Twelve years ago, I had just moved to a new parish, and so both my former parish and my new one were involved in the Lay side of the Fresh Start program. The question was asked of the laity, “If something happened and your parish ceased to exist tomorrow morning, would anyone miss it, and if so, who?” The parish to which I was moving answered among themselves, “Well, apart from the fact that the people who come to worship wouldn’t have a place to go, likely no one would really notice, and the worshippers would find someplace else.” The place I had just left answered very differently. They said, “Oh My God, of course we would be missed! Who would run the breakfast program in the Southwood Community centre before school? Who would do the Christmas dinner for the poor? Who would send the neighbourhood children to Huron Church Camp and Who would cover the support that we have always give to Primate’s World Relief and Council of the North?” The two parishes were neighbouring. They were both a part of the same Deanery. The difference was that one had an attitude of Maintenance, and the other had their focus set on Mission. One put their time and energy into “keeping the doors open and the bills paid.” The other one put their time and energy into serving the world that God so loves, and somehow, as they did that, the doors stayed open, and the bills got paid.
This morning, I, like many others across the Diocese of Ontario, got an e-mail from the Bishop outlining the Strategic Plan for the Diocese that we will be fleshing out at Synod next week. It also spoke of the need for the church here in the Diocese to move our faith from maintenance to mission. It isn’t an easy transition to make, but it is the key to having a living, exciting and enlivening church. The truth though, is that it cannot be something that we talk about at Diocesan Synod, and then all nod our heads and say that yes, we believe that it is a good thing, and then sit back and wait for the Diocese to do it. Moving from maintenance to mission cannot begin from the Diocesan level. It is a transformation in the attitudes of every baptized individual that makes up our church. Every one of us must individually adjust our focus to considering first, “how does my ministry in the church help others to believe? How do I help to spread the gospel?” Only then can the parish begin to adjust its focus, and only when the parishes of this Diocese have changed focus, can this move from maintenance to mission be accomplished across the Diocese.
I remember Bishop Morse Robinson speaking at my first parish, and challenging them that everything that we do as a parish should have some aspect of helping others to believe attached to it. Those faithful people, already convinced of the need to be a mission focused church began to take that question seriously. Soon, things started to change. At the parish bazaar, food and baked goods that were for sale, came with a little card attached with the words of a grace at meal time. Knitting and children’s clothing were sold with another little card that held a prayer for the child that would wear it. Soon every little bit of the parish life had some way of declaring that it was from a Christian church, except one. The parish council made a significant amount of its budget from outside users who came in and used the excellent parish hall facility. How could that be made to declare the Good News as well. Eventually, the parish council hired a local artist to come and paint one of the walls of the hall with a huge mural of the Resurrection, so that every time an outside group came within the walls, they were reminded that they had come in to a church, and they were faced with the Good News of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That little parish never had more than it needed, and in fact, I often would quip that they were “going broke for all the right reasons,” but there was always enough.
And as years in that parish went by, we were constantly having to stop and look at ourselves, and challenge ourselves with the question, “How is this activity going to help others believe.” We had to be pushing ourselves to look beyond the walls and see the needs of the community outside our lovely comfortable gathering.
Loren Meade, in the book The Once and Future Church, points out that in the Apostolic Church, the mission field was a reality that the church met the moment that they left their worship gatherings. The mission field was ambivalent to them, and at times even openly violent to them. But they were a church focused on spreading the Good news.
And then Constantine won the battle of Milvan bridge, and the world changed. The Emperor converted to Christianity, and suddenly everyone in the Empire was a Christian, and the Mission field moved to far off shores. Mission became the work of Missionaries, and the average Christian and the average Christian parish had no need to really proclaim the Gospel.
Let’s face it though, The world has changed once again, and we no longer live in an age of Christendom. The mission field is once again there when we step out of our worship spaces, and like our ancient predecessors, that mission field is often ambivalent or openly violent to the message that we bear. If the church is to live and grow in such a world, we must stop focusing on “how are we going to pay the bills?” We must stop fixating on bricks and mortar. We must change our focus, and in so doing, change the world.
Twelve years after that meeting of Fresh start where my former parish felt that they would not be missed, I have to tell you, if they closed today, the entire city of Kitchener would be devastated. They left behind their Maintenance mindset. They moved out in mission, and they are so involved in their community that they are indispensable. They are alive and they are growing.
One interesting observation I would make about their transformation though, is this. One year, it was decided that we would build a house with Habitat for Humanity. That project was going to add an additional $70,000 to the parish outreach budget. When we first began to discuss it, many people sat wringing their hands, and asking if we could really raise that much extra money without negatively effecting our operating budget. Well, not only did we raise the needed money and still meet our budget, but I will add that we had higher attendance in that church that year than there had been in over ten years, and at the end of the year we had a surplus in givings to the operating budget.
I hold that when the Church operates out of a sense of mission, rather than out of fear and a focus on maintenance, the people are energized, the community is inspired, and the church experiences growth.
It’s time to step out of Maintenance, and get serious about our Mission to go and change that world that God so dearly loves.
After I first posted this blog this morning, I came upon this article called, “3 common sentences you hear at dying churches.” It is speaking of the opposite side of the Maintenance and Mission discussion, and does it very well. It is well worth a read.
http://ministrytodaymag.com/leadership/adversity/23194-3-common-sentences-you-hear-at-dying-churches
