All Saints' Association

Not exactly the conventional approach to Lent? That’s exactly the point.

One of this year’s intriguing Lenten spiritual practices is all about examining our ‘conventional’ ideas about God. Does the way we think about God help us have a closer relationship with God – or is it an obstacle? For many of us, how we think about God is based on long-held beliefs formed in childhood and never thoroughly reexamined.

“What better time than Lent to reflect on the divine in different ways?’ asks Rev. Barry Taylor, who leads 10:15, the alternative Sunday worship service at All Saints’. “For forty days it’s all about the many ways to give up the Big Guy  - God rid me of God as the Meister Eckhart would say.”

If Lent is meant to be a time of repentance – or more accurately, rethinking – then something as foundational as how we think of God seems like a prime candidate.

Missional Renaissance by Reggie McNeal is a fascinating book, but I can’t help thinking that it’s a frustrating read for many church leaders. The sub-title hints at the reason: Changing the Scorecard for the Church.

McNeal urges the church to get out of “the church business” by shifting from an internal to an external focus – which is pretty much his definition of the missional church. He points out early in the book that the missional church does not focus beyond its walls to be culturally hip, but rather because it believes that engaging the community out there is the very reason why the church exists. So suddenly the number of people in worship services on a Sunday morning ceases to the measure of a successful church – and that’s a good thing because the world doesn’t care about the church’s old scorecard. A missional church is more interested in how many hours in service members have spent in the community.

I love the airport analogy he uses. An airport is a place of connection, not a destination. Its job is clearly to help people get somewhere else. Similarly when a church thinks of itself as the destination, with lots of people hovering around, it’s actually preventing those people from going where they want to go, from their real destination. That destination is life and, he points out, Jesus promised us life, not church. “I have come to give you life and to give it to you more abundantly.”

I’m about halfway through the book and it has yet to address how a missional church raises money. I see from the index that it’s coming up soon. Can’t wait.

In the interests of full disclosure, Reggie McNeal is a friend and has been our keynote speaker at two ASA conferences.

If you made staff cuts recently, you probably turned to volunteers to get some jobs done. How’s that working for you?

Not great? A mixed bag? Badly let down? Having to do the extra work yourself to make sure it gets done?

How come? Isn’t empowering volunteers what churches are supposed to do? After all, it’s Biblical and we’ve all heard heart-warming stories of volunteerism bringing people to a new level of faith and involvement in their church. Then why does it have such a bad track record and prompt eye-rolling by Parish Administrators?

Before you call the next volunteer, I have a suggestion. Read Doing Church as a Team by Wayne Cordeiro. Cordeiro is the Senior Pastor of New Hope Christian Fellowship in Honolulu, Hawaii, which has grown to over 10,000 since it was founded in 1995. Ever since there were only 15 members, he has employed a team-building model based on ‘fractals’. The model is so robust, so flexible that not only has it grown with the church, it works just as effectively with five people running a one-day event, for example, as it does with the near-1,000 volunteers who every weekend set up ‘church’ in the several rented spaces that make up New Hope.

The beauty of the fractal model is that it never relies on just one volunteer turning up. There’s always back-up. I’ve seen it transform a pastoral care ministry and make believers out of ‘volunteer-cynics’.

In March this year my church, All Saints’ Beverly Hills, created a Stewardship Task Force. It was part of our transitional year plan, anticipating the retirement of our rector of 20 years in January 2010. One of the first things we did was to post an online survey, the “Generous Congregation Survey”, to take the temperature of the congregation. We wanted answers to some key (and maybe some a bit paranoid) questions. Are we facing a mass exodus? Do they trust the remaining leadership? Will they still pledge when Carol’s not here?

The answers to those questions were actually quite encouraging, but the strongest response was to do with the economy and the negative impact it was having on many parishioners’ lives. The details were vague, but it was clear we were going to have to address this issue – and soon.

Disclaimer: we are located in fabulously wealthy Beverly Hills, but we draw less than 2% of our congregation from the legendary 90210. Our parishioners come from over 140 very different Zip codes spread across Southern California – so we’re  just as vulnerable to the economic downturn as any other LA church.

Our first response to the survey results was a two-week class entitled “Living Abundantly in a Time of Scarcity”. We must have touched a nerve because 140 people showed up – on a Tuesday evening. The first class was 30 minutes of teaching, 45 minutes of table discussion and 15 minutes wrap up and homework brief. The major feedback from our facilitators was no table got beyond discussing the first of three questions and the unanimous conclusion was that these people just had a need to talk – sounds as though we should invite them to become part of a small group.

This last Tuesday, we offered a toe-in-the-water six week small group experience. About thirty signed up, but only twelve showed up! I think it’s a perfect example of trying to make a ‘church solution’ solve a ‘non-church problem’.

We may have been right that these people needed to talk, needed community – but more than anything they needed help. Help with their finances, help with a job or a business idea. A few months ago I read an article by a Wall Street economist who warned those that had recently lost their jobs not to wait to get hired. “Many of those jobs will never come back. Companies will find they can do with fewer employees. A better solution may be to become self-employed.” He went on to say that several synagogues in Manhattan were holding entrepreneurial brain-storming sessions for out-of-work members of their congregation.

What a great idea! It doesn’t do much for peoples’ spiritual well-being, but it addresses the problem most people seem to be struggling with right now. And as it’s the church that’s offering help, it seems as though there’s a good chance we’ll have plenty of opportunities for more faith-based conversations along the way.

A couple of weeks ago, our niece (12) and nephew (10), who live about 400 miles away, called to ask us to sponsor them in a charity swim. After they finished their pitch, we kidded them a little and readily signed up, their mother got on the phone and apologized. I told her it actually felt as though we were in their life – if we lived closer, we’d think it perfectly natural for them to come to the house and ask us. But, like lots of aunts, uncles and grandparents, we don’t live close to any of our family, so we use whatever technology we can to connect and we create a form of community.

Recently a newly ordained priest friend announced on Facebook that he was preaching his first sermon this Sunday, named the scripture and asked for help. He received at least sixteen comments. Most looked pretty useful. A friend has just leased some ‘creative space’ in Santa Monica for a project that will last for five months. “What then?”, I asked. “I’m thinking of hanging on to it,” he said. “I’m going to put it out to my FB friends for suggestions about what to do with it.” Was asking for community help ever this easy?

OK, it’s not the kind of community you have when everyone lives in the same town and they come over for Sunday dinner every week. But it’s definitely community and it definitely handles the challenges of far-flung family and friends – the challenges that so many of us face. It’s not surprising that the 55+ crowd is flocking to Facebook to keep up with their kids and grandkids – although the 513% growth in this demographic reported earlier this month is pretty amazing.

Many churches fall into the trap of assuming their older members have a discomfort with computers, the internet, email and all digital media. It’s definitely true in some cases, but becoming less so.

Tip: The big difference with a lot of older parishioners is that they may not check their email, Facebook home page etc. as frequently (or obsessively) as younger people. Try to send email blasts on a regular schedule so it becomes a habit to check for them.

Our website is currently being redesigned. This home page will soon be transformed into a blog that we hope will become a frequent destination for those interested in a conversation about helping liturgical churches grow and prosper. Please bookmark this site now and check in soon. We expect our blog to be up by early October 2009.

Questions?
Click here to contact All Saints’ Association or call Andy Carmichael at (310) 278-6305