Helping Paths Cross

I've been a little slow in taking my turn to post my continuing thoughts on the Presbytery of Cincinnati's Transformation Proposal. Russell Smith has a couple of posts with his thoughts so far (here, here, and here), and I've got a couple of posts about this as well (here and here).

On Monday night, I attended a focus group for anyone wishing to provide feedback to the Transformation Team. It's kinda sad to say, but I was only one of six people who took the time to attend this meeting. Granted, they've got a couple other focus group meetings on the calendar, but it's still disappointing.

Anyway, one of the thoughts that occurred to me during this meeting has to do with the "permission-giving" design of the proposed structure. As I've mentioned in the past, I love that we're striving to be more permission-giving. One of the statements about this proposed structure is that this Presbytery would be one "that is not afraid to risk how ministry emerges, is done, or is financed." Let me give a loud Pentecostal "Amen" to that!

One of the challenges as this structure emerges will be to connect people who have mutual ministry passions. We may have one person at Union who is passionate about providing help to single mothers. There may also be someone at Covenant First and one at Heritage.

But let's suppose that none of them are go-getters. They're not going to start making phone calls or publicizing this potential ministry; they just have a desire to help single moms. If, however, they knew that there were others in the Presbytery who also were passionate about this, they might together begin to form this ministry and obtain the support it needs from the Presbytery.

One of Presbytery's roles in all this will be to connect people who may not otherwise cross paths. How this can be done is up for discussion. Could there be a presbytery-wide survey of what people are passionate about? Perhaps Presbytery could then work to connect those with common passions.

That's one idea. I think the Presbytery generally will have to continue to work to create a culture of cooperation and connectedness.

I'm curious to see what will happen.