When humans experience a life- or world-changing advance, often it is the product of imagination. It is a person standing on the ground and imagining soaring with eagles. Once that vision is fixed in the imagination, it can bring the very best out of us. The Wright brothers relentlessly worked their design for manned powered flight and finally lifted off the ground at Kitty Hawk on December 17, 1903. Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson pushed through racial and gender boundaries to wield their mathematical and engineering prowess and put John Glenn into orbit fifty-nine years later. Once that imagined future, that vision, becomes real enough to taste, touch, hear, see and smell, there is no limit to the investment, risk and sacrifice people will make to live into the new story we imagine.
In The Message’s paraphrase of Ephesians, we read a life-changing affirmation: “God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams!” (Eph. 3:20-21)
Yates is now in a season set apart to refresh our church vision and mission and develop and implement strategies that enable the church to continue being the family of faith that God is calling it to be. That congregational conversation will happen in many ways, inviting both individual and collective engagement. We are daring to ask important questions and live outside of what we already know and prefer in service of the future God holds out for us. After all, if we envision a future based solely on what we already know, how likely are we to soar? I think it more likely that we remain grounded—longingly looking upward. Do we dare to believe that God is calling us to something we cannot even imagine for ourselves?
The first stage of the Visioning Leadership Team’s work is to create an environment that invites this kind of Spirit-driven imagination. Worship in September and beyond will be filled with opportunities for creative prayer experiences that invite you beyond what you know and imagine, into the very life of the Triune God. God is eager to show us that there is possibility where we see only impossibility, strength where we see weakness, new life where we see only death. God can do anything, you know.
It is in prayer that Christians set down their knowing selves and look with renewed curiosity at the church and the world we’re called to serve from God’s point of view. At its heart, prayer is a deeply relational practice that creates space to be with God, listen, and allow the Holy Spirit to form us into greater Christ-likeness. When we can see ourselves with God’s eyes and love the world with God’s own heart, then the path forward becomes much clearer, just as it says in Proverbs 3:5-6: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight.”
Through the invitation to personal devotion and creative approaches to prayer in worship (as well as some visual reminders around the campus), I hope you’ll allow the Holy Spirit to shape your hearts and minds and imagine what God imagines for Yates in this hopeful time!
Grace and Peace,