God’s conversation with Moses at the burning bush.

Sam Fairchild | Reading: Exodus 3

Helping organizations with their vision statements, I watch as people look inward to discover important things about themselves. But in 2017, I became an inward-looking person for the first time.

Pastor Michael Howard, interim pastor at my old church, and I led the recreation of the church’s vision statement. We talked often about who we were as a church and where we wanted to go. Our backgrounds were very different. He had very liberal views, and I had rather conservative perspectives. Yet we found much common ground about the church and even more about ourselves. We were seekers, thinking progressively about how to follow in the footsteps of Jesus.

We produced a pithy, resonant vision statement for our church. More importantly, our months of conversation led each of us to a deeper understanding of our own purpose and the nature of our relationship with God, which defies time and space.

Linda and I recently visited Pastor Michael. The strength of our embrace in greeting reaffirmed the strength of our work together and how it altered my trajectory. While it expressed our church’s vision to “strive to be a progressive, inclusive community of seekers serving others while challenging ourselves to understand and practice the teachings of Jesus,” what it did for me was so much more profound.