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For the past twenty-five years, I have met early every Wednesday morning with a group of a dozen or so men. Over the years there has been some coming and going in our membership; but a few of us have been together the entire time. And, for the most part, attendance has been remarkably consistent.
In his third novel Little Man, What Now? published in Germany in 1932, Hans Fallada tells the story of a impoverished young couple living in depression-era Berlin in the early 1930s.
Perhaps I am a naive starry-eyed idealist. But it seems possible to me that, in our psychologically oriented age, we may be uniquely situated in all of history, to address the division between unity and diversity in a healthy life-giving way that finds a creative balance which both honours difference and embodies some degree of consistent identity.
Last weekend, along with many other Anglicans from the Diocese of BC, I was away at Synod, practicing being part of the wider Christian community embodied in the concept of Diocese.
NB: lest the issues addressed in this post, the next one, and the four preceding ones seem outdated or irrelevant to the current life of the church, please preface your reading of what follows by visiting: http://www.anglicanjournal.com/articles/retired-bishop-caledonia-leaves-anglican-church-canada-breakaway-group/
The strategies for staying together that I believe have helped the people in the church I serve to continue together in ministry with the same person in leadership for so long, are not so much “strategies” as they are attitudes.
Estimates vary, but generally the average length that one person stays as the primary pastor in a single congregation is said to be between 3.6 and 7 years. Three decades is a bit unusual…. ok a lot unusual.
Thirty years is a long time to do anything. But to stay in the same church community in ministry for three decades is a miracle.
Many are called
but few are chosen.
(Matthew 22:14)
There are times when leaving is the right thing to do.
In A Spacious Place 