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Life · Ministry · Faith

Month: May 2020

It’s time to bring back the Stewardship Committee

May 23, 2020 /

Years ago, nearly every church had a Stewardship Committee. The committee’s job was to support the various ministries of the church through raising capital. Translated: Fundraising. Always on the lookout for new and creative ways to increase the income side of the ledger. Hold on! Before you delete this message, give me a few more seconds. This is NOT what I am mean by bringing back the Stewardship Committee.

Stewardship is about the management of another’s resources according to their owner’s wishes and expectations. Christian stewardship recognizes all that we have, our occupations, our resources, even our very lives, belong to God. Therefore, we are stewards charged with managing God’s resources according to his wishes and expectations.

So why bring back the Stewardship Committee? To flip the committee on its head. Rather than looking for more ways to bring resources into the church. Let’s bring back the committee to look at the resources we have and use them well. To give rather than to receive.

In this time of social distancing and restricted gatherings, many of us are tempted to focus on the things we do not have. In my church, we long for the time when we might return to in-person worship. We are frustrated by the inability to have children’s programming. We wonder when we will be able to gather without face masks and social distancing. There are many things we have lost. While we are focused on the things we do not have, we can too easily miss the things we do have. The things God has given to us to manage, to steward, well.

What are some of the resources we have? I have debated whether to list actual ideas here. I want this post to be about giving people permission to dream and do rather than to do the ideas I have heard. Still in hopes that it might help us think about what I mean. Here are some things we have:

  • We have a large field. Community Garden? Outdoor movie?
  • We have property. Make and install a Blessing Box?
  • We have a building. Food distribution point?
  • We have wi-fi. Access point for online learning?
  • We have a Transmogrifier, several of them.
  • We have paper, markers, crayons. What could be done with them?
  • We have ____________. What could be used?

Someone once said, “If you want to kill a good idea, form a committee.” After all of that, maybe we don’t need a committee, we just need to look around and dream. What do you see?

It’s not just the church. Look around. What do you have? What have you been given? How are you managing the resources of God?

Blessings,
Stephen

Missional Creed

May 21, 2020 /

For centuries the church has been guided by statements of creed. The most common being the Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene Creed. The simple statements give voice to our core beliefs and direct our actions as a church. They are not perfect statements. Many have noted that these statements tend to lack references to the life of Christ and to his missional call to his people. Jesus said he is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). He is saying not only is he the way to the Father, he is also saying he is the supreme example of how we are to live as Christians. So we should not too quickly miss the significance of his life and call in our basic statement of belief.

Recently, I came across The Missional Creed by David Gustafson. This statement seeks to give voice to the orthodox faith of the church. I offer this creed here to cause us to ponder. What do these words of creed say about the role, mission, and future of the church in the days ahead? What does it say about the way each of us interacts in our communities?

The Missional Creed

by David M. Gustafson

We believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, who sent his Son into the world, and who now sends us into the world, as witnesses to his reign in heaven and on earth.

We believe in Jesus Christ, who was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and became man, the Light of Light who entered our darkened world, to proclaim good news to the poor, to heal the sick, and to set the oppressed free. For us and for our salvation, he suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried. On the third day, he rose as victor from the dead. He ascended into heaven where he is head of his body, the church, and will come again in glory and judgment, and reign in his triumphal kingdom.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the giver of life, who leads us, the people of God, on the mission of God, to join in the work of the kingdom of God. In this, we are called as Christ’s holy and apostolic church, to bear witness to God’s love, mercy, and justice, to proclaim good news in word and deed, to make disciples of all peoples, for the redemption of all creation, to the glory of God’s holy name. Amen.

SOURCE: https://davidmgustafson.blogspot.com/2014/01/missional-creed.html

Time to Get A New Phone

May 18, 2020 /
 
Recently, I listened to a sermon given by Steve DeNeff, Pastor at College Wesleyan. In his message, he told the story of his family’s plight to move his father from his beloved flip phone to a new iPhone. As I listened to the saga of the phones I began to think about the situation we are in right now. My application of the story is different than his, and I am sure I am taking some creative license with how things actually were described, but here goes.
 
The father had an old flip phone. You remember those things, don’t you? They were amazing when they came out. You could fold your phone in half. They were compact and convenient. Texting on them was a near impossibility for anyone over the age of fifteen. But they did well what they were made to do: make and receive calls. Over time, though, the father’s old flip phone didn’t quite work like it used to. It had become broken, been dropped one too many times, and it was difficult for him to hear people talking to him. So the family got together and made a decision. It was time for dad to get an upgrade. Like a parent offering candy to convince a child to change its diaper, they offered to him a new iPhone with all the features to be had with this new glorious technology. But dad, was not having any of it. His old flip phone was familiar and did, at least as far as he was concerned, what he needed to do. It made and received calls, even if he couldn’t hear everyone correctly. Of course, the iPhone could do all that and more. Still it was a hard sell to convince him to make the change. It seemed the only hope for the conversion would come if the flip phone finally quit working entirely.
 
What does this have to do with our current situation in the church? What if this time out of our buildings, unable to “do church” like we are used to, has actually given to us a new phone? What if, rather than looking to go back to our old flip phone, we have instead been given the chance to (even forced to), step into a new reality, a reality that is better than what we had before? As we dream of going back to the way things were, have we not forgotten the old phone was not particularly working that well? Engagement was down. Attendance was down. Connection was down.
 
Around the world, new models of church ministry and life have been exploding. Some call them fresh expressions. But really they have a million different names and formats. For many of us, we have seen these new expressions of church and saw them as a fringe. Much like how we looked sideways at those original iPhone users while we happily put our flip phones in our pocket. Almost overnight, however, we have woken up to a world where, out of our concern and love for our neighbor, we no longer can use our facilities. We cannot do what we used to do in the ways that were familiar to us. Out of seemingly nowhere new ways of being in community have suddenly become the mainstream. The possibilities that are before us are great. We have the possibility to engage more. To live in community more. To worship in different times and places. This time of social distancing has given to us a great gift.
 
I know it may not feel like a gift, but bear with me while I tell one more cell phone story. I remember when I got my first cell phone. I was working in a job doing technical and computer training at the time. I was excited to have make use of my first phone. My excitement quickly went away. I found it frustrating, maddening, confusing, and nearly impossible to make work. I came extremely close to giving up on ever having a cellphone. Besides, I still was not sure these things were ever going to go mainstream. They were not just not as reliable as our landlines. What I wanted to do was throw it out the window to be smashed in the street by the first passing car. What I did was persist through the frustration and learned to make and receive calls. Now, I even have an iPhone and love the many things it can do.
 
Right now, the new reality doesn’t feel like anything better than what we had before. It is frustrating. It seems broken and nearly unusable. I get it. We had to cancel our service at 10:00 am yesterday because the technology was down. And many of us are still not sure if these new expressions are ever going to become mainstream anyway.
 
As we struggle together in this new reality, with new tools and methods that seem so confusing and unfamiliar, remember we can look at what has been taken from us or we can look to what has been given to us and the possibilities. Where are we looking?
 
Blessings,
Stephen

Two Questions Before Going Back

May 14, 2020 /

Many of us are starting to experience some level of reopening of life to normal routines in our communities and are looking forward to things loosening even more in the coming weeks. As we contemplate our lives going forward with more freedom I want to offer you two questions for you to ponder before you go back to life as it was:

  • What things have you not been able to do in this time that you do not want to restart?

  • What things about your life have you learned in this time that you want to retain?

Blessings,
Stephen

Using New Tools

May 4, 2020 /

If we had conducted a survey in January asking what the greatest needs of our community are, I doubt we would have had a single person say, “What this community needs is another online church.” Or “What this town needs is for all of its churches to broadcast their services on Facebook Live. That will really help our community.” Yet, here we are. Thousands of churches have, in a matter of weeks, gone from being face-to-face only to entirely online. Most, out of necessity, have largely taken their previous worship format and moved it online, with few actual structural changes. First, this is has demonstrated the incredible resiliency of the church to change to address current cultural realities. We often feel like we cannot change and are fearful of change. We have learned it is possible and we can do it. Still, in the midst of our changes what we have not done is asked the questions, why are we doing what we are doing? Is this the most effective method of serving our church and the wider community? What new strategies, tools, and practices need to be implemented to serve in this new reality effectively?

We have all seen the pictures of people evacuating from an airplane crash dragging their carry-on luggage behind them. Despite everyone being told in the in-flight briefing to leave these items behind. The reason we are told to leave our laptops is that grabbing our stuff in a crisis slows the evacuation and threatens the life of our self and other passengers. People have died because someone could not leave their rolling suitcase behind. I recently heard of further research conducted into firefighter deaths in structural and range-land fires. What was found was that, in many cases, firefighters could have escaped the fire if they had put down their tools and gear and evacuated. What kept a range-land firefighter from getting to the next ridge from safety was their heavy packs on their backs or chainsaws still in their hands. If they had dropped the tools they were carrying, equipment that was essential for their job, and moved quickly to the next ridge without the weight encumbering them, they would have significantly increased their chance of survival. What do these illustrations have to do with the church? We are in a time of crisis, and many of us have instinctively held onto our tools, instead of dropping them and moving to the new reality. If we are going to climb the new ridge into effective ministry, we are going to need to let go of our old tools. These tools were effective and essential in our past ministry world but are no longer useful in this new crisis reality. Bluntly, many of us in the church are dying right now and will die, because we are hanging onto our old tools and trying to carry them up the next ridge to safety.

What are some tools we may need to let go of? I am sure you can think of more, and I would love to hear what you are seeing. Still, just a few I can think of include, large group gatherings, elaborate programmatic driven children’s ministries, refined efficient worship services led by professionals on the stage, and professional clergy as the dispensers of religious goods and services.

To say it all another way: A chainsaw is an excellent tool for cutting down trees, it is a terrible tool for washing your car. We would do well in this new reality, to put down our chainsaws and pick up a basin and towel and get to work meeting the real needs of our communities. And if the day should come we need a chainsaw again, we will always be able to find one.

Blessings,
Stephen

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