A Growing Church is a Dying Church!

I confess that I don't have a lot of time to "surf the web."  I'm not subscribed to any blogs.  I don't spend much time on facebook.  It is rare that I even go to a link that has been recommended by friends.  So I attribute the Holy Spirit to the crazy notion of actually skimming through facebook and then taking the time to click on a link from a pastor friend with the title "A Growing Church is a Dying Church."  I skimmed through the blog and about 15 seconds into it, I stopped and slowly read it from the top again.  Tears filled my eyes.  How did he know?  Who was this stranger from New York that is speaking directly to the situation I find myself in.  I have been enamored ever since with a blog entry from J. Barrett Lee, the pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Boonville, NY.  Click here to read full text. 

He speaks the truth.  The naked, ugly, hope filled, biblical truth.  The message doesn't dwell on the idea, "the pastor can't grow or save your church" though that idea is there.  His thoughts don't just tell you to be missional and think outward, though you can find this notion in the blog.  But he gets to the heart of "What if it works?" warning that growth will not be what you think it will be.  The church will never return to the "glory days."  And the glory days of the future involve people you wouldn't be caught dead with and who don't appreciate "the way we've always done it" and who will make changes you don't like.  And that's the GOOD NEWS! 

Then, what if it doesn't work?  What if you make changes to get the church to grow and it dies anyway?  Was it all a waste of time?  Here's how he ends his blog, "What if all that time you spend studying the Bible, expanding your horizons, deepening your spiritual life, and serving your community turns out to be time wasted?  Tell you what: if that’s what happens, if you commit yourself to all this and still feel like it was a waste of time in the end, then maybe your church really needed to die."  Wow!

I have read and re-read this blog about 10 times in the last 3 days.  Does it give me hope or plunge me into cynicism?  Yes, on the one hand, church transformation is a lose-lose situation.  It's hard and it hurts to change and grow with people who are different.  On the other hand, it's also hard to watch a once vibrant church slowly waste away to death.  And I ask myself, "Why am I doing this?"

But in the end, God always brings me back to hope.  How can prayer, scripture, sharing the love of God, social justice and service, ever be a waste of time?  Are we not more faithful disciples because of these actions, whatever happens to the church institution?  We are actually in a win-win situation.  Whatever happens to the church itself, whether it grows or dies, we as Christ's disciples are more closely following the life he intended us to live.  And isn't that the purpose of the church...to equip people to live their Christian journey more faithfully?

Thank you J. Barrett Lee for your inspiring, hopeful, and honest words.  I am encouraged to continue equipping God's people, whatever the financial, numerical, or institutional repercussions might be. 

My Adopted Prayer for the Elections

This is a prayer I wished I had written myself.  It was prayed by Jena Nardella (http://jenanardella.wordpress.com/2012/09/04/praying-for-the-nation/) following Michelle Obama's speech on Tuesday night of the Democratic National Convention.  May we all have the same faith, compassion, and integrity as the next few months of our election season unfold.  Let us pray...

 

     As we close this day, let us quiet our hearts in prayer.

God, I stand before You and ask that the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing unto You.

I pray for our President, Barack Obama. May he know Your presence, oh God, as he continues to serve as a leader of this nation, as a husband to Michelle, and as father to his daughters. Help him to seek justice, love mercy and walk humbly with you.

I pray as well for Governor Mitt Romney. May he know Your presence, oh God, as he continues to serve as a leader, as a husband to Ann, and as a father to his sons and their families. Help him to seek justice, love mercy and walk humbly with you.

I pray for our country in the next nine weeks leading up to this election – for those of us meeting here and for our fellow citizens who met last week. May we make our children proud of how we conduct ourselves. We know our human tendencies toward finger-pointing and frivolousness. Our better selves want this race to be honest and edifying rather than fabricated and self-serving.

Give us, oh Lord, humility to listen to our sisters and brothers across the political spectrum, because your kingdom is not divided into Red States and Blue States. Equip us with moral imagination to have real discourse. Knit us, oh God, as one country even as we wrestle over the complexity of how we ought to live and govern. Give us gratitude for our right to dissent and disagree. For we know that we are bound up in one another and have been given the tremendous opportunity to extend humanity and grace when others voice their deeply held convictions even when they differ from our own.

And give us wisdom, God, to discover honest solutions for we know it will take all of us to care for the widow and the orphan, the sick and the lonely, the downtrodden and the unemployed, the prisoner and the homeless, the stranger and the enemy, the thirsty and the powerless. In rural Africa, I am witness to thousands of HIV positive mothers, fathers and children who are alive today because Democrats and Republicans put justice and mercy above partisanship. Help us keep that perspective even as we debate one another.

God, I thank you for the saving grace of Jesus and for the saints who have humbly gone before us. I thank you for the words of St. Francis of Assisi whose prayer I carry with me both in my home in East Nashville and in my work across rural Africa.

As we enter this election season, I pray St. Francis’ words for us all.

Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.

Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen