Here are two important questions:

1. Why are we here?
2. What are we doing about it?

Last fall, we had several strategic planning meetings. One of the things that grew out of those meetings was our new vision statement that you see at the top of our bulletin every week. But another was a conversation about why God has put us here, as Queen Esther would have said, “for such a time as this.” During the strategic planning meeting we asked two important questions. First, “What are the pressing needs of our community?” And second, “What are the strengths of our congregation?” Only when we answer the latter two questions, we will be able to answer the two questions that I asked at the beginning of this letter.

The needs that we listed in our meetings, with the input of many community leaders, were poverty, hunger, housing (including homelessness, blight, and high rents), lack of workforce and lack of jobs, safe places for youth, support for parents, mental health, drugs, and transportation. At the same time, we listed the strengths of our congregation as outreach, music, caring and compassionate congregation, generosity, education, leaders, organizers, our endowment, our connections and contacts, our physical plant/building and our adjoining lots used for both green space and the community garden.

That’s a lot.

But I want to keep these ideas in front of us rather than just allowing them to be an exercise that we once did and promptly forgot. Our community needs us, and our future depends upon us doing something about it.

And so, I’m inviting you all to think and dream about where these two lists intersect. What is the intersection of What we are, and what is needed? What is the intersection of “Why are we here?” and “What do the people around us need us to be and do?”

We really need you to do this.

Often, I ask these sorts of questions in our newsletter, and everyone seems to think that they are rhetorical questions (they are not). And I never get more than one or two answers, if any. But these questions need to be answered and I will be bringing them to our church boards for more discussion as we seek to find a new direction, purpose, and yes, a new strategic plan for our future.

But what might that look like?

From the list above, it could be many things, but here is an example based on something that we already do, and with which we already have some familiarity. Think about housing. Last week the Alliance chapter of Habitat for Humanity accepted applications for this year’s round of construction. Habitat will build or renovate three houses, but they had something like 150 applications. Yikes.  That number is mind blowing, but it gives us a glimpse of insight into the housing needs of our community.

So, what if, instead of raising money for three months, once every other year, for our share of the Apostle build, what if we raised money for twenty-four months? What if, instead of setting our goal at $5,000. We set a goal of $20,000 or even $150,000 (which is the cost of an entire Habitat house)?

What if, as some churches are doing in other states, we used some of our vacant land to build “tiny houses” to help get homeless people in our community under a roof, out of the weather, and help them move toward a better life?

What if our church bought and renovated one of the empty buildings in our city and created a multi-unit, low cost, rent-controlled, safe place, apartment complex?

These are all examples to help you dream. Some of them are big dreams. But honestly, given the resources, generosity, and leadership available in our congregation, I believe that, given enough time, any of them, or all of them, are possible for us to achieve if we decided to do so. But housing is just one of the needs that we listed.

What else might God be calling us to be or to do?

Why are we here?

What are we doing about it?

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