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A New Way of Being in the World
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
and streams in the wasteland.
-Isaiah 43:19
When you go from being single to being in a relationship, you quickly learn that decisions are no longer made the way they once were. Instead of one calendar to check, there are two. Instead of simply taking care of oneself, there is someone else to consider and care for who also wants to care for you. Such a relationship can be a huge adjustment that takes time, thought, and effort, but there is that voice in our hearts, the love and joy that keeps us coming back to work at it together and to find a new way of being ourselves in this world.
Open Door Churches: A New Way
In this way, we as Open Door Churches are in a relationship with each other and are finding new ways to be ourselves in this world. We are learning about the gifts we each bring to this community, are learning to work together on projects, ministries, and events. Friendships are being made and we are learning to care for people we didn't know before. This has brought a richness into our lives, a joy in the knowledge we are a wider community stretching across the miles of Salem-Keizer and that we are not in this alone.
New Decision Making
To guide our decision making as we navigate this still-new relationship, Open Door Churches has a board made up of representatives from each congregation meeting once a month throughout our six churches. It's a caring group of people who are listening deeply, imaging a new way of being, and learning from each other on how to be Open Door Churches.
Pastors and Congregations
One of the biggest tasks the board has undertaken is to imagine and put into action a new kind of relationship between pastors and congregations. Instead of having one pastor per church as we've had before, now each congregation has five people to serve, lead, and with whom to do ministry. To further develop this new way of being and serving, Alyssa, Dan, Sandy, and Wendy are going to all be preaching this summer during a special sermon series on Ephesians so we can all get to know each of them better. It's a new way of doing church, an out of the box way of doing things that is very much needed in a time and culture that no longer plays by the same rules.
Updates!
It's an exciting time for us! No longer limited to how things have been done before, we can dream up with God something entirely new and incredible. We can be a community that sticks by one another, encouraging our gifts and questions as we learn to walk this new road together and reach out to the wider communities around us.
To help us do that, here is what the board is working on right now:
- Worship and Community Picnic - We're gathering on Sunday, September 9th at Riverfront Park for worship outdoors and a community picnic afterwards.
- Now that the initial work of coming together has been done, the board is focusing on intercultural competency, communications, and community. We want to know how we can be a community that celebrates diversity and comes together with the gifts of our commonalities and differences.
- The board now has representatives from Las Naciones! Las Naciones has been growing and is almost ready to charter as a new United Methodist Church congregation!
Everyone is always welcome to participate in the board meetings. The next one will be held on June 25th at 6:00 p.m. at Morningside UMC. In the meantime, let's dream together what Open Door Churches can do and become!
Sarah Katreen Hoggatt |
