I actually wrote this in my journal in February, but simply did not take the time to post it on here. I finally decided to spend less time watching TV. I have a lot of things that I think about and realized that I should just write them down, so they do not mingle in my mind forever and keep me up at night. Anyway, here is what I wrote in my journal about the church and the future.
This is something I realized a few weeks ago. In a church you have to think about how actions affect the future generations. I came across this idea while thinking about the future of my church because we are currently looking for a new pastor. I have come to learn throughout my life in the church and as a leader's daughter, how true this statement is. In the present, we tend to think about the present, what is going on and how we are feeling. I have had to watch some pretty serious mistakes and decisions that have torn rifts and cliffs into the church. The parties involved often only thought about the current problem and how to cover it up or make it disappear. However, this caused some fatal repercussions. I have seen people leave immediately following the incident, others were severely hurt, and others tried to forget or ignore it. The problem in some of these cases was that the next generation that was 'too young' at the time of the incidences later wanted answers but were not satisfied and/or disagreed with the answer and left the church. This is sad and could have been prevented. This was and still is hard to watch especially when these people are some of your best friends. When you are in a church d learn about division, you cannot be satisfied with a simple answer as that they could not work together, something happened that should not have, or someone did something they should not have. In the eyes of the next generation that is a ridiculous reason to cause division. We are called to be one body. A church that preaches unity but cannot keep it or does not try to keep it, could be considered hypocritical. In a church, people should work hard to keep the unity and the body functional even when diseases hit. After all, we would not cut a limb when it becomes diseased. Sometimes different parts have to find a balance or make different compromises. More importantly, we have to look at our actions and see what consequences they may have in the future.
Another reason why I came to think about this idea is that our church has a so called 20/20 vision plan, where we want to raise 20 leaders every year in the next 20 years. I never liked the idea of putting numbers to visions because it seems so limiting or too ambitious. I do not like to be disappointed and think, 'What if we do not reach that number?' I have learned, though, that this may be something that God gave to our pastor as a vision, so it cannot be wrong or bad. I also learned my lesson during the preparation for the YDJ retreat. Pastor Jacob said we should pray for 50 attendants., but we only had about 20 at that point and 36 the year before. 50 just seemed unreachable. I was even going to change the number to 30 or 40 on the prayer topic list but did not. Surprisingly, we had more than 50 attendants. My doubts were crushed, and God gave me new vision and reminded me not to limit Him. Having a vision for the future is important ans has an impact on future generations. It gives them something to work toward.
