Something to Take Home

Last Sunday I did something pretty unusual for me: I gave the congregation five "invitation cards" per person to use this week--either in direct invitation to others to join us at St. Edward's or to leave behind in a conspicuous place where one might be found and pondered over. I essentially gave them some homework to do. My hope and prayer is that at least a majority of the nearly 40 people in worship on Sunday are busy thinking, praying, and spreading the Good News with those cards. But as I thought about it some more, it struck me that all of us, as Christians, have "homework"--living our lives in alignment with God's will and purpose. As one parish's web site says:

"the first and most important avenue of ministry for any baptized Christian is their daily life and work. What they do and say in their homes, at the work, and in their leisure. In addition to that, God calls each baptized Christian to take his or her place in the life, worship, and governance of the Church."
-- from St. John's Church, Grand Haven, MI (emphais mine)

Those of us who work for the church for a living often forget that just as ordained ministers do not work only on Sunday mornings, so too those in the pews do most ministry outside the church walls. Certainly, as is pointed out, God calls us each to take our place in the life, worship, and governance of the church. However, as clergy we can often drift into a sense that if we can't find someone to teach Sunday School this week or to count the offering or to serve on the Vestry (church board) then people aren't really doing ministry. We're not sure what they're doing, but it isn't ministry!

Similarly, those in the pews can see those of us with collars as "professional ministers." Sometimes when I am asked to pray at a Kiwanis Club meeting or other semi-public event, I jokingly say "I'm a professional: Don't try this at home!" Of course, the reason it is a joke is that prayer is something that everyone should try at home--and at work, and anywhere else it occurs to them!  Similarly, most ministry both inside and outside of church is not done by clergy but by the laity.

The reality is that, for a Christian, all of life is ministry if lived intentionally so. Whether you are preparing a sermon for Sunday or preparing a meal for a friend or your family, service to others or even service to the Christ who lives in you can be ministry. As Brother Lawrence writes:

“We ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed.”
― Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God  

So the lesson for all of us this week is to be as mindful of God in all of the work we do as I suggested members be mindful of distributing invitation cards. Our ministry is also our invitation--our invitation to others to love God and love others as God has loved us. Hope to see you on Sunday!

What welcoming really means

One of the other parts of our fourfold mission is that we "Welcome all." What, in practice, does that mean? This just came across my Facebook page and I thought I'd share it. I do think that it applies to our church as well (except the part about the Pastor not being able to carry a tune in a bucket, of course....) and, to the extent that it does not, we have work to do:

From Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Community (via this blog):

We extend a special welcome to those who are single, married, divorced, gay, filthy rich, dirt poor, yo no habla Ingles. We extend a special welcome to those who are crying new-borns, skinny as a rail or could afford to lose a few pounds.

We welcome you if you can sing like Andrea Bocelli or like our pastor who can’t carry a note in a bucket. You’re welcome here if you’re “just browsing,” just woke up or just got out of jail. We don’t care if you’re more Catholic than the Pope, or haven’t been in church since little Joey’s Baptism.

We extend a special welcome to those who are over 60 but not grown up yet, and to teenagers who are growing up too fast. We welcome soccer moms, NASCAR dads, starving artists, tree-huggers, latte-sippers, vegetarians, junk-food eaters. We welcome those who are in recovery or still addicted. We welcome you if you’re having problems or you’re down in the dumps or if you don’t like “organized religion,” we’ve been there too.

If you blew all your offering money at the dog track, you’re welcome here. We offer a special welcome to those who think the earth is flat, work too hard, don’t work, can’t spell, or because grandma is in town and wanted to go to church.

We welcome those who are inked, pierced or both. We offer a special welcome to those who could use a prayer right now, had religion shoved down your throat as a kid or got lost in traffic and wound up here by mistake. We welcome tourists, seekers and doubters, bleeding hearts … and you!

If you aren't covered by any of the above, then you are welcome, too...especially at St. Ed's! 9 a.m. every Sunday.

Out with the old and in with the...?

Thanks (again) to Episcopal Café, who got it from Susan Russel's blog An Inch at a Time, I came across a blog entry from Walter Russell Mead, son of The Reverend Lauren Mead, renowned futurist of the Episcopal Church, entitled The Holy Crap Must Go. A sample of his thesis:

The mainline churches in particular are organized like General Motors was organized in the 1950s: they have cost structures and operating procedures that simply don’t work today. They are organized around what I’ve been calling the blue social model, built by rules that don’t work anymore, and oriented to a set of ideas that are well past their sell-by date.

Though I love the title, and appreciate the sentiment, the blog entry suffers from what most of them suffer from--identifying the problem without suggesting a solution. I am a cradle Episcopalian, raised in the Episcopal Church, my faith nurtured in the Presbyterian Church, Southern Baptist Church, and InterVarsity Christian Fellowship chapter in college. I am also a Master's degree-holding, classically seminary-trained, ordained Episcopal priest employed full-time as Priest-in-Charge of St. Edward's. Our congregation is one that was founded in the fifties in a farmhouse and now has a wonderful (but aging) church building and education building, a significant budget deficit, and the opportunity to re-imagine what being the church in the twenty-first century is about. Also, the fact that I am here is a direct result of the decision by both the people who are here and by the diocese not to cede control of the buildings and name of St. Edward's to those who instead chose to depart, but to hang on to both name and buildings--stepping out in faith that God has something good for us in the future.

The difficulty is that it is much easier to plant something new, nurture it, and watch it grow, than it is to revive something old. Putting it a bit more starkly, and not referring to St. Edward's (which is very much alive, thank you), it is easier to give birth than to resurrect. What we at St. Edward's are grappling with now is--what next? Who is God calling us to be and what is God calling us to do in a twenty-first century world that hardly cares, or sometimes barely notices, that the church exists at all? That is a conversation we began at our Annual Meeting on January 31 and that we will be continuing as a Vestry in a series of "mini-retreats" on the first Tuesdays of April, May, and June. Please keep us in your prayers.

The problem with the article, and many others like it, is that it gives no road map, no way of distinguishing the "holy" from the "crap." Put another way, one person's trash is another person's treasure. One person's outmoded and dated way of worship is another person's treasured place and path of comfort in a rapidly changing world. I neither can nor would want to undo my seminary education. I neither can nor would want to simply leave the accumulated wisdom, structures, and ways of doing ministry behind in favor of some "new and improved" way of doing church. By the same token, it is clear that the needs and attitudes of people in the 1950s are not the needs and attitudes of people in the 2010s. Much like the auto companies, it has been literally decades since we were able to rely on our denominational brand and reputation as the church of the upper classes to attract people and keep them coming back.

There is an additional irony here. The irony is that St. Edward's is located in Silicon Valley, the birthplace of the technological revolution that was the beginning of this new post-industrial era. Fueled by risk-taking venture capitalists, the story of Silicon Valley is the story of the information revolution and the mavericks who believed they could change the world. Exemplified in the famous Apple 1984 Superbowl commercial, the story of the Valley is of small, nimble companies running circles around their larger predecessors. So, how can a church in the middle of Silicon Valley become that nimble, flexible, change-the-world church? That is the $64,000 question.

I'm also reminded of the scriptures for tomorrow, specifically the Parable of the Fig Tree. Jesus tells the story of a landowner who comes back to a fig tree, year after year, for three years, failing to find any figs. He tells his gardener to cut it down, saying "Why should it be wasting the soil?" The gardener convinces him to let him put some "manure" on it to see if it will bear fruit next year. Perhaps that is the lesson to learn--don't get rid of the crap, use it to stimulate growth!