In eleven months we have seen God moving with us at each step of our transition process here at Spring Creek. We began our journey together with anger, anxiety, chaos, and disillusionment through staff changes. We shared our stories, as individuals and as a community of faith, and then we proceeded to dream of where we would like to be after the transition period. Through deep listening, we were able to find some common ground in dealing with the above stated feelings. By doing that, we were able to look forward with hope instead of fear and trepidation. So, we spent time building up to move forward. Moving forward... now we have started the church profile part of the journey with people vol

Words... Can't live with them; can't live without them? Have you ever found yourself uttering words that you thought you would never hear yourself saying? Have you, at one time, suffered from the dreaded "open mouth, insert foot" disease? Have you found words to be rather harmful to you and to the ones who spoke them against you? Have you found words that were comforting beyond belief at a time when you needed to hear them most? If you answered "yes" to any of these, then you know from experience the power of words to build up or to tear down. Here are some examples of just how powerful words can be — spoken or unspoken: "I attended a Rob Bell event about a decade ago when he had us do an ac

Part of the interim process is to visit a congregation's current Vision and Mission Statements as well as its Core Values to establish where they are going as a community of faith, and who they will need to lead them to that target. Part of that process will "flesh itself out" through the information the Church Profile group is currently doing. Last Sunday at worship, Bob Tissot, requested all participating people at Spring Creek to fill out an information sheet to help in part of this process. Another way we will be looking at the Vision & Mission Statements as well as our Core Values is to have multiple "questioning sessions" as we enter in the Fall. Some will be during the week-day and ni

Those words are found in the book of Jeremiah when his task at hand is to help God's people see there was hope and a future, and that God was going to be faithful in that journey. The back story is that the Babylonian Empire had crushed the Israelite army and took the citizens and leaders into exile. So, when Jeremiah offers hope in the midst of hopelessness, the people of God could look forward to what might be. Of course, then he drops a bombshell that their exile would be for seventy years before they would return to their homeland! In my interim ministry, every congregation I have served can relate to their plight. Of course, during a transitional time, seven weeks, seven months, or seve