The process is based on intentional conversations, prayerful exploration, and finding our way together. We are able to move as swiftly or as slowly as the rhythm and energy of the congregation allows. It is as important not to rush the process as it is to take too long. As we move through the process we are learning as we go and adapting our approach based on new opportunities, e.g., Houses of Hope, and the learnings from others, e.g., cases shared by SNEUCC.

God only knows. For the rest of us, we are truly seeking the Spirit’s guidance believing that the way forward resides among our collective wisdom. Although we can learn from others, every congregation has its own culture, history, gifts, and contexts.

Together we can find our way. It will be based upon who we are, built upon the platform of our history, and look different from the church we were pre-Covid, let alone decades earlier.

Again, God only knows.

However, theologically and spiritually speaking, yes. We believe that God in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit calls us individually into communities where God’s love is made real in how we are in relationship and how we combine our collective gifts to bring healing and hope to the world.

Communities throughout history have understood God’s vision and their mission in different ways based on a variety of factors including the hearts, hopes and hurts of the gathered community.  Jesus commissioned the first disciples, the Spirit fell upon the Pentecost gathering, and the Apostle Paul interpreted the mission and purpose for the early church revealed in how we are with one another and how we work together as a body to reveal God’s love in the world.

Writing from the experience of the poor and oppressed, liberation theologian Juan Lous Segundo, S.J. speaks to this question, suggesting that “Through Christ God gave every man (sic) the possibility of loving others, and he (sic) joined all men (sic) and every individual in solidarity; he (sic) thus put love in everyone’s hands as the divine instrument of salvation. This possibility is as vast and as ancient as humanity itself.“

Segundo also suggests that community becomes sacramental whenever we “risk our best and deepest selves, cede autonomy, and become interdependent and vulnerably committed to community in love.” Summarizing and paraphrasing his challenge to the dominant culture of Western Christianity in that “being gathered together in the name of Jesus does not necessarily mean Christ is present; Christ is revealed and truly present only when the people gather and act lovingly and justly to create a happening in history. For community to be community, we need to be grounded in something more than pronouncements, values or showing up in the same place, i.e., God’s vision.”

Segundo’s thoughts reconcile well with the Congregational belief that acknowledge the church as the people who gather and seek the Spirit’s guidance in all decisions large and small.