moving ants....and herding cats

i have come to believe that working with faithful church people can be like moving ants ... and herding cats! honestly! let me tell you my funny 'sad' story.

before it rained here in merced on sunday, the ants had all come looking for water. i finally had to put out liquid poison, hoping to ward them off; trouble was that the liquid they were suppose to carry back to their hives, killed them before they got there, and so they just moved to another spot in the house; i ended up chasing them; what's wrong with this picture?

cats, as you know, have a mind and a life of their own. they just don't give you the time of day unless they choose to give your their time and their part of the day. otherwise, you're nothing but a pain in their day. i like cats, but i can't figure out the reason i do to save my soul.

so, how are ants and cats like faithful church folk? well, like ants, you put out opportunities, and some go for the 'bate', and others move to another location. the ones who are taking the bate here in the united methodist church of merced, are really having an opportunity, so i understand, in getting to know themselves and others better, and to clarify their own belief system. they are being thoughtful about what we need to be doing next to risk changing our direction. the others who have not taken advantage of our small group opportunities may seem a little lost, but are continuing on their journey; we may end up at the same place, but the ones who have participated in the journey will inevitably have the advantage of having part of the ownership in the new ministry we do.

like herding cats, not everyone will be willing to come along. but our aim is not to necessarily focus on the current needs of our congregation. well, that may not be true either. the current need of our congregation is to help focus our attention on the ministry in our community that will make a spiritual difference now and in the future. cats don't always come on board in this way.

we're planning to meet in november with our leadership to discuss one of the first major changes we will make in our visioning process; worship and education. currently we have our more praise style service at 9 with an education program, fellowship time, our more traditional service at 10:30, fellowship time (heaven forbid that united methodists would give up fellowship time!), followed by our hmong education program and then hmong worship.

one of the ideas is to combine our education programs into one hour, and flip the praise worship with the traditional worship; hmong worship would stand on its own as usual. what difference would it make, you wonder? well, in general, many of our traditional folks wake earlier than our praise people. and there has been a request to combine our children's education program. often it is more difficult for our hmong households to be at church even by 10. so we are dealing with many factors, including 'late night saturday night folks'.

another prospect is dealing with a whole population of folks that are hardly visible...young adults. and there are two areas of young adults; students and singles/young families/couples. so a group of folks will be working on what we're calling 'the new ministry'. more about that another time.

my question for you today is, what moves you spiritually, and what are you longing for? some of your answers may reflect about worship, some about education/spiritual growth, and some about fellowship. you may even long for something that doesn't happen on sundays; that's ok; your thoughtful feedback is appreciated. and, are you an ant or a cat or some other 'anamal'?