so mission bay community church says good bye to the big silver box @ 1040 mariposa this week and says hello to 32 ocean.
and this week i sat in my organizational leadership class and tried to define a "christian congregation." what a mess. i have experienced christian congregations, but trying to put that experience in a small box of a few specific words is difficult--especially when you have a tendency to get bogged down in post-modern deconstruction. but it was an extremely fruitful conversation for it messiness, and the true messiness of the concept is what i took away from the conversation.
so if it is hard to define "congregation," it seems even harder to me to define congregational leadership, the role of a congregational leader, or what i should be as a congregational leader. and in this move process, i find myself (whether jumping in or being thrown in i am not sure) making decisions, supervising work, packing boxes, cleaning... all kinds of ways i guess i manifest my congregational leadership. some of these ways have been surprising for me. i had to trust myself (and God for sure) as i spent thousands on new carpet--a color no one but me had seen yet. the following day, i realized that there was just as much leadership required to sweat out the moving of furniture, books, and whatever else we found to prepare to have the carpet installed. and to work on negotiating sharing space, meet new people i will be in a new kind of community with (as two "congregations" will be sharing church space)... the list goes on.
this moving process is teaching me what leadership is and what a congregation is ways the discussion in class never will--but in ways that would be seriously less significant without the discussion in class. i am deeply grateful for the "congregation" at mission bay that is allowing me this experiment, this trial and error, this growth, in leadership... and those many folks in the congregation that model leadership for me. i didn't lift boxes alone.
on that note... shout out to shannon powers, our most fabulous move coordinator, queen of the transition. and ricky, tammie, simona, as well as the janitors and the staff @ ocean ave. presbyterian church for short notice help preparing the space for the carpet.
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And then there is the kind of leadership that is absent from so much of it the move - vacillating between guilt from not being there help in the way hard dirty work to sadness from not being part of being part of the community that is built through said hard dirty work!
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