Triplet Survey Results

First of all, this survey is in no way scientific. The method we’ve used is meant to help us listen for the Spirit’s leading, not to pinpoint any measurable facts or even popular opinions. Here’s what we’ve done:

• Between Christmas and Easter, nine Triplets met together a number of times. Recognizing the presence of Christ in those meetings, the groups got to know each other and talked as the Spirit led.
• Toward the end of this time, the Triplets were asked to respond to the following questions: 1) How would you describe us as a church? 2) What do you imagine God is calling us to do in this church and in our community?
• Six of the groups sent in responses.
• The organizing team (made up of a moderator, the pastor, and three other members, chosen by the Session) read through the responses, looking for themes that arose from the responses.

Here’s what we saw:
How do we describe ourselves as a church?
We are a family, centered around the Good News of Jesus Christ
who enjoy a traditional style of worship
and seek to be friendly, caring and accepting of
those within and outside of our church walls.
What do we imagine God is calling us to do in this church and community?
There were two obvious calls: to reach out to those (mostly younger families) in our community and to care for the needs of our (mostly older) members. As the team discussed these results, it became evident that these two themes may be a single calling

Unless the participants in this process have strong objections to our summary, these results will be brought to the Session next. Our elders will be asked to consider these responses as they consider our image in the community and as they plan for our future. I am hopeful that this process will lead us to tangible actions that will guide our ministry for the next few years.

Also, there were a lot of great ideas that came up in the Triplet conversations. Feel free to either write out those suggestions to the Session directly or tell them to your favorite elder and let him or her pretend it was their idea.

There's Something About Betty

If I seem a bit bleary-eyed on Sunday morning, it's because I will have stayed up too late on Saturday. You see, Betty White is hosting Saturday Night Live and I am not going to miss it; I have a thing for Bettys.

I met a friend's mom named Betty yesterday and said that to her. I immediately realized that I should probably explain myself so she didn't think I was hitting on her: I have never met a woman named Betty in a church that wasn't awesome. I qualify that statement with "in a church" because I don't want to be presumptuous; perhaps there are Bettys in this world that are awful people who don't go to church. But at the same time, I realize I don't have to; where else but in the church are you going to run into someone named Betty? It's one of those names that was big in its generation, but has since faded out a bit. You're not likely to meet, for example, a twenty year-old Betty. Sure, you'll meet an Elizabeth, or a Liz, or even a Beth; but Bettys are more and more becoming an endangered species. And of course, Bettys are of a generation where church was not an option.

I think my thing for Bettys started about fifteen to twenty years ago. I was working in a church that, like many, was having a bit of conflict. My personality has always wanted everyone to get along so it was stressful and difficult to stay out of other people's quarrels. There I was, training for church work, while all around me people were tense and upset... except for the Bettys. There were a couple of women named Betty who, for some reason, were able to rise above it all: they were supportive and always seemed happy to see me; they never spoke ill of anyone; and no matter what else was going on around them, they had an amazing ability to remain sweet, generous, and calm through it all. At the time, their example taught me a great deal about church conflict: namely that being right isn't all there is. Often (if not always), whatever we're arguing over is far less important than the love we are called to show one another.

At the time, those Bettys gave me an example of what I strive to be among my siblings in Christ. It wasn't until later that it became a "Betty thing." In the next church I worked in, it happened like this: I met a woman who was awesome and thought, "Wow, she reminds me of Betty." Sure enough, that was her name. Since then I've worked in several other churches and I've met Bettys in every one of them. And yes, they've all been awesome.

So I guess my point today is simply this: lets all strive to be a little more Betty... whether that's your name or not. And if your reoccurring example for living out the love of Jesus isn't named Betty, then feel free to insert their name here instead. And who knows, maybe in doing so your name might one day become synonymous to someone else of what is best about the church.

Churches Eat Their Young

That’s going to end up as a sermon title. I just heard it during a conversation with a church member who was calling, among other things, to see if I was back to my normal, peppy self. I am; thanks for asking.

We were also chatting about the possible next steps regarding the Triplet adventure and other “visioning” processes that churches go through. I’ll be writing more about that for the quarterly newsletter, due out next week. But for today, this quote that has moved me to break my months-long blogging silence is certainly worth talking about. What my friend meant by “churches eat their young” was our tendency to load all of the work of the church on the few we deem are most capable of doing it. You know who I mean: younger, able-bodied people who may even still have that “new Christian smell” to them. And of course by “eat them” we mean we exhaust them.

It’s one of those lines that are funny because they’re true… only it’s not that funny. It happens all the time and not just in churches. It’s the 80/20 rule: 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people. It’s why rooms clear out like scurrying roaches in a truck-stop bathroom when the lights come on whenever someone starts “looking for a little help in setting up next week’s bake sale.” We know that if they get us for this, then they’ll get us for everything else that follows this and in three months we’ll be in charge of this for the rest of our lives.

Can I get an “amen?”

I know plenty of people who have left churches for exactly this reason. And why not? We don’t join congregations to be in charge of them. We join a church because God has done something in our lives that compels us to be there. Although at first we are eager to respond to God’s leading, doing everything was never part of the deal. But even though it is wrong for churches to expect the faithful few to carry the weight of the many, our initial eagerness to serve still remains the right response. However unfortunate it might be that we can eventually find ourselves being chewed up by our churches, doing nothing was never part of the deal either. The Risen Jesus is a game-changer. By his life we are not the same and avoiding eye-contact with the people who are trying to live out Christ’s ministry is not what Jesus had in mind for the church.

And so, herein lies our dilemma: Jesus calls us to action in and through the church. The problem is, not everyone seems to have gotten that message. And so, those who do get the message wind up doing more than their share.

From my perspective, there are three ways churches deal with this problem:

1. Do nothing. This is a very popular response. Let the 20% continue to do next to everything, expect that eventually they will burn out, and hopefully some fresh meat will turn up before it’s too late.
2. Do less. Nurture the 20% to do only what they can handle and if the other 80% doesn’t care enough (said in your mom’s most guilt-inspiring voice), “I suppose the work of Christ is going to have to take a back seat to whatever else they’ve got going on. Oh no, don’t worry about it; you run along. You’ve got important things to do. Jesus will make do somehow.”
3. Do more.

Do more, but stop letting someone else tell you what Christ’s ministry ought to be. Avoid volunteering and strive for Calling. Theoretically, volunteering is doing something that helps in someone else’s calling. That’s wonderful in short-term bursts of service; it’s rewarding and much appreciated. But Calling is where the real fun is. Calling is all about Christ at work in and through you. It’s about the person God has uniquely created you to be and the ways only you can serve him in the world. Calling is about volunteering because you know it’s for something you’ve been created to do or not volunteering because you know God has put you on another job.

In short, if you don’t want to be eaten by your church then do more of what Jesus calls you to do. Enjoy it, let others celebrate it with you, and never stop listening for what Christ might be calling you to next. And if you’re not sure what you might be called to, come by and see me; it’s one of the things I’m called to do.

A Sense of Urgency

Well it's been while. My absence from this blog probably has more to do with my having too much on my mind rather than having nothing to say. Will Ferrell delivers a great line in the movie Blades of Glory: "Mind-bottling. You know, when things are so crazy it gets your thoughts all trapped, like in a bottle?" That's kind of how I've felt.

The good news is that most of my crazy, mind-bottling thoughts have been about Calvary. As Calvary's pastor, it's my job to think about our members, our future, and our faithfulness to Christ. And lately I've been trying to think better... so I've been letting others think with me.

In last Sunday's bulletin I asked the congregation to pray for six of our members. I'd rather not publish their names to the web, so if you missed the list, check the e-newsletter or email me. These six people -- which include me, four very diverse church members, and Bob, our local candidate for ministry -- make up what we're calling The Transformation Team. By the way, I'm open to suggestions on the title.

Bob is the moderator of the team, so I am free to simply be a member of it and have equal voice in it. The other members were chosen by the Session after I gave them an idea of what I intended to do and allowed them some time to pray about it. The team is reading and discussing a book called Pursuing the Full Kingdom Potential of Your Congregation by George Bullard. We've met twice and each of us have already been challenged by the ideas presented by the book and by God's Spirit. In short, this is already the most exhilarating and rewarding thing I've done in professional ministry.

Although these meetings need to be somewhat confidential to foster our honest communication, I do intend to share my thoughts on the process as often as I can when it relates to my own journey. And one of the first things I have been faced with is, why are we doing this? Since this was my idea, it may seem like a silly question. However, since my answer has changed at least a couple of times since first articulating these ideas, it's not a bad question too keep asking.

The short answer has always been, "Because I have a sense of urgency for my ministry at Calvary." I believe we all have a sense of urgency for our church and no two people's are exactly the same. Often our sense of urgency leads us down a path toward change, like if we see an absence of some demographic or a shrinking worship attendance or a desire to regain a former splendor. It's important to notice what gives us urgency in our church because it fuels our passion for ministry, it might explain why we're at odds with some of our siblings in Christ, and it may be the Spirit's way of nudging us. But it may not always be the best reason for congregational change.

A year ago, my urgency was about acknowledging the mistakes of my past in an effort to be the best pastor I can be. It was about me wanting us to be a growing, vital congregation. But in the end, it was really only about me. I wouldn't have been the first pastor to roll into a congregation with something to prove, but I'm glad God has given me a different sense of urgency. As I've begun to study with The Team, I've learned that the only sense of urgency that really works in the church is the urgency to be faithful to Christ's leading. All of those other things that get us moving in the life of the church may be true and honest reflections of who we are, but they need to take a back seat to the urgency of faithfulness.

So as I said on Sunday, please pray for the team; some transformational things are happening there already. Pray for our well being, the lessons we learn, and that we retain a faithful sense of urgency.

One Body, a Whole Lot of Parts

Now that Vacation Bible School has been over for a couple of days and I've had a chance to rest, I'm finally able to reflect on it a bit. I was running around from one thing to another all week, so I didn't have much of a chance to find a lesson in any of it. But now I do and the lesson I keep coming back to is the lesson of who we are as Christ's Body: each of those who helped to lead the program took their smaller part of it, as it fit in with their gifts. I led the games, for example, because I know how to do that. Something like crafts, on the other hand, would have been a mystery to me.

There are a lot of lessons to be learned here about how VBS is a parable for the church: how we all serve through our gifts toward one common goal; that it takes flexibility, patience, and forgiveness to work closely with the other members of Christ's Body; and that our diversity actually makes us more effective in the work we are called to do. I could probably extend that list out a bit, but it's that last lesson that interests me today.

I noticed something about those who led VBS last week: none of them were around my age. This is not a judgment, it's just an observation. Our VBS was led by the same types of people who lead VBSs everywhere: the members of Christ's Body who have the time to lead it, lead it. Generally, that means, unless you're paying me to be there, people my age are going to be at work. And as long as we remember to help with VBS by contributing financially, that still leaves two very qualified groups to actually run it: teens and retirees (or semi-retireed).

Now let that soak in a bit... Vacation Bible School happens mostly because two groups of people who have almost nothing else in common work together to make it happen. And that, my friends, is the beauty of Christ's Body at work. If our church was made up of only teens, or only retirees, or only those in the middle, VBS would either not happen well or it wouldn't happen at all. But because we can incorporate such diverse age groups, this ministry not only happens, it happens exceedingly well.

I believe this is also true in any other way one could categorize us demographically. The work of the Church is more effective because of our diversity: we are young and old, male and female, politically conservative and liberal; we each have our own personal histories, families and ethnic backgrounds; and let's not forget our multitude of various gifts and talents. The world around us tends to see this kind diversity as a problem to be solved, but in Christ it's the other way around. The only same thing among us all is that we each have been called to follow Jesus. Those things that make us different in every other way, only makes us serve him that much more effectively.

We are, in many ways, a diverse group; and for that I am thankful. And I am especially thankful this week for those in our congregation who are older, working with those who are younger, to teach the youngest of our community of the love of God in Christ.

Mother's Day Kids, Pictures and Clips

Here are some images and a short movie clip of our children during Sunday's Mother's Day worship service. Enjoy!

On the Road

I'm back in town now, after a brief road trip. I drove out to my parents' house in California. They were off to the desert in their Winnebago so I had the house to myself to read, pray, and write. So technically this was "study leave" and not a vacation (although, after being on the job for nine months, the time away was certainly refreshing).

I took this time in an attempt to think through our next steps as a congregation. Our life together as Christ's body is very much a journey: geographically, we remain connected to this place, but Christ continually calls us to new places both personally and as a congregation. It was, in a manner of speaking, a road trip to help us plan a road trip.

But one of the greatest temptations a pastor faces is to plan this trip alone. The way the thinking goes, "I am the pastor. I've read all the right books. I know what constitutes a vital church. I know how to listen for God's voice. Of course I know where the church ought to go." And of course, this turns out to be one of the most destructive things a pastor can do. It's destructive for a number of reasons, but the central sin is that it assumes an authority that actually belongs to Christ. So to mix the metaphor slightly, I am simply the conductor on this road trip of Christ's church. We each participate in discerning where God is leading us and how we ought to get there; my role in this is to facilitate this process and then holler, "All aboard!"

So this trip was not about me deciding how our church can grow or better meet the needs of this community; I don't know how we are going to do things like that and frankly I think it's too soon for me to start sharing those thoughts anyway. No, this trip was about working on a process that helps us think through those issues in an ongoing way. This journey was about me remembering that our life together is also a journey; a journey that is more productive and enjoyable if we take stock of where we're supposed to be going from time to time.

You will hear more about how that process is taking shape in the coming months, but I can tell you about one central element: this process is mostly about prayer. Prayer is how we intentionally seek God's vision for the ministry we've been called to embody. Prayer is how we plan for this journey and prayer is how we travel it faithfully. So please pray. Pray for me and pray for those who will lead us in this process. Pray for us as a congregation that we might honestly work through the anxieties that new journeys sometimes bring. And let us pray for the Spirit's clear leading to show us all the wonderful things ahead of us as we seek to follow Christ our Savior.


By the way, even though I'm back in town, you won't see me in worship on Sunday. No, I'm not ditching church because I have the day off. No, I'm not just lying low so that the guest preacher doesn't feel nervous (not that she would or should). And no, I don't need a break from you.

The reason you won't see me on Sunday is that I'll be spying: on Sundays when I don't have any responsibilities, I like to attend another worship service incognito. I highly recommend it. It gives us an opportunity to take notes on what other churches are doing (well or poorly) which helps us get a perspective on what we are doing at Calvary. In addition, I like to play "Secret Shopper" during their fellowship time. That's where I sit alone with a cup of coffee and see if anyone comes over to talk to me; the results are then passed along to the pastor. So if you are going to miss a Sunday, at least bring back notes.