Church, Past and Future

Dear Church in the Cliff,

I have just returned from a beautiful weekend at the Alliance of Baptist Convocation in Charlotte, North Carolina. I travelled with Genny Rowley, from our community, who will be seeking to have her chaplaincy affiliation through the Alliance, and also spent the weekend with Lara Arp, our previous interning/resident pastor as well as Pastor Laura and Dr. Fred.

It was a really special moment for me as community pastor to learn more about our relationship with the Alliance. I also had the pleasure of spending all afternoon on Saturday with Nancy, the founding pastor of City Church, the congregation which birthed Church in the Cliff last year. She shared with me her original vision of an arts church in an urban neighborhood and between Lara Arp and Pastor Laura they wove the story of the church's origins ten + years ago to the present. What a collection of spiritual entrepreneurs! I feel honored to stand in such a line of innovative female clergy and to serve a church so wedded to integrating the arts and pursuit of social justice into our worshiping core.

I also enjoyed their counsel and perspective on our future. The final speaker at the conference, Diane Butler Bass, talked about the need for progressive and life-filled churches to be 'generative Christians' and to define not just what we are not, but who and what we are. I loved her talk and see so much of our current transition and identity conversations as part of a broader movement among the Church in these times of change. What a cool moment to be listening for the Spirit in community.

I will be at Hunky's tonight from 6-7:30 to plan next Sunday's worship on I Corinthians and Love and look forward to seeing several of you there!

Much more to share but for now just wanted to post that I came home reminded how special a place our congregation is and excited to move into our next steps.

peace

Courtney