the church geek

It’s that time of the year again. It’s time for our congregation to produce its report for the upcoming annual meeting. The following is an excerpt from something I posted last year about a few changes we were making to our Annual Report:

1.) Since we have a mission statement, I suggested that instead of organizing our annual report around our committee activities, maybe we should frame it around our mission statement. So, as a session we are working together to prepare a summary report of activities for the previous year and dreams for the coming year that we hope is reflective of the mission of our congregation.

2.) We are summarizing our various budget/financial reports, so that people will get a broad brush strokes overview of the financial activity of the church. I honestly don’t think folks need to know how much the church spends on office paper or on janitorial supplies, so why report it?

My hope in making these changes was to get us closer to producing an annual report that takes the stewardship of our resources seriously by not generating useless stacks of paper and not spending anymore time on the project than it is worth. I also hoped that the report would better reflect the mission and ministry of our congregation.

Too some extent I think we succeeded on both fronts. I really felt like organizing the activities of the congregation around our mission statement was a great way to report our activities for the year. Also, we also reduced the amount of paperwork we generated, and people seemed appreciative of the new format.

Still, I think something is missing. After all the annual congregational report at its heart is focused on the institution and its particular activities. So, we report membership gains and losses. We report things that we accomplished. We report financial and budget information.

All of that is great. But the deeper question needs to be asked: Are those things really Christ’s purpose for our congregation? Are we really just about the ABCs of maintaining an institution: (A)ttendance, (B)uilding, & (C)ash?

I think the Annual Report, in its current form, communicates that the primary focus of our congregation is on maintaining the institution. And so, I am left to wonder what would have to change structurally so that our annual report focused instead on discipleship and mission? What would such a church look like, and what would its annual report look like?

A number of months ago and long before the stock market began to turn south, I was having a conversation with a member of my congregation about the impending economic crisis. We were talking about whether or not churches in general were equipped to survive and have a vital ministry in times when the economy went sour.

One issue of concern we talked about was the ‘pastor’s salary.’ The question we asked was whether or not churches would continue to be able to afford to employ full-time professional ministers. We didn’t really come up with an answer to that question, but we both agreed that if they could not, then it would be up to the congregation to pick up some of the slack.

This is not necessarily a bad thing (unless of course you are a pastor counting on a paycheck…) In fact, I suspect that hard economic times may actually force churches to either close or to restore a much better and more appropriate balance between the work of the people and the work of the paid professional pastor. Less money means it will be harder to think of the pastor as the person who gets paid to do the work of ministry that every baptized Christian has in reality been called by God to do.

Kim, a friend and fellow Presbyterian colleague, wrote an excellent reflection last week about her particular struggle with a related attitude that often prevails in the church - that of just wanting to ‘get it done.’ What I hear in her explanation is that many folks often see the Pastor as the one who gets paid to say the magic words - at the wedding, funeral, or baptism - and once that’s been done then they can get on with their lives.

What I think is at issue in her post and what we will face head on in an economic downturn is that people think of their faith as something peripheral to their everyday life. They have not integrated it into the core of their very being, so they don’t see how their faith is supposed to inform their daily life. They haven’t heard Christ’s call to be disciples who love and serve God AND who love and serve others. And finally, being an active and vital part of the mission of the church is not integral to who they are.

While I don’t invite it, I do think a bit of economic turmoil will force us all to look at the ways our economic prosperity has failed to help our faith be an integral part of the lives we lead and the ways the mission of Christ has been compromised by how our churches have been structured.

For further reflection on this topic I would point you to an excellent article called “Mission and Recession” (HT: smart pastor)

This sermon was preached on Oct 19, 2008. It is a stewardship sermon on Matthew 22:15-22

There are two sayings that seem to be universally true:

* The first is that there are only two things in life that are constant; death and taxes, and

* The second is if a pastor wants to get in trouble he should preach on either money or politics.

Well, today we’re going to touch at least a little bit on all four of those topics…death, taxes, money and politics. Speaking of death and taxes have you heard the joke:

About a businessman on his deathbed who called his friend and said, “Bill, I want you to promise me that when I die, you will have my remains cremated.” His friend asked, “And what do you want me to do with your ashes?”

The businessman said, “Just put them in an envelope. Mail them to the IRS, and include a note that says, “Now, you have everything.”

In today’s passage, Jesus is in Jerusalem in the days before his arrest and crucifixion. He not only deals with a trap from his enemies who ask him a tricky question about taxes, he also deals with the very real prospect of his death.

Preaching on this passage presents a bit of a trap for me as well. You see, I could preach on money or politics or both, and I can only hope that no matter what I decide, I will not have to face my own death…so please be gracious with me, today, will you?

This sermon was preached on Sept 28, 2008. The text was Matthew 21: 23-32

Throughout his earthly ministry, Jesus told lots of different stories and parables. As a kid who grew up in the church, the parable from today’s text is probably the one that stuck in my mind the most.

Back then, I may have heard the story something like this:

A dad with two sons went to the one of them and said, “Would you please go out and mow the lawn today?” The son responded, “Yeah right, dad, I ain’t got time to do that today, my friends and I are planning to go out later.”

Later in the day, the son changed his mind and went out and mowed the lawn.

The dad went to his other son and said the same thing. The son responded, “Sure Dad, I’ll go out and mow the lawn, as soon as I get done playing this game of Grand Theft Auto.”

The day came and went but he never went out to mow the lawn.

Well, come to think of it, we didn’t have a PS2 or 3 back then. So it was probably Asteroids or PacMan, on an old Atari set, that was distraction. But you get the point.

This sermon was preached on August 31, 2008. The text was Matthew 16:21-27.

In the scripture passage we read last week, Jesus and his disciples were in the city of Ceaserea Phillip, a place of strategic significance to the Roman Empire and its interests in the land of Palestine. The city also had held connections to pagan mythology and to the worship of the Canaanite fertility god, Baal.

In that place Jesus asked his disciples. “Who do you say that I am?” It was Peter of all the disciples who dared to step up and say to Jesus “You are the Messiah, the son of the Living God.”

It was a daring thing for Peter to say. Within the shadow of the Roman Empire Peter said that Jesus was King and Caesar was not. And, in that place of pagan worship, Peter said that Jesus was Son of the Living God, worthy of worship in contrast to the pagan gods surrounding them.

This proclamation of faith brought praise from Jesus. Listen to what Jesus tells Peter,

Blessed are you, Simon Son of Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.

This is the fifth sermon in a six part sermon series on discipleship. I preached this on July 20th. The text was Acts 13: 1-5

People always seem a little bit surprised when they get in our car and discover that we have not just one but several Johnny Cash CDs. They are even more surprised when they find out that Johnny is one of my all time favorite musical artists.

Now some of you here might be able to think back to Johnny’s early stuff. Classics like Ring of Fire, I Walk the Line, and Men in Black. While that old stuff is great, where Johnny really excels is in the recordings he made in the last couple of years of his life.

I’m not kidding when I say that these are some of the best albums of any recording artist out there. In his old age, Johnny found a way of connecting to the reality of life, belting out some of the most emotional and spiritual recordings out there.

One of my favorite songs is on Johnny’s album called American III. It’s called Nobody and instead of trying to sing it to and doing a really bad impression of Johnny Cash, I’m gonna play a bit of it here for you: (Click here for the song.)

Lori will tell you that I always break a smile and sing along, every time I hear that one line:

This is the fourth sermon in my six part sermon series on discipleship. I preached this on July 13th. The text was 2 Timothy 1: 1-7; 2: 1-7

I started my sermon by showing this video:

I love that video. The expression on that kid’s face at the end is priceless.

Now, I bet that most of you don’t really come to church thinking that it’s really all about “you” Or at least I hope most of you don’t do that….

But in a very real way, your average run of the mill church is really just a “meChurch.” If you take a good hard look at them, you’ll begin to notice that just about everything these churches do is focused solely on it’s members.

Their programs, worship services, and ministries are all designed to keep their members happy. But, that’s not really the way it’s supposed to be.

The famous preacher, Tony Campollo, tells the story of a visitor who tours a factory. The factory is humming along. There’s a lot of activity and all the workers are very busy. It looks like things are really efficient and the work is getting done.

The visitor is greatly impressed, but once the tour is over, the visitor says to his tour guide, “Hey, wait a minute, you never showed me the shipping department.”

I’m beginning to do some preaching in my congregation that really speaks to our moving to a missional focus. Currently, I’m in the midst of a series on discipleship and yesterday spoke about the fact that the church really needs to begin to turn its focus outward. The direction of our faith and Christianity is necessarily toward the world and not toward the church as an organization.

The impetus of my sermon was that as a congregation we can no longer afford to focus on our current 94 members, instead we need to begin to focus on our next 94 members.

To me, that means a lot of things. Some of them entail 1.) no longer giving money and calling it “mission,” 2.) no longer designing worship services and other programs just with our members ‘needs’ in mind, and 3.) inviting friends to join us and having places (small groups) where people can plug in and learn about the faith from our current members.

Two comments following my sermon struck me as indicators that we have a long way to go and that I have a lot of work to do to help us get this missional focus thing down….

Last year we decided to no longer pay for our church to advertise in our local newspaper in the religion section on Saturday morning…Part of the reason? 1.) The only people who look at those ads are our church members. It makes them feel good when they see it, but that’s about the limits of their effectiveness, 2.) We decided to invest our time and money in a website.

In response to my sermon, someone said to me yesterday that we really need to put that ad back in the newspaper. It’s not the first time I’ve heard this…the underlying assumption is that spending a few bucks on advertising is what is going to grow the kingdom and bring people to visit our church. Unfortunately, I think its a way to absolve the members from having to do anything to be a part of helping the church to grow, and that’s not missional thinking…

The second comment I heard was “I don’t have any friends who don’t go to church, so I must be hanging out in the right crowds!?!” The answer is no, and again, that’s not missional thinking. You really need to have some friends in your circles who are not Christian…if this church is going to grow it’s going to be by your listening to others no matter where they are in their faith journey, inviting them to think about the faith, and asking them come join us as we explore this thing together.

I’m realizing this moving to a missional focus is a monumental change. It’s a big change for me as I begin to think about my ministry differently and as I think about what it’s going to require in my preaching and leadership within this congregation. It’s also a big change for this congregation.

But, I’m becoming more and more convinced that if we’re going to have any success together then we all have got to change our focus. That focus needs to be missional, and its direction needs to be outward, toward the world around us.

Please pray for me and for us!

This is the second sermon in a six part sermon series on discipleship questions. The text was: Ephesians 3: 7-21. This sermon was preached on June 8th.

Since coming on the stage in the mid-1960’s as the boy-struck, barefoot surfer girl in the TV series called Gidget, Sally Field, has been one of America’s favorite and most endearing actresses.

Over the years, Field won two academy awards, the first one in 1979 which she won for her work as a union organizer in the movie Norma Rae. The second one came in 1985 for her starring role in the film, Places of the Heart.

You might remember her acceptance speech for that second Academy award. It’s one of the most memorable of all time. On stage to accept the award she said:

I haven’t had an orthodox career, and I’ve wanted more than anything to have your respect. The first time I didn’t feel it, but this time I feel it, and I can’t deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!

Over the years the last phrase of that speech has taken on a life of its own. In its misquoted form, “You like me, you really like me!” has become the subject of comedy skits. Even, Sally Field poked fun at herself in a commercial with that memorable line.

This the first sermon is a six part sermon series on discipleship questions. The text for this sermon was: Matthew 7: 21-29. I’m a little slow in posting it, this was preached on June 1st.

As you probably know by now, I like to read the comic strips in the Gazette. One that has quickly become my favorite is called Frazz. It follows the story of a fitness freak who is a twenty-something janitor at a local elementary school.

This week one of the young students at the school was searching for a four leaf clover, hoping to find a little luck. Well, on Friday, she finally found her lucky four leaf clover. So, she decided to show it to Mrs. Olsen, her teacher who is a bit of a curmudgeon.

As you might expect, Mrs. Olsen responds to the student’s excitement and enthusiasm over her discovery by dousing water on it. Mrs. Olsen says, “Bah, I don’t believe in luck. I believe in work.”

In the next frame, the young student and Frazz are talking about this incident and the student says to Frazz, “Apparently buying 30 lotto tickets a week is “work.”

I love it. That young student has connected the dots between what her teacher says she believes and what her teacher actually does.

She knows that Mrs. Olsen buys lottery tickets, perhaps in the hopes of being freed from her job. And while Mrs. Olsen says she believes in work, by her behavior the student can see that she really believes or hopes in luck.

This is the third sermon in a series of 6 questions on discipleship. The texts for this sermon were: Acts 4: 32-37; 9: 26-30; 11: 19-26.

As I was preparing my sermon this week, I discovered that June 28th marked the beginning of the “Year of Saint Paul.”

Starting this last week, the Roman Catholic Church is taking an entire year to celebrate one of the most prominent figures in the New Testament. They chose this year of all years because it’s as close as anyone can guess to the 2000th anniversary of Paul’s Birthday.

The Apostle Paul probably deserves an entire year of celebration, because when it comes to prominent figures in the New Testament, he is usually the first one who comes to mind. After all, many of the great books of the New Testament, like Romans and Galatians, were written by him. He also plays a big part of the story in the book of Acts.

In fact, a few years ago, I read an article in some magazine like Time or Newsweek that featured a list of history’s most influential people. I remember the article, because I was surprised to see that the Apostle Paul made that list while Jesus Christ did not.

The article defended its choice of Paul over Jesus saying that without Paul’s influence, the church as we know it would probably not exist today. Without the Apostle Paul, its quite possible that no one today would even know who Jesus Christ was.

Earlier this week, I spent two days with the Dominican Sisters at Sinsinawa on a personal spiritual retreat. I didn’t have a lot on my agenda except to relax, read, and pray.

One book I took along with me and subsequently spent a whole day devouring was Sacred Rhythms by Ruth Haley Barton. I would highly recommend this book if you are looking for some encouragement on how to integrate various spiritual disciplines in your life. Barton’s book is winsome and engaging and by far the best book on the spiritual disciplines that I’ve encountered in a long time.

As a result of my time away and specifically in reflection on this book, here are a few reflections I’ve come away with:

1.) The intrusion of technology on my life has robbed me of significant quality time in other areas of my life. Because of an always on computer: I read less, I spend less time developing my spiritual life, and I spend less quality time in relationship with my wife. So I’ve come away realizing that I need to set limits: No computer time between 9PM and 9AM. Cull down the number of blogs I follow in my google reader. Close the laptop on the desk in my office more often. Check e-mail 2-3 times a day, not constantly. Make Sunday a sabbath day from the computer.

2.) I need to find ways to spend more time cultivating my spiritual life. There are two disciplines that Barton speaks of that seem especially appropriate for me at this time in my life. The first is the discipline of prayer, especially focusing in on the idea of breath prayer and also dedicating specific time each day I’m in the office to just sit in the sanctuary and pray. The second is the discipline of honoring the body, especially getting more serious about excercising three times a week and doing more reading/studying on the connection between the body and the spirit.

All in all it was a great retreat. Even though I initially felt guilty about spending the time away from the office and from my wife, it was time well spent and that will prove beneficial to me, to my wife, and to the church I serve. And, hopefully, I will feel less guilty about doing it again!

Now, I’m going to close the lid on this laptop and head into the sanctuary to spend a few moments in prayer before I spend the rest of my afternoon working on my sermon for Sunday.

Peace be with you.

Presidential candidate John Edwards and his wife Elizabeth have been in the news quite a bit lately. John is trying to run a presidential campaign while his wife Elizabeth is experiencing the return of cancer after a relapse. In a recent interview Elizabeth shared their experience of telling their young children, Emma Clare and Jack, who are 6 and 8 that the cancer had returned: She said,

We all sat at the table in the family room. We called them in and said we had something important to say and they were just giggling and laughing. Jack had had a field trip to Whole Foods that day. So it was all of those kinds of regular family things. We had to wait for a calm moment, and John said, ‘I need to tell y’all something. I need to tell you that Mommy’s cancer is back.’ They seemed interested but not depressed by the information. They asked was I going to lose my hair, which delighted them the first time. No, I probably wouldn’t but John explained to them I probably would be getting medicine again.

We also explained that it wasn’t going to go away this time – and that prompted questions about whether I would die from it. John was honest and said that this cancer can kill. Then he said, ‘Everybody at the table who’s not going to die, raise their hands.’ They understood – or I hope they understood – that we’re all going to die and nobody has any guarantee of how much time they have. The only thing we have control of is how you spend the time, that precious time.

It is well known that Christ consistently used the expression “follower.” He never asks for admirers, worshipers, or adherents. No, he calls disciples. It is not adherents of a teaching but followers of a life Christ is looking for.
Soren Kierkegaard