Equipping the Saints for the Work of Ministry

And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ -- Ephesians 4:11-12, NKJV

One of the most challenging things to do in the church is to equip people for ministry. It is challenging in a number of ways. First, it is challenging because people have so little time available to them that sometimes they barely have time for the ministry to which they believe God has called them, much less time to be trained or re-trained. However, perhaps the bigger challenge to equipping people for ministry is not in the equippees, but in the equippers--we who are leaders in the church. Frankly, it is a whole lot more efficient in the short term to do things yourself than it is to teach others to do them. It also means that the tasks will be done to one's own satisfaction and in the way that one wants them to be done. That being said, it is profoundly unbiblical to do things ourselves. Even if we are doing ministry "solo" we are really doing it in partnership with God, and God wants to be in partnership with us. God is all-powerful and could simply think something and it would be done. Yet God models for us a partnership in which human beings are integral to God's work in the world.

I write the above because we are at the beginning of a five week Lenten Series that I've entitled "Being an Episcopal Christian." In that series we'll explore what it means to be a Christian, an Anglican, an Episcopalian, and a member of this parish and diocese. At the same time, the Diocese of El Camino Real has begun their Diocesan Center for Spiritual Leadership with a session this past Saturday at St. Paul's, Salinas. Here are some highlights:



The challenge for me, and for many people I suspect, is to take time to both be equipped for the ministries to which God has called us and to take time to equip others for the ministries to which God has called them. God give us the strength, especially this Lenten season, to have the discipline to do so.

Church: Restaurant, Hospital, or Birthing Center?

I just posted an entry on my personal blog and wanted to share it with those of you who follow this one. Specifically, I wanted to share this part of it:

The idea is that we join in this meal [communion] at God's table after we have been born (actually, re-born) into God's family through baptism. In other words, we're born and then we are fed. That makes a certain kind of sense. However, if one takes this metaphor a bit further, how are "pre-Christians" or yet-to-be-(re-)born Christians fed before they are born into God's family? In other words, what provides the "womb" in which a person's first cells of faith can grow and the "umbilical cord" that provides the "nutrition" or spiritual food without which the unborn-again person will spiritually starve? It seems like, for Sara [Miles], that umbilical cord was, at least in part, communion itself.

I don't know exactly what to do with this metaphor, but I do think it is worth asking whether the church is a place that provides a safe place for spiritual growth and the "food" necessary for such growth or whether the church can only provide solid food, as it were, to those already in God's family. If it can only feed those who are already Christians, then we become essentially spiritually barren--unable to receive the gift of the beginnings of a new life that is growing within someone and nurturing it to in climax in someone's rebirth. Thomas Brackett, the Program Officer for Church Planting and Redevelopment of the Episcopal Church, talks about "midwifing" what God is already doing--nurturing it and helping it along. How might we best do that, I wonder, and what would it take to move from hospital or restaurant to birthing center?

I can't shake that image of the church as birthing center, the place where people come to get that little spark of spiritual life within them nurtured and fed so that it grows to such an extent that it actually transforms them and they are re-born into the family of God. Perhaps part of it is that I'm about ready to launch a Lenten series entitled "Being and Episcopal Christian." This week, I am preparing for the first session, which is simply called "Being a Christian" and thinking about what exactly it means to be a Christian in twenty-first century America and how we might need to change things in the church to make it more faith-nurturing and less faith-assuming. Seems almost like Jesus lament in this coming Sunday's Gospel reading that he longs to "gather [their] children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and [they] were not willing! " (Luke 13:34) Perhaps many people are now willing to be gathered, and the church has forgotten how to do so. Food for thought.

40 Days of....?

After a brief interlude following Epiphany, the church calendar now plunges us into the 40 days of Lent (Sundays don't count--being festival days--so that's why it isn't 40 calendar days). Those 40 days are meant to call to mind the days of our Lord's temptation in the wilderness--and not a peaceful, shady wilderness like I'm used to in Oregon and Northern California, but a desert wilderness. A friend of mine passed the following along. See what you think...



I sometimes think that our world is in a sort of wilderness time. Certainly our church is! There seem to be many, many problems to overcome. Health care reform, poverty, greed, joblessness, etc... At the same time there seem to be so few people, especially in the political arena, with the courage to confront and even begin to address these problems. In the Episcopal Church, we continue to wrestle not only with the obvious issues of sexuality but with what I would consider the more important and more basic issues of meaning and purpose in the 21st century.

We are firmly now in a post-Christendom society, especially here in Silicon Valley. People need a compelling reason to be involved in a church and that involvement means not being involved in the myriad of other possible things available. How do we in the church recapture that core sense of transformational power that is the essence of the Gospel and then translate it into a compelling witness to the world? It is a question that other generations have had to grapple with, but we are at that 500 year point that Phyllis Tickle writes about in The Great Emergence in which everything is pretty much up for grabs. My contention is that it that uneasiness, that dis-ease, which is infecting the church and causing us to be less confident of the Gospel we proclaim, not any issue like sexuality. May this Lent serve to remind our own congregation and the wider church of the power of the Gospel message amidst the temptations of the world.

Godly Discernment, not Program Development

Last Sunday was the Annual Meeting of St. Edward's and we had what I thought was a good meeting. I extended myself slightly, technologically speaking, and put together a PowerPoint presentation to summarize the Annual Report which was well received and we had some good discussions. This week I'm doing preparations for the annual Vestry Retreat which begins with a dinner on Friday evening at the Gooding house and continues with a 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. visioning and planning session at the Balcunas cabin in the Santa Cruz mountains. Not a bad way to spend an evening and a day!

In my sermon on Sunday I talked a bit about discernment--specifically, discerning God's will for us as individuals and as a community. That's really what we were doing as a congregation at the Annual Meeting and what we will be doing as a Vestry at our retreat. We aren't burdened with the task of coming up with some whiz-bang, foolproof way of doubling the size of our congregation in a year's time or otherwise coming up with some 'resurrection plan.' We are merely to enter into God's presence, to quiet our hearts and minds, and--in the silence of our hearts and in the discussions between us--to discern God's will for St. Edward's and to begin to put people, plans, and policies in place to carry out what God wills in partnership with God. No human agency could have planned the resurrection, the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost, nor any of the myriad of large and little miracles that are sprinkled throughout the Gospel accounts of Jesus' earthly ministry. Similarly, I look forward not to planning for God, but planning in partnership with what we know God is doing and will continue to do through us.

Before we even get to the people, plans, and programs, we will also ask God and one another: What is the new St. Edward's? Who are we as a congregation? What are our values? What are our strengths and weaknesses? What is unique about us? Such questions of identity and character necessarily precede planning. This, too, will be an ongoing process.

More to come!

An Evening Prayer Service for the People of Haiti

(Updated 01/26/10)
Tuesday, January 26 at 7 p.m. St. Edward's in San Jose
Haiti Prayer Service Raises over $500!
Updated with links and additional information on 1/23/10

A prayer service combining silence, song, prayer, and an opportunity to give via Episcopal Relief and Development was held at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, January 26 at St. Edward's Episcopal Church, 15040 Union Ave., San Jose (corner of Union and Hwy 85). The small group of 20+ people raised over $500 to go toward Haiti relief through ERD.

In response, from Lauren Stanley: "on behalf of the Bishop of Haiti, The Rt. Rev. Jean Zache Duracin, thank you for your love and support."

There is now a video available, taken by the Wall Street Journal of how the Episcopal Diocese of Haiti is helping in the midst of this tragedy. (Broken link to video fixed 1/25/10)

Update (1/23/10): Here is an interview of The Reverend Lauren Stanley, Appointed Missionary to Haiti, on the situation there. There is a 4 minute version that aired on the radio. There is also 16+ minute version.

"The Cathedral...is gone..."

The following are the two parts to the sermon of my friend, colleague, fellow Virginia Seminary alum, and appointed missionary of The Episcopal Church to Haiti The Reverend Lauren Stanley. She was in Virginia at the time of the earthquake and so is doing what she can from hundreds of miles away.

Lauren Stanley Sermon, Part I

Lauren Stanley Sermon, Part II

Pray for her, for those she cares about but of whom she has no news, and indeed for all the people of Haiti.

Stewards of God's Grace

"When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, "Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now." Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him." - John 2:10-11

As noted in my earlier post, when calamity strikes, it is often difficult to respond at all, much less respond helpfully. Couple that with the miracle at the wedding at Cana that is the Gospel reading for this past Sunday, and you have celebration colliding with calamity.

Beyond asking the question "Where is God in all of this?" (which is addressed in the video in the previous post) we hopefully move to the question "Where does God want me to be in all of this?" There are a variety of answers to that question. In the short term, the answer is to give money that can both be transmitted quickly and can support the local economy rather than collecting food, water, and other necessities and shipping them there. It may not be as personally satisfying for us to click a "donate" button or write a check, but this isn't really about us anyway.

In the longer term, it is worth thinking about what sort of long-term "partnership with providence" we might direct towards Haiti. In other words, what is God already doing and planning to do there and how might we most effectively partner with God in that effort? The fact is that we are merely stewards of divine wine--beverage of the Heavenly Banquet. We neither purchase nor create the wine of God's blessings, we simply convey it to those who need to "taste and see that the Lord is good." (Psalm 34:8). The wonderful thing is that this tasting and seeing is not limited to those in extreme physical need. We need to taste that Kingdom wine, that celebration in the midst of calamity, as much as anyone else does. It is in being stewards, being purveyors of God's grace and mercy, that we know ourselves to be both blessed and a blessing to others.