About half an hour later I returned to the quad to see how the sprinkler system was doing. It was still extremely loud and water was still coming out of just a few sprinklers. Then a miracle unfolded before my eyes! As I watched and listened, another sprinkler clear across the quad made a hissing sound and started spewing water. Then another sprinkler on the other side of the quad did the same thing. Within a few minutes, several sprinklers were hissing and spewing water all over the quad. Now all the grass was being watered and the first sprinklers were still spewing water but they were no longer making as much noise. I realized then that the sprinkler system was not broken at all. This is just how it worked. At first a few sprinklers came on and made a loud noise and continued to do so until the water pressure finally equaled out and the other sprinklers started spraying. When functioning as intended, when fully on and working, many sprinklers were spraying lots of water and all the grass was being nourished.
This true story is a parable of what has been going on at the church lately. After ten years without stable pastoral leadership, St. John's leadership is beginning to be turned on again. This is not to say the leadership has not been working for the past ten years. Indeed, the leadership has been working very well for the past ten years. But now the leadership is facing a new challenge of how to incorporate a pastor into the leadership of the church. This presents a challenge because it is a different way of doing things. As we turn on this new system of leadership at St. John's, a few leaders have been making a lot of noise and spraying a lot of water while other leaders have been silent, perhaps waiting for the water pressure to get to them so they may begin spewing and spraying too. This is a natural process when a new pastor enters into a close knit working group such as we have at St. John's. Because adjusting to a new system of leadership is noisy and difficult, it may seem like the system is broken.
Just to make sure that something was not broken the session called in a few experts to examine the leadership system and give us their opinion. That is what we did at the FastTrac event on September 26. After examining the system, the experts suggested we make a few adjustments but that overall our system is not broken, it is just going through the process of adjusting to new pastoral leadership. Things will stabilize and quieten down and become more effective in time even as the church sprinkler system did in the parable above. As our leadership gets accustomed to working with a pastor more people will be heard and included and everyone will get watered by the Spirit. Then we may all continue to grow in the fruits of the Spirit: Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self control. I appreciate the opportunity to serve as your pastor. I acknowledge that change is difficult and adjusting to a long term pastoral relationship is something this church has not done in many years. The leadership and I are learning how to work together and the congregation will benefit from this relationship.
