on the present… THE PRESENT YOU MIGHT SAY? Can it be that easy? Can it be that
the present the old man spoke about was in reality, the present itself? He lights a fire
and he begins to notice the quality of the masonry around the fireplace. The great care
in building the fireplace, stone by stone, certainly handcrafted. The person who built
this fireplace truly loved their work.
The young man left the retreat refreshed. He had many questions, but the old man told
him that he would learn more over time. However, he had come to know what the
Present was and it was a significant gift. The young man returned to work, motivated
by his recent discovery. He was a new man and with a renewed spirit, his productivity
had him barreling through the tasks with ease. In time he was promoted.
Before long he started to fall into the trap of getting bogged down. He often took the
heat for the lack of performance that members of his team would accomplish. He
seemed to be falling into the same traps as before. He thought about his retreat and
the words of his mentor but the refreshing feeling could not me maintained. It was time
to check in with his mentor again. The older gentleman asked him about his progress
and wasn’t surprised to find out that the man was struggling. He was ready for the next
part of the Present and that was learning from the Past.
There are some within our congregation who have confided in me a concern of our
direction. We are a congregation without a called pastor, but we have been here before
and we have thrived in the occasion. We have a strong session and must continue to
support unequivocally the work of our PNC as they look for someone to answer that call.
The period between called pastors in the Presbyterian Church is a great time for it
affords the congregation the luxury of change.
In the interim period a church can develop new programs and engage in new
opportunities to share their individual vision of faith. The period even begins with the
congregation in question to perform a self-evaluation and create a CIF, or church
information form. We, as a congregation, participated in a church wide survey. For
many the interim pastoral assignment is simply a fork in the road and the direction
followed modifies the church in its own way. Keep in mind that many other Christian
churches do not offer such a search process in filling pastoral vacancies, rather in some
cases the church places the replacement as if it were a Corporate HR department many
miles away.
Mistakes in the past are inevitable for all of us, in our personal and professional lives.
What is important, however, is how you change your approach in responding to an
issue. Learning from the past is an important step in any process. As a congregation,
we have the opportunity to affect change prior to the appointed call of a permanent
pastoral position. There is no better time than the PRESENT!
Once again, the young man had initial success in incorporating the lesson of learning
from the past into his life. He was tasked with evaluating the Research & Development
or R&D department at work. The company was struggling with revenue projections and
was considering scaling back the R&D department. The young man stood firm in his
conviction that the company should evaluate its products and not scale back R&D, for
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