Between Us – “You Can’t Get There from Here”

By Rev. Clyde Grubbs, November 3, 2022

There is an old story that you may have heard. It goes like this: a driver from New York City is driving in northern New England and gets lost. He stops by a farm and asks a man driving a tractor “how do you get to Bangor?” The tractor driver looks puzzled and then replies “you can’t get there from here.”

After a back-and-forth about roads and where they went, the perplexed flatlander finally grasped that he needed to go back to the town where he had taken a wrong turn and take a different way from there. Continuing to go the way the tractor driver had observed him heading would take him to a dead end in the hills of Maine. Getting to Bangor meant going back and taking a different route.

On Sunday, October 23, we held “a coffee hour discussion.” Elizabeth and I had announced that the discussion would be about outreach to the community. We explained that we couldn’t simply wait for young adults to show up at worship ready to join. We also observed that among young adults, there is a suspicion of religion. If they are to become familiar with First Parish, then it will more likely be through something like a yard sale, a lecture, a movie, and/or a community forum. Parents with young children might be attracted to an event involving children.

Lots of members testified to what drew them to First Parish years ago. Some members shared that they wanted a religious education program for their children. Others had found a friendly community that held out a promise to support their religious quest. It was a rich conversation, and Elizabeth and I got to know the stories of lots of members. But we were not able to focus our discussion on outreach to the wider community.

We need to back up and begin our discussion again. Out of these discussions a project will emerge that the congregation can get behind and begin (again) outreach to the community.

Rev. Clyde