Moderators Sermon - Given on May 3, my last day as Moderator

You can hear the audio of this sermon at www.firstcongmadison.org. Go to Sunday Morning, then Sermon Archive, May 3, 2009.

Good Morning.
For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Tom Syring. I am the Moderator of the church. Newer members and guests might not know this, but it is traditional for the Moderator to give a sermon on their last day. I couldn’t decide if this was a duty or a privilege. I guess it is really a bit of both.

Let us pray.
May the words of our mouths, and the meditations in our hearts,
Always be acceptable to you, our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. Amen.

Our readings for today serve as bookends to Jesus’ ministry here on earth. We start with Jesus calling the first disciples, and we finish with the resurrected Jesus charging the disciples with spreading the good news. In the next few minutes, I hope that I can convince a few of you to take some steps towards answering the charge to spread the good news.

When I think about our first reading, and how I would respond to the call to follow Jesus and learn to fish for people, I would have needed more information. What was he up to? Why would he want me to follow him? How long would I be gone? If I knew that the journey would end on a cross, I don’t know if I could go. Fortunately, today, few of us get killed for following Jesus, it is far safer to answer the call. In our reading, Matthew tells us that the four men answer Jesus call to follow him and learn to fish for people, they leave their families and livelihoods, and follow.
The second reading takes place at the end of Jesus’ ministry on earth. In this post resurrection story, Jesus appears to the disciples, claims that all authority is vested in him, and then commands them to go out and preach the good news, make disciples of all nations, baptizing and teaching them to obey what Jesus has taught them.

I want to leave aside the shock and terror they must have felt at the crucifixion, and the awe and wonder they must have experienced to have Jesus back among them.

I want to talk about the commandment to go out and spread the good news. This is much clearer than the call to fish for people. Jesus has been teaching the disciples for some time. They have a pretty good idea of his central message. Now it is time for them to go out and teach others what they have learned. And they do. They answered the call. None of us would be here today if they had not (they and others). The disciples become apostles, and spread the message to others, who spread it some more. Christianity sweeps the western world, and everyone lives happily ever after. The end.

Maybe not. Is the work done? Has everyone heard the message? What may be more relevant to us, here in the middle of predominately Christian America, has everyone heard what Jesus really said? What he really wanted us to do? I don’t think so.

I want to talk about un-churched people for a moment, people without a spiritual home. Un-churched people are referred to as the mission field – these are the folks that have not heard the message, or who have heard but didn’t relate strongly enough to join a church. What do un-churched people know about the message of Jesus? According to one survey of 800 non-Christian Americans ages 16-29 (potential future Christians), the three words most closely associated with Christians were, in order, anti-homosexual, judgmental, and hypocritical. Ouch. That hurts. Of the 20 words that the respondents rated for association with Christians, none of the positive words received a 50% response rate. It hurt me to read that information, it hurts me to say it to you, and I imagine it hurts most of you to hear. I imagine some of you get mad when you hear it.

I don’t think that is an accurate representation of all Christians, or even most Christians. I know it is not an accurate representation of the people here at First Congregational Church. So, not only has the Good News not reached everyone, but I believe that many of those who have heard something about Jesus have gotten the wrong message.

Yet, I can understand how people might think those things. At one time, long before I came into the doors of this church just over four years ago, I had convinced that I would never belong to a church again. While I had been raised in a church, my recollection was that the focus was largely on the salvation of individual souls. Additionally, any portrayal of Christians in the media made it seem like they were mainly concerned with abolishing abortion and with the oppression of homosexual people. If that was all there was, I didn’t want any part of it. I was an un-churched person who had dismissed the idea of Christianity as a spiritual option before even considering it. My story has a happy ending. When I first came here to First Congo, almost by chance, I heard another story. A story of a gracious and merciful God, who loves us and wants us to love each other. But I truly came here almost by chance. Had a joined a church with a narrower vision of God’s will, I would almost certainly be un-churched again today.

Those of us who come here regularly may not realize how different our vision of God’s will is from the common perception out there about Christianity. Most un-churched people think there is little discernable difference between denominations, and the predominant notion folks have of Christians is that of judgmental hypocrites, talking the talk without walking the walk. There are millions of people who have never heard the message of Jesus, and if they have, the odds are that they have heard it wrong.

It is our call and our charge to teach them a different way.

We have been called, you have been called, actually charged with the task, to go out and spread the good news. This activity is called evangelism. Yuck! That word can bring up unpleasant images for many of us. One writer on the topic of evangelism calls it the “E word,” as if it is too unpleasant to say in polite company.

The word evangelism can bring up a lot of negative images. It brings up images of high pressure sales pitches, as if God was vinyl siding being sold door to door. It brings up images of people that are absolutely certain their correct interpretation of scripture. If you don’t agree, you are absolutely wrong. When I think of evangelism, I picture the folks I saw standing outside the Kohl Center holding signs telling me and the crowds that we would burn in hell if we don’t find Jesus now. And then there are television evangelists, cheap, fake, sleazy – all sounding exactly the same, and seldom saying anything about loving our neighbor, feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, or blessing the peacemakers. As much as I love to hear people talk about God, I cannot listen to a television evangelist for more than a minute.

While the word evangelism tends to evoke negative images, I believe the reality is that very few of you would practice it in the ways I described above. I cannot picture any of you selling God like vinyl siding. “Get God now and you will be protecting your home and family from any and all weather. Just sign here and you will be saved.” I cannot picture any of you declaring that you have a monopoly on the correct interpretation of scripture. Certainly, I cannot picture any of you outside the Kohl Center holding signs and yelling at people that they will burn in hell if they don’t get Jesus now.

On the other hand, I can picture many of you engaging in thoughtful conversations about important topics: what does it mean to have faith, how should we live our values, why do we have hope, what gives life meaning and purpose, why is beauty important, how do we know truth, what do we mean when we say God, who was this guy Jesus. I can also picture many of you talking about why you come to First Congo. Maybe you will mention how you love the worship service – the music, the preaching, the time with children. You might mention how we live our values, through the prison ministry, community meals, sustainable living, by our support for Porchlight and Habitat for Humanity, through our relationship with S.S. Morris. I know you have thoughts about important topics and good reasons for coming here. Those are things you can talk to others about.

If you decide answer the call to follow Jesus and the charge to spread the good news, if you believe that you know and meet people whose lives would be better if they knew Jesus and if they had a spiritual home, then you need to prepare to have a conversation.

None of us was born an evangelist, and few of us have witnessed a good evangelist at work. We need to do some homework. I have an assignment for you. Sit down for some time and think about why your life is better for following Jesus. This is a great topic to journal on. Think about why you came to First Congo, and why you keep coming back. Write these things down. Practice talking about these things with friends here at First Congo and elsewhere. In order to answer this call to follow and to meet this charge to spread the good news, we all need to think, and prepare and practice.

Someone out there, someone you know, is searching. They are searching for meaning in an increasingly chaotic world. They are searching for a spiritual home. They may be ignorant or confused about what it means to be a Christian, and about what Jesus was really about. You can help them. Prepare yourself. Wait for an opportunity, and begin a conversation.

Amen.

Goals

Last fall, I posted an item about goals at First Congo, and asked for ideas from you about what goals you would like to see First Congo adopt.

I tried a similar line at the All Boards meeting Monday night. I asked folks to brainstorm for a few minutes about things they would like to see happen at First Congo. Results included: safety/emergency training for ushers, a faith in hard times class, filling the boards to their full complement of people, a larger choir, increased funding for the board of outreach - leading to more outreach activity. I have no immediate plans for what to do with the ideas. I do think it is a good thing for folks to think openly about what could happen at First Congo in the future.

Habitat for Humanity

We are sponsoring a Habitat house again this year. Actually, it is a townhouse that is part of a neighborhood renewal project on the north side of Madison.

As part of this project, First Congo has committed to raising $30,000 this year. There will be a fund raising campaign starting soon.

One of the great things about Habitat is that we all have the chance to do some hands on volunteering. Folks will be needed to "hammer nails" at the home site. This opportunity should be available two days a week, Saturday plus one other day. Work on our house is expected to begin in May.

I have long admired the work done by Habitat. My father has volunteered for Habitat about twice a week for the last 14 years, so I was quite familiar with the home building process. However, there was one aspect of Habitat that I only learned of after First Congo became involved: 10% of the funds raised end up going to build houses in undeveloped countries. When First Congo sponsored our last home, our commitment was for $75,000. Of that, Habitat earmarked $7,500 for building a home or homes in undeveloped countries. Since we sponsored the whole house, we got to choose where this project would take place. The Executive Council could not decide between Cambodia, where we have a connection through the Foods Resource Bank, and Chiapas, Mexico, where we have a long time connection from member trips there. We ended up making an additional contribution from some Foundation grant monies, and sponsored a home in both areas. (Two homes were built for under $10,000). I find this program to be a wonderful component of the great work that Habitat does.

I plan to hammer some nails at our house this summer. I hope to see you there!

Bring 'em In!

Recently, I had the privilege of attending the Bring 'em In! conference on church growth put on by the Wisconsin Conference UCC. This was a great event, with an amazing keynote speaker, and some excellent workshops on the practical implementation of church growth strategies.

Mike Piazza, the Dean of Cathedral of Hope in Dallas, Texas, was the keynote speaker. Mike is a dynamic and impressive speaker on the topic of church growth, with the experience to back up what he is saying. Mike became the minister of the church that became Cathedral of Hope in 1987. At that time the church had a membership of 280, a budget under $300,000, and debts in the form of two balloon notes totaling $160,000. Not only that, but, as a church with a large number of LGBT folks, they were being crushed by the tragedy of the AIDS crises, which was peaking in Dallas in the late 1980's. After Mike led the church through a visioning process, they developed a clear understanding of their mission, which was based on a focus outside their church. In pursuing that mission, they started to grow. Today, Cathedral of Hope has a membership of 3900, and a budget just under $3 million, of which they give away $1.3 million. It is the only liberal mega-church in America.

Mike called on us to consider what happened during the presidential elections, and the campaign of Barrack Obama in particular. Obama campaigned on five themes: Hope, Unity, Equality, Peace and Social Justice. Mike stated that those themes are actually the values of the United Church of Christ. And look what happened when Obama held them up for the American people! Record turnouts at rallies and at the polls. A historic election. A nation filled with hope. Mike suggested that we could simply use the same values to grow our churches. Our message is one that resonates with so many people. We just need to get it out there. He asserted that we must be aggressively progressive, and that people will respond.

Mike also talked about what it means to be a member of Cathedral of Hope. All new members of Cathedral of Hope are told that they need to take off their bibs, and put on their aprons. They are no longer guests, but now they are hosts. They are no longer consumers of what the church has to offer, they are now producers of what the church has to offer.

This seemed like a reiteration of the message that I have read in so many church growth books. Churches exist to serve the communities beyond their walls. To me, this seems like one of the keys to church growth and renewal. If we acknowledge and embrace this message, we will already be on the road to growth.

I have not done justice to Mike's presentations, but I wanted to put out a little of what we received.

Hopefully, I will find time to write about the individual workshops soon.

Church Goals

Does First Congo have goals? This question arose during a conversation about goals for professional staff. Someone pointed out that it will naturally follow for the staff to have goals that align with the goals of the church. In order for that to happen, the church itself needs goals.

I think that the closest thing we have is the Vision Statement, (hereafter referred to as the Vision, http://www.firstcongmadison.org/vision.htm). The Vision is not an official guiding document for the church, since it has never been adopted as such. However, it is a useful working document and a great starting point in thinking about goals. Developed in 2005 by church leadership with input from the membership, the Vision contains "Five Year Planning Possibilities" for six "Acts of Faith." Those Acts of Faith are: Worship, Spiritual Growth, Learning, Mission, Faith Based Citizenship, and Welcoming. The five year planning possibilities themselves could be considered to be goals. One concern is that there are quite a few possibilities, (38 in total - although some do overlap).

I plan for the Executive Council to start looking carefully at the Vision Statement, and to start thinking about distilling out a few goals for the church in the near future. At some point, we will be asking for input from the membership.

Now seems like a good time. Can you suggest a goal or two for First Congo?

Church Growth Volume 1: Alternative Worship

Then Jesus came to them and said, "All power in heaven and on earth is given to me. So go and make followers of all people in the world. Baptize them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach them to obey everything that I have taught you, and I will be with you always, even until the end of this age." Matthew 28:18-20 NCV.

Our direction is clear. Those of us who are followers of Jesus have been told to go and make followers of all people in the world. I think a good time to start is now, but how do we do this? I think that most people learn about Jesus in a church setting. The number one way that new folks come into a church is to be invited by a current member. Many of us struggle with inviting people to church. I will write in more detail about why it might be hard to invite folks to First Congo, but first, I want to explore another way to get folks into church.

We could consider adding an alternative worship service. We offer a traditional worship service on Sundays at 10am. We welcome everyone to join us, as long as they come at that one time and one place to do that one thing. Diana Bulter Bass, author of Christianity for the Rest of Us, talks about interviewing the VP of Marketing for Starbucks. The VP told her that people at Starbucks have over 70,000 choices of how to order their drink. This is only 30 years after they had maybe eight choices - Regular, Decaf, with or without cream or sugar. Yet, in a day when folks have 70,000 choices of how to get their coffee, most churches offer one worship service. Is is any wonder that our churches are shrinking? We are not changing with our culture. (Possibly more important, we have not adopted a culture of change. Again, that is another post).

The message of Jesus has withstood changes in culture for over 2000 years, and a proposal for an alternative worship is not a proposal to change the message. It is a proposal to change the medium, to change how the message is presented. Many folks do not relate to the traditional worship format. Many of these folks are younger than our median age. Some of these folks are actually members of First Congo. Whether members or not, there is a very large demographic that we are not even attempting to reach. These folks want a spiritual home. People are searching for spiritual fulfillment as never before. You have heard of New Agers, Wiccans, Druids, Neo Pagans,...the list goes on and on and on. These alternate spiritual paths would not proliferate in a world that doesn't care about spritual fulfillment. People are searching. Let's help them find God by getting them in the doors of First Congo.

Starting an alternative worship from the ground up will be a ton of work. It will cost time and money. And there will be resistance. I have heard some resistance already, during informal talks with members. One point of resistance is that many of our members seem fairly happy or content with our worship. I couldn't agree more. However, we are not trying to reach those who come to our current worship service. We are trying to reach those who don't. That is the whole point. Another point that has been made to me is that some folks who currently attend the traditional worship might start attending the alternative, bringing attendance at the 10am service down, which some people won't like. The way I see it, if we add an alternative worship, and end up with 25 more people in total worshipping each week, then worship attendance has increased by more than 10%. Is there any other way that we can increase worship attendance by 10%? I don't actually know if worship attendance would go up at all, but I suspect that it would increase by more than 25 people per week.

From where I sit, not quite four years into my membership of First Congo, it appears to me that we are an inwardly focused church, at least in regard to spiritual matters. We don't do a lot to get new folks in the doors and into relationship with God. This action, if undertaken, would be an enormous step toward becoming outwardly focused, and toward fulfilling our mission to make followers of all people.

Did Someone Say Tithe?

The subject of a Tithe has come up a few times during discussions of the Stewardship campaign. Usually, folks are a bit wary of saying it too loudly, or too seriously.

Tithing, if you don't already know, is the so-called biblical practice of giving ten percent of one's income to the church. I was not familiar with the biblical support for a tithe, so I did a little light research. There seems to be a lot of gray area about whether a tithe was ever expected or given by anyone in biblical times. Of course, there are currently plenty of people who give 10% or more of their income to the church. You know some of them. There is also a widely held perception of a biblical call for a tithe. You may hear more about it soon.

While I am somewhat skeptical about a biblical mandate, I like the idea of a tithe, as it gets people thinking about giving as a percentage of income. The idea of a percentage of income helps each of us to understand how much or how little we are giving in relation to our total budget. For example, if my family spends 10% of our income each year on entertainment - travel, dining out, shows, movies, etc - and 5% on charitable contributions (mostly to the church), then I am forced to conclude that entertainment is twice as important to us as supporting the church and helping people in need. Ouch! It can be kind of painful to think about it this way! Enough about me.

Let us look at typical pledges at First Congo, and the percentage of income idea. The typical family (pledging unit) at First Congo makes a monthly contribution to the church of $100, or an annual amount of $1200. This is the actual median pledge - half of us contribute more, half less. When considered as a percentage of income, how much is $1200? The median family income in our area is about $80,000 per year. If our church membership is representative of the Madison area, then the median income of our pledging households is close to $80,000. If that is the case, our median pledge amount of $1200 is 1.5% of income. I don't know if the $80,000 figure is valid, but 1.5% seems like a pretty small percentage to me. Visualize Phil Certain standing at the front of the sanctuary at pledge time, and clipping off the top part of a dollar bill for God. I cannot help but think that a 1.5% sliver is going to be pretty hard to see from the pews. Again, there are plenty of folks who give more than this percentage. Thank You! Thank you to everyone who contributes to our church. There would be no church without you! But I repeat, the median pledge at First Congo is probably about 1.5% of income, which is a small percentage.

If and when you hear about a tithe, please use it as an opportunity to think about your pledge as a percentage of income. No one is going to snoop into your tax returns. That is between you and your accountant. Your pledge amount, and how you determine it, is between you and your God.