NASCAR and Church?

I heard a most disturbing story on NPR this morning involving one of my favorite sports:  NASCAR.  Now I realize that to many of us northeasterners, NASCAR is hardly considered a "sport".  I mean how athletic must you be to sit behind the wheel of a car driving around a circular track?  Well, in defense of those drivers, you and I probably wouldn't even make it once around the track without hitting the wall.   And then add to that, other cars riding inches away from your bumper at 180 miles per hour?  Good luck with that.

NPR reported this morning that NASCAR is now beginning to experience a decline in both attendance and viewership around the country.  Sound familiar?  For many years, the sport of NASCAR racing has been one of the most popular ones, even attracting presidential candidates desperately seeking to show us how they're just plain ordinary Americans.  Now even major television networks are picking up on this trend and are beginning to re-evaluate their desire for NASCAR contracts.  CBS is walking away from NASCAR altogether.  For reasons that are not entirely apparent to me, we as a culture are beginning to move beyond the need for speed.  Perhaps in the age of technology, we are no longer stimulated by just watching cars go around a track like we did thirty years ago.  Maybe for some its just become too expensive to fuel up the RV and take a few days to enjoy the NASCAR festivities.  Maybe our culture's obsession with cars is being supplanted by an obsession with I-Phones and Androids.  Why else would texting while driving be at epidemic levels?  Maybe NASCAR appeals to mostly white males who as a demographic are declining in number.

Whatever the reasons for the decline in NASCAR's popularity, one thing is for certain.  The culture in which we live is very different from the culture of twenty or even thirty years ago.  Times are changing.  Is NASCAR?

Now substitute "church" for "NASCAR" and this question hits even closer to home.  Times are changing.  Is the church?

At the formation of Incarnate Word in 1961, mainline Protestant churches were the cultural religious establishment, as such, they relied on a sense of obligation as a powerful motivator for membership. They were the only game on Sunday morning.  Attending church, having your children baptized and sending them to Sunday School were obligations you were supposed to fulfill.  Over time a sense of complacency set in as church leaders and others assumed the church had a guaranteed place and constituency.  In 1961, the era of Christendom was alive and well fueled by a sense of civic faith that said, if you were a good American, you were a good Christian and you were in church.

Times have changed and so has our culture.  An unpopular war in Vietnam, assassinations of prominent leaders and the scandal of Watergate helped erode a sense of trust in society's institutions, the church among them.  Moreover with the implementation of the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, our culture became more racially, ethnically and religiously diverse.  No longer did the assumptions of civic faith hold true that to be a good American was to be a Christian who attended church every week.  No longer taking for granted that folks will simply show up on our doorsteps ready to join us in church, we've had to reassess the church's purpose and its relationship with the world around it.  We've had to re-examine what it is to be the church in a post-modern, pluralistic and inter-connected world.

The culture around us has changed.  Have we?  The adaptive challenges that face us today compel us to re-examine our own congregational culture and assumptions.  Gone are the days when "membership" had its privileges.  Those outside our church walls are no longer "joiners".  They are "seekers":  Looking for healing, transformation and purpose.  Are we offering that?

The life and death choice facing the church today is clear:  Do we lament the changes around us yearning for a return to the good ol' days, or do we adapt to them?  The church that adapts to these cultural challenges; that sees them not as threats but as new opportunities to tell and re-tell its story of a God in love with the world, is the church that is going to live another day bearing witness to the timeless story of a God whose love and healing in Jesus Christ knows no end.

Just sayin'...
Pastor Doug

 

A church of gimmicks?

I've heard a lot of talk recently about the steady decline of the mainline Protestant church and how the church just doesn't pack folks in like it used to.  We look at statistical bar graphs of membership, worship attendance and Sunday School enrollment for the last thirty years and are saddened, perplexed and even terrified as we see the irrefutable trend:  Numbers steadily going down.

So is this the end of the church?  Have we shrunk so much that death is imminent?  There is no question we have significantly declined.  The culture around us is in the midst of major change; an emerging generation of younger folks are for the most part absent from our churches.  Little wonder then that when folks from this missing demographic journey into our midst on a Sunday morning, we descend upon them in a scene right out of "The Walking Dead", grabbing them for all we're worth and trying all sorts of gimmicks to keep them coming back to church.  (i.e. coupon for a free coffee at fellowship hour, a free loaf of bread for each visiting family...you get the picture).

The problem with these "free gift" gimmicks is that despite being well-intentioned, they're not real.  They neither invite the stranger in our midst into an authentic relationship of trust with us or with Jesus.  Instead they tell the visitor, "if you come to our church, you'll get stuff".  Not exactly what Jesus was getting at when he preached, "if any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me." (Matthew 16:24).  By the way, Jesus says this on the heals of Peter trying to stop him from going on to a cross in Jerusalem to suffer and be killed.

Our culture is so saturated with advertising gimmicks promising free stuff that we've become skeptical of them.  Free pizza for test driving a car?  Really?  Car dealers are not in business to give away free pizza.  Their purpose is to sell us cars.  Is this how the church is perceived too?

Maybe instead of trying to market ourselves we should just listen.  Listen to God and listen to our neighbors.  What does the God who came to serve and not be served want for our congregation?  What does the God whose son poured himself out for the life of the world want to see us do in the city for good?  What events have broken the hearts of those who live in the neighborhood around us?  Who are those in our neighborhood who are broken economically or spiritually?  Who in our neighborhood needs to experience the healing and wholeness that walking with Jesus brings?  These are the questions for which we need to listen for answers.

Regardless of demographic, folks wandering into our pews on a Sunday morning are not looking for an opportunity to help pay the light bills.  They don't really care about that beloved pastor who served for many years, or that the Presiding Bishop of the ELCA, Mark Hanson was with us a year ago.  They don't even care where we drink our coffee and eat our donuts on Sunday morning.  What they are looking for is what each of us is looking for:  Jesus and the radical healing and transformation that comes from being in his presence.  They may even want to be a part of something bigger than themselves yearning to make a difference in the broken world around them. 

As admirable as congregational loyalty may sound, it is not what those outside our church walls are looking for.  As much as we rightfully love and cherish our congregational history, that too is not what those outside our church walls are looking for.  Folks who wander into our midst are looking for communities of faith who are committed to mission, not maintenance; living and loving with authenticity and generous hearts. 

Maybe Jesus got it right when he said a long time ago, "Love God.  Love your neighbor.  Nothing else matters".  Just sayin'...

Peace,
Pastor Doug

Maintenance or Mission?

For many weeks and months now,  I've been wrestling with what the church is all about.  What is it's purpose? Is the "business" of the church to maintain what we've got?  Or is it to be like Jesus emptied out for the sake of the world?  I don't think the church has done a very good job answering these questions.  For too long pastors and parishioners have functioned in the church as if it were 1959, when it was just assumed in our culture, that if you were a good American you fulfilled your civic duties by being in church.  How many times have we longed for the good ol' days when extra chairs had to be dragged into worship to accomodate large Sunday morning crowds?  How often do we beat ourselves up as we lament the empty pews in our sanctuaries?

But the culture has changed.  The church is no longer at the center like it was in 1959.  If we are lucky, the church is barely in the cultural circle at all anymore.  At the very least, we are off to the side watching the world go by without us.  It seems to me that if we don't want to be irrelevant, we need to begin to ask the tough questions.  Do we stay off to the side watching the world go by, mournfully longing for the days when the church was in the cultural center?  Or do we actually do something about it by engaging the post-modern, multicultural, interconnected world with the good news that God through Jesus heals and transforms broken lives? Do we stay locked behind closed doors waiting for a "magic bullet" to fill our pews again, or do we seek ways to pour ourselves out in love for all?

Let me put it another way.  Are we a church of "maintenance"or "mission"? 

Here's how a maintenance church rolls as I see it: 

The maintenance church:

seeks to preserve membership;
focuses on congregational survival;
depends on pastors and other professionals to do the ministry;
has volunteers who will do the work of ministry if there is time;
uses terms like "inreach" concerning itself with making all members happy all the time;
assumes new members will come to it;
focuses primarily on the congregation and what happens within its four walls;
is driven by the ABCs:  (Attendance, Budget and Cash Flow);
expects very little commitment by members;
identifies itself as "congregation".

On the other hand,

The mission church:

seeks to make disciples;
understands that you find your life when you give it away;
believes that ministry belongs to the people with the pastor helping to equip for ministry;
is not about membership, but the lifestyle of discipleship;
is focused outward;
is called to love people and go to them;
is concerned with advancing the Kingdom of God;
is not obsessed with numbers but with how people are living the faith and sharing the gospel;
understands that being a disciple is a 24/7 commitment;
identifies itself as "community of faith".

These are questions with which I continue to wrestle.  I hope and I pray that you will too.

Peace and Love,
Pastor Doug

 

The big lie....

 

 

As I continue to pray about and prepare my sermon for this Sunday, I can't get it out of my head that we will be celebrating a healing liturgy.  But I've got to be honest here. When I think healing liturgy or healing service, the first image that comes to mind is of the religious charlatans and hucksters who manipulate the vulnerable with sensational promises of crutches and wheelchairs no longer being needed.  That will not happen here on Sunday morning!

When I think of healing, I think of brokenness.  The world around us is broken.  Those who govern us are willing to put our nation and the world on the edge of financial collapse.  Children living in the city of Rochester are more likely to live in poverty than in any other U.S. city.  Cancer, heart disease and strokes are overly abundant in our lives and in the lives of those we love.  Relationships between spouses and among children crumble before our very eyes.  Depression and anxiety crush the lives of so many under their weight.   And the list goes on.

In the face of such brokenness, what is often spouted among well-meaning folk is the phrase, "God won't give you more than you can handle."  This in fact is a big lie!  In fact, this little gem of a phrase isn't even in the Bible.   Oh sure, there's something that sounds like it in First Corinthians 10:13, but it's not the same thing.  In First Corinthians, Paul says that "God is faithful and will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear".  Paul is talking about temptation, not about the amount of suffering you can endure.

Often times life is too  much for us to bear.  God knows that.  Paul even acknowledges this in Second Corinthians.  But that's okay, because we don't bear it alone.  As Paul says, "we rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead" (2 Corinthians 1:8,9).

Maybe Luke had this in mind when he decided to tell us a story of 10 lepers, who at the end of their ropes and imprisoned by their diseases, were healed by Jesus.  At this point in Luke's gospel, Jesus is literally crossing borders between Jewish and Gentile lands on his way to a cross in Jerusalem.  He is completely disrupting the expectations and borders of institutions and individuals alike.  What Luke tells us is that as insurmountable as they appear to be, God will not be stopped by the borders and brokenness that surround us.  In other words, the sufferings that threaten to imprison us are not administered by God in some kind of endurance test, but are overcome by God.

Trite platitudes designed to explain everything away and to make us feel better with bumper-sticker theologies do little in the face of real pain and brokenness.  They might sound good, but they don't heal:  Only Jesus does that.  And who better to heal than the one who suffered the forsakenness of torture and death only to be raised to new life?  The gospels don't tell us why suffering happens, they only tell us what God does in the midst of it.  God heals.  Not sure how.  Not sure when.  But God heals.  Come to worship on Sunday and see for yourself.

Peace and Healing,
Pastor Doug

What I need from church

I read a blog this morning from a single dad who visited a church yesterday morning with his two sons.  I'm not sure where the church was, but it could be any one of ours.  The church they visited was celebrating their 100th Anniversary.  But as this dad pointed out, the congregation was so intent on remembering the stories of yesteryear, they completely ignored their visitors.  Fellowship with each other was more important than hospitality to the strangers in their midst. 

Ignoring their visitors might in some way be related to the fact that for every young person in the pews, there were three older folks.  Now don't get me wrong, one's age does not determine one's friendliness.  Some of our most hospitable individuals at Incarnate Word are well into their 70s, 80s and even 90s.  But when folks are visiting, how we welcome them or not will determine if they ever come back.  The fact remains that most visitors are younger and are searching for churches with whom they can connect their faith lives.  If there are not many young people in our midst, we have to ask ourselves, how well we welcome visitors.  Speaking as a dad myself, I want my kids to connect with something larger than themselves.  I want them to connect with a faith community that doesn't just talk about "the golden rule" but embodies radical, unconditional, systemic-changing love.  I want a place where healing happens and a place where my gifts along with those of my children can join with the gifts of others to change the world.  That is what most people want when they enter our churches on a Sunday morning.  Healing and transformation!

Let's face it.  This may be "My Father's World", but it can be pretty sucky when it comes right down to it.  People are isolated in unfulfilling jobs, stressed from too much homework and too much programming, going through divorce, battling medical diagnoses, recovering from addictions, facing bankruptcy and that's just the tip of the iceberg.  From this cesspool of crap, people are literally looking for a holy habitation: a mountain of respite and hope:  A place to call home.

What's nothing short of miraculous is that in the midst of these life storms, folks who don't even know us have taken a risk to come into our midst.  They don't know if they can trust us.  Will they be made to feel like outsiders?  Will they hear a fire and brimstone sermon inflicting guilt on those who are gathered?  Will they see love or hate in those around them?  Will they hear destructive gossip being whispered between pews?  Will their wallets and pocketbooks be put upon?  Will they be ignored?  Or will church folks eager to see "young blood" descend upon them like a herd of "walking dead" trying to get them to sign on the dotted line?  Those who enter our sanctuary for the first time on a Sunday morning, don't know what they'll find, but they've taken a huge leap of faith to be there.

I'm not sure I like the term "visitor" for it implies someone who is just passing by and not looking to put down roots.  I don't think folks coming into our sanctuaries on a Sunday morning are visitors.  I think they are immigrants longing for connectedness to something greater than themselves in need of healing and love.  If so, what they don't need are coffee mugs, loaves of bread and other similar marketing ploys which say we want your body and not your soul.  None of us likes to be marketed to.  Haven't we all been conditioned to associate marketing and advertising with lying?

If you've been here at Incarnate Word for fifty years or you're coming into our midst for the very first time, here is what I pray you will find:  Whoever you are, wherever you're from, whatever you've done or whatever you've left undone, I pray that when you come through the doors on a Sunday morning you will find a people and a place where there is healing from the hardships of life.  I pray you will find a people and a place that will empower you to make a difference in the world.  If you are courageous to just get out of bed on a Sunday morning and come to church, I pray that you see people who will not only acknowledge and remember you, but who will be genuinely happy that you are alive.

We don't need a new program or ministry of outreach.  We don't need door-to-door prosyletizing.  What we need is love.  Love will change us.  Love will change the world.  Hey, if love is good enough for Jesus....

Just sayin'
Pastor Doug

Government Shutdown...

"I appeal to you therefore brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.  Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God - what is good and acceptable and perfect" (Romans 12:1-2).

Here we are just two days into the government shutdown and already my patience is wearing thin.  As much as I love the national parks, their closure at the moment is not my chief concern.  What does concern me are the 800,000 federal employees who just like me have mortgages to pay, credit card balances to manage, utility bills to keep up with, and food to put on the dinner table.  Just because they work for the federal government does not make them the "bad guys" as some in Congress might portray them.  What does concern me are the low income recipients of "Women, Infant and Children" vouchers who depend upon these to put nutritious food on the table for their families.  These are not the lazy freeloaders that some of our more affluent legislators in Washington claim them to be.  By the way, I use the term "legislator" lightly when referring to some of these elected officials.  For you see, many have not been elected to govern, they have been sent by their "constituents" to shut down the government.  Apparently their mission has been accomplished.

The reckless behavior of those elected to positions of governance is astounding.  Whether one is a supporter of the Affordable Healthcare Law or not is not the issue.  Holding an entire segment of our population hostage (let alone the most vulnerable) to promote one's legislative agenda is morally corrupt.  What's happened to the concept of governance through reason, compromise and commitment to the common good?  Though it is Congress' responsibility to pass a federal budget, that budget belongs to every American.  My taxes and yours when combined with all other tax revenues is designed to support the well-being and infrastructure of our society.  When nearly 1 million people are put out of work and many others are unable to put food on the table due to a small group's political agenda, it is astonishing.

Like it or not, Congress duly enacted the Affordable Healthcare Act and the U.S. Supreme Court upheld its constitutionality.  Despite over forty efforts by Congress to "repeal" this law, it has not happened.  How many millions of dollars have been wasted in these repeal efforts?

Paul talks a lot about discerning the will of God.  In  my reading of scripture, God's love of and concern for the most vulnerable among us is overwhelming.  Jesus himself is not only the embodiment but the fulfillment of all the Hebrew prophets of old who raised their voices for justice, peace and mercy.  Though some would claim that God is as American as baseball, hot dogs and apple pie, people of faith know better.  We know that God did not send Moses to bless Pharaoh or Jesus to bless Caesar.  In fact Jesus himself died at the hands of Caesar.  So we're probably better off to not go there.

Where is the voice to call those who engage in political brinkmanship to task?  How can we, as people of faith, not raise our prayers and our voices in advocacy for the poorest and most vulnerable among us?  I for one will be writing yet another letter to those in Congress who represent me all the while keeping this prayer foremost in my heart:

"O God, your son came among us to serve and not to be served and to give his life for the life of the world.  Lead us by his love to serve all those to whom the world offers no comfort and little help.  Through us give hope to the hopeless, love to the unloved, peace to the troubled, and rest to the weary, through Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen" (ELW p.60).

Your brother in Christ,
Pastor Doug

Pastor Doug's Excellent Adventure!!

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

 The "Excellent Adventure" begins in mid-October, when I will begin my part-time studies toward a Doctor of Ministry degree concentrating in justice and advocacy. Though coursework will occur in a variety of settings, I am working toward this degree through the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia in a program that can be completed in no less than three years and no more than six.

 What does this mean for Incarnate Word? It means that you my brothers and sisters will be my mentors, on occasion my case studies, and always my friends with whom I will work to both experiment and apply advocacy programming in our congregation. Therein lies the beauty of the Doctor of Ministry degree. Unlike a Ph.D., which is academic in nature and requires full-time attention to coursework, the D. Min degree is designed for full-time parish pastors and their congregations.

 Using my continuing education time, there will be a couple of weeks over the course of the year that I will need to be in Philadelphia doing coursework. The remainder of the year, I’ll be working with you and other leaders of Incarnate Word in programming as well as the day-to-day pastoral ministry we have always done together.

 The course I’m taking in October is entitled, “Discerning a Direction Toward Renewal”. In this week long intensive course, we will be examining and critiquing multiple 21st century approaches to congregational transformation and renewal. I will also be assessing my own leadership style and skills as well as the strengths and challenges of our mission context here at Incarnate Word. The desired outcome of this course is to give us tools in our continued efforts of assessing and developing suitable strategic plans for our congregation.

 I am tremendously appreciative of the love and prayers of both Executive and Congregation Council leaders, who have encouraged and supported me in these efforts of discernment. I am thankful as well for each and every one of you as together in Christ, we strive not to be a corporate entity focused on church survival, but a mission outpost seeking to pour ourselves out in love for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

 

Peace in Christ,

Pastor Doug