Night Musings – The UnManifesto Edition

Change is hard. clichéd, I know but there it is. That message is practically Biblical – it comes through the pages of scripture loud and clear. 

The session of our church has been grappling with all kinds of change.  Some is of our choosing – like the way that we’ve tackled our outdated administrative practices and streamlined our budget.  However, some of the changes are being forced upon us. Demographical changes in the neighborhood, shifts in cultural attitudes and the general decline of civic engagement are finally catching up to us.  Our Session has been slowly warming to the idea that we are in serious long-term jeopardy.

This is my first call and I’ve really struggled with how much to assert myself and my agenda as I work with the Session to respond to these changes.  This week I finally sat pen to paper and work on a draft for the session to consider.  We decided to use the document as the basis for our next Session Retreat agenda.  I thought I’d throw my ideas up here to see if any of you might have something to contribute. This was definetely not intended to be a manifesto – I am faithfully trying to synthesize what I’ve learned in my two years here and spit it back out as a road map forward, all the while listening for God’s will for this congregation.  This is just intended to be a starting place from which we can leap in any direction.  Tell me what you think!

Friends,

I proclaim to you the good news that Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! 

We had a tremendously successful Holy Week in partnership with the Presbyterian Church of Western Springs: Maundy Thursday and Good Friday both saw wonderful music and worship and boasted large crowds and our Easter celebration was full of joy and children.  The Monday after Easter saw our sanctuary filled again for the funeral of (), as we celebrated the hope of the resurrection in a different way.  Our house was packed 3 of 4 consecutive days.  It was a wonderful sight and made me do some(long overdue) soul searching.

I am an incrementalist by nature; cautious and deliberate.  Looking at those crowds on Friday and Sunday, I realized that most of those people were friends and family members who returned to our community for this special occasion.  Though they have moved on to new addresses and new churches, they remember how we once filled a special need in their life when they were younger and we are still “home” to them.  Which then made me think of our younger people and wonder, who will come back in ten years? In twenty?  Bluntly, to whom do we minister that is young enough to return here in twenty years? There are so few young people in our church these days.  We have a growing number of very young but more often then not their parents have no interest in actually joining or they belong to another church and only attend our special occasions.  There is nothing wrong with that type of association – in fact I think it is quite Biblical, but the fact is, we have very few members who will grow up to fill the shoes of long time members like the ().

You all know this already.  We keep coming back to this over and over – how do we minister to folks who don’t come and whom we haven’t yet met? The old model was that people sought the church out.  How do we reverse that so that the church seeks out the believer?

I have been fairly timid in fashioning an agenda because I wanted to get to know you.  Really know you.  What you want, what you need, what you like.  I think that after two years, I can say that I’ve made some progress to that end.  I see your strengths as well as your challenges and I feel like we’ve made some tremendous progress together already.  We’ve done it slowly, though and looking at those crowds on Sunday, I realized that I may be moving too slowly.  I may be seeking more to be liked then to be prophetic; I may be letting you down by not be pushing hard enough.

There are four areas that of our life together in which I would propose more aggressive action:

Mission/Outreach:

We need direct mission; things we can invite people to physically participate in on regular occasions.  We need activities that meet immediate needs within the community.  We need finger food.  Most of our mission is “insider only” (meaning, you need to know someone involved to get involved) or involves writing a check.  We need to create novice opportunities that are hands on, needs responsive, open to the public and low risk for the participants as a way to bring them into the community and then transition them to our more “insider” types of mission.

I propose we consider:

-          Building a community garden

• o   We can eventually develop an entire hunger ministry around this, but we start with the veggis.  

-          Community Class (parenting, potty-training, Alzheimer’s awareness, tax help, cooking…whatever)

Worship:

We need more flexibility in our worship: our failed search for an organist is demonstrating that weekly.  It is time to push ahead with our technological overhaul.  We can mix organists (when available, when affordable) with contemporary music (the good stuff) and other media.  We can start slow and build but nothing can happen until we finish upgrading.  We need a projector and screens and a good board at the very least.

-          I would like the choir to move downstairs at least once a month and for Maria to conduct from the front so we can teach the congregation some new music.  I’ll put my money where my mouth is and come to choir practice and sing with the choir.

-          At our retreat we need to discuss some of the Alban institute’s findings on church re-development – which include a conversation about removing pews to give the space a more intimate feel.  Our space would be perfect for this.

-          I would like permission to pursue a monthly Alternative service – possibly featuring a Spanish language component.

-          Move ahead with introducing new technology to the sanctuary

Spiritual Development:

I’ve tried several times to start a bible study but I can’t seem to hit on the winning formula and date.  I can’t point at a single church that experienced redevelopment that didn’t first report a religious awakening or revival.  You can’t fake that – it takes time in the word and in intimate conversation with other believers for the Spirit to take root.  I know that many of our members are uncomfortable talking of faith and that the 1950s style of church was a very compartmentalized faith: Sunday was for church and religion, the other 6 days were for other things.  We must break down this mold, however. 

-          House bible studies.  Session members are ruling Elders.  This church needs some of you to take the initiative to invite some members and some nonmembers to your homes.  None of us has time, none of us has the energy: but there is no alternative to genuine spiritual development.

Administration:

-          We need to follow through with organizing our Session Retreat – it just needs to happen

-          Staffing;

• o   we need to continue to adjust our job descriptions so that staff do what the church needs and not what it needed a decade ago.
• o   We need to replace our organist with some type of music person; 
• o   we need to develop a tool for staff evaluations and accountability.

-          Officer development

• o   The LEADS conference was a good start.  We need new Elders to attend that each year but we also need to continue to develop our Session spiritually – should we read a book together? 

 This is a lot to think about at once but we’ve been wrestling with these issues for some time already.  Its time we name them and begin to take concrete action on them.  I look forward to talking about these ideas and working on our future with you in the days and weeks to come.

Respectfully Submitted,

Greg