My son and I were talking about this sabbatical our church is on. I explained to him that sabbatical is not a vacation for the pastor or the church. It is a change of rhythm for the purpose of finding God’s direction and strength for next steps. The change of rhythm does involve rest, but it also involves other practices as well.

Today was all about the practice of flexibility. I set my plans to pray for at least two hours at the Worship Room House of Prayer this morning. I made it forty minutes and then… God showed up and I ended up taking a trip with my daughter to a town about an hour and a half away to pick up some equipment that had been wrongly shipped to another Cornerstone Church.

I was going to go by myself, but you know I am learning to be the DOING LIFE TOGETHER guy. It was good we went together, as it turned out. My leg has been bothering me the last few days and it cramped up pretty badly just as we were arriving at the other Cornerstone Church. Amanda had to drive home so I could stretch out.

Anyway, we made a morning of it. The drive was through some of the most beautiful autumn territory of the Quabbin Valley and we stopped for lunch at Herrick’s in Orange. So I actually accomplished one of my other goals for this month which was to take a leaf peeping drive.

There were a few other “divine interruptions” in my plans today. Some unplanned reorganization of schedules shortened my time to burn brush by about an hour and once again reoriented how I was going to pray. I think learning to be flexible with my prayer life is something God is trying to teach me.

In the midst of all the reorganization I got this thought. “As a people we need to know God’s plan for the next years. We do need a clearer vision of the future. We do need to understand what God is doing. That said, we don’t just need to know God’s plan or the future or what God is doing. We need something more. We need the church to also have a revelation of itself, a revelation of who we are to Christ, who we are to ourselves and who we are to our communities.

TELL ME WHO OR WHAT DO YOU THINK THE CHURCH IS?