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Note from the Pastor, March 3, 2013

  Church consultant Jack Tacoma began last week’s Discovery Weekend by reassuring the twenty-five leaders that Hope Fellowship was a very healthy church. Maurice, one of our pastoral elders, immediately quipped, “So why are we here?”
  Why, indeed?
  Kingfisher Bay Retreat Centre, the cozy lodge on Stony Lake that became our home for twenty-four hours, is dedicated to “providing a safe and inviting space for individuals, couples, groups and families to grow in their understanding of God, self and others.” And that’s exactly why we met: to understand where God has taken us so far and where God wants us to go next.
  It was helpful to begin the weekend by understanding that we are no longer a small church, but a medium sized church on the verge of becoming a large church. Our current size and our steady growth have implications for the way decisions are made and how its programs, ministries and staff are structured and managed.
  On Saturday, we focused on listing our church’s strengths and setting goals in three areas: Belief, Belong and Bless. These three “B” words have resonated with the Administration Board ever since we discovered them two years ago in Rick Rusaw and Eric Swanson’s The Externally Focused Quest. We wanted to emerge from the weekend with three or four ambitious spiritual goals for the congregation, and it was extremely helpful to zero in on believing, belonging and blessing.
  So what are the three bold goals? I can’t tell you yet. The Planning Committee still needs to tweak them and think about the best way to engage the whole congregation in discussing, owning and implementing them. What I can tell you is that the goals are clear enough, yet broad enough, that there’s lots of room for everyone to be involved in spelling out the “courageous proposals” and action steps that come next.
  How do we know that the Belief, Belong and Blessing goals that came out of the Discovery Weekend are the Lord’s will for Hope Fellowship?
  In one sense, we won’t fully know that we have understood God’s will for our church until we begin working on our goals. Only then will they be confirmed … or not.
  But in another sense, we have to trust that God laid these three ambitious goals on our hearts in answer to our prayers. After all, we did bathe this process in prayer. For the last three weeks, the whole congregation followed the Twenty-One Day Prayer Guide. The two prayer groups that meet regularly at the church prayed constantly for the leaders and the weekend. During the weekend itself, every leader was supported by an individually assigned prayer partner. And at Kingfisher Bay, we prayed in our large groups and in our small break out groups. In fact, it was in our small groups that we experienced the most challenging and interesting time of prayer of all. Something Jack Tacoma called “Listening Prayer” (see this week’s Hopeful Story).
  There was laughter; there were tears. We enjoyed amazing meals; we hiked an inspiring nature trail. We shared our individual dreams; we agreed on three bold spiritual goals. We prayed, learned, brain-stormed, collaborated and robustly celebrated our unity in Christ with powerful worship times led by two dueling guitars and Jack’s blues harmonicas.
  “Every voice was heard in this process,” observed Alisha, one of our Admin Board elders. Going forward, Hope Fellowship’s leadership is committed to making sure that everyone on “The Journey of Hope: The Next Chapter” is also given the opportunity to be heard.
  So thank God for an excellent weekend. And stay tuned! 
- Pastor Peter

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