Posts Tagged with mission

Vision, Mission, Money and Imagination

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I love my new ministry as the coordinator for Imagine No Malaria in our conference… but I often have a hard time explaining why.

While there are similarities with local church ministry (which I also love), so many aspects of this position are drawing upon gifts in new and different ways.

But because I am not in the local church, preaching every Sunday, it doesn’t look like ministry to some people.

I think I was having trouble myself with wrapping my head around how and why this was ministry.  How and why a pastor should be in my position.  The job uses my gifts; I get to engage 800 churches instead of just one; I am engaged in the work of transforming the world (a core part of our mission as the United Methodist Church).  I had pieces of the answer, but was still missing something.

Until I read some Nouwen this morning and finally found a missing connection point… the words I need to really claim and explain my work.

Nouwen writes –

Fundraising is, first and foremost, a form of ministry.  It is a way of announcing our vision and inviting other people into our mission…. We are declaring, “We have a vision that is amazing and exciting. We are inviting you to invest yourself through the resources God has given you – your energy, your prayers, and your money – in this work to which God has called us.”

God has called us to this work.  And every day, I get to proclaim the vision of what will be realized when we answer that call.  Every day, I get to send forth the invitation, the call to conversion, that will help us to answer that call with our whole lives.

We are participating in God’s good work and we imagine a world in which children no longer die from a preventable, treatable, beatable disease.  We imagine communities of people working together for healing and wholeness.  We imagine pregnant women who are healthy and can carry their babies to term without fear.  We imagine a global partnership that is able to wipe out death and suffering from malaria.

And not only can we imagine these things, but God has shown us a way to accomplish them.  You and me, working together, bringing the best of ourselves and our gifts.  That is the body of Christ in action.  That is the aim of discipleship.  This is a living and giving ministry.

Yes,  I am a fundraiser.  And yes, I am doing ministry.

Mission Makes Disciples

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I knew that Imagine No Malaria was about saving lives.  I knew it was about God’s mission.  But the more I sit in training, the more I hear the stories of people impacted by the campaign, the more I understand the training and empowerment of both church folk in the U.S. and the on the ground work in Africa, the more I realize that this work is about discipleship.

I have had a glimpse of the way mission makes disciples at my church in Marengo.  As we turned our eyes outward instead of inward and opened the doors of the church and stepped outside, we found that we grew in our faith.  As we reached out in love – both to our neighbors and to our brothers and sisters across the globe – we found we were encountering Christ.  And as their heart for mission grew, so did the sense of spirit that moved through that church’s midst.  And the reason is that they began to understand mission was about more than simply a check, but it was about faith in action.

Throughout this campaign, we are teaching people how to put faith into action.  We are going to seek out those with the gifts for generosity and invite them to claim those gifts. But I really think that the heart of this campaign is about empowering individual people to make a difference for Christ.  The skills we will teach and the gifts we will nurture will not only help us to be successful with Imagine No Malaria – we are actually building capacity for local church leaders to reach out to their local community in partnerships, developing donor networks, inviting people to give testimonies, increasing the strength of our connection, and capturing the creative spirit of our clergy and laity.

I watched a video segment yesterday where a young man, an inmate with a history of trouble, found his faith in the prison system.  When his chaplain told him about Imagine No Malaria, he put aside $5 of the $15 he makes each month in the prison industry – money that was to be used to buy shampoo and soap and basic things… and he gave it to make a difference.  He gave it because Jesus invites us to heal the sick.  He gave it because it was what he could give.

As United Methodists, we believe that we not only make disciples, but we make disciples who make a difference.  As I have been preaching through the book of James this month, I have been reminded over and over again that our faith is nothing if it is not lived through our words AND deeds.  We have to reach out… not because it earns us points with Jesus, but because mission is what we were saved to do.

When we are engaged in mission, the initial faith that saved us is deepened.  When we are engaged in mission, our life becomes less about “me” and more about God’s vision for the world.  When we are engaged in mission, we find that we are in turn blessed by those we serve with (** note: not for or to, but with**).

When we are engaged in mission, we truly are living out our calling to be disciples of Jesus Christ. And while we might fight about the Call to Action and debate about the hot button political topics of the day and look suspiciously at those different from us across the table, Imagine No Malaria is different.  The United Methodist Church has the opportunity right now to join with one another across the globe to do this one big thing in the name of God – to transform the world as we live out our faith and our mission.  It is unprecedented.  It is amazing.  And it is entirely possible.

As someone who walked away from General Conference disheartened about “the institution,” I suddenly find myself in the midst of the institution… and yet, this campaign is about people coming together, focused on God, focused on a simple uniting task, focused on the elimination of deaths by malaria.  While at times I have felt like I am on a very slowly sinking ship, I believe this project is rekindling hope in my heart that God isn’t done with us yet and that together we can truly revitalize our church and transform the world.

Going Up?

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Are you going up?

Are you… climbing the ladder… increasing in stature… measuring success in leaps and bounds?

Are you going up?

I’m not asking if you are climbing the corporate ladder… or increasing your standing in the community… or raking in the dollars and cents.

Are you going up?

Are you climbing Jacob’s ladder?  Are you increasing in holiness?  Are you more successful today than you were yesterday at obeying God’s will?

Are you going up?

In the United Methodist Church, we have been talking a lot lately about growth and fruitfulness and effectiveness.  And we are focused on those things because… well, lately we seem to be in a downward slide.  Fewer members.  Less money in offerings.  A decrease in the number of baptisms and confirmations. Fewer people entering the ministry.

Down… down… down.

In fact, at General Conference, I heard words like “death tsunami” and “urgency” and “crisis.”

Evidently, downward movement and momentum isn’t a good thing.

We are supposed to be going up…

As a local congregation, the powers that be tell us that we should have more people in worship today than we did five years ago.  We should have more baptisms and confirmations than funerals.  We should be increasing our stewardship of resources and financial giving.  Our numbers should be climbing. In fact, our very own Bishop Julius Trimble set a goal for our conference to have 10,790 new disciples in four years.  That is 13 new disciples per congregation… that is only 3-4 new disciples every year for four years… We should have more new people in more new places.  If we look at our numbers,  they should be going up, up, up.

Are we going up?

I find this to be a very interesting question to think about today, because it is Ascension Sunday.  Today is the day we celebrate that although Jesus died… he rose from the dead!  And not only did he rise up from the grave and walk among us… but about forty days later, Jesus rose up into heaven. He ascended to the father.

And as our scripture from Acts tells us, the disciples who witnessed this amazing miracle were so dumbfounded that they stood staring, mouths wide open in astonisment, faces to the sky.  They stood like that, staring at the heavens… looking up… for such a long time that angels had to come and remind them: Hey! you’ve got a job to do.

We can get awfully obsessed about what is happening up there. (pointing to the sky).

We want to follow Jesus up there and go to heaven.

We want to know that the big guy up there thinks about everything we say and do… or… maybe (eek) maybe we don’t. Maybe we want to hide everything we say and do from up there.

In fact, I bet if you really thought about it, you could plot out the points on your life when you were attaining the heights and growing in wisdom and stature and getting closer to up there.  We could probably plot out the times when we were going up…

There are some half sheets of paper in the pews there and I want to invite you to take one of them and grab a pen or pencil.

I want us to start by drawing a simple graph.  Put an x-axis on the left hand side… this will stand for the highs and the lows of your life.  Now draw a y-axis through there… this will stand for the years you have been here on this earth.

Alright… now I want to give you a minute… just a minute… to roughly sketch out and plot some of the most successful and least successful times of your life… the highs and the lows.  Think about this first graph in worldly terms – jobs and education and family and success… but also those times that were difficult like deaths and struggles with work or school.   Just hit the most important and significant things for you right now.  And when you are finished, connect the dots…

Okay… now I want us to make a second chart… right there on the same graph is fine.  If you want, switch writing utensils with a neighbor so you can plot out your graph in pen or pencil or something different. This time, plot out your spiritual highs and lows.  When were you closest to God (ie: highest on the chart) and when were you farthest from God?  When did you grow in grace?  When did you backslide? And for some of us, that includes times when we didn’t even know about God – a long time where we were flatlined at zero…  I’ll give you a couple of minutes for that…

Now, I want you to look at your graph and answer the question… are you going up?

Could someone else in this world look at that graph and tell if you were going up?

Have the things that you have said and done, the life that you have lived… is it worthy of what is up there?

Have you felt a struggle in YOUR life… always trying to get closer to up there, always trying to reach the point where you have “made it?”  Do you worry about how many highs and lows you have in your spiritual relationship with God.

To repeat the question we have been using all morning – are you going up?

I believe that this is a trick question.  Or rather, I believe it is the wrong question.

Because you see in the end, we are NOT judged by the upward curve of our slope.  We are NOT judged by the number of good deeds we have done.  and we are NOT judged by the number of bible verses we have memorized…  We are not judged by how long we have been close to God.

The irony is… in order to go “up to heaven” we have to be willing to be low and humble… we are judged by whether or not we have accepted how utterly unacceptable we are… and by God’s grace that dwells within us…

Somewhere this week, I read that holiness is not actually a characteristic that describes us.  We are not holy.  We can not grow in our own holiness.  The only thing that makes us holy is God.

As we sang right before this message… Only Jesus is worthy… only Jesus is good… and only Jesus has the power to save us, redeem us, transform us and welcome us home.

Sometimes we get so focused on trying to do the right things in order to get up there, on living the right kind of life, that we forget it’s not about us at all… it’s about Jesus and what he has done.

And the Ascension story reminds us that Jesus goes up…. not us.

In their preaching helps this week, the General Board of Discipleship reminded us that heaven is not really “up.”  As we know from our modern scientific inquiry – and I quote from the GBOD: “If Jesus went “up there,” he would have frozen to death, suffocated, been dangerously irradiated, or ripped to shreds by black holes (if he got that far!).”

The universe beyond the clouds is not a friendly place.

But what we forget with the language of going up… of ascension… is that this is really the “language of enthronement.”  In the ascension of Jesus, he rises not simply from the grave, but up to his full authority.  He no longer walks and talks among us but he is now “seated at the right hand of the Father.”  He is no longer simply the prophetic carpenter from Galilee, but he has risen to his fullest stature as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

And that kind of a Jesus… that kind of a holy, awesome, powerful being… that majestic and awesome Lord up there… well, he can share holiness.  He can bestow grace.  He can transform lives.  He can save.

The only reason we can go up…. is because he is already there.

And because Jesus has been raised from the dead… because Jesus has ascended to the Father… because he has demonstrated not just his power, but also his deep and abiding love for us…

I sometime worry that we focus so much on whether or not we are going up… whether we are climbing the ladder… whether we are increasing in stature… that  we stand staring at the heavens with our mouths gaping open.

well, we don’t have to worry about whether or not we are going up anymore.  We don’t have to graph out our successes and failures on a chart.  We don’t have to plot the trajectory of holiness.

As the angels come and tell us – Hey – what are you still looking up for… you have a job to do!

And the Lord of Lords and King of Kings does have a job for us.

It isn’t something we have to do to earn his love or to become more holy… but it is something we do out of deep gratitude for what we have already been given.

The job is simple… Jesus tells us: Go, be my witnesses.  Tell the world about what I have done.  Love them because I love them.

Rev. Mindi from rev-0-lution.org tells about a sign she saw once in England.  It read:  “We believe in life before death.”

We can get so caught up in life after death, in what happens up there and whether or not we are going up there, that we forget about this life.

Jesus invites us to live before we die.  He invites us to go and share and tell and bless and love.  He invites us to not only live, but to share new life with the broken and hurting of this world.  As Rev. Mindi wrote: “This is why we work for justice and peace in this world.  This is why we stand against hate and stand for love.”

We do not work for the Kingdom of God in order to get up there, but because that Kingdom has already come down here and already dwells in our hearts.  Because the King of Kings already lives in our hearts.

Because he has gone up, we can get down and dirty and engage people in the real mess of their lives.

Because he has gone up, we can stop worrying about whether or not we are saved and we can simply tell people about Jesus and invite them to get to know him and us better.

Because he has gone up, we can stop counting dollars and cents and we can start measuring how deep our conversations are, how real our expressions of love are, and how many people we have shared the story with.

Because he has gone up, because he is Lord of Lords, because “up there” there is really not “UP” at all… but is a completely new way of living and thinking and being… well, because of Jesus – we can truly live before we die.

GC03: Restructuring and the Four Areas of Focus

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Over the past few months, conversations, posts, articles, videos, etc. have been flying around about the Call to Action and the Interim Operational Team proposals for restructuring.  As a reserve delegate for General Conference, I probably won’t be someone voting on this, but I’m still going to be there.  I am meeting with my delegation and we are looking at all of these pieces together.  I did the Call to Action Study with my church.  I’m reading as much as I can.  And I have to say, I’m not sure how I feel about all of it. Tomorrow I want to talk a little bit about the need for distinction between CtA and the IOT proposals (because they are different things), but for now, I just want to think about the idea of restructuring our general boards and agencies.

Most people who know me would say that I’m not someone tied to the past.  If something isn’t working – by all means, scrap it and start afresh.  I often work by trial and error until we find just the right fit.  I like to take risks and push the envelope and be bold.  So the fact that I’m a little uneasy with all of the change proposed here means something.

I’ve had a few people ask me pointedly in the past month what I think about all of this restructuring.  Here is my first response:

I’m still pretty torn.  I think there are some benefits to the ways they want to realign the boards and agencies, but talking with the boards and agencies folks, they have already made significant cuts and some of the ways they benefit the church would be severely restricted by having to cut more.  I worry about our continued GBCS presence in the capital.  I worry about whether we will have the resources in place to support the local churches if we diminish any more GBHEM and GBOD and the like.   I understand the $ benefit to a smaller board, but think the diverse representation in so many places is one of the awesome things about the church and wonder if we couldn’t use technology and more web conferencing to cut back on some of the cost.  I worry that with only a 15 member board, we just will not have a diverse representation of the United Methodist Church as a whole.  I’m not necessarily worried about power consolidation or anything like that – but I would HATE to be on that board – that is a lot of responsibility and time, for such a small group to be overseeing all of the boards and agencies in that way.  On the other hand, our own local church just consolidated all of our committees into one church board and its working just fine.
That probably doesn’t help.. does it?  lol.

My friend Gary’s response: Katie, help the Church think beyond either/or options. Thanks

*sigh* Gary… I belatedly, and with great humility and not a small amount of uneasiness accept your challenge.

And as I think more about that restructure our own church just did, what I realized is that when we did so because we didn’t have enough people who could sustain that large of a leadership structure.  To have four required committees that needed 6 people + our ministry committees of education, worship, outreach… that would be 6×7= 42 people!!!  Not to include the chair of our council and our lay leader.  We average 50 in worship on a Sunday.  And so our large leadership structure certainly involved people, but people also felt like they were simply filling holes.  There was a lack of engagment. Our structure was too big.  I’m not sure that with a global membership of 11-12 million has large problem with a leadership board and agency structure that involves around 650 lay and clergy representatives on boards/agencies.

Second, we did consolidate our work around three primary goals for our congregation.  Which sounds a lot like consolidating around the four areas of focus.  But we did so and have actually funneled MORE money into those three teams in our local church.  They have more to work with now than they did in their respective disjointed committees.  If we truly want those three things to be the focus of the life of our church, then we have to put our money where our mouth is.  It feels like the restructure proposals are in order to save money to be sent somewhere else – to local churches perhaps, to reduce apportionments so resources stay on the local level, who knows – to be honest I haven’t seen anything about WHERE the extra resources will come from or WHERE they will go.  That seems like an important piece of the puzzle that is missing.

I completely understand restructuring for missional reasons to help us refocus our attention on the four areas of focus that we as a global church have named as important: global heath, ministry with the poor, new places for new people and revitalizing existing congregations, and developing (young) leaders.  But have we actually given these four areas of focus time to settle in with our churches yet?  And will a restructure help us to focus on them if we do so at the expense of diverse and abundant representation (when we have so many capable and talented people we can use in our global church) and with cuts to the funding for said ministries.  In fact, we might be chopping the legs out from underneath ourselves if we do not provide the resources in people and dollars and institutional weight behind those four areas of focus.

So if I’m thinking both/and, I want to ask the questions:

  • What would a restructured church look like with larger boards than the proposal entails?
  • What could it accomplish with the resources to really make a difference?
  • What kinds of bold risks could our boards and agencies take if they felt like we as the church trusted them and didn’t see them as an excessive growth that needed to be trimmed away?
  • What would we say to the world if we not only realign our church around these four areas of focus, but back it with our time, energy and resources?

I’m not saying that vital congregations are not important… in fact, the other materials we have been given by IOT and the Council of Bishops and the Connectional Table and Call to Action all seem to point to the idea that we need to develop more young leaders and create new places for new people and that a vital congregation is defined by its fruits – which includes its participation in the redemption of the world (global health and poverty seem to fit here).  If we continue to focus on these four areas and put both our larger institutional AND local resources towards this focus, I think we are heading in the right direction.

 

My sister is waiting for me in China…

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I love me a good singing and dancing show, so I was excited to hear the minds behind “Chicago” were turning their attention to television and a new network series about the theater and Broadway.

So far it has been a fairly good show… two episodes in.  One of the “B” storylines is about how one writer, Julia, and her husband, Frank, are seeking to adopt a child from China.  They have a teenage son, Leo, and have been talking about this for a long time.  In episode 102, the father character begins to have doubts about the length of the process and if it is worth it.

In response, Leo gets angry… He, too, has been looking forward to this new addition to their family.  As he talks with his mom, he says very plainly:

you said that my sister is in China, that she’s waiting for us in China.  She’s waiting for us to come and get her…  What is going to happen to her if we don’t go and get her?

Part of the adoption preparation includes writing a letter to the birth mother.  Of course, the child hasn’t even been born yet, and they don’t know who this woman will be, but it is an exercise in planning for their future.

Julia’s letter goes like this:

To the birth mother of my daughter,

Our lives are so far distant from each other. It as if neither of us exists.  I will never know you.  Even though you will give birth to her, my daughter may never know you as well. But I want you to know, I will guard her like a lion. I will raise her with love.  I will protect her from the wounds of lonliness. She will be a child of two lands and she will wear that knowledge with pride. And at night, we will call to you on the wind, and perhaps you will hear us and know that she is safe.

It was a powerful moment, but this whole idea of thinking about a family you don’t know half way across the world got me thinking about our Christian family.  We are often willing to imagine our brothers and sisters in Christ as the folks who attend church with us and who live down the street, but we sometimes forget about the ones who are halfway across the world.

When we choose to follow Christ and when we are adopted as sons and daughters of the living God, we become children not of two lands… but two families. We have mothers and brothers and fathers and daughters… but our family becomes wider.  Our vision expands. Our hearts grow in the knowledge that somewhere in China or Nigeria or Switzerland there is a sister who is waiting for us… a brother who wants to share in the love of the body of Christ.

I have heard it said sometimes that we should spend less time taking care of people and sending missionaries half way across the world, because there are people in our back yards who need us to.  But I think when we embrace the love of God that statement becomes a false dichotomy.  Our brothers and sisters are right here in our midst, but they are also on the other side of the planet.  If we let go of the boundaries of municipalities and nations… if we let go of the division of race and class… if we began to imagine each child of God as someone who is a part of our family, how might our ministry change?  Would we promise to raise them with love?  Would we dedicate ourselves to protect them from the wounds of not only lonliness, but war and famine and disease?  As Leo asks, “What is going to happen if we don’t go and get her?”  What will happen if we ignore our brothers and sisters when they need us the most?

GC01: Call to Action Study – Part 1

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I am leading my congregation through the Council of Bishop’s study guide on the Call to Action.

We started last week with sections 1-3 and an overview of how the United Methodist Church is actually set up.

It was important for me to bring this big picture and important discussion to my rural county seat congregation.  It was important to hear what they are thinking, hoping for, and what they, in fact, simply don’t care about. None of what we decide at General Conference will make any difference if the folks who make up our church have no idea what is going on and no ownership of the process.

So to start with, here are some of their responses to the questions the study guide raises:

  1. What do you experience in the world and the church that calls for urgent action?  Declining membership, need to have young people and kids in the church, political unrest – especially in the Middle East, and to be the hands and feet of Christ to a hurting world.
  2. What is the role of the congregation in helping United Methodists practice personal piety and the means of grace? attending local worship, bible study, to pass on the word about opportunities to grow, a reminisence about the song “I Surrender All”; the conference? education opportunities, district leadership events, retreats, resources and support (financial and persons), connection points to ministries we do together; the denomination? we hear about the controversial things that GC discusses and how they take a stand on issues of justice, they give us rules and guidelines for how to live, resources and support, Upper Room
  3. What church leader do you know today who has been a turnaround leader and what did they do? They talked about how in our local church people ARE stepping up to lead.  They were a bit dismayed by the piece in the study guide that said “the next anticipated significant decline is in the field of mission giving and mission engagement.”  This is an area where they have seen HUGE growth as a congregation because we are taking risks and stepping up. They credit me with this because I have brought some energy and have been willing to take risks, but it also has to do with laity taking up the reins on those projects.  They also mentioned that we are not afraid to show the community we are in it for the long haul and to dedicate ourselves to projects. Someone asked what would happen if we worshipped outside in the park for a whole month during the summer and built relationships with folks who were unchurched – great question and one we are going to look into!  The conversation drifted to how to engage younger folks.  Someone asked if there was a way to encourage youth to give back – musically, in worship, etc. so that they could get to know them better. While I think there are, I also lead into the next question…
  4. What should we sacrifice to embrace God’s unfolding mission for the church? I asked what they could sacrifice to in turn reach out to the youth? joining them for dinner on Wednesdays? going to their events outside of church? We talked about sacrificing our comfort with worshipping inside the church in order to meet people out in the community.

Overall, they are grateful for the opportunity to think about these things and really looking forward to continuing on to the second half next week.

One of the frustrations that I had with the first part of the study guide is the focus on “turning around” the sinking ship.  While sections 1 and 2 call for deeper discipleship and re-claiming our mission as the United Methodist Church, section 3 shifted the focus to what they see the biggest problem is: decline in people and money.  Down-ward sloping numbers… that is what the Call to Action is all about.  It is not framed in terms of the true missional need in our communities – ie: the number of people around us who don’t know Christ.  It is not framed in terms of the great opportunities for ministry around us.  No, the urgent call is in direct response to decline.

photo by: Svilen Milev

I actually think it is kind of trivializing to compare our reductions in people and dollars with the “stiff winds of oppression” that Esther and Mordecai were confronted with facing the genocide of their people.  The “stiff winds” of indifference and fatigue and a lost sense of purpose are NOT the same as massacre.

Yes, we need some forward-thinking leadership.

Yes, we need adaptability.

Yes, we need courage.

And yes, we need to make sacrifices and take risks in the process.

I know that the declining numbers are not the problem in themselves, but merely symptoms of larger “spiritual and systemic issues.”  But I wish that this study guide and in fact, the Call to Action in general, would talk more about those larger spirtual and systemic issues and less about the numbers.   (if any of you can point me to a resource that does address what CTA thinks those larger spiritual/systemic issues are… please tell me!)

Instead, we are left with the impression that the problem is that people aren’t coming to church and that people aren’t coming to worship and that people aren’t giving enough.  And at least my congregation doesn’t know what it is going to take to change that.  They can’t necessarily give more.  They keep asking their neighbors and friends to come and they won’t.  They are working on building relationships and reaching outside of the walls of our church and my prayer is that as they do that… as they are the hands and feet of Christ in this world… that people will come to know Jesus through them and will find a place within our church family.

Preparing for our Lenten study on Romans 12 (our vision scripture) I came across Chip Ingram’s work on the text.  In this segment, he answers the question: if God doesn’t measure faith by activities, why do people and churches?

I think it’s a good question.  We are called to make disciples.  And I suppose that if we are making something, we want to see numerical growth. But I understand discipleship as a process.  A process that requires inward growth, deep growth, lifelong growth.  If I can take the 50 people who regularly attend my church each week and spend my whole life working with them and at the end of that time those fifty people have learned to follow Jesus more closely, to surrender their lives to him, to serve others through him, and have planted seeds in the lives of others, have I done my job? I tend to think so… but I’m not sure that CtA would agree I have been very effective.

The Harper Avery

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I have been catching back up on last season’s episodes of Grey’s Anatomy as I prepare for the upcoming season. While there were a number of interesting themes this past season, the idea of competition really jumped out at me in the last few episodes I watched.

(from ABC/ERIC MCCANDLESS)
In some ways, it began when Harper Avery himself was checked into Seattle Grace Mercy West Hospital.  He’s the man behind the award which isgiven to prestigious surgeons who have done extraordinary things.
In episodes 6:16 – “Perfect Little Accident”, 6:17 – “Push” and 6:21 – “How Insensitive” there runs the idea that without competition, without a striving for greatness and collegial recognition surgeons will become lazy, fail to take risks, and medicine as a whole suffers.
Recently, there have been a number of articles written about the faith of young people. They talk about the need for parents to be more involved in the religious development of their kids, the commitment levels of teens, and ways for the church to be more welcoming.
But one tidbit of information caught my eye: If you want to reach the boys, and not just the girls—you have to make sure there is some friendly competition.
In my own experience, for our youth group, game nights are the most popular events for the guys. There is a sense of personal investment in the activity when there is a competition. It doesn’t matter if the prize is an ice cream treat or a break from doing the dishes—having an incentive makes all the difference in the world.
Friendly competition is healthy and exciting. Whether you yell, “last one to the top of the hill is a rotten egg,” or challenge a buddy to lose weight with you—having someone to encourage you, to push you, and to challenge you to succeed is important.
So, I wonder what the place is for competition in the life of our religious communities. Does God like competition?  Can it help us to be more faithful disciples?
I’m of two minds on this issue. There are those pesky verses in scripture that remind us the last shall be first and the first shall be last.
But I also think adults crave the chance to belong to a team, to work together, to push themselves to do better, as much as kids do. I think adults need that sense of accomplishment just as much as young people do.
I’ve been thinking about Romans 12 in this context.  For some reason, I remember verse 12:10 saying something about “outdoing one another in love.”  In my memory, it was always this urging to make love the most important thing, to honor and respect others, and to always push yourself to be more humble, more serving, more faithful than the next gal.  It felt like friendly competition to me.
But the New Living Translation says: Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other.
The Contemporary English Version translates the passage: Love each other as brothers and sisters and honor others more than you do yourself.
The Message reads: Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle.

I found my memory jogged with the Wuest traslation : In the sphere of brotherly love have a family affection for one another, vying with one another in showing honor.

Either we are supposed to always put others first and let them win… or we are supposed to push one another in humility and honor… I’m still confused and my greek isn’t very good.  If I infer correctly, the second part of the verse: te time allelous proegoumenoi  – that last word really is telling us to take the lead in putting others first.  Be first in being last… that’s just as confusing as Jesus!

But really… that is the spirit of all of Romans 12. Don’t think of yourself highly, but realize you are a part of a team designed to be Christ’s body.  Figure out what you do well, and do it to the best of your ability. Be zealous, be joyful, give and love to everyone – no matter who they are.

This is our task to do together.  And if we need a little encouragement along the way, if we need a friendly little shove in the right direction – perhaps that is part of what it means to be a team player. Perhaps without that extra little oomphf, then we like the surgeons will become lazy, fail to take risks in the faith and the kingdom will suffer as a result.

In my church, I’m proposing, therefore, a challenge.

We are kicking off a mission project for Heifer International the day after the big Iowa/Iowa State football game… and I know how many die-hard fans we have for both of these great teams.
So, I’m encouraging my church to put that spirit of competition to work. I’m inviting them to come dressed in theirblack and red and gold on that Sunday… and to bring their change and dollar bills.  For the rest of the month, we are going to fill up jars for our favorite teams and at the beginning of October, which ever team has collected the most funds for Heifer International—the other group has to don the winning team colors at church.
We are encouraging one another to share with God’s people in need.  We are working to live in harmony with one another, but adding a little bit of spiritual fervor there, too.  And we’ll see just how far we can push one another through this challenge – we’ll see how deep people are willing to dig.  And just to up the ante a bit… I promised that if we were able to raise $2500 for Heifer International – I would dye my hair!
Copyright © 2024 Rev. Katie Z. Dawson. All rights reserved.