The Coat Rack

Our Parish Vision, “To show the transforming love and justice of God in action” is kind of like a coat rack. It is the thing we hang an awful lot of stuff on. Our Parish Vision has influenced how we view our beautiful church-building. Although we don’t specifically say so in the Vision itself, hung on it is the hope that the church-building will be utilized more often and for a greater variety of things.

As a result of this hope we have used the church-building for things like coffee-hour, concerts, rallies, meetings, educational forums, CD launches, music videos, and for tourists. All of this while maintaining the building’s principle use as a house of worship.

It is a short-sighted vision if this is as far as it goes. It is now time to apply some of the things we’ve hung on our Parish Vision to our use of the Parish hall. How can it be used to help further the hopes and dreams of our Parish Vision?

A few years ago, with the 250 for 250 Capital Campaign we raised money to help maintain the structural integrity of our three buildings. Our hope is that it will be another quarter century before we need to raise this kind of money for our buildings. It seems to me that the raising of this money means that it will serve us well to think about how we use the Parish hall in light of our Parish Vision?

To help decide this, the Parish Council has asked for the development of a strategic plan for the hall. On Saturday, December 2 at a breakfast in the Parish hall we will gather to begin this work. And you are invited. Breakfast starts at 9:00 a.m., and the strategic planning exercise begins at 9:45 a.m. You can come for breakfast and the exercise; or for one or the other. It’s up to you.