Many of us love and understand East Shore from years of membership and participation. Others are newer to the congregation and have hopes and dreams of what kind of community East Shore might become for them.
Every church should have statements setting out their mission, vision and covenant, to guide what we do, where we are heading, and how we treat each other on the way. East Shore has gone through a lot of changes since we first defined our mission, vision and covenant back in 2017, so it’s time for a refresh. Our Right Relations committee has been reviewing the covenant, and you’ll be hearing more about that in coming months, while the Strategic Planning Task Force is looking at our mission and vision.
The Board commissioned a Strategic Planning Task Force to plan a path forward for East Shore over the coming years. As we looked into what a strategic plan might look like, it became clear that while many of us find our current mission statement, “We practice love, explore spirituality, build community and promote justice” inspiring, we lack an inspiring vision to shine a light on where we’re heading. We need an agreed picture of who we aspire to be, so that we can choose the best path forward to get there.
The vision needs to be empowering and energizing. A shared vision, created among and by as many members of the congregation as possible, will enable us to move from the status quo toward a new reality. A shared vision may create new ways of thinking and acting, and it should be broad enough to provide growing room for the congregation, not just in membership numbers but in how we welcome a broad diversity of new people, how we deepen our connections with each other and our relationships with other organizations, and how we grow spiritually. It needs to be renewed continually as our congregation changes and accepts new challenges.
Although it may be tempting to limit the vision to what we conceive as possible or to what we know we are currently doing, the vision must be bigger than this if it is to be inspiring and empowering. A vision requires us to take a long-term view of ourselves as a congregation. It also must be specific and concrete so that it can be known and worked toward.
I am writing this three days before our Visioning Workshop. By the time you read it, that event will have happened, and we will have gathered lots of ideas; but the work will not be over. We anticipate further work to ensure that all voices have been heard, and to craft an inspiring vision statement from the ideas gathered. So, if you weren’t able to participate in the Visioning Workshop, please seek out a member of the Strategic Planning Task Force, and share your hopes, dreams and ideas about what you’d like East Shore to become.
The Strategic Planning Task Force: Amanda Strombom, chair, David Baumgart, Martin Cox, Geri Kennedy, Louise Wilkinson, and Reverend María Cristina.