Dear First Pres,
Just about a month ago our Session (the church leadership board of elders) met for our annual Session Retreat. Our tradition at the retreat is to seek the Lord about the spiritual health of our congregation and discern the strategic priorities for the upcoming year. This year was no different. In our May Session meeting (we meet on the Third Tuesday of the month) we spent some time refining the work that we did on the retreat. Some of this work is still in process, but there a few areas of strategic priority that we are ready to share. One of them is mostly about our Session and the other is about our congregation as a whole.
First, for ourselves as the elders of Session, we want to grow in our own faith as a community surrendered to Christ. It can be easy for the focus of Session to be functional or task oriented. But we feel led by the Spirit to become more relational and worship oriented. The Session is called by God to give spiritual oversight to our congregation; therefore, we must prioritize our own spiritual health in Christ ... not just as individuals, but together. To attend to this priority, we plan to spend more time praying, more time learning, and more time encouraging each other in Christ. We pray that these changes amongst our leadership community will be used by God to increase the same commitments amongst our congregation.
Second, we long to increase engagement. The opening words of our Purpose Statement are "to engage together." We believe that personal engagement in our church's purpose is the most effective way for us to grow in Christ individually and live obediently to Christ's call on First Presbyterian Church. So, we long to have more and more of our congregation truly engaging together in the work of the Gospel. Here's how we described it at Session: "Our church community will intentionally connect with one another, consistently participate in the life of the church and be fully committed to our purpose statement."
So, what's this mean for you? First, if you're not already in the habit of praying for our Session, I encourage you to do so. We need the Lord's help to become the kind of leadership community that we long to experience together. Pray that the Lord truly draws us together in the unity of Christ, increases our faith, and helps us to truly love one another as we lead this congregation. Second, take some time to consider your own engagement. Many of you are deeply engaged. In fact, if you've read all the way to this part of my letter, I'd argue that you are more engaged than most. (Thanks, by the way.) But I encourage you to talk to the Lord about your engagement in the purpose that God has given our church. How does the Session's statement above "our church community will ..." reflect your relationship with FPC?
Meanwhile, the ministry teams will be working on specific goals and strategies to pursue the priorities that the Session has articulated. So, you can expect to hear more about this in the months to come.
May the Lord have His way in and through our congregation.
Blessings,
Jeremy
P.S. This week's Scripture reading for our Flawed and Flawless sermon series Judges 16
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