This church year, the Elders are reading a book together entitled Sailboat Church: Helping Your Church Rethink Its Mission and Practice, by Joan S. Gray. If you would be interested in reading along with us, you can order it through Amazon.
The unique presentation in this book metaphorically divides churches into two types, Rowboat churches and Sailboat churches. The author offers this description of a Rowboat church: “Rowboat churches do what they can with the resources – money, wisdom, energy, people, facilities – they have. In a time when church was a respected fixture of our culture and a major center of community life, this approach often took the church a long way.” A Sailboat church is described this way: “The image of the church as a sailboat pictures its sails spread wide, allowing the wind of the Spirit to move the church where God wants it to go. It is God-powered.”
After reading these two descriptions, how would you describe our church? Are we one or the other, or do we have characteristics of both? Over the next few months, I will be exploring these questions periodically in my Midweek articles. I would love to dialogue with you about this, as we dream together about Union’s mission and practice in the years ahead.
-Pastor Jane