Building on A Vision

     “47As for everyone who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice, I will
     show you what they are like. 48They are like a man building a house, who dug down deep and
     laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not
     shake it, because it was well built.” Luke 6:47 – 48

Our bedrock is Jesus Christ. It is on this rock we stand at Park Hill Christian Church. There is no other ground, no shifting sands that we want to build upon, but it is the “rock of our salvation”, Jesus Christ! And it is on this foundation that our vision for the future rests.

Out of our time of discernment we gathered a vision for our future. We have a vision of Bold Hospitality for our community. And while the Coronavirus has delayed some aspects of putting this vision into action, there is much we can do now to get ready to “open” our house.

Like the man in the parable, we have dug down deep into the bedrock and set the foundation for our house. We are committed to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ and through His Spirit we will complete our mission. The foundation is in place. Now is the time to build the structure.

On Tuesday, July 7th we had a wonderful Zoom meeting with Rev. Bill Rose-Heim, the Regional Minister and President for the Greater Kansas City Region, Disciples of Christ. In the meeting we embraced our vision for our future, Bold Hospitality to our community. As we discussed what that means, we felt a bit discouraged that much of what we envision is being delayed by this pandemic. But Rev. Rose-Heim pointed out something crucial to our success, something we can be doing right now.

A house just doesn’t appear on a foundation. It must be built. And to build a house we must know what resources we have and what we need.

We already know many of our resources, a great location, a wonderful facility and good, loving, strong people to carry through this vision. But, even in knowing these pieces, there is more to learn. For instance, what gifts do our people have? Some, we know full well are prayer warriors. Some we know to be leaders and teachers, but what else do we know? How can we build coalitions with the different individuals in our church? What gifts are sitting in our pews?

We know that there are many things we can’t do. We are not a young congregation, so there are many physical things, like swinging a hammer that may not be in our strength’s column. But that’s ok. We don’t need to worry about what strengths we do not have, we need to find what strengths we do have.

A great example of this is how many of our wonderful people are involved with SPEAC and the food pantry! As Rev. Rose-Heim pointed out, it is all the little things we have to offer that are important. These are the things that we will be able to share with our community.
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To find our “skill” resources, we will be doing work through surveys, virtual meetings and individual outreach to find what strengths we bring. We will also be reaching out to Park Hill School District, non-profits groups such as, Parents as Teachers, and Home School associations, behavioral health organizations and asking, “What do you need?”. In finding what we have, we will be able to find what we can be to the community around us.

A little known, fact is, that in a small way, we have already started sharing from our resources. As many of you may recall, we have musical bells for a bell choir. Recently James Farley from Weston Christian Church contacted us and asked if his group might borrow our bells. Rajean was able to set things up and now, Weston Christian Church has a bell choir (we are hoping to setup a special from them soon). In this small, seemingly ‘insignificant’ way, we have already begun moving toward our vision. We had a resource that enabled another congregation to further their ministry and that is at the heart of what Bold Hospitality is all about.

Our foundation is in Jesus Christ. It is unfailing and will buffet any storm, even the Coronavirus. We may not be at a place where we are meeting except for worship, but that certainly is not going to stop us from building our “house”. We have been blessed with amazing resources, technological, physical and personal. Let us now dig deep and gather all our resources together and build on our vision so that when the pandemic is behind us our vision will already be running the good race.

To God’s glory our house will rise, and our Lord will be known throughout our community, because we, servants of Jesus Christ, have built a house that weathers all storms. 

Kathy Hendrix