Invitation to Conversation and Discernment

Hi folks,

This year at our Iowa Annual Conference one of our major topics of discussion will be the vision, mission, and strategic priorities of our Iowa Conference.

As part of getting people across the conference to think/pray/discern where we are heading with this document, I’m hoping YOU might think and write about the document this next week.  I want to invite you to prayerfully read the full document and craft your response.  If you blog, let me know where and when your post shows up!  If you don’t blog, I would love to invite you to be a guest on my blog and will share your responses.

In this exercise, some questions we might wrestle with are:

• What kind of difference would this make in the Iowa Annual Conference?
• What are the obstacles to passing the vision/mission/priorities?
• What are the obstacles to living them out?
•  What are some lingering questions you have or places you feel led to push back?
• What excites you? What inspires you? What stirs your soul so that you can’t wait to get started?
• What are we missing?

Up front disclosure: I was on the writing team for this project and have spent a lot of time invested in the work. It’s not perfect.  It isn’t even really finished… that will happen on the floor of the Annual Conference as we adopt the priorities and then work to perfect the goals as a legislative body… and even then, we are creating a working document.  I’m hopeful and prayerful that God truly is leading us outside of our old structures and into a new reality – focused on relationship, mission, discipleship, and life in our community. I’m happy to answer any questions you might have and/or talk about where I’m still struggling!!!

All in all… thank you.  And let me know when you post next week so I can link your posts and share them broadly.

All Shall Be Well,

Katie Z.

p.s. I hope this might be the start of deeper connection among the bloggers in our conference, as well!