcends all my mortal ambiguous flailing about in the ashes of life."

If there is one thing we are about collectively as a PNC, it is prayer. We are committed to the concept that as we are prayerful, lifting up our church, our journey, and the leader for our church that God has already chosen, we will be given direction.

While we are hopeful, there are no guarantees that our recent progress is anything more than an incremental step in the right general direction, and believe us, we are every bit as anxious to be making progress on this search as you are. But our God is a God of long journeys, stories that are still being written, and plans that conform to a much larger set of needs than our own.

We covet your prayer and thank you for your continued patience and participation on this journey.

10 Skills

As part of the process of creating the Church Information Form (CIF), the PCUSA's primary document to be shared on our behalf with potential candidates, we were provided with a list of more than 60 potential skills that our new teaching elder/head of staff might possess. Then we were asked to select no more than 10. It is at this point that many of us on the PNC were checking off 20, 30, even 40 or more...and were forced to acknowledge that the only person who could conceivably possess all of these skills was celebrated a few days ago on Easter Sunday.

"Preaching" was one skill that we pretty quickly agreed on, but the rest of the process, a conversation that helped us eventually arrive at 10 (at least for now), was a rich one and really helped the PNC arrive at a better understanding of how we are approaching this discernment process as individuals, and how we can come to consensus as a committee.

This is all part of sharing the news that the CIF does now exist in a draft form, and while it still has quite a lot of revision ahead before it can be sent to session, approved by session, sent to the Presbytery Committee on Ministry and approved by them so that it can be shared with potential candidates, we have reached one more milestone on WCPC's journey of discovery.

Thanks for your continued prayers.