In the Broadway musical South Pacific, an old island woman the sailors called Bloody Mary asked a key question:  "If you don't have a dream, how are you going to have a dream come true?"

            I've been having one-on-one conversations with people in the church I serve as pastor. In these conversations, I asked them to share the dream they have for themselves as well as any dream they may have for our church. It is a profound privilege to hear people's dreams and even to help them clarify what their dreams may be.

            My dream is to change the world by changing the church through my work as a pastor, as a writer, as a speaker, and as a leader in the community. The change I want to see in the church is essentially to follow Jesus as we know him in the Gospels. My dream for the congregation is to be both a model for and a laboratory of that change. The vehicle of change is freedom: to have the freedom to question, the right to expect honest answers and straight talk in response to our deepest questions, and the need to respect that each person's faith journey has wisdom and value.

            The change I want to see in the world is in the direction of our connectedness as a global community: compassion for all people, respect for the different journeys we are each walking, and an acknowledgement that our security as a human race is irrevocably tied to every person's access to the benefits and opportunities of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness-that no one wins unless we all win together! If we can learn to trust that this is true, it will change our whole approach to life. We will begin to give up the grasping and clawing to get as much as we can in favor of seeking the best for all and the well being of the least among our brothers and sisters.

            This approach does not rule out achievement, but it gives a context for what we seek to gain by our achievement. All this may seem like a good idea, but that's not the reason to do it. The reason to value compassion, cooperation, mercy, justice, and peacemaking is that this is the nature of the universe and of our Creator. This is what Jesus taught and, through faith, this is what gives meaning to our lives. It is in our self-interest to live this way and it is my dream, the one I want to see come true.

Thanks for continuing to bless me as we journey together.  

--Jack F. Price

To read more by Jack, be sure to order your copy of Finding Faith: Honest Answers about God, the Bible, and the Church Today at:  www.findingfaithnow.com or www.lulu.com/buy (download available)

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