Dear Friends in Christ,

Before I sat down to prepare this month’s installment, I looked at my September letter to you. I noted the many issues we are facing in regards to our building. We need to put several thousand dollars into the facility for minimum maintenance, and to bring things up to code. Your leadership is looking into repairing the leak above the chancel; things are also moving on the bell repair, and replacing the many bricks on our façade.

I hope you had a chance to look at the Time Line the Transition Team put up. There seemed to be lots of excitement during the fellowship hour! We will leave the paper up for now, but the Transition Team will begin to look at the comments, and consider who we were (and are!) as Calvin Church. The next step is to look at where God is calling us to be in the future – this is called Discovering a New Identity. Our history is important – it has shaped who we are as the Body of Christ. But where is God calling us tomorrow? What does Calvin need to do, how does Calvin need to change, to fulfill God’s mission for us down the road? What might be involved in doing such a thing?

We can look at three areas – ministries, manpower, and mortar (these are the only three words I could come up with that started with the same letters.) What ministries is God calling us to offer in the future? Do we need to add personnel, or can we rely on volunteers as we have done in the past? (Just a comment – just because “we’ve always done it that way” doesn’t mean God wants us to do it that way in the future!) Realistically, does our current building meet our needs? Will it support the ministries God is calling us to? Regardless of what we hear God calling us to, we could add a fourth item to our list: Do we have the money to support things?

Again, these decisions are not mine – as your Interim Pastor, I am only called to bring these things up, and to encourage you, the Body of Christ, to consider them. Any decision you make will have consequences, both near-term and eternal. Any decision will bring changes, even if you all decide to do nothing!

We will be having a Town Meeting on Sunday, October 5, to begin these conversations. Don’t forget, the two parties in conversation are Calvin and God! Please plan on coming to the meeting, to listen and to be heard. In the meantime, continue to pray for your Session, your Deacons, your staff, and for the Transition Team as we move toward a new Calvin Church.


In Christ,