A Time of Wandering
This current time that we find ourselves in has been compared by some to wandering in the wilderness or as exile. Some have framed it as a forced sabbath, but unlike a true sabbath, we are not well-rested.
Times of wandering, exile, and Sabbath can be occasions for deep trust in God. They can also be times when God’s people are tempted to walk away or turn to objects of worship that might on the surface appear to give us what we think we want in life. Rather than being built up, our trust in God can erode.
Our faith may be challenged, we might get tired, but for those who persevere, when we look back, we may just discover that is it wasn’t an erosion of faith at at all. Rather is was, miraculously, a refining.
Aimless wandering is challenging. Abraham was called to “go to a land that I will show you,” but God wasn’t specific about exactly where to go. Moses had the promised land in mind, but what should have been a journey of a few months stretched into forty years. We have similar challenges today as we discern the path before us.
A Journey for Our Community of Faith
Prairie Presbyterian Church was formed seven years ago in April 2014 through the amalgamation of St. Andrew’s and Trinity Presbyterian Churches. Both of those congregations had already done their fair share of wandering. St. Andrew’s had sold their building and were attempting to start anew. Trinity was a Church plant that had moved from community centres, to movie theatres, and finally to this small building near the University of Manitoba.
As Prairie was formed we anticipated a new home. We looked ahead to building a new building on land set aside on McGillivray Blvd. We designated and gave significant financial resources for this project, but for a host of reasons progress was slow or just not possible. We could speculate what happened or what the reasons were for this lack of progress, but in the end this kind of speculation is not our core calling. Our call is to faithfulness in following Christ. And we believe that the congregation’s decision in September 2020 to not move any further with building plans and to relinquish the land on McGillivray was a faithful decision.
More important that buildings and land, over the last seven years, Prairie has forged its own communal identity. This may not always be apparent or strong, but again, we believe we are being faithful to Christ’s call. Several years ago, we developed a beautiful statement about who we are:
In the grace of Jesus Christ,
we are a vibrant and friendly community,
passionate about
worshipping, learning, praying, and serving.
This still holds true and we wish to live more deeply into what this statement says about us as a community.
Even before the onset of a global pandemic, there was journeying for us to do together. With our proximity to the University of Manitoba, we began to realize that perhaps we were called to focus more on students, but we had much learning to do, and still were uncertain as a leadership team about how to best focus any efforts. We tried with with various forms of outreach, the organization of a young adult group, as well as many students being part of our music ministry.
Three years ago, the minister of Prairie, Matt Brough, accepted a contract to work as the coordinator of Cyclcial PCC, our denomination’s Church Planting initiative. This meant quite a change in our staff structure. As we worked through what that might look like for the future, and then also anticipated the retirement of our long-time music director, Evangeline Keeley, we adopted a new staffing model.
That staffing model was adopted in early 2020, with Jen Ostash-Gooch moving into a half-time “Worship and Community Leader” role. With the pandemic, that role has ended up looking very different than what was originally envisioned.
We pivoted again and started a small group ministry which we hope to continue as it has been such a blessing to those who have been a part of it. Our elders are also committed to continue working on pastoral care as a priority in the coming years.
All this change, along with the inability to gather for worship in-person for such a long time, has been very challenging on all of us.
Through it all, so many of you have had to navigate significant loss and change in your lives, some of you with little support. We pray that we may do even better as a Church community to support each other in the coming years.
What Is Needed as We Move Forward?
Whether we are coming to the end of wandering or whether there will be more seasons of change and uncertainty, we need direction. This is true of our congregation, and true in our everyday lives.
Will we allow this to be a refining time for us as we persevere? Will we continue to hope in the one who rose from the dead?
In all of this, the most important thing is what God is up to, how God is leading. If we need direction, it must come from the Spirit of Christ, and not simply for our own ideas or imaginings.
We are therefore going to embarque on yet another journey. One where we listen to God and to one another. It will involve preparation, patience, planning, and ultimately some decision making around the vision that God is leading us toward as a congregation, followed by concrete actions we will take together as a community of faith. Patience will most certainly be key, as it is in our individual lives as well.
We won’t simply jump to the end and try and make the decisions that we “think” are best. Instead, we want to be deliberate in discerning the will and activity of the Holy Spirit in our lives, in Christ’s congregation, and in the wider neighbourhood.
There will be two main parts to what we will be doing.
Part 1 - A series (beginning Sept 5) on Spiritual Practices. Led by Rev. Matt, this will focus on key building blocks for developing your relationship with God and for discerning the work of the Spirit in your life, your community, and for the congregation.
The idea behind doing this series now is to prepare ourselves spiritually for the second part of our journey together.
Part 2 - In 2022 (start-time is TBA), we will participate in a six to eight month process designed to discern God’s call for the future of Prairie Presbyterian Church and create a plan to move forward. We will be using an outside organization to assist us with this.
This may sound like a long process, but the session believes it is critical that we patiently discern the direction God wishes us to move in the future.
One last thing…
Trinity Presbyterian Church used to have a slogan that was sometimes used: “Helping people become and be followers of Christ”. St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church had one too: “Join us on a journey of faith.” And here we are seven years later, knowing we still need to follow the Spirit’s lead into what is next for us. We hope you will join in this next stage as we seek God’s will once again, and we pray you will be blessed along the way.
