Spiritual Discernment for the Meeting House: What is God calling the Church to be in the Contemporary World?

Speakers: Members of the Strategic Planning Team

What is the Holy Spirit calling the church to be in the world? Throughout the church’s history, Christians have worked to answer that question, discerning how best to live Christian values in a way that addresses the unique circumstances in which they live. Earlier Meeting House generations have gone through this discernment process, in periods ranging from our national founding to the pre-Civil War era and the Civil Rights Movement.

At the beginning of this year, under the leadership of the Session, our congregation began a period of spiritual discernment. Over the past eight months, our strategic planning team has engaged the congregation actively through a series of individual and group discussions aimed at answering the question of whom we are called to be as Christians in this time.

During this adult forum, we are excited to share the main themes and highlights from engagements with our congregation since January, including mission and vision statements—drawn directly from congregational input—that the Session has approved on the congregation’s behalf. We are blessed with a caring, thoughtful, and engaged congregation—one that has articulated a vision that is exciting, ambitious, and clear-eyed about the vital role the church is called to play in the time and place in which we live.