$500,000

I have spoken with several folks recently, who when a loved one passed away they came into a goodly size sum of money.

I have also worked with several churches who have had the same blessing shared with them.

I posit for your consideration:

You just received $500,000, how would you use it?

Your church just received $500,000 how would they use it?

For those who would have the fortune of being able to speak from experience, I would like to ask you to imagine what would happen right now - not what was, as that experience has certainly shaped how actions might change or be affected at this moment.

Peace,

Worship Thoughts

Pastor’s Corner June 2011

A brief review of our worship service will be our topic this month. I want to take a moment to explain some of the theology that goes into our service as it is, and some of the personal choices I have made in how to transact those theological moments.

830AM Service Welcome Announcements Songs of Praise Children’s Moment Offertory Opening Prayer Scripture Reading Sermon The Lord’s Supper Benediction

1020AM Service Order of Worship GATHERING PRELUDE OPENING HYMN PRAISE and PRAYERS CALL TO WORSHIP INFORMAL MOMENTS GREETING ONE ANOTHER CHILDREN’S TIME PRAYER HYMN CONCERNS FOR PRAYER SILENT PRAYER PASTORAL PRAYER CHORAL ANTHEM PROCLAMATION PRAYER OF GRACE AND ILLUMINATION THE SCRIPTURE GLORIA PATRI SERMON RESPONSE INVITATION CONFESSION AND PARDON RESPONSE HYMN OFFERTORY DOXOLOGY PRAYER OF DEDICATION HOLY COMMUNION THE GREAT THANKSGIVING THE LORD’S PRAYER (in unison) TAKING BREAD AND CUP SENDING FORTH CLOSING HYMN BENEDICTION POSTLUDE

EXPLANATION The preparatory time for worship in both services is a little varied. During first service, we begin with the announcements, clearly placing these outside of worship. This is more confused in the 1020 service with announcements, which are not worship, and the time of greeting one another firmly placed in the allocation for praise and prayers. The Call to Worship is effected through the responsive reading in the 1020 service, and the music of praise and worship in the 830 service. In the traditional order of service for a church service the greeting would come at the end of the service, as an addition to the benediction, with those who have gathered unsure of where they might be next, as they may have been interlopers present for a psingle service, or under some scrutiny for their faith, and thus subject to persecution which would prevent them from participating during the next service. This time obviously breaks the flow of a worship service, and can make it difficult to bring the people back together, which we know to be the case in both of our services, using music and the children’s message to drag people back to their seats to continue to participate. This brings me to the question of a children’s message. What I find interesting about this time, is that it is used in churches to do a variety of things. Some churches use it as a “dumbed down” version of the sermon, because the “kids” won’t understand what the pastor has to say. In some churches, like ours, it is used as a prelude to dismissal, where we tell the children that they are to be different and separated from the rest of the church body. The children’s message is a new advent in the church, implemented during the 1900s. Prior to that children were in the entire service with the entire congregation, to learn how to be Christians, to be a reminder to the entire congregation that we are all children in the eyes of God, and as a social trainer to help children learn how to act in the rest of society. The old adage from Africa, “it takes a village to raise a child” was the premise of the children in service. Kids were cared for by the entire congregation during the service. The other alternative, which was what some churches turned to was that the children were not in church at all, set apart for Sunday School during the worship service, or just allowed to be elsewhere to play games or be with other kids. The location of the offering is always a question. As ultimately, the offering is to God, with the church as the means by which it gets conveyed. In true worship, our offering is given not in response to what the church is or is not doing according to our desires, but given to God as a means of sharing our adoration and praise for the God who has already given us everything, and freely so, including our salvation with the gift of His only Son Jesus Christ. The placement before the sermon signifies this more clearly, and after the sermon it is seen as a means of responding, in action, to the very message of the Gospel communicated in the Sermon. The Scriptures we use for worship are also a little contrived, as we have not been following the Lectionary of late. The Lectionary is designed to help tell the story in thematic ways, with an Old Testament lesson, a Psalm, an Epistle (letter) and a Gospel Lesson (from Matthew, Mark, Luke or John), and intended to help teach the scriptures, though it does leave many passages out, and rarely deals with the troublesome or difficult passages of scripture. Our current method of selecting scriptures for worship comes from the scriptures you asked to hear more about, either because you felt you knew them well, and wanted a chance to share that wonder of Scripture with the rest of the congregation, or because it was a passage or segment of scripture that was pretty fuzzy and unclear to you, and you wanted to learn more. I have also thrown in a few other pieces to help stay with the Seasons of the church (Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, Pentecost) and affirm the traditions of the church by these means, as well as a few passages that have been “Pastor’s Discretion” with the idea that for the good of the congregational life of St. Andrew UMC we might need to review or learn more about a particular topic or passage of scripture. In the Order of Service I have chosen to explain our service and the meanings thereof, I also picked a service that has Communion. Insomuch as the Sermon is designed to communicate God’s message in words of the Gospel, and the good news of Jesus Christ, Communion is a “Tangible Sign of an Inward and Spiritual Grace” which was freely offered in Jesus Christ. John Wesley called this a “Converting Ordinance”. If the purpose of a sermon is to encourage change in the life of the congregation member, through the hearing of the message, then Communion effects real change in the Spirit of the individual. The “Converting Ordinance” then is to say that if someone is being pulled to come to Communion and participate God has already effected a change in the person, and in the moment of participating in Communion, the individual affects the mantle of Jesus Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit, and is made a Christian, and begins to live the life God has called us to live out the Great Commandment, “To love God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind; and to love your neighbor as yourself”. We follow the effected and affected changes of the worship, transmitted through the Call to Worship, Prayers, Sermon and Communion, with the Benediction to send us out in ministry to the world. At this point, our worship must really begin - with purpose and practice, to share the Good News of Jesus Christ, in thought, word and action, according to the grace given us by the Holy Spirit, in the name of God.

I realize that I may sound overly harsh in my assessment of the way in which we do worship. The reality is that this is the form of worship we have learned and decided to participate. I want to acknowledge that I am very open to doing worship in the way of St. Andrew UMC, and many other forms as well. I have a hard time with High Church worship, with stalwart traditions, as most of us are, because it is not a particularly participatory worship, nor was it intended to be. Worship in the traditional forms, especially under the traditional Latin Mass, was for the priest to direct the attentions of the people to God, and the understanding of the language used was not as important as the fact that God was being worshiped properly.
It is from some of this background that I dissected the worship styles we use at St. Andrew. We tend toward the “Isaiah model” of worship which concludes with the sermon, and the idea that the sermon should be driving people out to action, and is the culmination of the work of the Spirit in the acts of worship preceding it.
I realize that there are a variety of theological and practical understandings for the way in which we do ministry, and practice worship. God is faithful in all of them. The various forms we use are tools for helping direct us, and are derived from the initial forms of worship established in Jewish Synagogues and the Temple many years ago, sustained through the ages since by the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, as well as the various denominations we have formed since. It is in the amalgam of people we have worshiping with us, that the things that are familiar are utilized and developed to create our current Order of Service here at St. Andrew.
I also want to acknowledge that I do not know it all. If you have insights or knowledge to share with me about the forms we use in our worship, please do so. I will do my best to learn and understand even more deeply from the richness of backgrounds we bring to this time together as we offer ourselves back to God for the many wonderful things God has already given to us.

Changes?

The Past is the New Future

Introductory Notes by Doug Pagitt

DougPagitt.com

Change, it's our norm

It's only a slight exaggeration to say that everything in our lives, everything we depend on for our basic survival, was created in the last 200 years.Think about your typical day. You wake up in a bed made of materials-internal springs, polymers, anti-microbial fabrics, that didn't exist 200 years ago. You are awakened by an alarm clock that was invented in 1876 (or maybe to an iPod that was invented in 2001). You take a shower (indoor plumbing arrived in the mid-19th century), eat eggs shipped by trucks from a different part of the country, purchased at a grocery store with a credit card, and cooked over an electric stove. You drive a car to work and maybe make a few calls on your cell phone on the way.

You might live in a state that was open frontier in 1860 or in a town that was nothing but grassland in 1922. You might send your kids to a school where they read digitally printed books and use computers and watch DVDs. You might go to church on Sunday morning at 11:00 where you speak into a micro-phone and sing along with words projected on a screen.

For most of human history, changes in broad social structures came occasionally and were limited in geographic scope. But in the last two centuries, cultural change has become far-reaching, constant, and increasingly rapid.

Doug Pagitt

DougPagitt.com

To the Church at St. Andrew UMC, Santa Maria, CA

I noticed the other day just how often we come full circle in the church.

I was amazed to find several living will documents in the church files, along with an Advance Directive for Health Care. I wondered how these people 30 years ago knew that getting information out about Living Will, Trusts, Lifetime Giving, and Advanced Directives for Health Care are all on the agenda for several of our committees, including worship, finance, trustees, and church council. We have talked about how we haven’t done much with the Giving Tree (which is a Trustees item), about how helpful it was to have a file on a member with the particular wishes for how a funeral was to be carried out (Worship team), and with the many hospital visits to congregation members, and my own surgery this past year, I was reminded that everyone ought to have an Advance Directive for Health Care. We revisit many of the same themes in cycles in the church.

Another conversation led to the discussion about how we might grow the church, and what that means. This too has seen the history of the church take turns in each of several different modes - wandering people, temporary meeting places, permanent meeting places, transitional people (neither tied to a home, nor without one) and back through the cycle. I was asked how we might get people “out of the church” and “into the world”, which sounds an awful lot like the transitional phase, recognizing very clearly that St. Andrew UMC has been very permanent for nearly 45 years, as we come upon our 50 year celebration, and that for almost 100 years the motto has been “if you build it, they will come”, after simply setting up a tent where the people were prior to that. The movement of the church takes us around again.

I was talking with a friend the other day about all the stuff the pastor wears. You know the items, robe, collar, stole. We got to talking some about how those things have come and gone, depending on the times, and the denominations. These days robes are meant to signify something or someone different. They are a throwback to the role of the priest in the Old Testament. Only it wasn’t so much the robes then, but the colors, and the different armor the priests put on, from that of a common warrior. The breastplate had semi-precious stones embedded, and the 12 tribes of Israel inscribed on onyx shoulder pads, and a giant helmet. This was a very strong departure from Moses and his predecessor priests who led by example, rather than ornamentation. Since that time the church has seen the ebb and flow of each of these types of ornamentation, that which meets the people as they are, and that which shows the display to draw attention. The cycle is ever-changing, and the rationale always fluctuating between the need to be seen as “human, like them” and “a special one from God”.

And so it is with life cycles. Some lives run longer than others, like that of the church (institutions seem to have lifespans of about 200-250 years), versus that of a human being (current average age in the US is about 76), or the fruit fly (in optimal conditions about 30 days). As we consider where in the stages of the lifecycle we find ourselves, we have the opportunity to remember why we decided to act as we did in gathering for this activity or that one, and for the mission of the church at the outset. In doing so we have a great opportunity to re-envision how we can help the next generation meet those same questions of “why” in their lives, knowing full well, that the what will change, as well as the rationale that will get them to the why.

You see, for all the cycles and rhythms of life, the why of the church never changes, to worship God, and show God’s love into the world today. In a world with growing diversity, and increasing differences between people, economically, educationally, spiritually, ethnically, and beyond, the lines are also becoming more blurred, and open to question. Ours then, as the church, and its people, continues to be a deep need to share the Amazing God we know with the world, in such a way that God is made clear.

Peace,

Connecting Discipleship

There are two things I have had heavy on my heart of late. Connecting better, and more often; and building Disciples.

I am sure the two are related, and I am still stumped at this early hour about what makes them so interrelated.

I am reminded of the Covenant Discipleship Model

The Top Arm is Works of Mercy

The Bottom Arm is Works of Piety

The Arm to the Left is Inward Works

The Arm to the Right is Outward Works

Now for the internal conversation I need to have about where Websites, Facebook Pages, Blogs and Twitter feeds intersect these Works from Covenant Discipleship. At the end of the day I want to build new Disciples, and Disciples who are deepening their faith.

I see what is there, and for a guy who is prone to seeing the connections, and looking at things sideways, I am struggling with the relationships between these two areas of interest, and still am seeing or comprehending what I need to in order to help others understand.

Suggestions, ideas, or how you see these coming together would be helpful.

Getting out of the Way

Yesterday I was watching my twitter feed, and Steve Heyduck posted something that grabbed my attention. I had a gut reaction, and I failed to complete the thought in 140 characters, and digest the conversation with any real strength.

It started like this:

@steveheyduck: For the UMC to take seriously raising up young leaders, we who are 45+ will have to be willing to get out of the way. #umc

@revcamp: @steveheyduck getting out of the way only helps if you are identifying and guiding to that point #umyc #umc

I don't want our leaders now to get out of the way to take seriously raising up young leaders. To me that sounds an awful lot like "In order for our children to grow up we need to die." Now, I realize that statement may be overdramatizing the issue, but I have seen it acted out that way.

It may be that Steve means "get out of the way" in the sense of providing actual leadership opportunities, with real responsibility, and accountability for failure, accolades for achievement, and listening to our ideas as we begin to think out new plans for the future. I hope that is it.

After watching some more of the extended dialogue (durn it there are not threaded feeds on Twitter - a la Facebook and Gmail) Mike Lindstrom responded with some of these thoughts.

1. @jereasons @steveheyduck I agree about ego - will we let younger ones cast some vision and move "our" church fwd or will we be speed bumps?about 5 hours ago from TweetDeck in reply to jereasons
2. @steveheyduck Okay - just want to be clear. As a soon to be 45 yo I'm passionate about moving into God's vision w/ others (I abhor ladders)about 6 hours ago from TweetDeck in reply to steveheyduck
3. @methoblog (and @steveheyduck) 45 year old clergy not ready to retire (and have vision) can work w/ yng ldrs who lead - join w/ not jump out

Which was in reference to some of these comments

1. @mikeybob I am 45 myself - just admitting that WE can't just talk a good game about raising up young leaders.about 6 hours ago from TweetDeck in reply to mikeybob
2. @mikeybob by "get out of the way" I don't mean retire. Perhaps climb off the "ladder?" Perhaps genuine openness to younger people's ideas?about 6 hours ago from TweetDeck in reply to mikeybob

But, getting out of the way too early is dangerous and leads to death for all. Now, I will admit I am right at the edge of Young Adults by definition of clergy standards at 35. I admit I was frustrated at times as an assistant youth leader, and as an associate pastor with being "held down" by the heirarchy of the church. Sometimes, that was saving my hindquarters from getting in some real trouble. At other times I think we missed some opportunities with our families, youth, and congregations.

I am grateful for those who said "What's the worst that can happen - we fail? All we can do is try it and see." From those statements followed the pieces that said, "Here are some things you may want to think about, and some tools I think you will need to make it succeed." If I chose to use other tools then so be it. If I thought about what was given all the better. If I decided a tool wasn't necessary and the truth was otherwise, I was usually given the opportunity to learn it for myself; when risk was too high, I was told to use that tool regardless. I was grateful for each of these.

These days I have no hierarchy to hold me back, but I do have people to whom I am responsible. The choices I make are my own, and I realize that I have an entire congregation that has its own expectations of what I am going to be. I try to honor those, as well as be myself, hold conversation as we go forward.

I wonder what it will look like to allow the current people to be themselves, as well as inviting new people into the conversation, as United Methodists, as Clergy, and as a changing nation and world. Can we provide enough leadership that those who will have to lead next will have some idea of what good leadership is, and how to enact it, or are we just turning over the reigns to the cart horse to a four year old raised in a car society?

Passion and Pride

"I believe that it is vitally important to have our country's flag in our sanctuary. Many of us put our lives on the line for God and the country that flag represents and we are proud of it whether it is torn, tattered, or stained with our blood."

This statement was made recently by a member of St. Andrew UMC, following my discovery and announcement that the flag in the Sanctuary had come into disrepair, and that it needed to be replaced. I had the intent of rolling the flag up, disposing of it properly, and then replacing the flag when a new one became available.

The response of the congregation was wonderful in their ability to pick up this concern and provide for a new flag for the Sanctuary at St. Andrew UMC.

I was struck by this message of passion and pride from this congregant because I have the same feelings about the Scriptures. I am reminded of the many stories of the Torah scrolls in Jewish Synagogues throughout Eastern Europe during the Nazi regime, and the destruction it took upon the scrolls. And yet, the remaining pieces were so sacred as to be held with care, and love. They loved it, for all the sacrifices that had been made, the blood shed, and the pride held.

I am also reminded of a story told several years ago about a Christian enclave, again in Eastern Europe if I remember correctly, that only had a fragment of a page of Scripture from the Gospel of Luke. For nearly 50 years this was all they had, and yet every time they gathered, which was most every Sunday, they would pull this worn page from the pocket of the Elder of the church, read it and meditate on the words therein.

Some things are just that precious. May we learn to treat one another with that same level of respect and care.

Worship and Home Repairs

The past week I have been working at a pretty high pace trying to get things together for two elements of my life. The house is still under "preparations" as we try to get it ready for a host of visitors this week, and worship has more than filled my life a little bit. I have managed to squeeze in two worship services at St. Andrew UMC (#saumc.sm for those that follow on Twitter) and then a jaunt over to Christ UMC with my wife for the Japanese language service this past Saturday.

I am confronted by the reality that the shelter is only the beginning. We have a place to worship, and we have a home to live in, but they are both "under construction" if you will. Neither one is quite complete. There are pieces that need to be adjusted and tweaked.

For instance the preacher in all three services did not have a microphone. Both churches have adequate speaker systems, though they are patched over the original workings for such, and probably need to be updated again. In one case the preacher was trying to preach over the volume of the Bible Study in the adjacent room. In the other services the preacher was trying to preach to a room two times to large for the congregation gathered, who often had hearing problems and would need the amplification of a microphone, or be aided by the hearing devices available at the back of the sanctuary, which are then rendered useless if the preacher doesn't use a microphone.

The house has lots of storage, but there is not a good configuration with the existing shelves and cabinets for all the books we have in the house, and the office books especially. We are trying to figure out how to make the necessary adjustments, and additions to the bookcases, without breaking the bank.

The hard part for both is the reality that we can make the quick fix, and take care of the "problem", but is it the best option? Are we willing to do the work necessary to determine the best solution, and take the time to make the additional touches work - like finding a microphone that works for the pastor's style and the configuration of the speakers; or finding the right crown moulding to stain and add to the cheaper bookshelves, in order to bring the room together?

I just noticed there are these things that seem like big issues, and we need to address them, but we need to take the time to do more than just throw something over it and get it covered, by instead making sure we address the bigger problems, ensure that there is a "problem" to begin, and then carefully examine the best options and practices for moving forward.

Pastoral Care

Just got word that Bill Easum spoke to something that is already shaping up in our Congregation at Ojai UMC.

Take a look at Congregational Care Circles. Then look at this article by Easum to see the comparisons and some of the conclusions that can be drawn.

Congregational Care Circles

Congregational Care Circles

The first thing to remember about the Congregational Care Circles is that if you are not in a Congregational Care Circle with a long-time friend this does not preclude you from retaining regular contact with that friend. The purpose of the Congregational Care Circles is to deepen and extend the relationships of the members of Ojai UMC within the church community, and out into the larger community. Please continue to call on your friends as regularly as you had before. We are counting on that aspect to remain active so that we might have stronger and more meaningful relationships in this community of faith.

Each member of the Congregational Care Circles are responsible for calling on each other at least once every two weeks. The group leader is only part of this, and ALL persons are to be calling ALL OTHER persons in the circles. Congregational Care Circles may do so by phone, snail mail, email, telegram, telegraph, semaphore, braille, personal visit, or group gathering, or any other means the group can imagine for staying in touch with one another.

The leaders of the Congregational Care Circle are responsible to pass any current prayers to the pastor. This may include joys of anniversary, birthday, new birth, promotions, and any other exciting event in the life of the Congregational Care Circle. Concerns are also requested to be passed along the pastor, including, but not limited to, hospitalization, prolonged illness, non-attendance at church, change in location, or family concerns. When passing information to the pastor it is requested that permission from the originator be gained to share or withhold information from the congregation at large. Individuals within a cell are able to pass along information to the pastor directly, and will be asked who else they would like to inform of this prayer request.

If the congregation at large is to be informed of the prayer request (joys or concerns), please let the pastor know so that this may be included in the pastor's personal prayer list, any church listings of prayer requests in the bulletin, and distributed to the congregation by email/phone tree.

Regarding the phone tree/email notification. Lists are to be kept updated in the church office for the current persons with email in the congregation, and those who would prefer to have calls made by phone. [Insert local prayer chain coordinator] is the current start point for the phone prayer list, and [Insert local email coordinators] are the current heads of the email notification list. Please remove any persons from the calling list who are on the email list (unless otherwise notified by the individual directly) and from the email list anyone who is on the calling list, so that we can refrain from duplication. This will therefore, decrease the number of persons who are not notified, and helps maintain an order to the prayer lists.

Additional persons may be added to individuals within a Congregational Care Circle, for their personal calling lists, so as to create a larger network of persons in the community we need to be praying with and for. If you know of someone who is not currently attending church, whether they are unable, or unwilling to attend a congregation at this time, but are interested in being shepherded by Ojai UMC we are requesting those names to be submitted to the Office. The pastor, or the Congregational Care Circle coordinators (It is suggested that members of the congregation fill this role, as well as the Pastor) will be responsible for assigning them a shepherd. Do not expect that if you bring someone forward for this shepherding that you will be their shepherd. We are confident that you are already being a shepherd to that individual, and we are trying to create a network of at least three persons in each shepherding instance, so that we know that this individual will have additional care and support from the membership of Ojai UMC, for the purposes of "Making Disciples of Jesus Christ in faith, tolerance, fellowship and spiritual growth"

This is all in an effort to revitalize the relationships of Ojai UMC that we might faithfully participate in the Vision of Ojai UMC "to be showing God's love to the community of the Ojai Valley by the 4 Rs: Reconciliation, Revitalization, Renewal and Restoration". The hope is that old friendships will be restored; constant renewal of friendships might be achieved; the revitalization of Ojai UMC in the community will be realized; and that the restoration of the Body of Christ would become lived.