May 2009

Long ago in a previous lifetime, I was a case manager at a Community Corrections facility.  Community Corrections is a program where felons preparing to complete their sentences come to a half-way house so they can find employment, get into treatment and re-establish family relationships so that when they do get out they have a better shot at success.  As case manager, my job was to monitor their progress through the system.  During my initial series of interviews, I would ask them about their future plans.  One of my usual questions would be, “What do you see yourself doing in ten years?”  I would say that about 40% of the time the men would answer, “I want to be running my own business.”  “What kind of business do you want to run?”  “Oh, I don’t know.”  They would then name some type of business like mechanic, or storekeeper, or dry cleaner, jobs at which they had no experience but could imagine themselves being successful doing.  “OK”, I would say, “What skills do you need to develop if you are going to be able to reach this goal in ten years?”  We would then discuss schooling, employment, finding investors, or whatever else seemed to be appropriate. 

Well, that’s when the conversation began to break down.  It was easy, even fun to imagine himself a mechanic, an inventor, or an entrepreneur, but to make it really happen would be hard work.  He would need to resist the temptation to take the easy road, so that later he could benefit from his hard work and commitment to change.  He would have to understand how difficult this plan would be to enact, and gather his family around to lend whatever assistance they could.  He would need his friends and family to be there to encourage him when he was down, reminding him of his dream and how achieving that dream would benefit him and his family.  He would need to keep his focus on the many individual tasks that would need to be accomplished in order for his dream to be realized.

After many conversations, I began to realize that these men, on some level, believed that deciding to do something was the same as being ready to do something.  “I want to be a mechanic, so I am ready to be a mechanic.”  Actually, deciding was only the first step of the process.
In all the conversations I had with all of those men I cannot report one success.  Not one of them, as far as I know, none ever realized their goals of owning a business.  None of them, while they were residents of Community Corrections, began pursuing the dream by taking a class, or learning a trade that would get them closer to their goal.  Now, it is not my desire to demean these men in any way.  What I want to say is this:  Dreaming is easy, making dreams happen is difficult.

I have a dream for this church, which will be difficult to enact (Actually, any dream worth its salt would be difficult).  It is a dream I have spoken of in sermons and private conversations, in Session and Deacon meetings and Bible studies.  I believe that God is calling us to have an impact on our community, especially the bedroom community part of Kiowa, complete with families where both parents work and children have a lot of free time between the end of school and their parent’s return from work (now that school is out their free time has greatly increased).  These are parents that work hard, travel long and are very jealous of their free time.  Many in this community moved out here to be left alone, but desperately need to know that the God of the Universe delights in them and desires a relationship with them. 

Do you have a dream for this church?  Are there ministries that God has been speaking to you about?  What would you like this church to look like in ten years?  In twenty years?  I really would like to hear what God has been telling you about his plans for this church.  Dreaming is an important part of the process, but it is only the first step.  The dreams that God gives us are invitations to journey with him and to be forever changed.  We need to be open to dreaming, we need to be open to change.