Friday, November 7, 2008

stewardship and stuff

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Working on a stewardship message for the newsletters that will go out at the end of November. Yes, we work well ahead of it.

This post here at A Church for Starving Artists (on Trinity & Community) caught my attention. I wish we had that kind of expansion of ministry going on. It is what should be going on - a way to catch the Spirit and create places for the Spirit to work in community.

I come from a tradition where Worship - the community at Worship - has been considered THE big event, the core, the significant time. Because of that my tradition has been slow to understand the power of small groups, of interpersonal relationshps and the intensive but somehow light touch of true personal discipling. We may seen these things happening, we may have personally experienced them, but we don't have ways to incorporate those practices into our Church Life very well.

We are still blocked by the centrality of Word and Sacrament - and define that as THE preaching and THE Sunday community meal.

If I were asked why this is so - in truth, I think it is because we are tired. Most pastors I know, seem tired, even if they won't admit it. Many of my laity are tired, too tired to engage in our community. And I think our theology is tired - not wrong, not outdated, and certainly not false or anything like that - just tired and unhappily stuck to that 1950s model of being church.

This impacts with stewardship - here we are, by necessity, asking for money and commitment, but we are tired and don't really know what we are commiting to. And those other arenas for growth - for what JanE called community in Trinity - are not developing as they should.

It would be stewardship to:
  • admit we are still healing
  • conceive of healing things to do together as individuals in community
  • Open the notion of greater connection as a good thing
  • Ask what folks desire (and listen to the little heard voices)
  • Discuss the shift from maintenance (do we really need airconditioning) to mission (how is God working in this place)
  • Reflect on what leadership is about here
and there's probably more,

Each one of those bullet points has so much behind it. So much history, personalities, hurts, social pressure and community issues.

Back to the 'stewardship' message. It's interesting to veer away and come back, because I never know were I'm going to end up.
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