missional – Page 2 – Salvaged Faith

I’m back!

Posted on March 28, 2009Leave a comment

It’s been a little while since I posted last.

I am mostly recovered now and my digestive tract has decided to work again =) I lost about 10 lbs in the process (eating nothing but popsicles and jello for a few days will do that to you) and now I’m trying to establish healthy eating habits and a light exercise routine to help me regain some strength and keep that little bit of extra weight off.

I do have to admit that I’m fairly disappointed with how I used my recouperation time. I had a stack of books I wanted to read and a few knitting projects and none of that was even begun. Part of the reason is because I felt so crappy for a few days there – but I also let the mind-numbing lure of television and video games take over. Which simply means that I need to find time to really put those books and those projects into my schedule of sabbath.

There have been a number of things of interest that have popped up since I started thinking with a pastor’s brain again on Monday. I’m really excited about the UMC’s new marketing vision: Rethink Church and 10 Thousand Doors… I hope to post more in the next week about this, but suffice it to say that I think that it is right on target with where my congregation is! While I was gone, our finance committee did a congregational resource assessment and from that thought about what are the gifts that we have to offer our community and what our mission priorities might look like. They were both mission related and had everything to do with being with people in need and responding to identified needs in our community. “Don’t Go to Church, BE the Church” has been the theme of our mission outreach and this new marketing effort really picks up on that same message. I also LOVE the way that our “brand promise” of Open Hearts. Open Minds. Open Doors has become a verb: “together we can open hearts, open minds, and open doors.”

I’m also trying to figure out which conferences to go to this year and will post more on that later.

routine and roots

Posted on September 18, 2008Leave a comment

I’m working on routine in my life right now (yes, I know I’ve said it time and time again… but hey, what can I say, I’m a work in progress). So far this week, I’ve stayed fairly on target with my plans – focusing on two particular goals: exercise and spiritual centering.

For exercise, I run/walk on a nearby trail. I think the whole course, from doorstep to doorstep is a little over 3 miles, and I spend about 10 minutes of it running. I went Monday morning and again this morning… if I can do 3-4x a week, I’ll be happy.

For centering, I’m working on quieting my spirit before I begin work each time I’m in the office. I have three candles next to a chair that I light and I pick up my handheld labryinth and work through it. When I get to the middle I say 6 prayers: for myself, for my family, for my church, for the church, for the nation and for the world… and then I pray my way out asking guidance for my work this day and with the Lord’s prayer. It has felt amazing to set aside that time for myself! I really do feel like my work is more productive and more on task to what God wants me to do with the day than it has been before.

In the midst of that re-focusing of my time and energy, I’m thinking back to what I wanted to do and how I wanted to incarnate postmodern/missional views of church into this congregation and my life. One of those was through setting down roots – and I’m excited this week about going the homecoming football game and also the gardening that I did to weed and get things ready for fall in my flower bed. There is still a lot of work that is left to be done there. Both for me are about roots – about getting involved with the community, getting my hands dirty and meeting people where they are.

Lectionary Leanings

Posted on August 12, 2008Leave a comment

“Throw me a bone here!”

My local pastors gathering talks about the lectionary a week early, and so last week I came up with the core of my message and my sermon title.

Jesus tells the woman he can’t help her because he has a mission… which the text says she isn’t offended by, but simply responds… yeah, but even the dogs get crumbs don’t they?

My translation: Throw me a bone here Jesus!

additional throughts from my weekly roundtable pulpit group:

1) There are always leftovers and crumbs. So as Jesus set about his mission to preach “only” to the lost sheep of Israel – there were bound to be people evesdropping and picking up the leftover pieces along the way.

2) lots of thoughts about the desperation of the woman with the possessed daughter. We talked a lot about parents today who have problematic children – either because they are mentally ill, handicapped, or simply troublemakers. The notion that God never gives us more than we can handle came up – but it seems as this woman is at the end of her rope. She needs God’s help to keep going.

3) we have no idea what Jesus was thinking. And we can’t put words into his head. So from the persepective of the disciples and the woman, they at least saw a “changed” Jesus – and certainly the disciples had the rug pulled out from under them.

4) we talked about having one mission and one purpose to focus on – it clarifies and allows you to really make an impact in one area. But there will be spillover as you work, “crumbs” that will appeal to others. Ironically, you may end up feeding the “crumby” people more than those you intended to (especially if the children keep throwing their food on the floor!…. aka Israel rejecting Jesus)

attractional or missional? programmatic or project driven?

Posted on October 14, 2007Leave a comment

At emergingumc: a gathering we talked a lot about becoming, or reclaiming the idea of a missional church. There are all sorts of really neat diagrams to help visualize what this would me, but basically, in an attractional church, 80% of the church resources and offerings and what happens in the life of the church happens within its four walls. and maybe 20% is spent outside the church with missions or outreach or evangelism. In the missional model, that is reversed… 80% of the church’s time, energy and resources are spent out there in the community and the world and only 20% within the four walls of the church.

I got to thinking about that in relation to Albert Tofflers description of first wave (agricultural), second wave (industrial) and third wave (informational) churches. A first wave church emphasizes the place that they are in. A second wave church emphasizes the programs (usually denominationally based) that it offers. And a third wave church, the coming church in Toffler’s work, emphasizes projects. I think that the attractional model is really based in that modern, 19th and 20th century program church. We have great programs like sunday school and bible studies and choir and this and that and the other, and we want you to come to our church and experience them. While we offer lots of different programs, in some senses it is still a “one-size-fits-all” model of being church. Once you have been a part of the program, you become like the rest of us in the church.

I’m not quite sure if the move to a missional church would entail the “project” driven model that Toffler describes. But it might. He describes this as churches that take on as projects a local health care center, or a homeless ministry – something to meet the needs that they see within the community they are situated. Yet Diana Butler Bass emphasizes that the churches who are really thriving and moving forward right now are “practice” based churches. It is what they do together that matters, not where they do it. Do organic groups fit better under a notion of practice (practicing community, fellowship, open-minded theological discussions) or projects? I think that emphasizing projects can easily slip into a consumer driven mindset… whereas practices might just be the way we need to move forward in the missional church.

We are called to be with the poor. We are called to visit those in prison. We are called to feed the hungry. We are called to break bread with one another. We are called to witness to the love of God in our lives. None of those things speak of a church building. YET – the church building provides the ideal resting place for all of us as we are out in the world doing mission, practicing our faith. We can come together once a week and sing, pray, laugh and eat with one another. And we can find the energy and resources we need to go back out there and do it all again. That is what church is all about – and I hope in my new church I can help them think in terms of mission and being out there instead of what kinds of programs we need to offer the community.