Thursday, February 23, 2012

Why a blog?

A fair question!

Lately, people have been coming to me with some questions and concerns. Things like:

"Why are you so interested in some program in Nashville about prostitutes ... what does that have to do with us?

or

"You seem to be spending a lot of time working on things outside the Cathedral."

or even

"What is it that you do all day?"

These are GREAT questions. And as I was telling our senior warden, Bob Schleipman, "sometimes I get so busy doing things that I forget to communicate about them."

So that's what this blog is. It's a chance for me regularly to just share what I'm up to. Because we are all working together as staff and Chapter (and with the congregation, diocese and even the city!) on building structures of shared leadership and discerning our shared core values that sharing will always include two things:

1) Why is this important for US as a vibrant congregation, a Cathedral for the Episcopal Diocese of Missouri and a heart of mission, ministry and reconciliation for downtown St. Louis?

2) An invitation to use the comments section to continue the conversation.

I am calling this blog "Come Together" ... because that is our mission -- reconciliation. Paul says  in 2 Corinthians 5:

"So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God."

That's what it's really all about. Coming together. Coming together as a diverse congregation, diocese and city. Coming together and seeing each other as new creations. Coming together to love one another and the world as Christ loves us.

Why is this important for Christ Church Cathedral?
Because communication is one of the biggest challenges of a diverse community. I don't want there to be any confusion or misinformation ... or at least as little as humanly possible. We're all in this together. None of us has special wisdom. But together, God's Spirit will lead us into our best future. This blog is a method of communication but also of starting and continuing conversations. Enjoy.

What do you think?
What do you think of the idea of this blog? Do you have specific questions or issues you'd like me to address? 

2 comments:

Michael Reed said...

great idea mike look forward to your posts...

Tom Archer said...

I would like to know what is being done when members of Christ Church Cathedral leave our church community. Do you know why they left? Is something being done to halp them return.
Thanks,
Tom Archer