This past Summer (summer, did we have summer?) my family and I had a great trip to Florida to spend some time together. It was fun spending an extended time with our daughter Shannon and her husband Trevor. At this time of the year in Florida the weather pattern called for a thunderstorm every afternoon about 4:00pm. Sometimes it would hit us squarely and other days it would just miss us. On one of those other days, we went up to the roof deck of our building to watch the storm pass by. The lightening, rain, wind and clouds gave us a spectacular show. It was fun to watch it come from the western horizon and move by us until we lost sight of it in the east. It seemed like we could see forever. In fact, until the clouds blocked our view we were high enough to see at least 30 miles.
Taking time to see in the distance reminded me of the challenge we have in the church when we try and look to the future. Some days we can see forever and other days we can barely make out tomorrow. We seek the will of God that one day we think is crystal clear but the next day we doubt. As we seek to move forward in ministry we must continue to daily seek God and his will.
At Community we are seeking to move forward in our vision for ministry expansion. In 2000 we had our last visioning event to set the pace for the future. It was a fantastic night of dreaming and fun together. At that time we set both immediate and five year goals. Since then, we have been working to reach those goals. To date we have completed many of the goals, with other ones, including the building expansion, still in process. Now it's time to gather together as a family of God and dream again about the future. So this month we are planning another evening to talk about the future. During this event we will discuss our vision for ministry and building expansion. One important item will be the discussion of our current vision statement. We will be anxious to see if any of those visions have expanded. It will again be important for all members and friends to come and share their dreams. Next week the date will be set and you will be receiving a special invitation. I for one will be interested to see how far we can see!
Pastor Craig
