Dear Friend of the Presbytery of Detroit,

For a number of years now I have been wary of anyone who claims to be a church “consultant.” These are folks whose specific skill sets provide expert advice and help churches solve problems or improve their mission and ministry. I do agree that there are seasons and spaces where a consultant can be helpful. When a church identifies a particular problem or has a very specific goal in mind to improve their overall mission and ministry.

For example, wanting to improve leadership development or resolve financial and administrative challenges, or work through crises or conflict resolution. My apprehension comes in when a church consultant claims to have a “one-size-fits all” approach to church growth, wrapped in glossy marketing strategies that boasts an iron clad “success rate.” These models identify specific goals and outcomes, accompanied by tactics to help us get there.

That may have been a helpful model a decade ago. But when we are honest with ourselves, is anyone an “expert” on what it means to be the church today… or can predict what the church will look like 5, or even 3 years from now? Do these consults have a magic crystal ball the rest of us don’t? They offer a comforting sense of hope for the future of the church attached to a step-by-step plan ensuring the future is predictable and certain.

But is it?

Does anyone, apart from God, really “know” what the future of the church will be?

Here in the Presbytery of Detroit our congregations and the presbytery face a number of uncertainties. People ask me all the time, “Melissa, what will the Presbytery of Detroit look like when jurisdiction is restored?” “Will a new staffing and committee structure, revised policies, and increased financial transparency ‘fix’ the problems we’ve had in the past?” “When we have meetings again, will people even care enough to come back?”

Honestly, I have no idea.

Uncertainty is deeply uncomfortable for most us. We like to know what to expect. We want a plan. We long for knowing that challenges and hardships for our lives, churches, communities and nation will have an end. But they don’t always. Or at least, the end of such difficulties is unclear. Facing such realities comes with the accusations of being pessimistic and devoid of faith and hope. I don’t believe this to be true. I believe it requires a transformation of our understandings of faith and hope.

An understanding that I haven’t quite been able to put my finger on…

That is, until I heard a message at the World Communion of Reformed Churches offered by the Syrian pastor, Rev. Adon Naaman. For Rev. Naaman his theology of faith and hope was not born from books or conferences.

He describes that it comes from the “daily act of surviving with dignity” in Syria, and calls it: “Horizonless Hope.”

Imagine a picture of a road fading into the fog. You do not know where this road leads or if you will findwhat you are looking for at the end. You only know that you must keep walking.

Rev. Naaman connects this experience to the many stories in Scripture where God meets us “not at the end of the road, but within the fog.”

Moses in the wilderness.

Elijah in the cave.

The disciples in the storm.

I would add, the couple walking along the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus. Mary’s experience of motherhood. Ruth and Naomi in Bethlehem. In each instance, hope did not remove uncertainty. Hope is transformed.

Rev. Naaman reminds us that, “It’s as if God is whispering: ‘You don’t need to see the horizon. You only need to trust that I walk beside you.’”

In our culture, we have learned that the best outcome is one that can be guaranteed. Where we will see the tangible results of “success.” We cling so tightly to an illusion of control that if we work hard enough our desired outcome is certain. We are willing to scapegoat and blame those we believe are responsible for the pain of disrupting the perceived clarity about the future we imagine. We are willing to argue and divide over convictions that we know the “best way” and resign to walking alone, rather than together. We convince ourselves that when we then find ourselves alone, seemingly out of options, and powerless to the forces that have altered our lives, there is no hope.

“Horizonless hope” reimagines “…communities that dare to hope without guarantees. Churches that remain human, compassionate, and faithful even when results are invisible.” Churches that teach what it means to walk together. To depend on God and one another, rather than certainty. To love our neighbors, not because we are sure it will change anything, but because we believe love is still worth practicing.

I join my prayers with those of Rev. Naaman, that the church and the Presbytery of Detroit may learn this theology of horizonless hope. To live out our calling as congregations and the Presbytery not because we see the end, but “because we trust the One who walks beside us.” We seek the ways we can crawl, limp, walk, and roll together.

I would invite you share this message with your Session or in a small group setting (i.e. Bible study, Sunday school class, women’s circle, men’s breakfast, youth group, or less formally with 2-3 people having a cup of coffee or a meal together). This theme might even inspire a pastor and worship committee (who is looking for a last-minute idea!) to include this idea into your theme for Advent worship planning.

You can read Rev. Naaman’s original presentation here:

https://wcrc.eu/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/TC_20251020_AdonNaaman_ENGLISH.pdf.

Or better yet, you can watch it here (at 22:40 in the presentation)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_Uh257_Eqs

Then discuss the following questions (or any of them that resonate with your group):

* Talk together about the concept of “horizonless hope.”

* What other stories from scripture come to mind where “God meets people not at the end of the road, but within the fog.”

* What feels uncertain in your life, the world, the church and the Presbytery of Detroit today?

* What about our future do we need to let go of in order to walk within the fog of this present time?

* How can your church and/or the Presbytery of Detroit “dare to hope without guarantees”? What can that look like in tangible ways and daily practices?

* What does “walking together” look like as a congregation/ presbytery when we have hope that God is walking with us?

* If we are to depend less on “experts” what are the qualities for leadership in a church/ presbytery of “horizonless hope?”

If a particular story of “horizonless hope” bubbles up in your conversation, I would invite you to share it with me so that I can distribute them more widely in the Presbytery.

If anyone is interested in gathering together from across the Presbytery, send me an email statedclerk@detroitpresbytery.org. I will gather us in December on a date that works for the majority of participants.

As your Presbytery Leader, I do not claim to have the answers about the future of our life together. I do believe it is an opportunity for us to enter into a season of discernment and discover the ways God is speaking to us about what it means for us be a Presbytery that lives with “horizonless hope.”

Peace,

Melissa