baylight church community

This upcoming Sunday- September 27th

Following the open COT meeting on September 15th, we realized that it would be helpful for us to give some context and perspective as to why we have responded to Mike’s announcement the way we have, i.e. by asking the church to pray for a month and coming together on the 27th to continue to pray and listen corporately, and to help to frame what we expect to come out of this time.

Our heart
We feel that it is important for there to be a measure of spiritual consensus and unity as a community as we decide what to do in light of the Kims’ departure.  So, in thinking about how to go about the decision making process, we thought that it would be appropriate to invite the whole church into the listening and seeking process.  The easy thing would have been to start brainstorming ideas and then discuss the pros and cons of the different options, but we want to be a community that actively lives out seeking the Lord first, having Jesus as our Head and responding to His directives.  Every situation of uncertainty or change is an opportunity to know and seek God.  When we are forced out of our comfort zones, we have an opportunity to turn to God first, to follow His directives, and to see what He does as a result, and that is how we want to respond and help BayLight to respond.

One thing that we have been seeing and hearing as we process in our LTGs and with folks around us is that this time of seeking the Lord is bigger than just Mike and Leslie’s departure and the next steps that we are going to take as a church.  It’s really about God guiding us all – individually, as G3s and LTGs, and of course BayLight as a whole.  It’s very possible that you might feel like you are hearing something completely unrelated to the current situation, but that it is connected with things that other people are hearing or sensing.  It might be personal to you, it might even be about someone else – God has a way of speaking in concert through different people and different ways.  Be bold and share with people in your LTGs and the COT and anyone else – we’re in this journey together.

The 27th
One question that came up was what to expect when we gather on the 27th.  While it’s hard to answer that question exactly, we can give some guidelines to help frame the time.  One thing that we’re not expecting is for there to be any definitive decisions made.  Based on what we’ve sensed so far, it seems like the 27th will be more of a launching point, and will set the tone for how we go about deciding next steps.  Hopefully, we’ll have a better sense, as I mentioned above, of consensus and unity in where God is taking us.  As Elbert has emailed out already, we want to encourage people who feel like they’ve heard something to share on the 27th, and to let us know.  Even if you don’t feel comfortable sharing, we’d love to hear to help round out our view and understanding of how God is speaking to us.  Depending on what is shared, there will be time to pray and meditate, and yes, we will worship too.  We will spend time praying for our own hearts to be tilled and purified before Him, confessing if we need to, laying things down or grabbing hold of the things that God desires for us.

As you continue to pray and spend time with the Lord, some of these thoughts may be helpful:

1.) Form and Function — the conversation has primarily been about form — what structure should we be? should we replace Mike or not? etc. These kinds of questions can be hard to pray about because they are more of a binary answer of yes or no. Praying about function rather than form may be helpful.  What unique role is BayLight supposed to be playing here and in this season? What are we to be about?

2.) The whole and how “I”(you) fit into the whole — God may be speaking to you about the church as a whole, but he may also be speaking to you about what YOU yourselves are supposed to be doing in this season. What is God asking of you? What is God wanting to give you in this season? How can God move BayLight closer to its natural design through you?

3.) Near future and Far future — Right now we’ve asked primarily for the near future steps. But God could also be giving you snapshots and pictures of the future of what BayLight is supposed to be and will eventually be. It may be so far ahead though that you may feel like it’s not the time or irrelevant. We want to encourage you to have the freedom to speak into both.

The last thought segues us into…..

The future
We’re not sure what the future holds, but we are committed to being a church that follows God’s heart, that seeks to know and love Him and seeks to be His ambassadors in this world.  We feel like this is an important season for our church, that it’s a time to invest in.  This is why we approved a budget that is in deficit – we know that this is not financially sustainable if this is the rule, but we feel a strong conviction that God has given us the surplus that we have for such a time as this.

We hope that though there is some uncertainty and perhaps trepidation during this time, that there is also a sense of hope in what God has been doing and will continue to do in our midst.  There are great things happening all around us – if anything, I think we need to do a better job of sharing with each other what God is doing in our lives.  He is alive and He is working in our midst.

with great love and affection,

the COT