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.

Vital Worship

As we settle into worship confidently (see the previous post), we also need to be aware that our worship needs to meet not only our own needs, but those of others. One way we've talked about doing that has been by starting a second service. However, a recent article gives some good advice about that:

Previous church, now Hallstead Hall.

When congregations are considering a second service, my initial advice is to first address the quality of the service currently offered. There is nothing wrong in and of itself with traditional worship. In fact, done well, traditional worship services rehearse the drama of salvation and can appeal to people of all ages and effectively help them connect with God. The problem is often that the traditional service is done in a way that is so tired and worn that it has lost its capacity to engage most people, especially younger people.

I liken a lethargic worship service to a faded photograph. My wife and I have a picture taken on a picnic with friends during seminary days. It is a Polaroid snapshot and so much of the color has washed out of it over these ensuing more than 40 years and there are some creases from too much handling. Nevertheless, when I look at that picture, I am right back there at Shades State Park with Mindy, and Joe and Ellen, eating lunch and playing cards at a picnic table bathed in sunlight filtered through tall beech trees on that beautiful summer day. The vivid memory of that time together and our deep friendship is triggered once again, even by that faded photograph.

Current church.

Those over 60 or so, remember when traditional worship was new to them and done so well. In those days, the preacher preached as though something was at stake, those who led prayers seemed to pray to a living God, those who read scripture had obviously practiced the reading before stepping into the lectern, and the people seemed to sing the hymns with energy and enthusiasm. Today, too much traditional worship features tired preaching, prayers that are read like a grocery list, and stumbling readers who draw attention to themselves rather than to the Word.

Like that faded photograph, just going through the motions of traditional worship is enough to draw many older adults into an effective worship experience because they still remember when their faith was new and the service was done so well. But young people who endure such services cannot find the Holy Spirit in these services with a flashlight! Neither can those older adults who did not grow up with traditional worship and thus have no memory to draw upon. No wonder such folks often opt out of traditional worship.

I think one of the chief challenges we face at St. Edward's, especially with the average age of our congregation, is the temptation to be satisfied with the "faded photograph" type of worship--a kind of worship that relies more on the spirit of nostalgia than on the Holy Spirit. Like an aging, but familiar house, we are tempted to simply let things go--sometimes not even noticing them. I remember when moving our of our last house and preparing it for sale or for rental, there were many things which we had simply grown to live with and that didn't seem important enough to address while we were living there. Once we had to prepare it for others, however, those things needed to be fixed.

As we continue the process of re-planting St. Edward's, we will find that there are some things that we have "lived with" or even enjoyed in the past that will need to be renewed, changed, or even discarded in favor of something more attractive, more vibrant, and more welcoming. May we undertake that process sensitively but proactively in the coming months and years.

Confident Worship

Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. - Hebrews 4:16, NASB

The second part of our fourfold mission is to "worship fully." Any number of people have asked what that means. On our web site, we say that it means that "built upon the liturgical traditions of our church, we will use whatever forms of worship best connect us to God in Christ." Among many things, it means that we will constantly experiment with our worship to strike a balance between the comfort of those already here and the attraction and accessibility of our worship to newcomers. However, before experimentation, there is a foundational principal of "full" worship that I hope to articulate with this post.

As I was engaging in worship with everyone here at St. Edward's a couple of Sundays ago, something that has been percolating in my mind finally crystallized. I've been thinking about worship, specifically worship at St. Edward's, and I've been feeling like there needs to be a change in how we worship. Not merely a change in prayers, music, or other outward signs, but a change of attitude. When I first thought of that, I was thinking that worship really should be easy and effortless. However, neither of those two adjectives really worked for me. Worship is not a natural thing for human beings--we're much more prone to focus on ourselves than we are to focus on God. So, it really couldn't, and shouldn't, be easy. Effortless also doesn't work, since worship should require effort, focus, and intentionality. It shouldn't be like sitting in a concert hall or relaxing on the beach. After wrestling with those two adjectives and rejecting them, I finally came up with one that I like:

Confident.

As children of God, heirs of God's purpose and power, we need to do everything in our power to worship confidently, not hesitantly or timidly. Note that I'm not talking about a rowdy, sporting event type of worship. I'm talking about worship that ushers us into the presence of God in full confidence that we belong there, that God wants us there, and that the prayers and praises that we offer are done so in a way that doesn't look like we've never done this before. I'm talking about worship that is not rushed, but joyfully deliberate. I'm also talking about worship that doesn't so much remind us of the past as it propels us into the future.

What do we need to do this? Purpose, preparation, and practice.

Purpose: We are not just making this up from scratch. We take our worship from the Book of Common Prayer 1979. I cannot tell you how thankful I am that, unlike some nondenominational churches, we don't need to create the worship service from the ground up. Our rich Anglican liturgical heritage supports and enhances our worship experience. It also helps us live out the Benedictine value of stability--our service does not radically change from week to week. In selecting hymns and worship songs, I try to choose songs we have sung before or that are easy to learn. I also choose music that has some relationship to the lessons for that particular Sunday. While worship can occasionally be spontaneous, good worship is rarely off-the-cuff. On the few occasions that I have modified worship services at the last minute, I have nearly always regretted it.

Preparation: One of my seminary professors once recounted a sort of a curse he had heard from one of his professors: "If you just roll out of bed and stumble out to celebrate the Eucharist, I hope you die on the way." Harsh, perhaps, but his point was that leading (and participating in) worship requires both physical and spiritual preparation. Rushing in at the last minute, scrambling for one's notes, prayer book, or other items, and then trying to center oneself and enter into worship purposefully is a very difficult task. For myself, I aim to arrive at least 30 minutes prior to the service so that I can mentally, physically, and spiritually prepare myself. If one is leading worship, one should be here at least 15 to 20 minutes early to make sure everything is set. If one is participating in worship, being here 5 to 10 minutes early is a good thing, just to allow the busyness of the morning to recede. This part of worship has to do with the Benedictine value of obedience--a sense of discipline that says "this is important enough to prepare for." Yes, sometimes the unexpected happens, but minimizing the unexpected in the way we handle the logistics of worship allows the unexpected (or expected!) sense of the Spirit of God more access to our hearts and minds.

Practice: Like anything else, worship requires practice. If we limit ourselves to the same two-dozen hymns we've always done, we won't need to learn anything new but we also won't be doing much that is fresh. This aspect of worship reflects the Benedictine value of conversion of life. We are always to be learning and growing. Worship that is rote and flat is not worship, it is recital. That does not mean that one should show up at worship not having practiced, especially if one is helping to lead. If you are reading scripture, you should have already read it, out loud, several times at home. If you are serving at the altar, one hopes that you have been trained to do so. As we move through worship, we should be surprised at what God is doing in our hearts and minds, not wondering why that person is doing that thing.

My hope and prayer for us is that we can worship more and more fully by remembering that we are worshipping on purpose, preparing ourselves to worship each week, and knowing that practicing both new and tried-and-true things opens our hearts up to God's leading. See you on Sunday!

Where in the world is Jesus Christ?

Two Sundays ago I preached on "faith-full, fear-less" servanthood, with the key scriptural passage being:

If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him. - John 12:26, NASB

As I look out over both our congregation seated in the pews on Sunday morning and on the world at large, this statement of Jesus echoes in my mind: "where I am, there my servant will be also." When I was younger, there was both a PBS television series and a series of computer games with the title "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?" The series still exists today. The idea was to "track" Carmen Sandiego across the world, finding out about the various places she visited and attempting to catch her. As they current site history notes, the games were designed to stimulate interest in "geography, world cultures, astronomy and history."


It occurred to me as I was preparing, preaching, and reflecting on the sermon that if it is indeed true that as servants of Christ we are called to be where Jesus is, the question becomes: "Where in the world is Jesus?" While devoutly praying that there will not be a television series nor computer games with this theme, that question is one that need to continually ask as Christians.

Garden of Gethsemane

On Maundy Thursday, Jesus is with his disciples in the upper room eating the (early) Passover Meal, then later in the Garden of Gethsemane, where he is arrested and led through a long night of questions and confrontations. Today, on Good Friday, he is brought before Pontius Pilate and, at the urging of the crowd, condemned to death on a cross. We believe that somehow that death on the cross completed and solidified the bond between the human and the divine that allows us to call the creator of the universe "Abba" which means "Father" or, more specifically "Daddy" (yes, it is that informal).


On Sunday, we will celebrate our belief that Jesus Christ rose from the dead on the third day and appeared to the female disciples and then to the Twelve (actually, at that point, eleven--Judus was gone). He then appears to various others in various other situations, before ascending into heaven. Here is the problem: too often we metaphorically linger at the tomb, wondering what to do next, where Jesus has gone. We don't expect Jesus to appear in the world, perhaps even unexpectedly in our everyday lives. We often refrain from, to use a book title, Unbinding the Gospel. Even as Jesus' followers, we don't seem to fully grasp the fact that Jesus has been turned loose in the world--both through our hands and feet and through the Holy Spirit at work. As we again follow Jesus through death, burial, and resurrection, may we not forget that Jesus is loose in the world--and be on the lookout for him!

Shame and the Harvest

This past Sunday, I mentioned Dr. Brené Brown's "TED talk" on shame and vulnerability, a follow-up to her initial talk about vulnerability. For those of you who could not find the latest talk, here it is:


As I've been ruminating on that, another piece of information crossed my computer screen--this time on evangelism. Author Frank Schaeffer talks about the desire and need of progressive former evangelicals for a community of faith to support them. Though one would think that the mainline church would be a good fit for such ex-evangelicals, most don't know that we exist. As he writes: "And what amazes me is the invisibility of the mainline communities when it comes to the literally millions of former evangelicals I know are out there." He goes on to ask a very pointed question:

Why aren't the mainline denominations pitching their churches' tolerant and noble humanistic and enlightened views about individual empowerment, community and spiritual rebirth to the spiritually disenfranchised on a larger scale? The examples I mentioned here show that religion -- even "church" -- can be presented in a way that works and draws young people in. As someone once said "Do you not say, 'There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest'? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest" (John 4:35).

If the mainline churches would work for the next few years in a concerted effort to gather in the spiritual refugees wandering our country they'd be bursting at the seams.

I think these two topics--shame and evangelism--are connected, and are connected in this way: we are secretly ashamed to admit that we are Episcopal Christians. As Dr. Brown noted, shame feeds on secrecy, silence, and judgement. The mainline church has thrived most when we have been obvious, outspoken, and open to other people. In other words, the church has thrived when it has had empathy with others, a sense of "Me, too!" in the struggles of the world. That is what the Incarnation is, God's "me, too!" response to the challenges we face.

So, how might we work on a "concerted effort to gather in the spiritual refugees wandering our country"? I can think of at least three things to do:

1. Stop apologizing for what we are not and begin celebrating what we are. We are not a big, evangelical denomination with folks who can witness or quote scripture at the drop of a hat. We are a tradition that values scripture, tradition, and reason with a liturgical foundation.
2. Stop doing good things in secret and begin to connect our faith more obviously with how we live our lives. Even if we don't necessarily think about it, we are formed by our beliefs, our (hopefully!) daily devotions, and our weekly worship. The good things we do are a natural expression of that faith. While we are somewhat humorously described as "Episcopal ninjas", people are not paying enough attention to simply "catch" our faith without our even mentioning it.
3. Proclaim grace, not judgement, and do it often. There is a reason that books such as "Love wins" are best sellers and that Christianity is most often described as judgmental--we are far better at being sucked into the world's transactional way of doing things then we are in proclaiming the peculiar economics of grace. Rather than being embarrassed by a so-called "wishy-washy faith," we should be clear that our openness does not come from being unclear about our faith, but clear about God's love.

Our challenge in the twenty-first century world is less to confront hart-core skeptics and win them over to our point of view, but to demonstrate to those who couldn't care less that our faith actually makes a difference in our lives and that our faith is a living, active relationship rather than a long list of religious rules. May we do all that we can towards that end.

Seeds of Re-Planting: Blessed to be a Blessing

As we continue our church re-planting process, I wanted to share a video I just ran across that was made by my friend and colleague, The Rev. Canon Frank Logue. He put the video together about a church plant in his diocese, the Diocese of Georgia. The church planter, The Rev. Cynthia Taylor, talks about how her church, Holy Comforter, was planted and grew in very surprising ways. Note that she doesn't talk about how many programs they have or even how many people they have on Sunday morning. What she talks about is Jesus. Take a look:


What lessons can we learn from this here at St. Edward's? The biggest lesson, I think, is that there are many, many people around us who are spiritually hungry, even spiritually starving, and who we can quite easily feed. Simple things like praying with someone can be life-changing events. We don't need flashy programs, tens of thousands of dollars, or hundreds of people to make a difference to those around us. We need what we already have--a relationship with Jesus Christ and a faith community, a church, that strengthens and deepens that relationship.

Who can you bless today?

New Beginnings, and Streaching our (Spritual) Muscles

In the last 24 hours I have had several experiences which have caused me to reflect a bit. The first was the outstanding sermon given by our departing Priest Associate for Evangelism, Julie Nelson, at the service yesterday morning. No, it wasn't a triumph of exegesis or a particularly new or surprising interpretation of scripture--it might be best described as a testimonial about what being at St. Edward's has meant to her and the power of God for new beginnings. Reflecting on the beginning of the creation story in Genesis and the story of Jesus' baptism at the beginning of the Gospel of Mark, Julie talked about her experience of being at St. Edward's as her own "new beginning" and invited us all to reflect on the power of God to speak into being new beginnings all the time.

This morning, I joined Doris Martinez's "Feel Good Exercise Class" in Hallstead Hall and we stretched muscles that many of us had not worked on since before the holidays, or even longer than that! I know I'm going to feel it tomorrow, and not in a good way, but I also know that parish ministry is not a highly active occupation, and the opportunity to support an outreach of the church and get some much-needed exercise is a "two for one" that is hard to pass up.

Finally, a little while ago, I ran across an article that said, in part:

Finding ways for people to share their stories wasn’t about investing a lot of time researching the best curriculum or purchasing supplies. I relied on something that already flowed freely and found its way into nearly every gathering of the church. Coffee. The large percolator coffee pot was started before worship every Sunday. During silent pauses of a prayer, we could hear the pot entering its final stages of brewing. After the benediction and handshakes, the worshipers moved from the sanctuary to the parlor, where they filled their cups and shared with one another the stories of their week.

I've heard many jokes about our weekly Coffee Hour being "the third sacrament", but it really does serve as a time for people to grab a cup of coffee and a treat and have some conversations about what is happening in their lives, a story of the past, of a prayer for the future. People often share quite naturally, much like walking is quite natural.

What is not quite as natural as sharing snippets of stories is sharing more deeply with one another. Sharing our spiritual stories has a power that taps into that "new beginnings" power of God. As we speak, God speaks new things into being. This is very much the "witness to God's grace" part of our stated mission. Like our muscles, our ability to identify and witness God's grace in our lives atrophies if we fail to exercise it. So, one of the things we'll be doing in the next few months is looking for opportunities to share our stories of God's grace and power in our own lives. I'd love to hear your stories, and I'll do my best to weave my own (or particularly good ones from others, anonymously) into my sermons as well. Stretch!