The Latest on the Seekers

You will recall, gentle readers, that I promised last week to continue our discussion of biblical authority and the multiple ways of approaching scriptural interpretation. Never fear, I’ll get to it, but this week I’d like to create a diversion and fill you all in on the latest from the Covenant Seekers process. As you may know, Friday and Saturday of last week we met with our coaches, Beverly and George Thompson, in our second retreat, and I suppose the first thing I should do is explain why they call themselves “coaches” rather than “consultants.” First of all, they are coaches in the sense of talking us through any difficulties we might have in our ongoing discovery/discernment process. In any deeply-probing process, problems inevitably arise along the way. These range from relatively simple problems in interpreting training exercises to more thorny complications involving performance and implementation. The Thompsons stand ready and willing to “coach us through” these difficulties via email and/or telephone, providing continuity to our efforts that wouldn’t be possible with just periodic visits.

But they are coaches in a deeper sense, as well . . . one of the hallmarks of sports is that a coach teaches a team of athletes to become more proficient. Football teams become better football teams, soccer teams become better soccer teams, etc. In the same way, the Thompsons are teaching us how to do church more efficiently, how to respond to change more intelligently, and how to become a more unified local expression of Christ’s body. Many so-called “church renewal processes” simply create a plan and attempt to implement it. In the Covenant Seeker process, while there will be a vision for the future, we are acquiring the tools so that when the formal, two-year time-frame is over, we will be able to continually evaluate our ministry and mission to better conform to God’s will. An (imperfect) analogy is the well-known tale about how it’s better to teach someone to fish than just to give them fish. Give a church renewal, and it will be renewed; teach a church to continually renew itself, and it might just live forever. Or something like that.

A key to all of this is being responsive to change, but not in an off-the-cuff, willy-nilly way. In particular, not so that we throw the baby out with the bathwater and lose what is best in ourselves, what makes Covenant the wonderful place that attracted us in the first place. That’s why we spent the last several months interviewing a number of you all about what, for you, are the great experiences of the church. And now I’m happy to say that we will be sharing these stories with the congregation in a number of ways. One group will be developing creative, visually-based ways to display these stories, as well as other results of the Covenant Seekers process; look for these in the near future. Another group will be publishing these stories in text form (anonymously, of course) in a variety of ways. Look for them in the newsletter, on Sunday mornings and (soon) on the new Covenant blog (covenantpres.blogspot.com). And to kick things off, read Dusti Deaver’s wonderful ruminations elsewhere in this newsletter. I think she captures beautifully her love affair with this wonderful congregation. Next week we return to our regularly scheduled programming.