Words to the Church, Part 2 – Explore New Ideas
This month I want to spend a bit of time sharing my thoughts to the church. As a young(ish) clergy person I have some ideas after observing the state of the church over the last 10 years. Frankly, to be honest, if I wasn’t clergy, I’m not sure I’d be going to church.
So over the next few weeks I’m going to explore 6 thoughts, or suggestions, I have for the church. This isn’t targeting any one particular denomination or congregation since many of us are struggling in similar ways.
This is my second of six reflections, if you missed the first, you can find it here.
Explore New Ministry Models
Photo by http://www.sxc.hu/profile/linder6580
I don’t know about where you are, but in my denomination around this part of Canada, 80% of clergy will reach the normal age of retirement in the next 10 years!
Eighty. Percent.
That leaves folks like me who have close to 30 years left to go with quite a bit of area to cover. Yet denominations still hold onto the traditional idea of ministry where it’s supposed to be one minister per church as much as possible. I touched on this topic earlier in the year with this post but want to reconsider it again now.
In that post I challenged folks to take on new styles of ministry. And yes we need to do this. We need to think about gift based ministries and shared ministries over larger geographical areas. Such as a cluster of clergy serving a wider area from one geographical location.
There are things we need to consider with this, because it won’t work if we turned it on tomorrow. We need to build up our local churches to understand they are part of the ministry of the church, it’s not just the clergy. We can share this load. We can use the gifts in the local community to offset the gaps encountered when the clergy may not be in our communities each and every day.
There are many different styles of ministry that can work, but each community needs to explore these on their own. They need to discern and define the gifts they have on hand, develop these skills of pastoral care, prayer, worship leadership (not necessarily preaching) and use them to help meet the needs of their respective communities. This could look very different in neighbouring communities.
We are going to face a severe clergy shortage. There is not enough time right now to avoid it. So we must begin to prepare for new models of ministry today, but exploring the gifts we have as faith based churches serving our communities.
Up in part 3? Don’t be afraid!
Words to the Church, Part 1- Forget the Past
This month I want to spend a bit of time sharing my thoughts to the church. As a young(ish) clergy person I have some ideas after observing the state of the church over the last 10 years. Frankly, to be honest, if I wasn’t clergy, I’m not sure I’d be going to church.
So over the next few weeks I’m going to explore 6 thoughts, or suggestions, I have for the church. This isn’t targeting any one particular denomination or congregation since many of us are struggling in similar ways.
So let us begin with my first piece of advice for the church.
Forget The Past
Photo by http://www.sxc.hu/profile/Renaudeh
Seriously! Forget it! No, not forever, but can we let it go for a little while? I know that the church was once the place to be on Sunday morning. I know that everyone used to go to church. I know the place was overflowing and had a Sunday School of 2000 children (*actual numbers may vary) every week. To be honest, I’m very sorry I missed it. It sounds like it was an amazing time to be a Christian since everyone who was anyone was at church. I also know the church has a wonderfully rich history in our communities that has to be celebrated and held up.
But times have changed.
And so must we.
The problem with holding onto the past so dearly is that it does a wonderful job at squashing hope for the future. If someone comes up with an idea, it gets weighed against the past and almost always loses. This constant reminding of how great and wonderful the past was, and how hopeless we are right now really puts a damper on the creativity and excitement around new ideas.
Some of us have some ideas that we are really excited about. So instead of saying it never worked before, maybe encourage us to try it and maybe it’ll work this time. If not, so what! We’ve learned something and can move onto the next idea. We’ve got lots of them.
So my first piece of advice is to stop bringing up the past in such a way that is hinders our ability to go forward.
This is a good first step. Thanks!
Coming up in part 2… Explore!
God [?] Love
Someone said to me once, “God means love.”
At the time, I didn’t think much of it. Yeah, God and love are pretty tight, so a simple statement connecting the two seems to make sense at first glance.
But the more I thought about it, the more the statement troubled me.
“God means love…”
It’s the ‘means’ that gets to me.
I don’t know for sure, I’m probably off my rocker a bit, but using that word to connect God and love doesn’t sound like the right word.
When I use ‘means’ in a conversation, I am trying to explain something, or manipulate the subject into the way I want to use it in the particular instance. It opens up the subject to broader interpretation, which for God and love I’m not sure I’m comfortable with.
I prefer a more direct statement, something that, instead of loosening understanding, strengthens it.
Something that fits in with the Gospel message.
“For God so loved the world…” John 3:16
“How precious is Your steadfast love, O God!” Psalm 36:7
“Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.” 1 John 4:7
“But God–so rich is He in His mercy! Because of and in order to satisfy the great and wonderful and intense love with which He loved us.” Ephesians 2:4
“The greatest of these is love” 1 Corinthians 13:13
And so on and so on…
So instead of sounding like we’re trying to redefine God, why not just say it straight:
“God is love”
Yes, he can be many other things to people. But first and foremost in my mind is He is love. All else He has ever done for me and through me has come to me after I first discovered His love for me. It’s where we start. From there we learn of everything else.
It’s a simple statement, but it says a lot.
God is love.
And it sounds really great in a song…
If you have trouble viewing the video… click here.
Let Go
“Let Go”
Matthew 14:22-33; Romans 10:5-15
A couple of years ago, Bev and I went to Ottawa. I was still a student in seminary at that time and was scheduled for my annual interview with Ottawa Presbytery. It was just another one of those wonderful hours of terror as I was interrogated as to my preparedness for ministry. But those aren’t stories for a sermon, they’re stories for my therapist.
I want to share a different experience from that trip. The year before some friends of ours had gone on an aerial adventure. The same friends we stay with whenever we get back to Ottawa. Susan did such a fine job sharing her experience, Bev and I decided we wanted to try it too. So off we went.
Aerial adventures are a growing tourist attraction. What they tend to be are courses of varying difficulty through the forest. Sounds simple right. Well, I forgot to mention you are on average about 2 or 3 stories off the ground. There are ladders to climb, obstacles to maneuver, things to climb over and, the fun part, zip-lines.
You put on a harness like you see mountain climbers wear, hook yourself to some safety wires and begin. It gets pretty exhilarating at parts, I can tell you that. At one point I was about 4 stories off the ground, standing on a little swing trying to step on the next little swing. You try very hard not to freeze with fear. Which is kind of funny, because you shouldn’t really be afraid since you are hooked to a safety line. So even if you slip, you can’t fall. You’ll just hang there until you climb back on the obstacle. But tell that to your body when you are looking straight down at the forest floor from 4 stories up! I can’t wait to go back again! (seriously!) read more…
The Cry of a People
As I was sitting eating breakfast this morning I was tuned into the news, catching up on the latest happenings.
They did a piece on the famine in Somalia and the larger drought affected Horn of Africa. It’s the worst drought in 60 years we’re told. People are on the move in search of food, anywhere.
The stats are mind-boggling.
2500 will die every day because they can’t get food or water.
12,500,000 men, women and children are at risk of the same.
*update* 29000 children under the age of 5 have already died.
These statistics are incredible. So many people are going to die because of the lack of food and water.
“The king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’” Matthew 25:34-40
If you are touched at all by this tragedy, please give. We have so much, we have food on our tables and water flowing everywhere around us, yet they have none. Lives will be saved. Choose your favourite charity working in the area and give.
If you live in Canada, know that when you give to a registered charity, the Canadian Government will match your donation.