At the end of this year, we want to thank you for reading our weekly pieces and for your many comments, suggestions, and stories about how you have used this material. We started Digging a Deeper Well over three years ago with a singular conviction: that church boards need to be the faithful, persistent influence in a congregation that will help nurture health, growth, and vitality.
There are signs throughout faith communities that this path leads to a more responsive and formative experience of leadership. But it is not an easy path to take. One reminder of the obstacles, appropriate to the season, comes from Dorothy Day:
If everyone were holy and handsome, with “alter Christus” shining in neon lighting from them, it would be easy to see Christ in everyone. If Mary had appeared in Bethlehem clothed, as Saint John says, with the sun, a crown of twelve stars on her head, and the moon under her feet, then people would have fought to make room for her. But that was not God’s way for her, nor is it Christ’s way for himself, now when he is disguised under every type of humanity that treads the earth.
(From Watch for the Light)
Why seek to dig a deeper well of meaning and hope in your work on a church board? Why spend time on things that, at least on the surface, don’t look like “the work you are supposed to do?” To be able – individually and corporately – to see Christ “disguised under every type of humanity that treads the earth” and to see there the opportunity for God’s touch of hope and grace to lead our churches and change the world.
We wish each of you a blessed Christmas.
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