I’m back. I have wanted to resume this web log for a long time, but this blogging activity is hard to work into an already full life.

I’m going to try again to write fairly regularly because I want to record my journey in leading Faith Church through an incredibly difficult transformation. I hope many folks from Faith Church will resume reading. They did a great job of keeping up with me in my sabbatical. And I hope I can regain a larger readership, because the insights of others outside my viewpoint will be invaluable. So here goes.

God is in the business of remaking Faith Church (and most of the other American churches as well). The first phase feels like loss; the second phase feels like confusion; and the third phase feels like possibility. Faith Church is not at phase three yet.

The losses take us by surprise because they are so easily masked. Just as economists are unwilling to declare a recession until long after the country has experienced subtle signs of downturns, churches can miss the early signs that conditions have changed. Once the evidence is unavoidable that conditions for ministry have altered considerably, we can look back and say, “Well, this trend started six years ago.” Or, “We had an uncomfortable feeling but didn’t know what exactly was going on.”

I think the reason I could hardly stand to blog these last four months is because it is so uncomfortable being in this unknown territory. Today I shared my malaise with a group of local pastors. I described my spiritual struggle against anxiety and my resolve to try to live for now in the present, and leave the uncertainty of how to lead the church into new forms of ministry in God’s hands. “Please pray for me to abide in Christ and to be content in that relationship.” To a person, as we went around the room, every other pastor said, “Ditto. I need the same prayer, because I am just as anxious and uncertain as Rick.” It is consoling to know I am not alone.

Although I resume this web log in the dark, I am totally confident how things will turn out in the End. It’s the next couple of decades that are so perplexing. I think it will be a wild ride, and, once we get beyond the discomfort of loss (phase one), maybe even exhilarating, as we experiment under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. I am writing in order to record what will likely be a fascinating journey, for me and for the church.