I go looking for gold and instead find a pearl. So it goes every week as I craft a sermon.You've done it, too, although maybe not sermonizing. You know, you're looking for a missing earring underneath the dresser, and instead you find a $5 bill.
Sidney Harris, a syndicated journalist, used to write an occasional column called "Things I Learned While Looking Up Other Things." He also found pearls while he was looking for gold.
So this week's find -- while I was researching Christian unity (or disunity) -- was this bit of wisdom about the church's willingness to change.
It's from the Alban Institute's Daniel P. Smith and Mary K. Sellon, authors of Pathway to Renewal: Practical Steps for Congregations (courtesy of Homiletics Online):
“Your congregation is what it is today not because of what a bad pastor did to it, or because the neighborhood has changed or because our culture is going to hell in a handbasket. Although those occurrences and many others have had an impact, your congregation is what it is today because of how it responded, or failed to respond, to the realities it faced.
"What your congregation will be in the future is up to you and the other members and how you work together to create something new from the realities you face. What you do or don’t do now will make the difference. Your actions will either reinforce the patterns that have become established in your congregation or start to counter and shift them. The leadership provided by your pastor can help or hinder, but it cannot make your congregation succeed or keep it from ultimately achieving the goals you set for yourselves.”
If you're part of a church, that's food for thought. If you're not, and you've read this far, maybe there's a congregation nearby whose newly discovered reality includes you.
Original posts at http://wrigleypreacher.blogspot.com
Image by NaturalyPure
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