If you have followed this month's articles on the future of Churches of Christ you may have sensed some negativity toward Churches of Christ and/or our future. I don't really see what has been posted that way but I know some of you do. I am not much of a feeler. It is my belief we have to look our situation square in the eye in order to deal with it. When you look in the mirror you don't always like everything you see but you still realize you are looking at you and you are valuable.

The same is true with our churches. Not everything is going to be perfect. We have room to grow and room to improve. But we still love our churches enough to bring these things up and fight for a healthy future. There is so much value here we have to keep working.

Here is where we go from this point forward - we start painting an encouraging picture of the future and outline how to navigate the challenges we face. This won't be a negative conversation. This won't be a bitter conversation. This will be a loving, practical conversation and I hope you will join us in that conversation.

There are some really good days ahead. There really are. In order to embrace that we are going to have to lean into God harder than we ever have before. I believe our people can do it! We may all just need some encouragement rather than discouragement and some good news rather than what seems like a constant stream of bad news.

So hang in there! I am looking forward to this conversation.