Toolbox For Faith

I had a wonderful fourth Sunday in Advent children’s message that involved our children lighting the four candles on the Advent Wreath. When I went to invite the children forward to sit on the steps of the chancel with me, I suddenly had a horrible, sinking feeling. I had forgotten! I had forgotten that on the third Sunday at the church I am serving, they have children’s church and none of the children were in church. It was an excellent mistake.

As I looked around pondering what to do next, I noticed the top of the head of Jonathan, age two, in the back of the church. For some reason, he had stayed with his mother and father rather than going to Children’s Church. Abandoning all my plans, I asked Jonathan to come forward and help me light the candles while the congregation sang all four verses of the hymn we sing while lighting the wreath.. Jonathan and his mother came to the wreath. I took the acolyte’s stick, lit it from the altar candles and picked up Jonathan. Together, we lit all four candles.

When lighting the candles, his eyes were wide, wide open with one of the biggest smiles I have ever seen. When I put him down, he was jumping up and down, up and down. When he finally stopped, he gave me a high five and got his mother’s hand and danced up the aisle, pausing occasionally to wave at me. As he walked, he told everyone next to the aisle, “I lighted the candles, I lighted the candles.” I could see the smiles on the faces of all in the congregation. This was a powerful moment.

What a great lesson! God helps us at all times of life, even when we completely goof. God provided a little child to save me. That’s what Christmas is all about—a small child shall save us.

We live in a time when people are quick to call in an expert to solve our problems, but Landon Whitsett in his book The Open Source Church, asserts that statistically a group of normal people will outshine an expert every time.    Landon has lots of research to support this assertion in his book, so I won’t cover that ground, but if you accept this idea that a group of normal people has better wisdom than an expert, then I think it is wonderful good news for congregations.   It recognizes the power of the priesthood of all believers.  It affirms the gifts and resources God has given to each of us and to our congregations.  It invites us to use our gifts to share God’s gift of love with the world and to build up the body of Christ.

The key, Landon suggests to making use of these gifts and tapping into the wisdom of the crowd is to have the following four elements in place.

1. Diversity- Everyone brings something unique from their own experience.  The more varied the backgrounds of the people involved, the better wisdom you will garner.

2. Independence of Thought - Everyone must be free to share the specific information they have.  The leader of the group needs to create space for everyone to share their ideas, thus preventing the first or loudest idea from being adopted.

3. Decentralization - As the group is working, people in the group must be free to do what they need to do when they need to do it.  If you have a top-down, centrally controlled environment, you are not going to get the wisdom of the group.

4. Aggregate - A facilitator, team or methodology needs to be in place to gather, analyze, share and use the information and wisdom that is generated.

For me this looks like the volunteers in Micah’s Backpack redesigning the system for packing and distributing food.  As the ministry has continued to grow, volunteers have suggested one improvement after another to streamline and improve the way in which we pack food.  The way we pack today is entirely different than the way we packed when we started.  We didn’t call in a logistics expert to help us figure it out.  We trusted the wisdom and gifts of the people doing the ministry and created an environment where their suggestions could be heard and implemented.

I have discovered that most great ministry ideas are surprises that grow out of our attempt to be faithful servants of God. Almost by accident, we stumble upon an opportunity for ministry.

As part of the S. C. Lutheran Synod’s “Operation Inasmuch,” based on the scripture that says “In as much as you have done it unto…,” our congregation provided soup, sandwiches and ice cream to two groups about three months ago. One of the groups is composed of around 20 recovering addicts who live in a residential facility about seven miles from our church.

In appreciation, they showed up for worship the next Sunday. I was really confused when I saw two complete pews of men that I had never seen before. As one member said, “I first thought that’s the largest Pulpit Committee I had ever seen but I thought to myself, why would they be coming to see a retired pastor?”

I started that Sunday with what I call “100 seconds of fellowship” where people moved around to greet people they did not know. Afterwards, some of the men shared with me that they really felt welcome. Evidently, this was not the case at several other churches they have attended.

From that beginning, we have tried to work together to help their ministry. On the first Sunday in August, they were our special guests at our homecoming celebration. We are now providing them with bag lunches the second Sunday of each month so that they can get ready quicker for the family visits that only happen on Sunday afternoons.

I am convinced that God has given us a vision for ministry with this group. We fed them and they dropped in and surprised us at worship. From this beginning, ministry is happening. God is still surprising his people with wonderful opportunities for ministry.

Since the 10th Anniversary of the September 11th attacks occurs on a Sunday, the question which naturally arises is - “What is the church going to do to mark the anniversary?” My initial reaction was simply to focus on themes of forgiveness, peace and grace, but as I talked to Don Lorfing, pastor of Good Samaritan Lutheran Church in Las Vegas, NV, he shared an idea for putting those themes into action. On September 11th at Good Samaritan, the congregation is going to sign cards of appreciation for first responders in their community - police, fire, rescue, etc. The cards (and if I remember correctly cookies) will be delivered to these agencies by folks from the church on Sunday. To me, recognizing the sacrifice, caring and commitment of those who serve in our community seemed like a helpful and positive way to acknowledge the anniversary. On a day when many folks will be reliving those tragic events, this seems like a positive way to focus on caring, compassion and hope.

I came across a story this week about a church that ran a sermon series, service project series and advertising campaign around the theme, “Jesus is _______ .” While the scope of the project is a little beyond anything my congregation could pull off on its own, I am impressed by the interconnectedness of the campaign and the way in which it invites people from inside and outside the congregation to engage in a conversation about Jesus, to learn more about who Jesus is and to act on their beliefs. You can read an interview with the communication manager behind the project at:
http://www.churchmarketingsucks.com/2011/03/jesus-is/
and you can visit the “Jesus is ______ .” website here:
http://jesus-is.org/.

I saw this idea in an email from the South Carolina Synod. It seemed like a great idea, so I wanted to pass it along.

First Lutheran Church in Greensboro, NC, encourages churches of all sizes to participate in “Meals at the Manger,” a simple and effective way to generate thousands of pounds of food for hunger-fighting agencies.

FLC invites people to bring a can (or more!) to Christmas Eve services and put the items in a manger, surrounded by boxes from a local agency. Donations have totaled about 3,300 pounds of food through the church in the past two years. The collection area also provided a point of conversation as people were greeted and the gathering of food offered a meaningful way to teach children about sharing and putting God’s love into action. After the services, items were moved inside and picked up by the agency later.

Pastor Philip Bottomley shared this idea with me a few weeks ago and I thought it was worth passing along. Congregations often talk about Vacation Bible School as a way to reach out to new families, but what if instead of asking the families to come to the church building, Vacation Bible School actually went out to the people you were trying to reach.

Apparently there is a church in Northern Virginia that runs a neighborhood Vacation Bible School. Host families agree to have a VBS team set up in their front yard and then they invite the neighborhood kids to come and take part in the crafts, music or lesson. As it was described to me, you’d have rotating teams each focusing on a different topic/activity and they would move around to each front yard station. If you scheduled it correctly, one team could lead the same one hour activity at ten different locations during a week. Just imagine how many new families could be touched with the good news of God’s love in just one week.

Each year, I spend two days at the Price’s Fork Fair. The fair is nice, small community event that provides a wonderful opportunity for outreach to the community. Our booth at the fair offers free activities for kids - a ball toss game and face painting. Everyone who comes by the booth gets a faith-themed coloring book, a small bag of candy and some faith-themed prizes (typically we spend about $200 for prizes and supplies). We also have Bibles, grief resources and information on the congregation available at our table. The booth is staffed by me and at least one volunteer from the congregation. For me, our booth is a ‘ministry of presence.’ We are present as God’s people to show God’s love to others, to proclaim God’s caring through our actions and to share the story of Jesus.

I carry my iPhone with me everywhere. I use it to check email, read the news, keep up with my daily tasks, keep my contact list, send texts and occasionally make phone calls. I’ve had my phone for about eight months now, so I am still fairly new to the smart-phone world, but I can already see how it is changing the way that I communicate and undertake ministry. In a previous time, I checked email occasionally while I was in the office. These days, I check email constantly and exchange messages with people in the congregation throughout the day. In a previous time, I would stay around the office waiting for people to call. These days, I have a growing number of church folks who send me texts to ask quick questions or update me with messages like, “Mom’s out of surgery.” In a previous time, I went back to my office to access ministry resources. These days, I have used my phone to look up hospital information for a family and to find directions to make a visit. In just eight months, my iPhone has become a tool I depend on to accomplish ministry on a daily basis.

As I think about these changes in myself and the way that I do ministry, I have started to wonder if congregations are adapting quickly enough to changes in communication. For example, should the church have a cell phone so we can send and receive text messages from the church to our youth? As people become accustomed to receiving a constant flow of information, what does it look like for a congregation to shift from a large monthly newsletter to a system which provides ministry news in small digestible bits through multiple streams? As everyone transitions away from having one home phone number to having their own personal phone number that they carry with them constantly, how will we respect the privacy of staff and congregants? In general, I guess it all boils down to this - how will we adapt to the possibilities these new communication tools provide and the expectations that they create?

I once heard a speaker describe the coming thirty years as a period of “mass aging”. There will be more senior adults than ever before and therefore we will have increased opportunities for ministry with senior adults. While there are countless wonderful ministry opportunities out there, we are considering applying for a grant from the Brookdale Foundation, to start a social respite program to assist families dealing with dementia. A social respite program provides free time for caregivers and social interaction for participants. Since social respite is designed for people in the early stages of memory loss, it is not a medical program and is therefore much easier to set-up and operate at a church. In my experience, social respite programs can provide a wonderful ministry to families who often struggle silently in the community. You can learn more about the social respite model and the Brookdale Foundation at their website.