Dawn’s
Reflections on Knox Vision Retreat
17 leaders came together last weekend for the Vision,
The five people who had originally committed to the Retreat
were for various and valid reasons unable to attend. We know that they were
individually praying for us and for the congregation as the 12 of us reflected
and discerned God’s will for our Knox congregation.
We came to the conclusion that the Vision for Knox is
bigger than the building, and we are engaged in a deep spiritual process to
discover what God would have us do. Vision is critical to our future. The
Property stuff is about: Safety and Insurance
The Knox building is still important because we need a
place to gather for worship and do the work that God wants us to do. It is just
not our fundamental reason for being, and should not drive our Vision nor
constrain us in discerning our
Our Vision for Knox is about our future and how we
want to be, what we want to do for our congregation, our community of
The Holy Spirit was in our decision to stay where we
are, in this church and to renovate. The Holy Spirit was in our June meeting.
And the Holy Spirit is still working through the Vision/Mission Leadership
Team, and is the next logical step beyond our property/safety issues. We need
to get the safety issue out of the way. Then build our programs, and grow our
church in accordance with our Mission/Vision.
As Tom said to us last weekend, Life is messy. We have
to respond to our immediate crisis and at the same time, be
I ask each of you now to join with your Mission/Vision
Leadership Team, to listen to what God has in store for us and to heed His
wisdom and direction for our congregation now and over the next 10 years.
Please pray, discern and communicate what God is telling you about the your
future at Knox, to any member of the Knox MVVs Retreat Team.
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Doug Huff’s Reflections on Knox Vision
Retreat
Last week-end I spent time with a great group of our
Knox family in a retreat. The dictionary calls a retreat a period of seclusion
for prayer and meditation.
Psalm 104 verse 34 says" may the meditation be
pleasing to him as I rejoice in the Lord.
Through praying and discerning together. This is what
we hope our Knox family can accomplish in the next 10 years of the life of our
congregation.
With the support of you the people of Knox we will be
an outreaching, welcoming, friendly congregation. We don’t come to Knox to find
fault we come to worship God.
Our gift to the families in the 500 new homes that are
to be built in our community of Ayr and to those already here as a welcome
friendly church family called Knox.
Our challenge is to reach out and bring in the
families of
Let us be thankful that we are all part of God’s
family.
We must do many little things to accomplish even just
one big thing.
O.K.
Lets start.
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Linda Davidson’s Reflections on Knox
Vision Retreat
VISION FOR
ME =
HOPE
As I joined
with the group last weekend to begin the visioning process, one thing stood out
above all else. There was a genuine
feeling of hope for this congregation.
You will hear
it over and over again - Knox is not all
about the building. Knox is about the
people; not just you or I here today but about those who will come to this
community in the future and about those who we can touch outside of these
walls.
However, the
building is important in the fact that it is a place to call home. A place where we as Christ’s family can
gather together to laugh, to cry and to learn.
Where we can find comfort, find direction and find a place where we all
belong. We are a family journeying
together on a path where only He knows the way.
We are a
church blessed with many generations worshipping together. That for me is really a feeling of
family. How to nurture so many different
needs, attitudes and desires is truly the challenge; but a challenge I believe
that is worthwhile and attainable if we follow Christ’s example.
Once we begin
to find our way and work together with a common purpose, I believe that we will
be able to welcome so many others to grow with us. To borrow a phrase from a passage that I
read, I know that “Where there is God’s will there certainly always is a way.”
Christ died to
give us Hope for tomorrow. Come share in
creating a vision for Knox.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mike &
Mike:
“What does the emerging
vision mean for us at this time in our spiritual journey here at Knox?”
Proverbs 16:9 says “ A man’s
mind plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps and makes them sure”
Merry:
Our vision for Knox is that we
can open ours hearts and minds to all those who are reaching for God, and
through our commitment to our faith, we can help them on their spiritual
journey. This has to include everyone in
our community, young and old, friend and foe, weak and strong. We are blessed with great gifts that we need
to share with each other.
Mike:
We need to be patient with all
members of the congregation and realize that everyone is at a different stage
in their journey with Christ and as Christians, be
non judgmental.
We need to be committed to
God and his love for us and know that His
love is working through everyone.
Merry:
In our times of challenge
and struggle, God wants us to have a backbone and not a wishbone. If we want success in our spiritual journey,
then we have a have a strong desire and work on it rather than just wishing it
will happen.
There are times in life when
you must take a step in order to find out, one way or the other, what you
should do. Some doors will never open
unless you move toward them. Trust God, take a step and see if that door opens.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mike Boulanger’s Reflections on Knox
Vision Retreat
I would gather that most people know me
as a co-chair of the Finance Committee and a member of the Ad-hoc committee that
prepared the Business Plan. I’m a Chartered Accountant, I’m an auditor and I’m
a bean counter.
Since being a part of the presentations at the meeting
on June 3rd I find that my thoughts are about much more than the
building. Without a clear vision of what Knox is, where it is going and where
it wants to be, working on the building is a futile effort.
It was actually the beginnings of the Fundraising
Committee that brought about this change in my train of thought. My church is
one that participates in the community, contributes to the community and
provides opportunities to invite others in. It welcomes all people. The Country
Carnival did exactly that!
This is a very different path in my life that God is
taking me down. The journey has been good thus far and I look forward to the
days ahead.
This does not mean that I won’t be a part of the
Capital Campaign and possibly speaking to you about it as well. But, for
someone who was originally skeptical of this
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Joni Sommers-Green’s Reflections
on Knox Vision Retreat
Fred asked me to say a few words this morning as I am
relatively new to the congregation and there are others as well, who probably
have many questions about what’s been happening in our church.
First of all, I want to tell you why I come to this
church. I want my children to grow up in
a church like I did, because they need to learn and know about God too. Thanks to a few key people, we feel
comfortable and loved in our church, like it’s a part of our extended
family. This church has meaning for us –
my Mom and Dad attend here and many of my children’s friends do as well, which
means that it’s not just a building that we come to on Sundays for an hour.
When the meetings began last year and we found out the
cost of repairing our church, I felt very overwhelmed, along with many others
(this I know just through conversation and a few of the small group meetings I
attended over the summer). I couldn’t
understand why we just didn’t think about keeping some of the parts of our
church that had meaning and history and rebuilding a new church, using those
items in the construction. To me, the
church is just a building – it’s the congregation that makes it – I actually
didn’t know if I still wanted to attend this church, as I couldn’t see ‘the
light at the end of the tunnel’ so to speak.
We are so busy in our lives at home and to have our church, our place of
retreat and worship become chaotic as well, was just too much for me.
I had the opportunity to stay after church last week for
the final ‘phase’ of the retreat and listen in on the discussion between Tom
and the participants who were involved Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I was really glad that I stayed, because it
helped me to better understand, where we are headed as a congregation.
The vision statements that each of the groups came up
with were all very good, but all very different, even though the group spent
the whole weekend together to establish a few common elements that the vision
should contain. Everyone had their own
perception of what those elements meant to them. Things became much clearer when Tom told us
to associate something visual, like a song, a picture or a symbol with our
vision statement. I left church last
week feeling like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders – I felt like ‘now
I know what I have to do’. I know the
process is going to be lengthy, but listening to Tom speak (and hearing the
thoughts of the other participants), opened my eyes to new ideas for this
church, as I’m sure the others will attest to (and they were there the whole
weekend)! Imagine if we had all been
able to go, what energy would be pumping through our church right now! Anyway, I want to say ‘thank you’ for having
me in your congregation and I hope that we can all work together, with God’s
help, towards a realistic goal and vision for our church family.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Helen Scutt’s Reflections
on Knox Vision Retreat
A vision is not a slick slogan to market our church.
But it is a unique, concise set of words to describe what we, as a
congregation,
want to achieve,
What we will aspire to, and
what we will ultimately use to test each program we
offer and each decision we make.
Tom Bandy has been a wonderful facilitator as we have
worked through this process of determining what our vision and mission really
is at Knox. Tom met with about 25 people from Knox with in April 2005 at Ayr
Farmer’s to talk about church growth, what it might look like and how it might
happen.
I don’t think we had any idea at the time, where that
initial conversation would lead. It was certainly thought provoking, and
challenged many of our current practices and our way of looking at what we could
be doing at Knox. It made some of us uncomfortable, and thinking about changes
we should be making. But then we sort of let it settle, not really making any
big plans to move on, and make big changes.
One of the things that I have learned during this
journey, is that it is God Driven. When
I started by term as Chair of Council, I had some great ideas that I wanted to
try, I had some projects that I wanted to work on, and I had my vision of what
I was going to do over the 2 years in a leadership position at Knox. I was
going to make a difference!!!!
And as I have been praying and reflecting this past
week, somewhat belabouring the fact that I haven’t done all the things that I
had set out to do, I realize that those things were not God’s plan for Knox -
it wasn’t what He wanted to accomplish .
I believe that God has put this building situation in
front of us, at this time, because it was TIME that we stood up, looked around,
thought about what is really important to us as a congregation, and started
working on how to do that. We needed to take a close look at the cracks that
had started to form, and to raise the roof in the regular, routine ways of our
business, and prepare to reach out, provide service and supports for those who
are seeking to find God.
I have been so impressed with our church members so
have committed to working through this process. People have read the bible
passages throughout the summer, they have met in small groups to talk about our
vision, they have prayed and listened to Fred’s message at Sunday worship. Some
were able to give a whole weekend to participate in the retreat. Many people
have taken the time to ‘go deep’. To learn and listen, to pray and grow with
God. And that makes a difference!
Although our vision is still a work in progress, we
know that we want an ‘inclusive’ church, one that embraces the community, and
provides for their needs and helps to bring them closer to Christ. The words
are not yet finalized, but we know that it will:
- resonate with the community
- that it will elicit sacrifice from the congregation
to achieve the vision
- and it will be what connects people to Christ.
May God continue to Bless each of us in this
congregation of Knox, to continue His work in our community and in the world beyond
- to make a difference!
Helen Scutt, Chair of
October 14, 2007
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Diane Jolliffe’s Reflections
on Knox Vision Retreat
I must
admit that when Dawn brought forth the project of a vision and mission statement
I thought to myself…
With
all that our church is going through do we really need this on
our plate.
With
all the changes that are going on within the church and the stress people are
feeling, would this not further divide us.
I went
home and prayed about it and what I came to realize is that not only do we
need this vision/mission process, we need it now more than ever. That vision is
God’s plan for us.
I felt driven
and passionate about the idea. I knew it was something I had to become actively
involved in.
We need
to know what God wants of us. The vision will help drive this
church not the church driving the vision. God has a purpose for each and
everyone of us. If we open our hearts
and minds, we will hear his message and know the vision he has laid out for us.
In
today’s society we are all in overdrive. We are traveling so fast that we have
difficulty seeing, hearing or feeling God’s presence.
We are
on that Hwy of life, radio turned up, kids are in the back seat arguing over
their game boys or what music they are going to listen to. Mom is trying to
figure out in her head, what she is going to have for supper and did she put
that load of laundry in the dryer before she left. Dad is thinking… did he send
that email off to his boss, Oh Lord, the kids are driving him crazy and all he
wants is to get to where he is going.
Sound
familiar….
Well,
Jesus is standing on the shoulder of that road, with his thumb out. He wants a
ride with you . He has so much he
wants to share with you. He has a purpose and a vision for you.
Are you
going to see him?
Are you
going to slow down and pick him up?
Or are
you going to just drive right by oblivious to him?
I often
take God for granted. I call on him when my life is in turmoil or my family
is ill. We are told God is always there for us and we have faith that that
is true.
As a
science based person, all my life I have struggled with the lack of tangible
proof that God exists.
I
couldn’t see him, smell him, touch him….. so I went through life blindly
believing.
They say that God presence is all around us…..
I guess that is where the “faith comes in”.
I have
been blessed in so many ways in my life. I can look back in retrospect and say
that God has called me up many times but I was driving on that Hwy, in
overdrive and hanging on to that blind faith.
It is
said that trying to understand the greatness of god and what he is all about is
“like trying to teach the internet to an ant”.It is so true. It wasn’t until my
work as a palliative nurse and now as an ICU nurse at CMH that I finally got
it.
God has
a purpose for us and gives us the skill and tools that we need to achieve that
purpose. I needed to know that there was a God. All the unexplained miracles
that I had been allowed to experience, was not enough. There was still that
doubt. I was blessed once again in my life with the tangible proof I asked for.
I was
working with a pt that was on a ventilator. He had no obvious sign of life
other than a heart beat. The machine was
keeping him alive… or so I thought. The plan was to turn off the machine in the
morning and let the man die. That night, I was assigned this patient. I was
quietly charting at my computer when I heard a voice that told me to lay my
hands on him and pray. I looked around to see where the voice came from only to
find that I was the only one sitting there. So I closed the doors of his room,
fully expecting that my coworkers would think I was nuts and I did what I was
told. As I lay my hands on the man’s chest and prayed for him, I literally felt
an overwhelming warmth on my shoulders
that proceeded down my arms and into my hands. The heat in my hands was so
intense and the joy and the peace I felt as I stood there was undiscribable.
When I was done I had to run my hands under cold water to cool them down. In the morning the pt was moving his left
hand where there was movement before. The family decided not to pull the plug
because of it. I had this man for three nights in a row and continued to close
doors. Six months later…. That man was home with his family… he walked out
doors of the hospital.
Do I
have faith, absolutely…. Is it blind… absolutely not.
The
Holy Spirit works through each and everyone of us. He is working here in this place
today. And God has a purpose for you and a vision for this congregation. When
you are driving by on that road of life, keep you heart and mind open. And when
you see Jesus standing there with his thumb out, slow down and pick him up and
see what vision he has for you.
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Derrick Carroll’s Reflections
on Knox Vision Retreat
Good
morning. My name is Derrick Carroll, and
for those who don’t know me yet, I’m the current Treasurer of Knox.
I’ve
been involved with the building project, in one manner or another, since the
original move out of the church was required to repair the structural problems
that were discovered.
My wife
Anne and I were two of the people who managed to, somehow, put aside all the
things that we had to do for this busy time of year long enough to make time
for the Vision Retreat. Our kids were
able to do the cottage thing one more time with their Aunt and Uncle. We both came to realize that the changes that
we face with the building are both large AND surmountable. However, trying to resolve the issues on our
own just wasn’t possible. Knowing that
an expert like Tom Bandy was willing to help us in our moment of need, during HIS
free time, meant that we would also sacrifice the time.
We have
truly come to realize that “The Vision” is everything. Not the building. Not the past.
And NOT what we are all comfortable with.
I
started this “Vision and
We have
a building crisis. We decided to restore
the building. We need money for this,
and realized that we couldn’t do it on our own.
The expert that we chose for assistance with this told us that we need a
clear Vision and Mission Statement.
Okay, let’s go get a quickie Vision and Mission Statement that will fit
into our Stewardship Campaign – preferably something catchy. Hey, Tom’s available to help with this, let’s
use him. Okay, have to spend a weekend
doing it, but then we’ll have something neat and tidy that we can stick in our
advertising and Stewardship Campaign.
Unfortunately,
it was only then that I saw that the way that we had all approached this, with
the best of intentions, was simply wrong.
The Vision is everything. From
the Vision comes the
And... the Vision CANNOT be discovered by one small
group over one small weekend. THAT was
the real lesson that I learned that weekend.
The
group from the retreat made a good start – hopefully enough to be able to
assist with the Stewardship Campaign.
But....
the Vision and
Now
that the Stewardship Campaign is also about to get started in earnest, there
will be even more of a cry for involvement.
It’s neat, it can be easily understood and easily supported. Do get involved. However, do NOT forget our ongoing Vision and
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Joyce Hambly’s Reflections
on Knox Vision Retreat
From attending the meetings
on the building, I felt that Knox was all about the building. The historical value to the community, the
gorgeous stain glass windows, the wonderful craftsmanship, the architecture and
the beautiful sanctuary in general.
Unfortunately, this was not the Knox I wanted to be a part of.
When I was going through my
chemotherapy treatments, it was not the building that prayed for me or visited
me at home or in the hospital. It was
not the building that sent the many cards, flowers and gifts. In fact the building prevented me from
returning to worship sooner as I could not make it up the stairs and lastly, it
was not the building that I missed but it was the people who took their time to
give me strength, love and faith. In
these past few months, I have felt that the building had taken over everyone’s
focus.
I felt as if we have been on
cruise control for the past few years with no one behind the wheel.
While at the Vision Retreat
I realized that the building crisis was the catalyst. The cruise control has been turned off and we
weren’t sure who was at the wheel. It
forced us to take the time to take a serious look at ourselves, where we have
been, where we are and where we are going.
Something we should have probably done a long time ago. I feel that God IS at the wheel ready to take
control and to take the lead. All we
have to do is let him take the lead and follow him and we will become the Knox
that He has always had planned for us and that is the Knox I want to belong to.