*"Place for Hope accompanies and equips people and faith communities so that all might reach their potential to be peacemakers who navigate conflict well. Our vision is for a world where people embrace the transformational potential of conflict and nurture the art of peacebuilding. We want every community to be a place for hope." For more information check out https://www.placeforhope.org.uk/home/ .
The last two weeks have involved me participating in some online training offered by Place for Hope.* The focus was on journeying and leading through change and transition. Change being what happens to us externally and transition being what happens inside us as we seek to embrace that change. We first looked at how we coped with change personally and then how we could lead others facing change.
As part of the training I was reintroduced to Bridges' transition model. The model identifies three stages relating to any transition. Letting go/endings, the neutral zone, and new beginnings. One of the co-presenters liked to refer to the neutral zone as the messy middle. It is that place where we can no longer get back to the past and where the future is not yet fully formed. It can be a deeply uncomfortable place. It is most certainly a place of waiting and of uncertainty. Drawing on biblical stories, it is the wilderness before the promised land or the exile before the return or Holy Saturday before the resurrection.
The messy middle is not something that can be avoided, despite what we might prefer. It is a place of growth and understanding. It is a place where we can be shaped by God through our faith so that we are prepared for the new beginning, whatever that might be.
At any given stage in our life we will be coping with one kind of change or another. And for some of us, we might be experiencing change on lots of levels at the same time. Moving home, getting a new job, the changing health of our parents, the needs of our children or grandchildren, retirement. The list goes on.
And that's before we get to changes in our faith communities from within our local congregation to the Presbytery. Many, if not all of us, are in the messy middle right now.
But of course we are not there on our own. We are there together, and we can support one another in that place. Listening to one another and encouraging one another. And we know that Jesus is alongside us, walking with us and seeking to help us be transformed.
I came away from the training wondering about how we, as a Presbytery, are coping with the change from 6 presbyteries into one and what can we be doing to help us embrace that change more fully. And I wonder what you might do to be part of that?
Rev Stella