"The Episcopal Church welcomes you" - How is that working for you?

This might come as a bit of a shock to you but I think we have come to the point where we need to quit being a welcoming church. We’ve been a “welcoming church” for quite a while now – how many signs have you seen that say “The Episcopal Church welcomes you”? 

“So,” we could ask, “just how is that working for you?”  If you ask me, all the while we have been saying that, we have been experiencing declines in attendance, participation, and financial support. The median age of our membership church-wide has increased (we’re getting older). And just below the surface, most of our members experience anxiety about the future of the Church they have love. So I say, “Give it up! Forget the welcoming stuff.”

Like so many churches, we’ve sunk an amazing amount of time and energy into becoming a welcoming Church. We change worship styles, we train greeters and ushers, we wear name tags, we make coffee and bake endless goodies. We go to workshops on hospitality, we put our friendliest people in prominent places on Sunday mornings. But I think we are beginning to realize that we have been misplacing our emphasis. So we’re no longer going to do it.

Here’s what we’re going to do instead. We will become an Inviting Church. That’s different. You see, “welcoming” is a passive activity. It says that we are waiting for visitors and guests to drop by. When they do, we will treat them very well and do everything possible to make them comfortable. We’ll sometimes even be willing to change how we look, and, God be good to us, even who we are. We’ll try new formats that have proven to be more welcoming to new people. We’ll do whatever it takes to have them come back the next Sunday, even if they shouldn’t. But what I have come to understand is that welcoming is about us, not about them.

Come and See what God is doing!

“Inviting” is different. That means we leave the comfort of our parish “comfort zone.” The main activity doesn’t happen in our worship space when people drop in, but in the neighborhood when we go out. Welcoming involves hoping whoever happens to find you will join. Inviting involves sharing God’s specific gifts—made real in our parish—in the world. It isn’t so much welcoming them into our place, but going out into their place and meeting them there.

Even that warrants a significant warning. This cannot be just another gimmick to get people into the church building. This isn’t an attempt to bolster declining membership rolls and make a better parochial report to the bishop. No, it goes much deeper than that. It starts with who God has called us to be the Church, the Body of Christ, the presence of the Risen Lord in our world. It involves discovering our gifts and purpose. And it demands that we join God at work in the world. This isn’t about getting the world into God’s Church; it’s about getting the Church into God’s world.

Making such a radical shift won’t be easy, but we must commit to it. We’ll have to do it in stages, easing folks into it step by step. We’ll have to deal with the fear of something new, the challenge of venturing into unknown territory. But we can do it. It will take motivation, leadership, and constant reminders. But most importantly, it will take total commitment to embrace a new focus.

More and more, we are becoming aware that it’s God’s mission that we are to be about. Everything comes from that—including our identity as Church. We exist as Church only because God has a mission. Our purpose, our very identity, is called forth out of God’s loving care and redemptive activity in creation. We are steeped in God’s mission. We are drenched through baptism into this essential character of God. God is at work in the world, and creates, calls, and equips the Church specifically for that work.

Each parish has a purpose within God’s mission. Each parish has particular gifts. Each parish reveals the life-giving kingdom of God in unique ways. No parish can be everything to everyone. But every parish is something to someone. Who can know God through our worship style? Who can experience forgiveness and grace through our parish community? Who needs the gifts we have to offer? Who can offer gifts we need? By answering these questions, we can begin the process of moving from welcoming to inviting.

To begin, we need to discover our motivation for inviting others to join us. We need to take on this inviting in bite-size pieces, and we need to create an environment that supports our efforts at inviting others to encounter the Risen Lord among us. We may not be sure what the final results will be, but we certainly can be excited to find out.

Rogation Sunday - An Ancient but helpful tradition

Here is the text of May's Liturgy & Life from our parish newsletter, The Angelus.

On May 1st, we will celebrate Rogation Sunday. This Sunday was originally so called because of the words in the Prayer Book gospel for the day: "Whatever you ask the Father in my name, he will give to you". (The Latin is 'Rogare' - to ask.) In the strictly biblical context, the chief thing to ask for is the spirit of God to enable us to be true children of God. By the 17th century, the old Roman festival of 'Terminalia", or "boundaries", had been adapted by the church and served a practical purpose. In days before survey maps, there were not always clear lines of demarcation between the parishes, especially where there were open field systems. During the procession, boys were bumped on prominent marks and boundary stones, or rolled in briars and ditches, or thrown in the pond to ensure they never forgot the boundaries! The Victorians made it more civilized by beating objects rather than people, in the context of a service and procession.

In the Western Church, processions to bless the crops and to include "beating the bounds", developed from the old Roman rites of Robigalia (robigo: Latin for "rust" or "mould"), when prayers would be offered to the gods for crops to be spared from mildew.

These rogation themes of blessing the fields and beating the bounds were commended in the 1630s by the poet George Herbert, that epitome of English country parsons. He said that processions should be encouraged for four reasons:

1. Blessing of God for the fruits of the field.
2. Justice in the preservation of bounds.
3. Charity in loving, walking and neighborly accompanying one another with reconciling of differences at the time if there be any.
4. Mercy, in relieving the poor by a liberal distribution of our excess.

Today the emphasis has shifted. A blessing on growing crops in fields and gardens, and on young lambs and calves remains. In the agricultural cycle, the main themes are seed sowing and the tending of young plants and animals. While seed sowing is now done all the year round, as is the birth and rearing of the young, it is convenient to fix on one particular festival as the time to remember these before God in a public way. Rogation takes place in the springtime, when there is a renewing of the earth. In our country, it follows Easter, the season of resurrection, usually on the Sixth Sunday in Eastertide. Renewal and resurrection therefore are also underlying themes of this occasion.

We will observe the day at the 10:30 Eucharist by use of The Great Litany at the end of the Eucharist with a procession to the Memorial Garden between the Church and the Parish Hall where we will bless the flora there blooming. If you are a gardener, you are encouraged to bring a package of soil from your garden, seeds, or other elements of your gardening (including tools if you are so inclined) to be blessed for the growing season ahead.

Learning to listen

Truth be known, most of us are not good listeners. Being able to listen, I feel, is a gift. Most of us, while we act like we are listening, are already thinking about what we will say next - or even thinking about something totally unrelated to what I am suppose to be hearing. It is a bad habit that comes from too much stimulation: noisy public places, our busy households, contact television and radio. Hearing without really listening is sort of like learning to speed read without savoring the words I am reading, or like gobbling down fast food without really tasting what I have eaten. I get the gist of what is being said but keep my mind busy with other things. Is this how we encounter the joyful message of Easter???

When I come to the words that Jesus spoke to the disciples in John's gospel about the servant who is not greater than the master, and in the humble station of the one sent on the order of one who is greater, I wonder if Jesus isn't telling the disciples, and me, about the ones to whom we are to listen. I wonder if Jesus is speaking not simply about the way we are to bear the witness that is in us, but also about the sources without which we have no witness.

It is a significant message, these Easter tidings, when one considers with what weight and seriousness we receive the words that come from media personalities and how lightly and glibly we ignore the witness of those we deem less important. It is an especially important message for a church whose leadership has, for centuries, given priority to the words of adult males, dismissing as naïve or even ignorant the voices of women, children, the aged, and those whose color - or collar - did not match their own.

Almost from the beginning, the good news of God has been made known to us by those of low station and degree. Shepherds, fishermen, grieving women. Throughout this history, God seeks to teach us that we must discipline ourselves not only for the telling but also in the  listening -- since only after we have truly heard can we tell others the good news we ourselves have received.

It is our place in this Eastertide to listen, to receive the good news of the Resurrection, to open our ears and our hearts, that we, too, may truly hear and so be overwhelmed with the joy of Easter. And only then to speak.

The word of God grew and multiplied . . .

The fact remains that we do not produce anything. We don't manufacture widgets or grow plants. What we do is tell a powerful story of how we have experienced God's work in the world. What grows, as a result, is not the Church, but the Word, the story, itself. It is God that plants, nurtures, and reaps the harvest. We are the means by which God accomplishes God's purposes. In other words, it is not our mission, but God's.

In Acts 12, we are told that "The word of God grew and multiplied." It is important to note that it was not the church that grew and multiplied - but the Word of God. The fact makes me think that sometimes, we in the church get it all a bit backwards.

We often believe, I think, that we continue to operate out of a fundamentally institutional model of church. We think it's a business -- a holy business, granted -- but a business nonetheless. We tend to think of our Gospel proclamation as our "product" and build our efforts around marketing and public relations.
In the Acts of the Apostles, we are presented with the image of a harvest so abundant that it must be shared. The experience of the early Church is not unlike am investor in a bull market -- so many good things are happening in the lives of so many people, that the stories cannot be contained. Ultimately, they must share what they receive.

This is so opposite our own experience of Church in these days. They did not experience anxiety over dwindling resources or get discouraged about hemorrhaging congregations. For the most part, our discussions of late are not about a going-out but a going-away. Not about sharing but about loss.
Re-reading the accounts from Act in Eastertide is a good reminder that the key element in all these stories is generosity: not stories of in-gathering, but of giving away. Success for them was not so much about building up large congregations or "growing" the Church. It was simply about going -- and sharing what they had and what they knew.

Perhaps we need to practice this a bit more in our own experience. Perhaps we need to simply "to go and to share" the abundant grace that comes from all that God has done and continues to do in our lives. Just go and share -- and God will do the rest.

Spy Wednesday

Wednesday in Holy week is known as Spy Wednesday because on this day, the gospel recounts, Judas made a bargain with the high priest to betray Jesus for 30 silver pieces.

We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honor the spiritual connection that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness and affection. Didn’t Jesus know that Judas was not worthy of his trust? Perhaps he did. But that is the mark of Jesus’ mind and heart – that although someone may not deserve to be trusted (or loved) he loves them (and so trusts) them nonetheless. This is our saving grace for all of us “fall short of the glory of God.” In a very real way, we might all identify with Judas – someone to whom Jesus exposed himself, became vulnerable, and so was capable of being betrayed. Have we, knowing of Jesus trust and live, ever betrayed him? Maybe we are too swift to condemn.

So in our prayer this day, most of us can identify with the vulnerable, trusting, loving Jesus as well. Part of human living is to become vulnerable to another so that we can receive their love and trust. Our relationships grow deep and profound with those who threat that “offering with respect, kindness and affection.” And yet, on occasion, someone in that privileged position might have become more concerned about themselves and used that sacred position for their own advantage. How hurt did we feel when that occurred? How awful was that experience? Getting in touch with our own experiences of betrayal can set us in mind of what Jesus might have felt on the first “Spy Wednesday.”

But then, the grace. Knowing that Jesus shared that experience “in spades” (it cost him his life after all), we know that his love did not end. Judas’ sin was not so much the betrayal but his unwillingness to accept Jesus’ love and forgiveness. Peter, we shall hear, also betrayed. But Peter never despaired of God’s goodness and God’s willingness to redeem and make whole again. Judas betrayal was not worse. How he dealt with its consequences was.

I pray this day for the grace to forgive those who might have betrayed me. More especially I pray for the grace never to despair of receiving the forgiveness of others for the betrayals I have wrought. May God grant me this grace . . . may I thus be assured that I am truly reconciled, forgiven, redeemed.

n  Read Matt 26:14-16; Mark 14:10-11; Luke 22:1-6

Better for one man to die . . .

Jesus underwent a legal trial – but it was all a sham since the outcome had already been determined by the leadership of the people – “better for one man to die . . .”

There are times in life when the processes we rely on to protect fail to do so. This is hard to stomach in a society that is alleged built on a core value like “the rule of law.” But no process is perfect. This is especially so in our personal lives and relationships. No matter how we build up our defenses (social or personal), we will always be subjected to others who are more concerned with self-seeking, face-saving, and power tripping. In the story of Jesus passion, he is subject to these same dynamics – people who should be protecting him from the Romans, who should be seeing in him their own aspirations instead see in him a threat to their own coziness with the powers that be. In the face of all this, Jesus makes little or no defense. Maybe he realizes that no matter how hard he would try, he would not succeed. Instead, he remains silent even before the powers that had the capacity to put him to death. However, I don’t believe that Jesus simply gave up. I see Jesus as adamantly refusing to stop to their level – to play their games. Instead, he acts to remain true to who he is – and the mission for which he was sent.

Wisdom can be seen as making peace with the unchangeable. We have the freedom to face the unavoidable with dignity, to understand how our attitudes can transform even deep suffering. The great psychologist Viktor Frankl maintained that in World War II concentration camps, what remained for the victims was “the last of human freedoms”—the ability to choose one’s attitude in a particular set of circumstances. What Frankl was asking for was not for people to be merely optimistic but to hold onto hope, even when the situation seemed hopeless. Are we responsible for our suffering when we did not do anything to cause it? Simply, no. And yes. We are not responsible for our predicament – whether it is cancer or the loss of our job or the death of someone dear. But we are responsible for what we do with the effects of these things, for what we build from what remains after fate has made a mess of our lives.

n  Read Matthew 26:57-75

Jesus' death, My death - it's real

It is never easy to pray on the passion and death of Jesus. Once we begin to meditate and reflect on Jesus’ death, it brings us perilously close to our own – not that such pray will lead to the end of our physical life – rather that this reflection makes us confront the reality that if the Son of God could not escape death as a human being, why do we think we are any different.

We live in a culture that eschews death. While our culture is not exactly a life-affirming culture, it is one that wants to ignore the realities involved with the end of our earthly life. People seldom die at home anymore – hospitals or nursing homes have become the venue for this rite of passage – and that usually with the mind that if there is a crisis every modern medical apparatus necessary to prolong life is available. Even when we finally die, death has no longer any place in our home. We long ago turned to “funeral parlors” or “funeral homes” for the final preparations necessary to dispose of our mortal remains. One of the reasons for the increasing popularity of cremation as a means of “final disposition” is that it helps us to avoid the realities of dying – that the body begins to decay and turn to dust. Few people spend any time with a corpse. Instead, we pay people to make it as “clean and tidy” as possible. I may digress a bit here and some of my colleagues in the funeral industry may take issue with these observations but on the whole, I think they are accurate.

Jesus’ death was anything but “neat and tidy.” It was painful, awful and extremely messy. He was tortured and executed in the most gruesome way possible. In thinking on this unpleasant end, we cannot escape the fact that Jesus of Nazareth was truly human – regardless of what anyone might think of his divine status. Truly human – and experiencing death in the worst possible way. As we affirm the incarnation (that the Word was “incarnate of the Virgin Mary”), we also affirm that this Jesus knows our deepest fears – including suffering and death. Praying on this reality through this week forces us to realize that we, too, will die, but that in that inescapable reality, we cannot deny that the God to whom we pray knows firsthand the deepest suffering of any human person. It becomes the basis for hope – that no matter how bad it gets, there is always the possibility of redemption and resurrection.  

-- read Philippians 2: 5-11