Fairlawn West (United Church of Christ) as church rather than a...

An interview with Brian McLaren over praying for your enemies and what the gift from enemies does for you (http://blog.christianitytoday.com/mt-tb.cgi/298 ) led to my reflection on what happened at Fairlawn West over a 5 year period from 1999 to 2004. I shared in a response comment to the interview some of my own experience about the struggle of how to relate to people who are attacking you. This is especially true when you have had a close relationship with them in the past. (As troubling is those who were active in the life of the church and just disappeared. Not even "boo".)

A book that helped me a great deal during this time was by Dick Wills who was the minister of a United Meth church in Ft. Lauderdale, FL and is now the bishop of a Un Meth conference based in Nashville. Waking to God's Dream: Spiritual Leadership and Church Renewal As Dick led his church through a time of transformation where he had been highly praised previously as the pastor, he was viciously and violently attacked including by his best golfing buddy. Eventually after it all shook out and a host of people left the church, it became a model for many of us of what God is calling us to be these days.

I realize at Fairlawn West that we were focused on having a church that took care of "us" and that we wanted to "grow" so that there would be more people to take care of "us." When that culture was threatened by growth that called for dying to ourselves, accountability more than entitlement, deepening our spiritual life in Christ and the motto that echoed around F W (still does) "its not about me", all hell broke loose. And most of it focused on me, but it included some of our lay leaders and particularly our trustees (when push comes to shove, the god of money will float to the top).

Our life now as a church may seem more precarious to some, but it feels more spiritually centered to us and to the growing number of folks who are connecting with F W for their spiritual nurture and their call to serve God in the world. We are rewriting our structural document. "Members" no longer seems like an appropriate term for us. "Partners in Ministry" is the lead description right now as our leadership team is working on this new document (which will be far, far shorter/smaller than our old constitution...we have also found that the state of Ohio doesn't care what we call this document so we are looking forward to having some fun in finding a descriptive, visionary, and fun title for this document). Life as a church for the last three years has been an amazing experience of grace, growth, hope, healing, courage, and reaching out beyond to those who are hurting in the world around us.