This Church Belongs to All of Us

 

This week, I overheard a comment about some of the changes happening at Parkdale. The suggestion was that they were all my ideas.

I will be honest. It stayed with me.

Not because I expect everyone to agree with every idea, or because I need credit for what is happening. It stayed with me because this church has never belonged to one person. Its life has always been shaped by people who cared enough to offer their time, their questions, their imagination, and their love.

More than four years ago, Parkdale’s Council appointed a Strategic Planning Group to listen and imagine where God might be leading us. They gathered input from the congregation, Council, and committees. Together, they asked:

Who are we?

What is God calling us to do?

How do we live out our commitment to building connections, living faith, and acting for justice?

The plan that emerged named hopes for strengthening lay leadership, using our building in new ways, deepening our welcome, developing partnerships, and aligning our work more closely with our mission.

Some of what is happening at Parkdale today grows from those conversations.

Of course, a strategic plan is not scripture. It was written for a particular moment in this church's life, and much has changed since 2022. Some goals have been accomplished. Others are still unfolding. Some may no longer fit. Perhaps it is time to listen again and imagine what the next season might hold.

That work belongs to all of us.

Part of my role as your minister is to bring ideas forward. I spend time studying, listening, and wondering about the changing place of the church in people’s lives. I notice possibilities and try to help us imagine what Parkdale could become.

But an idea is only a beginning.

It needs conversation. It needs people who will ask thoughtful questions, see what is missing, and help shape it into something better. Sometimes it needs people willing to say, gently, “I wonder if we might try this instead.”

There are many ways to join that conversation.

You can let your name stand for Council. You can join a committee or a working group connected to the strategic plan. You can participate in a short-term project without making a lifelong commitment to church meetings. You can bring an idea, offer a skill, or simply ask how you might help.

Church leadership is not reserved for the loudest voices, the people with the most experience, or those who already seem to know how everything works. Sometimes leadership begins with curiosity:

Could I help with that?

Is there room for another perspective?

What if we tried this?

We will not always agree, and that is all right. A healthy church makes room for questions and different ideas. What matters is that we remain in conversation with one another and remember that we are seeking the good of something we all love.

Parkdale has been shaped by generations of people who showed up. They attended meetings, taught children, sang in the choir, cared for the building, advocated for justice, balanced budgets, made coffee and imagined possibilities they might never live to see completed.

Now it is our turn.

This church does not belong to its minister. It does not belong only to the Church Council or to the people who have been here the longest.

It belongs to all of us.

And there is room for all of us to help shape what comes next.

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