I was brought up in a Reformed Church in America (same denomination as our Visiting Scholar Wes Granberg-Michaelson) church and family in the Chicago area in the 1950s. The RCA is part of the John Calvin-inspired “reformed” wing of the Protestant Reformation, as were the church reformers (and revolutionaries!) in England and Scotland in the late sixteenth and early-mid seventeenth centuries. Some of those dissidents would come to New England in the 1630s and form congregations, and we at Plymouth trace part of our lineage to the “congregationalism” of those emigrants. Since then, Congregationalism has “gentled” its Calvinist heritage, particularly around the doctrine of original sin and, especially in our own time, has tended to stress the belief that we are “made in God’s image,” a rather different emphasis than “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”

In my life, I’ve wrestled with these two tendencies: the sense of human limitation (including and especially my own) and the sense of human possibility. I see them now not as polar opposites, but as parts of our same complicated selves. What is true of individuals, I think, is also true of groups and organizations: always limited, often falling short, always full of possibility to do and be better.
I think this has been especially true of Plymouth during this pandemic year of 2021. During this year, as I’ve served as Plymouth’s moderator and chair of the Leadership Council, I’ve gained some new insights into how we “work” as a church community.

In particular, I want to share the insights I’ve gained from our Strategic Plan and from our summer consultations. I said this from the lectern a few months ago and I want to reiterate it here: in my years in academia, I’ve seen strategic plans come and go, plans full of lofty and vague language, unattainable (or obvious) goals, destined to be stored in binders on some closet shelf, never to be seen again. But I am convinced that this plan is different: it is the product of a team diverse in its age, experience, and outlook; it is ambitious; it is challenging; and, if we really embrace it, it is transformational. I hope you will participate in an upcoming “congregational conversation” on the plan, soon to be announced.
The Strategic Plan unfolded in a summer of “consultations,” so now something about them: Leadership Council asked John Wimberly, our consultant for the Plan, to extend his assignment into the summer to include working with us on staff redesign based on the goals of the Plan. John offered some great insights into “right-sizing” Plymouth’s staff for the future. Among other things, he reminded us of the “great shift” in demographics that Plymouth and all vital churches face as generations grow up, age, and grow old. What will that mean for Plymouth’s program, staff, and outreach? And he reminded us of our location amid college and university communities. What should be our welcoming mission to faculty, staff, and students at our local institutions?

Like John Wimberly, the staff of the Lombard Mennonite Peace Center held focus groups of members of the congregation, and both shared their insights with Leadership Council and from me with all of you. There we learned about some things we were doing well as a community and as individuals, and some things we were not doing well. Taking “loving criticism” is difficult, sometimes, under any circumstances, but the pandemic/social isolation circumstances this year have been particularly difficult. All of us, especially on the receiving end of criticism, pondered the words of the participants, took them to heart where possible, and have been working on ways to improve Plymouth’s channels of communication. You’ll see some of these unfolding in the next weeks and months: they include a periodic “Did You Know?” column in the Overview and Sunday bulletin, and periodic “Meet the Mods” informal chat-time with moderators and clergy between and after services.

Finally: I want to say “thank you” to members of Leadership Council. It has been a ceaselessly busy, occasionally tumultuous, productive year. To borrow Brooklyn McBride’s language, it’s been like drinking from a fire hose! Up next: the 2022 budget!

Bruce Ronda,
Moderator

Earlier this month, I had the wonderful opportunity for several days of retreat at the Sacred Heart Retreat House in Sedalia, just south of Highlands Ranch. An important component of the retreat was meeting daily with a spiritual director, a guide who helped me reflect on where God is calling me in my life and in my ministry. It’s a practice I recommend for anyone! Some of what came up with was feeling God’s call to lean more into teaching and retreat leadership at Plymouth…even a virtual pilgrimage!…to keep a Sabbath day each week.…to make time for working on my physical health and stress and for family.

And I’ve stepped back into the whirlwind of life at Plymouth, which hasn’t slowed down a bit…though I hope my approach has shifted. It’s about listening to where God is leading, rather than just what seems urgent.

One of the ways I hope you will join me in trying to listen to God — in dreams, in whispers, in hints from other people, in creation — is in discerning our common path in the coming years. Where is God calling us? Who is our neighbor? How can we be part of addressing systemic social justice issues and in healing our nation? As I said Sunday morning, we are uniquely positioned as a congregation to do things others cannot.

We have a great Strategic Planning Team, created and called by our Leadership Council. Heather Siegel (chair), Judy Barth, Larry McCulloch, Nic Redavid, Marilyn Votaw, Jackie Wray, and I comprise the team. We’re working with John Wimberly as our consultant, and we are going to start by listening…and we’re going to do that by asking you to listen for where God is calling us.

This week you will receive a three-question survey (well, four, actually…but one of them is your name). That is the first way we’ll listen to you. And we’ll keep listening through online focus groups and a retreat with our Leadership Council. Please fill out the survey before November 25, so we can hear your dreams and visions for our congregation!

I also want to invite you to a retreat this coming Saturday with Eric Elnes, a UCC minister who will guide us through an interactive exploration to discover what we can learn from the difficult time (the “dark wood” is Dante’s phrase) we are in. Eric is our visiting scholar this year, and I hope you join me on Saturday. You can sign up now at plymouthucc.org/visitingscholar.

Even in the midst of a pandemic, great things continue to happen here at Plymouth. Thanks for your support and for being a part of this congregation!

Deep peace,

I was stunned to see that some Roman Catholic parishes in Colorado are opening for in-person worship…though with masks, social distancing, no communion, no one over 65. When I read about the Catholic parishes, I couldn’t help thinking about the Evangelical-Reformed Cathedral in Berlin, where 59 of 78 choir members were stricken with the coronavirus…or the United Church of Canada congregation in Calgary that gathered for a birthday party in March; 24 of 41 people were infected with coronavirus, and two died. Their minister said, “I would do anything for a do-over.”

Later this week, your ministers and program staff will start a discussion about what (not when) it might look like eventually to reopen. And it will be different from what we knew before, and various groups will have different types of gradual re-opening. It will be done with the utmost care…I don’t want to need a do-over. Please continue to be wise and safe!

The Leadership Council is in the process of forming a strategic planning team, something we had on the docket for 2020 anyway, but our planning this fall will be in a very different context for a church than it would have been without the pandemic. We will be consulting with John Wimberly of Congregational Consulting Group (alumni of the late Alban Institute), and we will really consider the future of the church in a new reality. It may seem crazy, but I am really excited about the possibilities of who Plymouth can become! One learning for most of us is that the church is the gathered body of members, not our building at 916 Prospect Road. We are still the church! We are still people at worship, in service, doing ministry together.

We won’t waste the opportunity of a crisis to make something beautiful happen with God and with each other!

Shalom,

P.S. If you haven’t seen this pandemic-related story, please watch it and wonder…