It's been kind of a crazy week.  Between recovering from the extra busy weekend I had last week and the internet problems that I've had this week, I've barely had time to think about things. And I still have to write a sermon for Sunday!

We had some real snow flurries this morning.  The past couple of years it's been so warm all the way through November that our first flurries haven't been coming until December or even January. But we've had very cold air and some bits of snow already this year, and maybe more to come!  I happen to like the cold air;  it makes it a little easier to hear the Christmas carols that are already playing in stores! 

Our Five Practices chapter this week dealt with the practice of Extravagant Generosity.  This is the practice of tithing-- which I must admit is not my strongest spiritual gift.  Tithing means giving 10 per cent of your income (you can also tithe your time and talents, I believe, but I think most of us have the most trouble with tithing our income-- and that is the main focus of the chapter.) 

The chapter talks about tithing as a spiritual discipline, and ways to approach tithing if you're don't already practice it.  I like the idea that the book suggests of increasing your giving a small amount each year until you're giving 10 per cent. It also suggests having a plan for tithing (which the book is very big on for each of the practices) so that you can be intentional about it, as well as writing that check first so that you're tithing from your abundance rather than out of your leftovers.  All of this is designed to see our giving as an opportunity rather than a chore--- and as something we do for God or on behalf of the kingdom of God rather than a duty we must perform.  Giving is like any other thing we do for God, in that the amount we give or the way we give it doesn't do anything to earn us points with God-- the only way we attain God's grace is through our faith in Christ-- but like all of the other things we do for God, we do it out of gratitude for what God has done for us in Christ. 

Extravagant Generosity gives us the opportunity to do many things, such as build a church fellowship-- that supports us and is the avenue for creation of new disciples-- and help people outside of the church, in our communities and in the world, to have needs met that wouldn't otherwise be met, to have a better life, and to see the face of God in others.  Extravagant Generosity enables us to think of the needs of others before we think of our own needs-- and self sacrifice is helpful in our growth as faithful people.  The concept of extravagant generosity may seem overwhelming to us at first, but if we take it a step at a time, it is possible.

Week four of the Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations is all about "Risk Taking Mission and Service."  The author begins with the premise that most churches may be already doing mission of some kind, but is it anything that moves the congregation out of its comfort zone?  Does it do anything to enrich your relationship with God/ Christ/ Spirit?  Does it do anything to bring God's light to the world?

Parkway, for example, is pretty good about collecting things and giving money. For its size, it has done a lot of projects in the past year:  Coats for the Cold, Thanksgiving and Christmas baskets for two families. 2 Cents A Meal, School Supplies and Backpack collection, Goody Boxes for Military Personnel, just to name a few.  And these are worthy endeavors-- and they are things that we are able, at this time and size-- to do.

But what if we did something that took us one step further? What if we committed to a project that was ongoing or long term, that brought us into contact with people in the community?  What would it look like for us to take a risk-- and what effect would a larger, longer term project have on the congregation?  The possibilities are great:  it could improve the morale of the church, it could help individuals grow in faith, it could strengthen the congregation as a whole, it could make a difference in the life of someone who is lonely, or hurting, or overwhelmed by modern life.   True, there are risks-- we might not be able to sustain something long-term; we might cause anxiety to or offend those who don't see themselves as able to or interested in taking such a risk; we might get involved with people who don't appreciate us or our efforts, or whose life doesn't seem to change because of our efforts. 

The thing is, God calls us to risk.  Really.  When the disciples responded to Christ's call, they risked being ostracized by the community.  They risked losing family, friends, and homes.  They risked all of this and more because they sensed  that they had the opportunity to be part of something larger than themselves.  Never mind that the outcome wasn't what they had in mind.  Never mind that the something larger was not what God had in mind either--but God managed to work out God's purposes regardless of their human ideas. God didn't need the disciples of Jesus Christ to be perfect or make perfect plans.  All God wanted was for the disciples to take the risk.  And that's what God wants from us, too. Not perfection, not success by human standards.  God just wants us to step out in faith, to take the risk, to move one step beyond our comfort zone.   That's all.  

So here it is, Tuesday again, already.  Here's what I'm thinking about so far today:

Why is it that everything always happens at the same time?  This weekend I am leading a women's retreat, doing my usual Sunday School and worship thing, and preaching at a colleague/ friend's commissioning service?  Oh, and we're having a rummage sale at Parkway this Saturday, too, that I won't get to go to.  And there's a Presbytery meeting that I'll be missing as well.  Sheeesh. 

I didn't write about the 5 Practices class last week. I just go busy and didn'd do it.  It was all about Intentional Faith Development-- or Christian Education, if you prefer. About giving folks who come into our churches a reason to stay.  Fellowship is nice and along with worship is very important, but I think people are hungry for something more. Something that helps them grow as human beings and in their relationship with God.   Once again, this author's main focus is relationship, relationship, relationship-- ours with God, ours with each other.  Our purpose should be to help others find a healthy relationship with God-- one that strengthens and nurtures them in thier daily struggles, and celebrates their joys along with them. 

Being intentional about faith development means going beyond the classes that are already part of your church's cirriculum and thinking about what might appeal to people who haven't even come to your church yet.  It's about making an overall plan for Christian Education at all ages, a plan that facilitates spiritual growth at all ages.  It means not being satisfied with the status quo of opportunities that are already available and thinking creatively about enlarging the circle.  It's about building relationships through learning that will enable us to know one another and God more deeply. 

So I forgot to write my Tuesday Musings again.  I was in and out all day yesterday and it just didn't occur to me until after midnight last night, while I was watching the election coverage. So I will muse today...

I am glad the election is over.  I don't like all the campaigning that goes on for so long before the elections.  I think it's too much sensory overload for my little introverted soul! But this election season has been interesting, and it's pretty exciting to see that we've elected the first African-American president in our nation's history.  I would have liked to see a woman make a real run for president (even though I don't like Sarah Palin's politics and it made me nervous to think she might become president if McCain was elected and then died, it was good to have her be so prominently featured) but it is great to know that this country can be open minded and forward thinking at times.  It will be interesting to see what the true long-term effects of an Obama presidency wil be.  I will say, I voted for Obama and I was glad to do so; but most of all I am glad that I am able to vote, that there were two able candidates for the office, and that lots and lots of people voted.  While I don't think that God necessarily chooses one party or ideology over another-- pretty much because those are human constructs-- I do believe that God wants us to be active participants in this world while we are here.  It's part of being free to be the people God intends for us to be.

Week 2 of our study of the book, Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations took place this past Sunday as well as last night (Tuesday).  Our topic this week was "Passionate Worship", a concept that I think might have been harder for us "frozen chosen" Presbyterians to get our minds around than we would like.  In the discussions we were encouraged by the fact that creating an atmosphere for passionate worship didn't necessarily mean giving up our traditional service for a more contemporary type service; and we connected to a sentence in the bookthat says, "Worship is the most likely setting for people to experience the renewed relationship with God that Christians call "justification," in which the person realizes that she or he is pardoned, forgiven, loved, and accepted by God." (p.35) Worship is the place where we come into God's presence and make an emotional connection with God.  But, many of us felt that connecting and reconnecting with God each week requires freeing our own minds from the worries and distractions of our daily lives; this is often difficult for us to do. 

"Passionate worship" implies that it is something we care about doing, and doing well-- and not just worship leaders, but also worshippers themselves.  Worship cannot be passionate if it is something that we're just trying to get through week to week, if it is something we do because we think we are supposed to or we are obligated to. God wants us, our whole hearts, but not coerced or manipulated; we have to choose to open our hearts, to allow the emotional experience of God to enter our time of worship.  This may be where we as Presbyterians have trouble, because we tend to intellectualize things, or we tend to be introverts who want to keep our relationship and the emotions that go along with it private.  And while I don't necessarily advocate a lot of extreme outward displays of emotion during worship, I do think it is at least somewhat up to us to create an atmosphere for worship in which emotions as well as intellect are accepted and appreciated.

Some suggestions that came from our discussions:

1. Have a visit another church day.   The idea behind this is that it can be very energizing and renewing to be a stranger in a new congregation, to see what goes on in other churches.  No necessarily so that we can copy what other churches do---we have to be who we are and not someone else; but so that we can be inspired to try new things, to see the different parts of the worship experience in a new light.  (I would still offer worship at Parkway so that those who wouldn't want to participate could; but those who wanted to try something new could.)

2. Have a "Check your worries at the door" station at the entrance to the sanctuary.  Have some notecards and a basket so that folks could write down what they are worried about and leave them in the basket-- a symbolic way of clearing our minds of the clutter that keeps us from focused and intentional worship of God. 

Other suggestions for exploring "passionate worship" are welcome!

Our class will continue this Sunday at 9:45 am (and the following Tuesday at 7 pm) with Chapter 3, "Intentional Faith Development."  Please join us if you can!

Last week I read two of the best books I've read in a long time-- The Road by Cormac McCarthy, and The Shack by William Paul Young.  It was interesting to read these books back to back-- I actually read The Shack first-- because they are at the same time very similar and very different.  They were both very engrossing, they were both about a journey of faith, and they each revolved around a man's relationship with his child.  And, at the end of each, the reader is-- at least I was-- left with a feeling of hope, that the future would hold more for these characters than the past did.

The Shack is the story of Mack-- a depressed and somewhat bitter man of middle age-- who, 7 years after the kidnapping and murder of his youngest child has an encounter with God in the very place in which she was killed.  Because of Mack's difficult past, he has a very difficult time accepting the image of God that his wife seems to have-- an image of God as good and loving.  But his encounter with God allows him to come to terms with the past and begin to heal from past hurts-- and by the end of the story we see that Mack is well on his way to becoming a whole, healed person, fully accepting of God's love and grace. 

This book is written from a Christian perspective; in fact, at the cabin, Mack actually encounters God in Trinitarian form.  I don't read a lot of Christian fiction, because what I have read is often sort of "pie in the sky, by and by" so to speak, even for an upbeat optimist like me.  I feel that too often in Christian fiction (at least what I have read) the answer to suffering is simply Jesus--or else, God becomes some sort of magic wish machine.  In other words, I get the "believe in God, give your life to Christ, and all your problems will be magically solved."  It's just a little too dismissive of the real pain and problems that everyone, even Christians, face in their lives.  The answers are a little too pat, a little too slick, for me.  However, this book does a pretty good job of letting Mack be angry at God for what has happened to him and to his daughter; it doesn't deny Mack's pain, nor do you get the feeling that all pain and trouble are going to be removed from his life. He has to do some painful soul-searching and have some conversations that are very "real" before he can be healed from the traumas that he has suffered. But what you learn from Mack's experience is that feeling the pain, rather than making him weak, actually strengthens him.  His heart is softened, yes; but he seems to learn that a softened heart is more open to God's love and mercy and strength.  He learns that "all things work together for good, for those who love God and are called according to God's purposes.  And while this story doesn't have the "pie in the sky by and by" sense that I personally dislike, there is an upbeat ending to the story-- a story filled with pain and regret, of love and longing, of violence and healing.

On the other hand, The Road is quite the dark story.  

The setting is in post-apocolyptic America, several years after a major disaster has happened.  Unlike some other stories of this genre that I have read (Lucifer's Hammer, by Larry Niven, and The Stand and Cell by Steven King, to name 3), this book picks up several years after the disaster.  It is unclear what has happened; but what is evident is that civilization has truly fallen-- there is no reforming government that appears, no reorganization of society that has happened.  This is the story of a father's attempt to keep life going for his son in the face of terrible adversity.  It is a scary story, made so much more intense by the immediacy of the writing-- I felt as though I was walking alongside the man and his son, experiencing the extreme weather, the extreme fear, the extreme desperation right along with them.  But it is also a hopeful story, a story of the tenacity of the human will to survive.  It isn't as overtly theological as The Shack but in its own way brings a sense of hopefulness to the reader, a sense that there is something larger than ourselves that keeps us going, a sense of faith that somehow things can be better.

 

This week we began our study of the book, Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations, by Robert Schnase.  This is a study from the United Methodists intended to help congregations "hold a mirror to their own ministries" in order to evaluate and improve their practice of being church. In today's blog post, I will give an overview of the introduction and chapter one, as well as provide some notes about the discussions of the Sunday morning and Tuesday evening group discussions.

As the title implies, the book describes 5 ways of being church that should enhance, enrich and enliven a congregation's experience.  The 5 practices are:  radical hospitality, passionate worship, intentional faith development, risk-taking mission and service, and extravagant generosity. In our week one discussions we started with the introduction, which, as many introductions are provides a rationale for the study.  The introduction begins by stating that lists the 5 practices and then states that "people are searching for a church shaped and sustained by these qualities"  and also that "by repeating and improving these practices churches fulfill their mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world." In our discussion we discussed the possibility that these 5 practices were each a component, in our more traditional terms, of either evangelism or discipleship, and that it is important to have elements of both in a growing and thriving congregation.  For our purposes, evangelism is the activity (or activities) that brings people into a church and discipleship is the activity (or activities) involved with nurturing the faith of both long-time members and newcomers to the faith.  The author of the book points out that "the most visible way God knits people into community to fulfill the mission of Christ is through congregations."  hearing the good news, learning how to share it with others, and then doing the actual sharing, is the process through which the faith is passed on, and the process through which we grow in the faith.

Chapter one discusses what the author terms the practice of radical hospitality.  Christian hospitality, says Schnase, is the practice of inviting, welcoming, receiving and caring for those who are strangers "so that they find a spiritual home and discover for themselves the unending richness of life in Christ." (p.11)  Schnase also says that radical means "arising from the source" (p.11), so that churches practicing radical hospitality are doing what Christ did-- acts of compassion and mercy, acts of healing and wholeness, welcoming anyone who is in need.  Radical hospitality goes beyond coffee hours and fellowship dinners-- although they may be a component-- into a state of being Christ to the world.  A theme that runs through this chapter is that the churches that practice radical hospitality "pray, plan, and work to invite others and to help them feel welcome and to support them in their faith journeys." (p.11)  Schnase points out that in general denominations don't have a "back door" problem but a "front door" problem-- in other words, people are dying faster than they're coming into the church; and that most churches want the new people who come in to be just like they already are--- even when they say otherwise.

From our discussions:  we feel like we do some things pretty well, such as being friendly when visitors arrive.  We find that it is difficult to get newcomers to leave contact information with us, which makes it hard to follow up with them.  We find that we are not having many visitors and that we have a hard time inviting people for different reasons (uncomfortable with sharing faith, don't know anyone who doesn't go to church already, don't pray that people cross our path who may be open to visiting our church.)  Training and/ or role playing might be ways that we can gain skills in sharing our faith.  Provide opportunities for people to experience us through other activities than worship (Women's Bible Study, Parent's Nite Out, VBS) and reach out to those groups who are already using our facilities (Boy Scouts and soccer teams). 

If you are not reading this book along with us, I highly encourage you to begin doing so.  We have a couple available at the church or it can be ordered through Cokesbury bookstores.

Well, I missed my Tuesday Musings committment again this week.  Check back next Tuesday, I will try harder! 

This week we are beginning a new study that will meet on Sunday mornings during the Sunday school hour; the lesson will be repeated on Tuesday evenings at 7 pm.  There has been some controversey about the timing of this class; but I am hopeful that once we get started and folks get excited about the material, the controversey will die down and we'll be able to move forward.

Whether we like to admit it or not, conflict and controversey are a part of church life.  Whenever two or more of us human beings are gathered, there are going to be differences of opinion.  After Moses led the people out of Egypt and away from the lives of slavery and oppression that they had been living, he was faced with murmurs and rumblings from the crowds.  The people honestly thought it might be better to go back to the difficult life they had been living-- but that was familiar and therefore "safe", than it would be to press forward without knowing where food and drink and homes and security were going to come from.  Anxiety reigned due to the uncertainty of the situation and the enormity of the change that was being faced. 

In this way the people of God in Moses' day were no different than those of us who become anxious at any change in our church.  Whether it is changing the color of carpet in the sanctuary, or changing the style of our worship service, or changing our standards for ordination of ministers and elders, change always elicits some feelings of nervousness in the people involved.  And that's pretty normal and not unhealthy in itself; however, when the anxiety and nervousness make us freeze in place, or makes us attempt to go back to fondly remembered old ways of doing things, or turns us into control freaks who throw down a gauntlet of "my way or the highway", then we move into unhealthy territory.  And it is this unhealthy place that allows the controversey to become threatening to the life of the ch

I didn't make my blog entry on Tuesday this week; but here I am on Friday, at the end of what has been a pretty wild week in financial markets and for the economy in general.  It's enough to make most of us nervous, I think; not only are people nervous about losing their retirement savings, but they're worried about their jobs, about how they're going to pay for groceries and gas, about how their going to make their mortgage payments.  For most people, even if life is going on without any obvious changes, the possibility of change looms out there-- and it is usually possibilities rather than actualities that make people the most worried. 

An internet report this morning talked about a movie called "Fireproof" that has been in the top 10 of box office receipts for the past few weeks.  As I understand it,"Fireproof" is a story of how people apply principles of faith in thier lives-- how having faith makes a difference in people's lives during times of trouble.  Now, I haven't seen this movie, and I don't know if I will (I don't get out much ;-) )  But I am in the business of helping people make connections between their faith and what happens in their lives.  I am convinced that having faith in something larger than ourselves is key to enduring the hard times (as well as appreciating the easy times.) 

Comedian Bill Mahr also has a movie out right now-- "Religulous"-- which as I understand it is intended to be a humorously critical look at world religions (haven't seen this one either yet).  Mahr, who claims not to be an athiest (on the Daily Show last week he said he just doesn't know) in the same interview stated that he just wants people to ask questions, to think about the religious beliefs that they claim to hold, to apply principles of reason to matters of faith.  Now, I can't argue with Mahr that many religious beliefs are based on things that seem to be pretty outrageous or unbeleiveable; but really, isn't that the point?  Isn't faith believing in something when common sense tells you otherwise?  I'm not saying, don't examine your faith or your beliefs-- in fact, where I agree with Mahr is in that we do need to learn to ask questions and think theologically about our lives.  Because to me, that is where the comfort is-- in knowing what you beleive and why, and being able to articulate it to yourself and others. 

In scary times, such as where we are right now with the economy, I'm not comforted by the image of a big guy with a white beard sitting up in the sky somewhere waiting to see if we're going to make it or not; what I find comforting in these times is that it's not all about me, that there is something outside of myself, something bigger than me around for me to look to for guidance and support.  It's having the example of Christ to look to, the ethics that are at the root of his life-- loving God and neighbor more than ourselves, healing instead of hurting, service and sacrifice in the face of trouble.  Doing justice, extending hesed, a radical kind of lovingkindness, to others, and sharing our lives with God.