{"id":20065,"date":"2018-11-08T18:20:37","date_gmt":"2018-11-09T02:20:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=20065"},"modified":"2018-11-08T18:20:37","modified_gmt":"2018-11-09T02:20:37","slug":"sustainable-huguenot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/sustainable-huguenot\/","title":{"rendered":"Sustainable Huguenot"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe live in a world of radical change: do you agree?\u201d[i]<\/a><\/p>\n

Elliott poignantly concludes his \u201cFurther questions\u201d section of the opening introduction to his seminal work Contemporary Social Theory: An Introduction<\/em> with this question.\u00a0 What better group to be asked this than a group of church people studying leadership?\u00a0 Because if there is any place that is radically changing, it is the landscape of the local parish.<\/p>\n

So much change has happened in the local parish I serve over the eight years I have been here.\u00a0 From a staffing perspective we have had four different heads of staff.\u00a0 We have had seven different church administrators.\u00a0 We have had three different financial managers.<\/p>\n

We have held three large capital campaigns.\u00a0 One to raise funds for a geothermal heating and cooling system.[ii]<\/a>\u00a0 One to raise funds to refurbish our organ.\u00a0 One to raise funds to repair the tower above our Sanctuary.\u00a0 Because of these our endowment has grown, then shrunk, and then grown again.<\/p>\n

We have served communion by intinction.\u00a0 Then had two highly detailed diagrams demonstrate where ushers need to stand while distributing communion by trays.\u00a0 Months later, we then returned to serving communion by intinction.<\/p>\n

We have become a zero waste facility[iii]<\/a>.\u00a0 We have opened our sanctuary for same sex weddings.\u00a0 We have had women lead both our boards and as the head of staff, all at the same time.<\/p>\n

The last decade of Huguenot Church has indeed been one of radical change.\u00a0 But the one thing that has tied the entire drama of change together has been the term we coined back in 2011, \u201cSustainable Huguenot.\u201d[iv]<\/a>\u00a0 The term originated when we were looking for something that uniquely blended the idea of green theology with the legacy change of becoming a geothermal institution.\u00a0 The term sustainable is hip in the eco-world, had a lot of meaning for an alternative fuel source project, and felt appropriate theologically as we wanted to live into the idea of caring for creation in a holistic fashion.\u00a0 Little did we know how often we would use that slogan.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Sustainable Huguenot ended up being the phrase that paved the way for our many other initiatives over the past decade.\u00a0 We moved to become a zero waste facility, why?\u00a0 Because we are \u201cSustainable Huguenot.\u201d\u00a0 The organ that had lead us musically for over eighty years needed to be refurbished.\u00a0 Could we do that?\u00a0 Sure, because we wanted the organ to continue to sustain our worship life.\u00a0 We are \u201cSustainable Huguenot.\u201d\u00a0 Could we make it through the three and a half year process between Senior Pastors?\u00a0 Yes we could sustain, we are \u201cSustainable Huguenot.\u201d<\/p>\n

Language is the unifying element of society according to many social theorists, many deriving from the work of Saussure. [v]<\/a>\u00a0 We did not know at the time how unifying this vocabulary would be to our community.\u00a0 Even when it was joked about during the most difficult times, it was still a statement, grounded in scripture and prayer that bound us to one another.\u00a0 We did not know in 2011 that we were crafting the vernacular that would get us through two more capital campaigns and a pastoral transition.\u00a0 We did not know what the future would hold, other than that through it all we would be \u201cSustainable Huguenot.\u201d\u00a0 But we did . . . and it did.\u00a0 This slogan grounded us, centered us, and inspired us.\u00a0 May this gift, this power of language continue to hold us together as the world speeds on with more and more radical change.<\/p>\n