I’m not sure what inspired this--maybe the approaching one-year anniversary of the first COVID-19 “lockdowns” or maybe a desire to get a jump on “spring cleaning.” But I’ve been digging around in old file cabinets and three-ring binders, and I keep coming across papers from the very beginning and conclusion of my predecessor Pastor Nathan Allen’s time at Joy.
There’s all sorts of fun little nuggets I’m digging up--and also some uncomfortable moments, especially when I can see clearly that the written records (say, minutes from council meetings) don’t fully, or sometimes even partially, reflect uncomfortable conversations or unfinished business that I’ve gathered as oral history from key participants.
One thing that stands out is how many of the same ideas, habits and patterns keep re-asserting themselves. An idea back in 2005 was to start a contemporary or alternative worship service. The final item on Nathan’s final pastor’s report and exit interview was that maybe it was time to start a different kind of worship service in a way that wouldn’t disrupt the existing schedule.
An idea I was working on for last summer right before the pandemic struck was to start an alternative Sunday worship service when we went down to our typical single-service summer schedule. Maybe now that we’re doing one service on Sunday mornings every week, it’s time to lay the groundwork for trying something new and different alongside it?
I also found notes from strategic planning clearly done early in his tenure at Joy that included a firm commitment to “begin live-streaming services no later than 5/31/2009”--you know, almost 12 years ago, long before most of us had even heard of live-streaming, but there it is in black-and-white in a folder than clearly hadn’t been touched in a while! It only took a global pandemic to force us to experiment with the possibilities.
The biggest challenge Pastor Nathan identified while leaving back in 2015 was getting enough folks to serve on committees, with the fervent hope that a new team-based structure, with slightly fewer committees reconstituted as “teams” would help shore that up. Let’s just say… it hasn’t. I’ve got some ideas about how to address that, but I don’t see it happening by updating our bylaws.
Eleven months ago Joy’s council was about to receive a presentation from Bishop Mike on looking to our past to discover our future together. Many of us are still “coming up for air” from the suffocating isolation of a year mostly apart. But aside from conforming to on-going public health measures, the challenges before us aren’t terribly new--and neither are the opportunities! God is still at work in and among and through us, and sometimes even around us, to make Christ’s love known in Tulsa and beyond.
Pastor Jon
