Henrietta United Church of Christ

Revs. David Inglis and Martha Koenig Stone                                                  January 20, 2008

Annual Meeting Sunday: “Becoming the Church God Dreams Of”                       Joel 2:27-28

“Dream On!”

(This took place after the boards’ presentations)

Martha: Wow, what a lot of energy, activity, commitment, and even visions and dreams there were in those reports! 

Dave:  Isn’t it amazing what happens when everybody brings their little bit of faith and love, their commitment and ideas?  You stir it all up together, offer it to God, and let it loose.  This church has really become a dynamo!

M         That’s for sure.  Still, I wonder sometimes—is this what God imagined for us—you know, way back when, when Jesus was wandering around and teaching and healing and stuff—is this the kind of church God had in mind?  

D         Wow, that’s a good question.   Of course, we can’t really know what God was thinking.

M         Oh, I know.  But humor me for a minute.  If you were God, and you were sitting down with your cup of coffee—fair trade, of course—and making plans for the future, what kind of church would you dream up? 

D         Okay, I’ll give it a shot.  Let’s see.  You know, I think HUCC has got a lot of the things God would dream of being in a church, don’t you?  You know, like welcoming the stranger, no matter who they were or where they’ve been on life’s journey. 

M         Yeah, and like trying to love God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength, and trying to seek God’s kingdom first.

D         Right!  And loving our neighbors as ourselves—even people who are different from us or have special needs—and forgiving each other when we step on each others’ toes.

M         Yes, and seeing each one of us as a part of Christ’s body, and helping each person discover their gifts for ministry.

D         When we add all of those ingredients together, we really create a place where God’s Spirit can move among us, lift us, fill us, and empower us to do what we could never do alone.

M         It sounds like a dream church to me!  And you know, you’re right, there’s a lot of that here already……Still, I wonder, what’s next for HUCC?  What do you suppose God has in mind for our future?

D         Well, it seems pretty clear that God wants us to share our church with other people who are looking for a living faith and a caring community and a way to bring Christ’s love, hope and peace into the world.  So it looks like God wants our church family to make room for more brothers and sisters who can join us in our mission, because people need what we have here. 

M         So what do you think God’s vision is for HUCC 10 years down the road?  What will our church look like then?

D         You know, one thing I’ve come to realize is that God never reveals the future like that.  And the reason for that is that we can never jump into the future.  We have to grow into it, by starting where we are.  So the vision God gives us is for what our potential is that we can reach toward right now.   

M         So do you have a vision for what we can do and become right now?  What’s our next step?

D         God has been giving me a vision of a process that we could follow that would really help us move into God’s future together.  What I see for us right now starts with identifying the aspects of our church that really feed us and that we most value.  We’ll do that as we talk with each other at lunch today, and we’ll write them down.  I see us creating a Dreaming Team at the end of the meeting this afternoon, made up of a cross section of church--people who are willing to do a little reading and to go and scout out what other growing churches are doing, and bring back ideas that will begin to open our minds to ways God might be calling us to further develop the same gifts and things we value that we’ll write down today.  I see us having a few special meetings of our whole congregation over the next couple of years, where we will hear the best ideas the Dreaming Team has discovered, share our own ideas, and then we’ll listen together for the next steps that we sense God calling us to take.  As we become the church God dreams of , I can imagine us crackling with enthusiasm, bursting with new gifts, deepening in faith, and strengthening our unity, even as we provide a spiritual home for more people. 

M         It sounds like the vision you’re seeing isn’t so much a destination to reach as a journey for us to go on together. 

D         That’s exactly right.  As we say, faith is a journey, not a destination, because God’s dreams for us will always be calling us to go farther than we’ve gone already.   But what God is most concerned about isn’t how big or grand a church we’ve built, but how much faith, trust, love, courage, and shalom we’ve developed as we’ve traveled along. 

M         So really, from God’s point of view, it’s not how much we achieve that matters—what counts is that we continue to grow in our sense of connection with God and each other.  Wow! What a God!  God wants our spirits to flourish, as individuals and in community.  And that’s what we want for ourselves, too!  God’s dream is that our deepest needs will be met as we minister in Christ’s name. That’s an amazing thought.

D         Well, what do you expect from God? 

M         Nothin’ but the best! 

D         So now that we see that, what shall we do now?

M         Let’s keep dreaming!