Part of how we, as Hope Church, are “discerning our future” has been working with polarities. We began the journey in 2011, based on the work of Barry Johnson and Roy Oswald, who wrote a book entitled Managing Polarities in Congregations: Eight Keys for Thriving Faith Communities. The central idea of polarities is that many important questions cannot be answered with a simple either/or choice. If the answers for building successful church communities were that straightforward, everyone would do it! Polarities recognize the importance of questions that lead to both/and choices.
The polarities Johnson and Oswald identify are :
- Tradition AND Innovation
- Strong Clergy Leadership AND Strong Lay Leadership
- Inreach AND Outreach
- Spiritual Health AND Institutional Health
- Management AND Leadership
- Nurture AND Transformation
- Making Disciples: Easy Process AND Challenging Process
Hope Church chose to work on the first 3, and added one of our own: Individual AND Community. We have seen the fruit of that discernment and consideration in many parts of the life of the church over the years. It led us to consider what our themes and focus should be for the longer term. In 2012 we chose our themes:
- provide provisions for the journey;
- welcome all;
- connect with and witness to the community; and
- engender deep engagement
To “check in” with the congregation at large to see if we were doing and being what we intended, we did an initial survey based on the polarities in 2015. That provided a baseline for the survey we completed this past fall. Overall, the 2018 survey (like the baseline) affirmed our direction and the work we are engaged in together, including, in particular, the goal of deep engagement. In the perception of those who took the survey, we are a congregation that lives with both/and thinking and discernment, which serves us well as we live into our future together.
Consistory and ministries will continue to learn from the feedback you’ve given us, and consider specific suggestions made in the comments, as we work to discern our future together. Thank you to all who participated.
~Discerning our Future Committee