December 2007: Gospel Evangel

Transition Team: Adapting to change

by Sarah Rohrer, Transition Team member

When I was younger, I shared a room with my sister. Let’s just say we had very different personalities.

Today, we laugh about some of the silly arguments we had during the 15 years we shared a room. I didn’t like to talk much in the morning, but talking was how my sister would wake up. I liked to listen to “Adventures in Odyssey” before bed, and she didn’t. But the one that makes me laugh the most was how we dusted.

Each week, we would take turns cleaning the bedroom. When she dusted, she put everything back the exact same way it was when she started. When it was my turn to dust, I would take things off the dresser and put them back in a different arrangement. Usually within a few hours, my sister had put things back the way they were before.

I got tired of the same thing and was always ready for change, but my sister used to resist it. When she left for college, I noticed her absence profoundly when I dusted. No one put things back the way they were before. I didn’t like this change that had taken place in my life. No matter how we feel about change, it can be difficult to adapt.

As I serve on the Transition Team, I recognize the significance of this time in IN-MI Conference history. When the team met with consultant Alan Roxburgh Oct. 11–12, I felt the responsibility entrusted to me by the delegates.

First, Alan gave us feedback about the Listening/Redesign proposal that received 96 percent affirmation at annual sessions in June. He helped us reflect on our new mission statement -- “Joyfully following Jesus, we will cultivate a missional imagination in every congregation” -- and to see the tasks our team faces. He helped us see that we have not been called simply to implement a structure, adjust roles or rewrite the constitution, although these things are an important part of our work. Our team has been called to work at cultural change.

At the very heart of who we are as a conference, each of us has to be about cultivating a missional imagination. This may require some new learning, and it may challenge some of the habits and structures currently in place. Some of us will resist the change, wanting to go back to the way things were. Others will be more open to and excited about change, wanting to move away from the ways we did things in the past.

From Alan, I learned that no matter how we approach transitions in our lives, adapting to change requires that we engage our stories and traditions to see how God has been at work among us. We live in a time and place where everything is changing rapidly! Buy any electronic device, and within two weeks there will be a newer, better and faster one. And yet God has been and will continue to be present and at work in our lives. We can’t stay the same as we were, but we can’t forget who we are, either.

I invite you to think about our mission statement (at left, below). What does it mean for you? for your congregation? for our conference? How do we joyfully follow Jesus? How do we cultivate missional imaginations in ourselves and in others? How do we come together as a community of congregations that are called to be faithful to Kingdom work? How are we called to be missional?

-- Sarah Rohrer, a member of the IN-MI Conference Transition Team, serves as youth pastor at Howard-Miami Mennonite, Kokomo, Ind.

Sidebar

On Nov. 26, the Transition Team met to reflect on their Oct. 11–12 retreat with Alan Roxburgh, to review the timeline for the team’s tasks, and to hear reports about meetings with the search committee (for a long-term lead conference minister) and with conference staff. The TT also invited Ministry Team members Merle Hostetler, Nancy Kauffmann and Tim Lichti to share their thoughts and feelings about the proposed timeline and transition process.