God’s Call to Us
Ted Vaden, Senior Warden

Your vestry took a journey this summer that I’d like to tell you about.

The trip began on May 10 and 11, when the vestry and clergy met in retreat at Brown’s Summit. The theme of the retreat was “What is God calling us, the parish of the Chapel of the Cross, to be and to do?”

We spent a great deal of time that weekend reflecting on that theme. It was a fruitful discussion that excited us about our mission at the Chapel of the Cross, and we certainly traveled a long way in trying to identify who we are and what we should be about as a parish. We had wonderful leadership in the person of the Rev. Mahan Siler, retired pastor of Pullen Memorial Baptist Church in Raleigh, who served as facilitator for the retreat. Mahan has been working with members of our clergy over the past two years to help them build upon their team relationship to better serve the parish. These efforts have given him an intimate understanding of our parish family.

But we didn’t answer the question. There wasn’t enough time in one weekend retreat. So over the course of the summer, members of the vestry continued to meet in small groups to further explore insights posed by the question. We wanted to meet ‘in community,’ as opposed to in committee, and one way we did that was by gathering in the more personal atmosphere of each others’ homes. It was an exciting exploration in which we did cover new territory and in the process forged stronger bonds among ourselves. I would estimate that we spent a dozen hours over the summer in the process, working together. We were handicapped in that we were working in the absence of the rector, who was on sabbatical. But we certainly felt the presence of the Spirit among us as we continued this journey

At summer’s end, we arrived at the conclusion that it was time to broaden this journey to include the entire parish. On Saturday, September 14, the vestry met for another retreat, this time at the church, where we tried to bring some specificity to our search – again with Mahan Siler as our facilitator. We decided that what we are about is a discernment process to determine as a parish what God’s plan is for the Chapel of the Cross over the long-term future. In secular terms, this would be described as a long-range planning process, to look at what we envision the Chapel of the Cross to be 5 to 15 years in the future. One way we framed the questions was: What will the Chapel of the Cross look like beyond the establishing of the new Orange County Mission over the next three years?

At the September retreat, we considered various scenarios of different possible futures of the Chapel of the Cross: large parish vs. small parish, establishing off-site satellite facilities or even moving the parish (Don’t worry! The consensus was to stay in our historic 160-year-old home), enlarging our programs and ministries, enlarging roles for lay leadership, increasing social ministry, and on and on and on.

At the vestry meeting of September 19, we formally endorsed this long-range planning process under the theme: “Listening to God’s Voice: Planning for Our Future.” The vestry directed the rector, with advice from the junior and senior wardens, to appoint a 12- to 15-member committee to conduct the planning process, as described in the accompanying article by Paul Carew. The first step will be to reach out to you, the parish, to tell us your vision of the future. With your help, let us continue this journey together, “Listening to God’s Voice.”