Change: it is a’coming.

At the May Congregational Meeting, the Search Committee unveiled our new Developmental Minister’s name: the Rev. Rebecca Hinds. With that announcement, Peoples Church embarked on a new, exciting, and uncertain journey.

Through this ministry, we intend to recreate our community into one that binds our groups and ideals together into a more cohesive whole – a whole that is vigorous, welcoming, and relevant to the needs of spiritual seekers in the 21st Century.

Yet this journey to recreate our community will require us to change. And by “us” I mean the members and friends who make up Peoples Church will need to change.

The Rev. Rebecca Hinds will begin her Developmental Ministry on August 1. Over the next few years, her primary task will be to help us look critically at our culture, processes, and everything else that makes Peoples Church what it is today. She will also begin to help us identify the things we must change to become the community we envision.

No one yet knows what changes we will have to make or what the long-term result will be, and facing the unknown can be unsettling. Change initiatives can challenge our sense of self, and anyone might feel threatened when something near and dear to our hearts is questioned.

We will need to help each other work through the challenges and process the uncertainty together. This will be just one way for us to learn from each other and grow together as a community.

I will have more to say about change and Developmental Ministry in the upcoming months. For now, let me say just this: We have hired a Developmental Minister to help us identify and foster changes to our community. We need to let her do her job.

Robyn M-K