Dave has presented a summary of the responses he has received so far during two Adult Ed sessions...
Friends of Portland Mennonite Church,
The past two years of the pandemic has changed almost everything about our congregational life – not just how we do church but (for many of us) how we think about church – our sense of community, the ways we worship, how we communicate, what we do with our time.
Covid-19 is only one of several things that have disrupted or unsettled our lives over the past two years. The coronavirus pandemic will eventually retreat from the daily, conscious reality of our individual and communal lives, but the emerging forces of us vs. them tribalism, political violence, and the consequences of global climate change only appear to be getting stronger. What should be our response?
The disruption caused by the pandemic is an opportunity for us to think about church in ways that might not have been possible before everything changed two years ago – to reconsider what we believe about church, what we need from church, and what we hope for our church in Portland: what PMC is and what it could be, what we have discovered is essential and what we have learned we can leave behind, what makes us worry and what gives us hope.
This questionnaire starts to put into words some of these questions about what we have experienced during the past two years and how we might imagine church for a new normal – one that is characterized by reverence and density and equity.
Will you join me in exploring these questions? David Johnston