I purposely did not write much about yesterday's meeting as I was worried that the anger that I had felt during the meeting would surface in my comments. Hopefully it will not rear its ugly head tonight. I should confess as well that I only volunteered to chair the meeting because I knew that our minister would be doing the bulk of the work as facilitator. It certainly was not an onerous job.

It was very interesting to hear how everyone first came to the church. The people were certainly a diverse group and they covered the whole spectrum of experience. Some people joined the church during the 2nd World War and some had only been members for a few years. One thing that seemed to be almost unanimous was the music - how everyone liked it. As an aside, it is interesting to me that I don't remember the music being a factor - particularly since I have been involved with music and/or singing for most of my life.

But I guess the best part of the evening for me was when people were recounting how they had come to give their heart to the church and made Esquimalt United Church their church. Listening to the other people (although I probably have to say that Dianna made the most impression on me) made me realize that the answer I had wanted to give did not go deep enough. The current plan is for me (and some of the other people from the meeting) to repeat our answers as part of the reflection time. I will therefore not include here what I plan to say - thereby inviting the thousands of people reading this to come to the church this Sunday to hear all about it. Click on the link above for directions.

At the end of the meeting we made a covenant between ourselves and God, individually, which was then put in an envelope which will be mailed back to us without anybody else ever seeing what it in it to remind us of our covenant. I remember this particular method being mentioned in the "Power Surge" book, although I think in their case it was the congregation putting their giving plan in the letter. We had been asked at the previous meeting to think about what we were willing to do for the church so I had most of the answers already.

I think part of my problem at the meeting last night was that I was resentful that one of the members, who does not come to church regularly, was (to my view of things) asking questions that seemed to point towards a "why are we trying to save this church when there are many other churches?" That is where I lost my temper and I was very short when I pointed out that, while she had somewhere else where she could worship, I did not and I wanted to fight for this church. In retrospect, I think that it was wrong of me to be resentful of her. While doing some soul searching, I found this passage in "Power Surge"(top of p.159): "Many Christian disciples are called to serve in arenas outside the direct ministry of the church...... The demands of their service may rob them of the time and energy needed to serve directly in church-based programs, but that doesn't minimize the importance of their of their service or mission." I would therefore like to apologize to her for thinking less of her opinion because she was not in church every week.

Well I certainly did not intend to be so long winded.

God Bless You!