Finding Your Place

With terror run amok in the world, it seems as though nothing will ever be the same again. Life as we know it will carry the scars of that terrible Tuesday in the shape of our grief and in the myriad anxieties we now bear upon every journey. Suddenly the planet feels far more dangerous than at any time during the Cold War. With sinister plans and advanced weaponry amassed in the hands of suicidal zealots, we must submit our society to the kind of high-tech monitoring previously dreamed of only in science-fiction movies. Questions of who we are and what we're doing will, of necessity, occupy the world's spy masters in ways the likes of Robert Ludlum and John Le Carré have merely imagined.

Big Brother paranoia aside, these difficult times ask similar questions of us at a personal level. What is most important in our lives? Whom do we really care about? And what do our lives mean against the backdrop of chaos and heartache on the East Coast? These inner reflections also prompt the deepest reviews of our faith. In whom can we trust? And where and how do we find meaning for our community?

It is with such thoughts implicit in the minds of those attending our Church Board's fall retreat that a great deal of vision took shape. Three teams applied their creative spin to the following ten commissions as a core theme for ministry at Green Lake in the coming year. These commissions ask that the pastor will:

1. Remind us constantly of our connectedness with God and thereby enhance our spiritual sensibilities.
2. Inspire us to re-examine regularly our lives, values, and goals to ensure a life of meaning.
3. Elevate our vision of what it means to express Christian compassion and love.
4. Infuse our core traditions with new meaning, vibrancy, and relevancy.
5. Help us to discover the hidden gifts of our members and to entice them to serve.
6. Inspire us to imagine new ways to touch the lives of those in our community and in society at large.
7. Expand our concept of diversity, and foster dialogue to reduce racism.
8. Challenge us to develop vibrant new programs for our youth; to strengthen the community of those early in their careers; and to comfort the aged, the infirm, and the lonely.
9. Show us how to reach those of our own faith who have become disillusioned and disaffected.
10. Instruct us about stewardship both in our personal lives and on behalf of the church.

My initial response to these challenges is a heart-felt commitment to a year-long exploration of our identity and purpose as Seventh-day Adventist Christians. The theme "Finding Your Place" embraces our search and hunger for spiritual growth in the context of building kinship with each other and with the wider community in which we all live.

I pray that God will bless our journey with the power of the Holy Spirit and with a synergy born of divine love at a time in our history when these gifts and virtues have never been more needed.

God bless you and all those you minister to in these days of national mourning and regeneration.

- David Wood, Senior Pastor