What to Do?

In a post from two months ago, David Hayward, aka nakedpastor, asked the following questions:

Can you speak your mind…
Can you openly confess your sin…
Can you share your perpetual struggles…
Can you make a mistake…
Can you question the bible and theology…
Can you lose your faith…
Can you come out of the closet…
Can you fail…
Can you crash…
Can you be chronically depressed…

…without fear of reprisal, alienation, demotion, isolation or removal? If you can’t, find a place where you can. Because there are such places. I know this for a fact. *

I filed this post away in my feedreader for further reflection and have come back to it several times since. It makes me think about the church I currently serve and wonder how we, as a community, stacks up, so to speak. Is First UMC of Pottstown, Pennsylvania (fumcop) the kind of community where people can do the things that David lists without being ostracized or made to feel, at the very least, unwanted? I don’t think it is . . . yet, but can it be?

Last year at this time I figured that by now I would be making plans on moving to a new church. For whatever reason(s), it appears the powers that be have decided I will remain as the pastor of fumcop for at least another year. So the question for me now is this: “How will I spend the next 15 months of my life here?” Over the last year plus I have coasted along thinking that I would be moving, but I don’t really want to coast anymore. It’s a waste of my time, the church’s time, and besides . . . it’s very boring.

So what should I do? Do I try to shake things up more than I already did in my first 5 years here? Do I work on building up our community of faith? What, if anything, is possible? Any advice from you, my gentle readers, would be greatly appreciated.

* Original post found at Can You?, posted by nakedpastor on Tuesday, 29 Jan 2008.