1.       “THE CALLING TO WHICH YOU HAVE BEEN CALLED”- only clergy? Vocation is for all the baptized…

“Road to Damascus?”…not usually

In our life of faith and worship, we are being addressed by God…how hear that “voice?”

Vocation is mediated through the community…CLERGY= Discernment process/Commission on Ministry

VESTRY- you are chosen, commissioned, “called”

VOCATION- “Where my deep gladness and the world’s  great need intersect” Fredrich Buechner

-          If I am being truly called by God, it will become evident that I cannot NOT respond.

-          “If I say, ‘I will not mention [God], or speak anymore in God’s name,’ then there is something like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I am weary of holding it in, and I cannot.”  Jeremiah 20:9

    2.       “GRACE GIVEN UNTO EACH”- each person has something of great value to offer

“There is One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism…”. In a BAPTISMAL ECCLESIOLOGY the “top of the hierarchy” is achieved at BAPTISM. All orders and ministries are derived from the grace bestowed at God’s initiative at Baptism.   

Does not LOWER the importance of ordination or professional expertise- RAISES the importance of the Ministry of All the Baptized.

RESULT: More is expected of Vestries other lay ministers than in the past.

NOT THE RECTOR’S FAULT! It is the world and its condition that is pressing this upon us…

     9/11

       3.       ‘EQUIP THE SAINTS”

LEADERSHIP IN THE CHURCH DOES NOT mean “doing the work so somebody else doesn’t have to.”

LEADERSHIP= Providing the means for the people of CCC to carry out their ministries.

Provide the means for:  the discernment of ministries

                                           Training and formation

                                           Support and encouragement

                                           Oversight = episcope includes accountability and protection

         4.       “TO MATURITY…TO THE MEASURE OF THE STATURE OF THE FULLNESS OF CHRIST”

“Healthy Congregations” workshop-   “Maturity”= “Self-Differentiation”

                                                                                          Define Yourself

                                                                                           Stay Connected to Others

                                                                                         Regulate your own Anxiety

Do not be “tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind…”

SPIRITUAL MATURITY not completely fulfilled through “self-differentiation”- Jesus said in the gospels that to enter the kingdom of God, one must “become like a child.”

Laughter, fun, and humility in a church are signs of  Spiritual Maturity.

“…only a mature adult can fully appreciate childhood, only a prisoner can fully appreciate freedom, and only the dead can fully live. “

    

         5.       “SPEAKING THE TRUTH IN LOVE”