This was said by a leader at a Texas Methodist Foundation seminar on change management and its truth stuck to me. Any significant long-term change has its origin and its development in a series of significant conversations.
Herb Kelleher's notion for a low-cost, no-frills airline began over a dinner conversation. Project Transformation was sketched out on a napkin over a conversation between a pastor and a layperson. Healthy, optimistic, can-do conversation indeed buys positive change. I had two such conversations recently.
Last Saturday, as an extension of our Healthy Church Initiative, 10 individuals from our church met with leaders from our Conference who guided our conversations around creating new spaces for new faces outside of our church walls. It was the stuff of creativity - dreams, competing ideas, a step forward, a step backward, excitement, and some frustration. This eventually led to a framework for moving ahead with an idea around pop-up events in public spaces including block parties in each of our neighborhoods. We could call this MASH Worship and MASH Neighborhood Meals, where we become "Methodists At Sharing Hope" with those around us.
In a "meeting after the meeting" a smaller group had a conversation about a new worship service in our Chapel. We could reach people we don't yet know from outside of our church and perhaps not on a Sunday morning.
Conversations. They are the currency by which we buy into the change God is calling us to do as we Connect God and Grace to Self and the Community.
Do any of these conversations poke your curiosity? Let us know ... and join the conversation.
Grace for our words,
Matt Gaston
Lead Pastor