Summer Hiatus

So despite my best intentions I ended up taking half of July and most of August off from my blog!

Well here is to renewed intentions to blog regularly.  I have been reading - Parker Palmer's The Courage to Teach; James Hollis' Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life: How to Finally Really Grow Up;  Gil Rendle's Multigenerational Community: Meeting the Leadership Challenge. 

I have been thinking a lot this summer about the fact that the ways we create and maintain faith community are increasingly unsustainable and that they really don't work for our families.  In my congregation I notice how irregularly families attend, how they can no longer be the primary and only source for staffing our faith development programs, we are not doing all that we can do to help our parents be the primary religious educators of their children.  As a professional religious educator I both want to change and transform our faith communities and realize that I also participate in propping up an unsustainable system.

How do we both create new things and keep things going at the same time?  It is not like we can just stop what we are doing and re-build it from the ground-up (well I suppose you can but in liberal religious community that is usually a sure way to make sure that the change will not be long-lasting and you will need a new job!).  Life in faith community means building support, getting feedback, making change and acknowledging the fear of change.  It doesn't have to be slow but it does have to be intentional!

As I step into the chaos that the start of the church year begins, I am beginning by asking my families how they are.  What could we do better?  From there I hope to move us toward changes that will better meet the needs of our families - adults, children and youth.  I am also remembering to breathe, to ask for help and trust the Spirit!

May it be so!