Somehow I got invited to a community forum for Rural Broome Counts, an effort to research and address the human service needs of the rural portion of our county (Broome County, NY). One of the presenters at this forum was Frank Evangelisti, who brought us a summation of the 2013 Broom County Comprehensive Plan: Building Our Future. After his brief presentation, he half-jokingly offered copies of the full plan and report, a 300-page spiral-bound tome with graphs, data, narrative, and an extensive vision for Broome County's future progress. After the forum, I got myself a copy.
Broome County has about 200,000 residents, living in situations as diverse as dense inner-city apartment buildings and 150-year-old farmhouses without a neighbor in sight. I was fascinated to read through all the data, distillations, and declarations made in the "comprehensive plan" for such a population.
More than the hard data, the vision-casting that goes on in the document makes me think. For instance, how does leadership make a community "vibrant"? This term came up specifically in the dream of the comprehensive plan. Color? Art? Smiles on faces? People walking with energy, rather than huddled and plodding against the driving wind?
Being outside the leadership of Broome County--and therefore suffering the separation of abstraction--I found myself reflecting on what a "comprehensive plan" would look like for the community of which I am a leader: the Church. Every item in the Broome County plan called for some change, some additional investment of energy, and probably some money. How does a community get people to want to do such things?
How does the Church get people to want to enact a vision for her future?
~ emrys
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