Sermons

Once upon a time, on a very lovely Sunday morning, a mother called up the stairs to her son in order to get him ready to go to church. The son was reluctant, to say the least. He fussed and hemmed and hawed. Finally, the exasperated mother said “All right, give me two good reasons why you shouldn’t go to church this morning.” The son thought for a moment and then responded. “Well, number one – it’s boring. And number two – nobody likes me down there.” He paused contentedly for a moment and then called down to his mother, “Now you give me two good reasons why I should go to church this morning.” The mother thought for a moment as well and then responded. “Well, you’re 52 years old…and you’re the pastor.”

Today is Stewardship Sunday. This year the Stewardship Committee has invited us into a deeper consideration of the question “what kind of church,” and we will attach that question onto the biblical story from the book of Acts, the church that was called into being at the Day of Pentecost.

One quick answer to the “what kind of church” question may be provided here. We are to be the kind of church God calls us to be. It is not intended to be a circular answer. We would believe first and foremost that the church is a gift, a gracious, awesome, highly complex gift from God. That may be obvious, but it is worth re-articulating from time to time. It is God’s project, not ours, God’s enterprise. Our task, simply stated, is to unwrap the gift, to envision God’s vision, to dream God’s dream. It is most certainly more art than science. It is about strategic planning, organizing, administering, surely. But it is also about discerning, about listening, about praying.

And it is about money, but about so much more than that. It is about the role of money in our lives, what we do with the money we have. It is also about the role of money in the “kind of church” we are called to be.

There are many ways respond. We could answer the kind of church we are called to be in terms of demographics, who we are, and who we are becoming. We are growing, slowly, but yet growing. I don’t put much faith in church statistics, but for us to be able to say as a mainline Protestant church in the Northeast in an urban, metropolitan context that we are growing is something for which we should give grateful and humble thanks.

And the kind of church we are called to be would include just that – growth, growth driven by a sense of who we are. Spread out over many communities. Single and married. Straight and GLBT. Younger and older, empty nest and rapidly filling nest. White and black and all colors, with particular emphasis on how we might continue to diversify ourselves racially. City and suburb. Life long Christian, veteran Presbyterian and newcomer. Can we imagine that kind of growth?

Or we could answer the kind of church question by what we do. Program. It is extensive and lively and growing and evolving. Where would we begin? Worship? Music? Arts? Would we look at education? Children’s education? Our youth ministry? Or adult education, that happens in some form or the other on many days and that is happening in increasing ways on Sunday morning, thanks in part to our new schedule? Would we look at our fellowship groups, some of whom have been meeting for many years, some of whom are brand new, and some of whom are only in the planning stages? Or would we look at the ways we care for one another? Would we look at our Board of Deacons, and the host of ministries they undertake?

Or would we look at our outreach, at the literally hundreds of volunteers making a difference in literally thousands of lives? Our efforts to advocate, to activate, to agitate? To make a difference? Here’s a snapshot… Interfaith Hospitality Network, here, in this place, and the Rochester Area Interfaith Hospitality Network that uses our house next door at 34 Meigs Street. Dining Room Ministry, serving 3700 meals in 2004. Food Cupboard. Tutoring at Schools 6 and 35. Corner Place. Middle East. The environment. The Upper Monroe Area.

There are other ways to answer the question as well. Qualities. Images. Parts of speech, perhaps. Nouns and verbs, but also adjectives and adverbs. Hospitable. Diverse. Bold. Creative. Spiritual. Prophetic. Compassionate. Just. Generous. Joyful. Hopeful. We add to the list every time we gather.

Some of us would answer the question “what kind of church” by writing a poem. Others would write a business plan. Or paint a picture or tell a story. Some of us might find the question odd and just “do” something instead. My hunch is that as many of us as are here would answer the question differently, in different forms, on different days, with different needs and experiences. But my hunch is also that there are some core convictions, core values and commitments, which this church would need to declare in order to capture our fancy and claim a generous portion of our financial resources.

One way to explore that core would be to counter our opening story. The kind of church we seek would not be boring, and it would not only be a place where we are liked, but more so, loved and respected and valued.

I can only speak to those two issues from my own perspective. Boring is as boring does. But vitality is as vitality does as well, and the ways that we all contribute to that vision will only make us more vital and compelling. How we participate in things, from Sunday morning worship to committees to volunteer opportunities to fellowship groups – what I like to call internal evangelism or “inreach” – projects a sense of energy to those of us who are already members of the family and to those who might wander in for a test drive.

There is some intrinsic connection between what we do and who we are, between how we approach things and how we welcome people in. As we grow and evolve, as we age and as we get younger, as we become more dispersed, more reliant on technology and more hungry for human community, we will seek new ways to build community.

I shared an article with the officers of the church this past week about myths of church growth. There are enough books to fill a book store on the issue of how and why churches grow. I happen to think it is more about ethos and spirit then it is about technique, more about vision then it is about particular “how-to’s.” It is not about newness, or size, or theological brand, or about advertising, or projecting the words of hymns onto a big screen. It is not even about parking lots.

If there is any programmatic direction at all, it is about children and youth, and how we welcome people into our community and how we invite people into full participation. That’s what we are working on a lot these days – and some of it is technical and some of it is spiritual. We are investing real dollars, but such an investment will only bear fruit with the commitment of our energy.

That is to say that all of this does need some financial undergirding, and here it is my intention to be clear, not only as we think about our pledges, but as we think about how we own the financial future of this congregation in order for us to live into the vision of the kind of church we are called to be.

You have received a proposed 2005 budget in the mail. It is a very prudent budget. Our expenses essentially fall into three large categories: personnel, our wonderful staff; program, what we do; and our building, this wonderful place that is a vehicle for service and celebration. Program has one very big component, outreach, and lots of smaller ones, from church school curriculum to newspaper ads to choir music.

Our income is even simpler – two basic parts. The endowment, on which we rely for a little over 25% of our budget, and then us, you and me, giving our financial resources for the support of this congregation. That’s what this day is all about.

We would seek to pay our staff fairly and equitably. We would not like to find ourselves again in the position when there are no adjustments, no raises. And the costs of running this building are rising. You would know that. We can’t do much about that – when the roof leaks or a stained glass window wobbles, it must be fixed. And program, and particularly outreach. We are doing increasingly more things with an increasingly larger number of people. But we are reducing the amount of money we give away. We are able to support financially the things we do, buy food for the food cupboard, support the Corner Place. But we would always be able to do more.

That’s the expense side. Now income. We have been blessed with an endowment. It stands at about $4.7 million right now. That’s seems like a lot, because it is. We project it to provide more than $350,000 to our budget next year. But by all accounts, that’s too much. Places like churches and seminaries and colleges think in the neighborhood of 5%. We are at 8% this year, and plan to be at 7¾% next year. That’s fair and fiscally responsible, and allows the endowment to do things in 2005 and 2025 and 2055 for which our children and their children will benefit.

Which leaves us. You and me. And Stewardship Sunday. As stewardship statistics go, we are about average. Average in the percentage of our member households who pledge, and average in the amount that we pledge. That is better than being below average. And in point of fact, our stewardship numbers are increasing, quite a notion these days. Gas is more expensive. The tuitions many of us are paying are on the rise.

And yet, might we ask this question in a different way, ask it in terms of our abundance rather than our scarcity? We are seeking a 6% increase in our pledged giving, as you know. That will enable an essentially flat budget for 2005, because of all the factors we know so well. But might we think about abundance rather than scarcity, and the kind of church we are called to become.

Some have not been able to pledge in the past, or have chosen not to, for all sorts of reasons. We respect that. But perhaps this is your year, a pledge of whatever size as a leap of faith. Some have the capacity to make the suggested stretch, or more. Some do not. The issue is not guilt. We are all in this together. These are intensely personal decisions to be made, but corporate as well, communal, because they serve this vision to which we have all become committed. Whatever decision is made, prayerfully, hopefully, is made because it flows from a vision, generosity of spirit, of time and energy, and financial resources, a vision of being church and doing church.

What kind of church? That continues to be the question, does it not? A church like that first church, perhaps, from the Acts of the Apostles. A church called into being by the Holy Spirit. A church where all were welcomed. A church where beliefs were nurtured, where friendship and fellowship blossomed, where needs were met – spiritual needs and physical needs were met. A church where bread was broken and hearts were glad and God was praised.

It is quite a vision, attainable then and attainable now only because of the Spirit’s presence.

What kind of church? A church that worships, that uplifts the centrality of the word, that lives in the creative tension of pulpit, font, table, that speaks to the head and heart, that takes prayer very seriously, that is liturgically creative and musically distinguished.

A church that nurtures. We are expressing a hunger for nurture, for connection, for community and affinity. Do we not sense the need? It is about education for all ages, for new generations seeking some faith community and for an aging church living longer and better, all the parts of the sandwich.

Martin Marty once wrote that we live in a world where everything is spinning apart. May this church seek to hold souls together—through book groups and fellowship groups and good old-fashioned potlucks and persistent and sensitive pastoral care.

And the kind of church that serves. That’s what this outreach stuff is all about. To serve, and by so doing to be served by the experience. It is in our DNA. We are called to be members of the church dispersed in all of society, as the Confession of 1967 insists, Christ’s reconciling community. It will look different than it has ever before, as the landscape shifts. A new kind of urban, metropolitan ministry. A new kind of global ministry. Partnerships. It may look different, but it will look like something that is radical and reconciling.

John Calvin conceived of the church as “mother.” Perhaps that’s not very P.C., but it is certainly compelling. The place where we are given birth, nourished, cared for, sent out. Or as Anne Lamott thinks about it, the church is the place that “provides a path and a little light to see by…Home,” she says, “in the old meaning of home – that it’s where, when you show up, they have to let you in…and even say ‘You come back now.’” (Traveling Mercies, page 100)

That’s the kind of church we are, the kind of church we are called to be and become. And we should not apologize to ourselves or anyone that it costs money. It should and it does.

We will sing a hymn or two in a moment, and as we do, you are invited to wander down the aisle and place a pledge card in a basket. Think of it as an act of commitment, an act of generosity. But also think of it as an act of imagination, so that when you offer that little piece of paper, you imagine the church of your dreams, the church of your imagination, and even God’s. The church is one foundation, and Jesus Christ her Lord. She is his new creation, his new creation. Imagine that kind of church. Imagine that. Amen.