Future Grace Part 1

I was once heavily recruited to be an Episcopal Church planter in Columbia, Missouri. The three-day process with the bishop, canon and other people included several sessions of interviews and testing with a psychologist. The diocese was applying some industrial testing methods to determine if their candidates had the right mix of entrepreneurial characteristics. Surprise, I maxed out that part. I was the only candidate to have started and run two companies that were sold to much larger, publicly traded companies.

In the end, I declined the job. I can’t even give a specific reason why. Joan and I prayed about it and the Spirit moved us, just not to Columbia. Postlude to this story. The diocese had done everything right. They had purchased the land on a corner in a growing section of town. (Columbia has tripled in size since Joan and I met there in 1978.) They had $1M in the bank to cover promotional and startup costs. They did hire a young priest, but after four years, the church plant failed to take root. Start ups are risky, uncertain ventures.

One of the dirty little secrets of this pandemic is that for church leaders and many business leaders, I suspect, there is MORE work to do now during the pandemic than before. True, church leaders cannot do very much visiting of parishioners, but I am spending much more time in prayer and study. What has become abundantly clear to me is that in the protracted “return to normal” period at the end of the pandemic, we cannot return to the same as before. As the title to Thomas Wolfe’s posthumous novel puts it, “You Can’t Go Home Again.”

You can’t go home again because during the journey away from home, home changes. It is human nature to desire quiescence, stability and reliability. For Episcopalians, such homeostasis is ingrained at birth. But the future is likely to be more of a wild west than a 1950s “Leave it to Beaver” show. What is the role of church in a society of lawlessness, bawdiness and vulgarity?

One of the major assets Grace Episcopal Church in Muskogee has over a new church startup is a beautiful, old, well-maintained property. Aside from a few projects here and there, we have a great looking facility. The fact that the church is old and has been here 125 years is also a liability. You would be surprised how often I have encountered lifelong Muskogee residents who say, “Grace Episcopal … now where is that church?”

The church and especially the surrounding property still do not stand out or distinguish itself from the surrounding community. Completing Margaret’s Garden at Sixth and Broadway will help put us on the map. But we need to pay attention to exterior lighting and signage.

The future for Grace Episcopal in this community will combine the elements of a new church plant with the best of our assets to date. While we are in this interregnum period, we need to keep improving and refining our ministries, our people, and our physical plant. Then we will be ready to press the RESTART button.

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