Pastor’s Column
If you could be a superhero, what cause would you choose to champion? What would your superpowers be? How would you choose to use your powers? Would you team up with other superheroes? How could your combined powers be used?
These are some of the questions we faced at the New England Synod Deans Retreat. I confess, I was a little stumped at first, maybe even a little confused. After all, what in the world would these questions have to do with our work in the church? Well, after giving the exercise a chance, and after flexing our creative muscles, we ended up having a lot of fun. We determined what our superpowers would be, what our strengths and weaknesses would be – even who/what our nemesis would be. Some were creative enough to come up with a name and motto. We shared with the group and ended up discovering that many of us could be naturally grouped with others and could form a super-team. With the combined strengths of each other, and the way members can balance out each other’s weaknesses, we determined that we would be much more powerful together.
For our purposes at the retreat, we used this exercise to begin thinking about conferences, what strengths and weaknesses each congregation has and how we can lean on each other, learn from each other and balance each other out.
Of course, we could use this same exercise to creatively think about our individual roles within Cross of Christ. For each of us, we carry strengths and weaknesses, and we are each passionate about various ideas and goals. However, as one supergroup, we do rely on one another, with each person contributing their valuable gifts in service to God and to the community. We may not call them superpowers, but the Bible does teach us about gifts of the Holy Spirit.
“Now there are varieties of gifts but the same Spirit, and there are varieties of services but the same Lord, and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of powerful deeds, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.” (1 Corinthians 12: 4-11)
I would encourage you all to think creatively about your own superpowers (or gifts of the Spirit). How can you use them? How can you contribute to the team of our congregation? If you are stumped (because sometimes it can be hard to think about your own gifts), maybe think of the gifts of other members of the congregation and encourage each other to do the same and maybe someone else sees a gift in you that you hadn’t considered before! Maybe you have one half of a valuable gift and someone else has the other half. Then we can consider how we can share these gifts together – after all, we receive these gifts “for the common good.”
So, what are your superpowers?
Peace and blessings,
Pastor Sam