TCPC Visioning Process Begins

A word about the TCPC Visioning Process:

Many of you know that we are embarking on a visioning process with Barry Watkins, faciliator and chair, along with Barclay Bradshaw, Anna Bryant, Sean Healy, Cecil Martin, Bruce Osborne, and myself as the staff resource. As our visioning process continues I would like to share with you an excerpt from the resource we have been using entitled Holy Conversations: Strategic Planning as a Spiritual Practice for Congregations, published by the Alban Institute. I am summarzing this excerpt, which points out the important of both flexibility and structure in the planning process as well as the importance of both vision and management in the task of leadership!

The story of Exodus reminds us that leadership is a dance in which we focus on the future while we simultaneously manage the specific realities of the present day. The relationship of Moses and Aaron points to the need for balance in this “dance” between a focus on the future and a focus on the tasks of the present moment. Moses’ task was to envision the future.

It was Moses who went off alone to encounter Go d face to face. He would return with new energy, a sense of direction, and a visible radiance from the encounter. Aaron, on the other hand, was the voice of management. He structured the trip from day to day, organizing task, assigning responsibilities and making decisions. It was the visionary Moses who, alone on the mountain with God, received the commandments. It was Aaron who waited below with the people, organizing daily life and trying to address the needs and anxieties of the people.

The irony of this story is that just as Moses was receiving the commandment not to make graven images, Aaron was working below with the people busy creating the very same images in an effort to offer a visible leader. (Exodus 32:1-35). One of the lessons here is that both Moses and Aaron were needed for the journey. Leadership needs to search for vision and ask the big questions of purpose and identity. Management needs to take care of the travel – determining the steps to take, giving people appropriate tasks, and making clear decisions.

The risk is in letting Moses and Aaron get too far apart. It was when Moses and Aaron, vision and management, got disconnected that things fell apart. A planning process cannot be all vision without structure and direction. Neither can the planning process simply be a list of tasks or exercises that will magically lead somewhere. The leader and the planning team must be willing to dance between Moses and Aaron – to slow down enough to allow vision to take shape while also structuring a plan that will assist the people to move toward a future. Being flexible about the planning process allows the congregation to be open to discernment. Being structured about the planning process allows the congregation to move ahead and make progress on the journey. In other words, a planning process cannot be all vision without structure and direction. Neither can the planning process simply be a list of tasks or exercises.

I look forward to taking this journey with you!

Pastor Brenda