Reaching Out

One of my goals this year is to use technology more fully.  Not only is this blog part of my goal, but I also am committed to learning all the features of my ipad, keep improving my  use of social media, and, fix the sound system at our congregation.  What a minute, fix the sound system?  That does not seem like a personal goal.  Well for me it is not only a personal goal, it is a ministry goal for outreach.

In the past few months of getting better at technology, I can listen to the recent lectures series at my seminary, make use of their bible study series, listen to prayer offerings from an Episcopal monastery wherever I go, shape my centering prayer from my Twitter feed,  and read email reviews of the latest publications for ministry.  As part of my sermon preparation, I now read blogs from the Christian Century as well as my online biblical commentary subscription.  Yet, in my congregation when the Word is spoken, read, or preached, many people do not receive the message in significant part because the sound system does not deliver a clear enough amplification. I can listen to the helpful words of so many other faithful Christians who live far away from me and I cannot fully communicate with the people who are sitting in front of me.

And, I want to communicate with the people sitting in front of my and beyond.  What about our member whose travel for work takes him or her away over the weekend?  What about the parishioner who is recovering from surgery and cannot attend on Sunday?  What about the person searching for a church, or, live words of Good News who goes to our parish's website?  What about the person who was there on Sunday and wants to share with a friend, or, even hear again a scripture passage read aloud as part of a daily devotion?  The possibilities are endless.  The impact, expansive. Yet, we cannot reach out because the sound cannot be translated to our website to be podcast. We have the capacity to send a podcast, we don't have the capability to get the sound to the podcast. We have the capacity to stream our worship, and/or sermons, but we don't have the capabilities to record the images.

By now, the members of the Outreach Commission are likely thinking this is serving ourselves and not not those in need!  Well, yes and no.  Spiritually feeding our congregation feeds others.   Inspiring current members and inviting new members shapes more disciples of Christ to serve. Keeping those in our  community connected to our spiritual offerings enables them to carry out the ministries to which they are so deeply committed. Getting the Word out shares the needs we seek to fill to more and more people.  These are all in the yes category.

The No category would be draining resources from those in need so that we can watch ourselves on the web. The no category would be making these communication resources available to only a few.  The no would be understanding community only as worship on Sunday and ignoring the final  words of worship, "Go in Peace to love and serve the Lord."

Reaching out, Outreach, today includes communication.  Communication includes words spoken in public worship that carry the emotion and meaning of the passage.  Communication includes sermons that can be heard with all the power that good preparation, well chosen words, passion, and the range of the human voice can convey. Communication includes reaching out through technology not only to those who are sitting in front of us but those who are listening with their eyes on a screen and their ear buds in their ears.

Harvest Season

The scripture passages for these Sundays of the fall offer rich imagery of the fruits of the earth and an abundant harvest.   When the crops mature and ripen, its time to gather that abundance to sustain us through the year.  When the goodness that Creation offers overflows, then the overflowing goodness of God is the theological narrative we follow.

Congregations follow this narrative not only because its fall but because its stewardship season. The fruits of the earth lead us to reflect on the fruits of God's goodness in our lives.  The overflowing richness that is more than can feed us for this moment is meant first to be shared and second to be carefully tended to sustain us through the year.  We are invited to view our lives as that abundant harvest and return a portion to benefit all God's people.

Yet, as far as I know there is no one in my congregation who has direct experience with a harvest.  No one grows vast expanses of grape, or apples, or pumpkins, or wheat.  No one works long months to tend the fields then only to have a few weeks and hopes for good weather conditions to gather in the crop.

Instead, we live in a world where there is intense competition for the  produce of our lives.  How, where, and when our money is spent is a  daily if not hourly decision. The choices are abundant but so are the decisions.

So, it is often my experience when the church asks members to be careful tenders of their abundance and share, what members hear is not an invitation but another place of competition.  "The church is always asking for money" is the response.  Well, maybe, if the teaching to be harvesters and stewards is just another place to spend.

The invitation to stewardship is to go deeper.  Not just to share financial resources with God's people and the members of your congregation but as an individual, a household, to be intentional, proactive, thoughtful about how you share.  To think, and reflect, and pray so that money decisions are made not based on competition but on what you value.  To view money decisions as at least a year long plan so that the intense competition is not what makes the decision.

Its a challenge to live intentionally. Its a challenge to ask ourselves what is important enough to sustain over months and years. Its a challenge locate ourselves in the narrative of harvest and God's abundance when we live in a world of moment to moment. Its a challenge that as Christians we are all asked to embrace.

Windows to a Future

What is the scariest part of beginning a new experience?  Not knowing what to expect.  When adults feel uninformed, then they feel incompetent.  When parents cannot help their children anticipate the next steps, then they feel they are letting their children down.  Several years ago, before GPS and iphones, my family moved to a new state.  Every time I took my kids to the next new event, play date, sports activity, or shopping I navigated by the book of maps that I faithfully kept in the car. Inevitably there were wrong turns and stops to check the map. Every time my daughter would anxiously ask, "Do you know where you are going?"  And my response was yes, but I need the map to get there.

The maps of today are supplied by technology. The location maps are in our cars and our pockets.  But there are other maps supplied by technology that can help us know what to expect from a new experience.

We can view a video to learn how a new kitchen appliance works. We can take a virtual tour around homes that are for sale.  We can listen to a conference speaker on that person's website to decide if the conference is worth  our efforts to attend.  We can try out songs on the internet to see if we want to purchase the music from that artist.

Through technology, we can supply maps to our congregations.  The two aspects of congregational life that consistently are mentioned as the most important are the music and the sermons.  Can people searching for a congregation or those who are new listen to sermons by podcast and a musical selection from last Sunday?  Could those searching for a spiritual home view a video about the worship of the community and its ministries?  Can our congregations be seen and heard, literally providing a map into a new experience via our websites?

Recently a mother and her two Sunday School age sons attended the Saturday evening service at our congregation.  She introduced herself when she entered and we were able to welcome her appropriately. She was looking for a church and a Sunday School for her family.  She found us through our website. I did the best I could to describe the character of the worship she was about to experience in contrast to Sunday morning. A video of the vibrancy of our Sunday School community and worship would have offered a vivid map!

Maps pointing the way to life of our congregation are available.  Are we prepared to provide maps to those who are looking for their way to find us?  Are we prepared to connect with them and with one another to create those maps?

A Generous God

The Gospel reading for yesterday told the parable of the landowner who paid the workers he hired the same wage.  The twist is that some workers gave their labor for a full day, some for half a day, and some for only an hour. The landowner, who would have flunked management 101, called these laborers to work during different times of the day.  Not only are those who worked the longest angry, they call the landowner unfair.  The landowner responds, are you envious because I am generous?

To illustrate how we as a congregation arrive at different times into the life of the community, I asked those who had been there since their birth to stand up.  A range of people from toddlers to teen to seniors stood up.  Then I asked those who had come into the congregation through our school, another entry point at a different stage of life, to stand up. This time the age range reflected parents with children under the age of 12.  Finally, I asked those who had been 10 years or more to stand.  Most of the congregation. They could see we all arrived at the congregation at different times, a different times in our lives, and had been worshiping in this community for different lengths of time.

At whatever time you arrived in the congregation, I asked, did you expect to find God? Did you expect to find that there was enough worship, education, spirituality, fellowship, and ways to service? Or, did you expect to find that God had been all used up? Did you think that God would be handed out in limited amounts because someone before you had used God all up? I expect that the answer is No.  You didn't expect that God was all used up and that there would be enough for you, your children, the new member and the long standing member. That is a Generous God, who is never used up. A God who is  always there for all of us, always present, and always filling us.

That is a Generous God.  And, we are made in the image of God so it is part of our nature to be generous too.

Looking Back

The 10th anniversary of September 11, 2001 is upon us.  As a nation, as a global community, and as Christians, we are still trying to make sense of the events.  This week many are reflecting on what they were doing on that day and how their lives have changed.  Emotions of shock, fear, anger, helpless, as well of the urgent drive to help and heal form a mosaic of impressions.  Yet, a comprehensive picture, a way to fully wrap our arms and  hearts around that day, remains unformed.

I believe it will always remain unformed.  The hurt and grief on a scale beyond anyone's comprehensive cannot be conquered by any one of us.  I will always remember the Mayor of New York City's answer when he was asked for an estimate of how many people died.  "More than we can bear," he said.

While it is more than we can bear, we are bearing it. Through the past 10 year we have been lifting the load by finding ways to strength our spiritual connections.  Interfaith understanding, and understanding the wide spectrum of religious traditions in the United States, emerges in the religious press regularly and in the public press from time to time.   Moving beyond tolerance to acknowledging that people of different national heritages with different religious beliefs live in the same neighborhoods, attend the same schools, play on the same soccer teams, and, visit the same coffee shop.  Just like vigorous weight bearing exercise, it is not easy, it does not work overnight, but it does move us to a new place of strength.

As we pause to look back on this weekend, let us not look back to foster more fear and misunderstanding.  Instead let us look back to name and acknowledge the fear, the consequences of that fear and misunderstand, and also to acknowledge as a people we can move, we are beginning to move, to a new place of strength built with understanding.

Timed Competiton

Active church friends recently revealed that as a family they are having a hard time making it to church.  As a pastor, I know the time competition so many families face to be active, involved parents, responsible and competent workers (for wages or volunteer), faithful parish members, caring adult children of aging parents, and so much more.  I know that on average household attend church once a month. That is considered normal. And, it is the growing national norm.

Our church friends don't attend the same parish that we attend.  Their parish is different in size, background, location, and emphasis.  Yet, they face the same challenge the parish we attend faces.  Its the challenge that I believe every congregation is facing and it is the challenge that no one is talking about:  church is no longer one size fits all.  They don't regularly attend church anymore because what drew them as a family to that congregation- lively, intergenerational worship, is no longer the emphasis.  What drew them to church has been replaced by a one size fits all model, the form of Sunday morning that follows the pattern where all the generations sing adult hymns with adult theology most adults don't understand, listen to a sermon written to adults.

As I reflected on their story, I became aware of how many other stories from many other pastors who have the resources, the know how, the passion, to offer more than one Sunday morning worship experience.  Stories where they seek to enliven worship, use cross cultural resources and prayers, other forms of music, all telling the Christian Story yet in new ways.  What too often results in their efforts is that a debilitating fight in the congregation begins about what is 'real worship.'  And real worship means the one size fits all model.

We are in a timed competition for the families of our communities.  They have many good options and church is only one of them.  The time competition is to engage them in short window of three to five years around the key transitions of birth, entering school, entering high school, and then re engage the parents as the children move to college.  Theses timed windows means the worship and offerings are in place when the households are looking for that particular spiritual nurture.  If its not there when they show up on our doorstep, then we've lost them.  The timed competition also means it happens on Sunday, when people are there, or it doesn't happen.  The other days of the week there are even more good options, demands, good community causes for volunteering, and the space needed to keep our lives knit together.

Congregations are in timed competition not only for the time resources of households but in a few short years, if we don't diversify our worship beyond one size fits all, many more families will be choosing other options on Sunday.

This Week

This week is for adventure.  The adventure of mom putting her first child on the bus.  The adventure of setting the alarm and getting up for class in a far away state, in a shared room, and with no one to tell you to get out of bed. The adventure of remembering the years of driven by school schedule even though the years you have lived alone are now double the amount of years the children were in school.

While this week may not at first sound like an adventure, an adventure is not only thrilling and interesting.  An adventure takes us out of our comfort zones.  An adventure stretches us.  An adventure is to unfamiliar territory and we don't know if we like it until we arrive.  If its fun, great!  If its uncomfortable, we find ways to live through the discomfort until we move onto another place.  An adventure always brings us close to our inner lives, both the life with God and the life God calls us to live.

A Blessing for this week of adventure from Celtic Daily Prayer,
May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you,
wherever He may send you.
May He guide you through the wilderness,
protect you from the storm.
May he bring you home rejoicing
at the wonders he has shown you.
May He bring you home rejoicing
once again into our doors.