Tow Chains

I remember when I was about 8 or 9 years old my dad took me to an old farm to help him haul an abandoned car home so that he could make it into a racecar.  This car had been sitting in a field.  It had been stripped of its’ engine, interior seats and dash.  It was basically a steel shell on wheels with a steering wheel and little else.  We took along a rolling set of tires and a five-gallon bucket that became the makeshift seat that I sat on and steered the vehicle as my dad attached a 25-foot log chain to the bumper and pulled it home with mom’s 1964 Ford Fairlane.  I sat white knuckled as I held onto the steering wheel, trying to balance on the bucket, and use the brake pedal just enough to keep tension in the chain when we approached intersections.  At times I didn’t hold enough tension and there was slack in the chain.  When my dad accelerated it suddenly pulled tight and with a quick jerk, my car lurched forward again, dumping me off of the bucket in the process.  For me, it was a learning experience…both in how to be the lead car that is pulling the other car forward and also in how to work together with the lead car driver to prevent the hard starts and stops that cause whiplash or damage to the car.

Church leadership is very similar to that experience that I had as a child.  The pastors and elders are always looking ahead and trying to lead in such a way that it moves the church forward in a smooth and comfortable direction and pace.  They have to move in such a way that they keep the chain tight enough to move forward but also navigate the pace and the obstacles in such a way to allow the church to follow smoothly. The pace varies, at times fast, other times slow.

For the church, it must find the ability to work together with the leaders so that there are not sudden reactions that cause unnecessary drag of the brakes or cause hard jerking ahead.  As the elders pull the church forward, there must be the proper amount of tension on the tow chain in order for the process to go smoothly.

As we close out the year 2024 and look forward to 2025, the elders and pastors would covet your prayers.  This weekend (December 7th) we are holding a planning retreat to focus on some of the visionary needs for 2025.  This includes putting final touches on our updates to the constitution, discussing roles and job descriptions of the pastors and other church leadership roles, putting together a strategy for discipleship for all ages, looking at our facility needs and more.

All of us have opinions on these issues.  The work that the leadership will be putting in will be to figure out how do we best transition our ministry into the future while getting the spiritual results that are needed to fulfill our call to help each one of us grow to the fullness of the measure of Jesus.  Pray for the leadership team as we seek to lead at a pace that is healthy for the church and honoring to the call of leadership in the local church.  Pray for our decision making process, our vision for what God wants to do among us, and our understanding and putting together of the communication processes that need to happen in order for us to have a healthy transition from where we are now to where God wants us to go in the future.  Here are the names for you to keep in prayer.

Elder Chairman Rod Huxman, Elder Jim Sugars, Pastor Don Den Hartog, Pastor Dwight Carter

Thanks for your faithful prayers!

Pastor Dwight