Church Ownership

In my last post, I wrote about personal agency- the notion of taking ownership of one’s  life. We have options and we make decisions to shape our lives. Life is not something that simply happens to us. God gives us the tools to change our own circumstances in many instances. He gives us the right to change our own circumstances in many instances. He also gives us mercy and grace to adapt when it is not possible to change a situation. He provides multiple ways forward after difficult experiences that can either build us up or destroy us, depending on how we exert the agency we have in our lives. I suspect that God even expects us to select the circumstances and experiences necessary to live a life that is rewarding to ourselves and pleasing to Him. That is agency. If God expects us to have agency in our own lives, surely we should expect the same from the world… and from ourselves.

 This concept of agency also has implications above the individual level.

I’ve mentioned that my church adopted a ministry called Invite, Welcome, Connect. The ministry’s founder, Mary Foster Parmer, spent a weekend with our congregation helping us strategize ways to grow our church in membership and vibrancy. Her message is that people usually only truly engage with a church on a deep, abiding level if the congregation meets the newcomers’ needs in several phases of their discerning and bonding process.

First of all, the church members must invite people in their secular lives to come to church. Most of the time, people who join churches begin coming to that church because someone they know invites them. Secondly, the church needs to make sure that the newcomers feel welcome. That means being friendly and genuinely interested in new people, but it also means considering more subliminal conditions. For instance, would someone who is on a lower economic level feel welcome in a church if the only fellowship activity of the year is a fund-raising auction, which tends to put a person’s financial status on public display? Finally, it is not enough to simply invite a person to church and smile at them kindly, authentically, and enthusiastically. People come back to a church and contribute their gifts (time, talent, connections, disposition, financial resources, etc.) when they connect with the church’s theology, mission, activities, and people. When we form longer term, genuine relationships with people who are considering joining our church, it is more likely that they will strengthen that bond by joining the family.

I think all of this is absolutely true. I love the ministry. I notice more engagement, more excitement, and more ownership in our congregation. I would add a  fourth element that we should consider, as well…. agency.

Newcomers in a church should not feel like they are couch-surfing in someone else’s domicile, living off the generosity of the owners of said couch. They need to believe that they have real agency in the life of the church if they are to embrace that church as a core piece of who they are. A congregation that wishes to grow and fill hearts cannot only accept and welcome people to serve in ways that they are inheriting from past generations of church membership. They need an opportunity to sow the unique gifts God has sent them to plant, especially if they are not planting in a field that is already growing some other crop. Remember, even if the crop they are growing does not appeal to your palette, it is likely- especially in an expanding church- that someone else will gladly feast on it. Providing an abundant smorgasbord for the people of God is a reason for the church to rejoice!

It is important that new people have a true sense of ownership. They must have a meaningful voice. They must have the power to not just inhabit the pews in the church, but to shape its future.

Allowing newcomers to shape the future of the church can be scary. Despite good intentions all around, people don’t always get it right. A church that is vibrant becomes fertile because of the rich spiritual, social, and emotional ground on which it stands. That legacy of knowledge, history, and traditions is trustworthy and good. Fertility does require more than just the ground, however. It also requires ever-renewing rain, sun, and nourishment. It also requires the continual inspiration and blessing of God. Finding a way to combine those very necessary elements is difficult and sometimes messy. However, if a church just turns over the existing soil and refuses to provide the other resources that need constant renewal, that church may wither. Also, to God, no offering is unacceptable. If we refuse offers to provide all the recurring resources needed for vibrancy, God’s blessing may also be in short supply. Maybe the organization becomes less God’s church and more the people’s church. Such a transformation does not suggest health or longevity.

So, if you are part of the foundational congregation of a church that wishes to thrive and grow in the future, engage your newcomers in leadership intentionally. When they volunteer to head up some program or project, support them by sharing your experience. However, don’t wield the past like a weapon. Support their vision. Elect them for your vestries and parish councils. Stay open-minded to their perspectives. Do not minimize what they say or feel because “nobody would feel that way”-  just because you would not feel that way. Accept that their perspective may reflect the perspective of other people coming into your church who do not have the same background and history that you do. You do not have to accept the position of the newcomer as to how to meet everyone’s interests, but you should validate that the interests they raise are legitimate.

I suggest that it might be worthwhile to sometimes accept a newcomer’s vision, even if you are skeptical about what the outcome might be. Yes, the end result might not be exactly what you would have envisioned. Sometimes, the end result might actually be objectively “better.” Even if the end result turns out objectively “worse” than if the congregation had taken the more traditional path, the church derives intrinsic benefit from granting true agency to all its members. Yes, there is risk. But there can also be great reward.

A church can always decide what they want in terms of vibrancy. Some churches would just as soon stay small and intimate, content with ministering to the congregational family that traditionally populates their pews. However, if a congregation genuinely wants to ignite an outpouring of the Holy Spirit beyond their traditional congregation, it will be necessary to build agency into the growth plan.

Are you a member of a church that has grown and thrived? How did your congregation accomplish this? On the other hand, if you have seen “dechurching” gut a congregation, what was that experience like? Please share your perspective by leaving a comment. In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.

Have a Spirit-filled Day!

Terri/Dorry 🙂

Nice Matters

When I moved to Florida, it struck me that people seemed to be nicer here than in other places I lived. I thought maybe it was a Southern thing. People were more polite, friendlier, and pleasant.  The general attitude just seemed to be warmer than in California.  I have friends in California that are very, very close to my heart.  These people have shown me critical kindness, sincere love, and absolute warmth.  This is my experience of individuals and I would never say that specific individuals on one coast or another are nicer.  The acceptable standard operating procedure for relating to others in Florida, though, seems to be a smidge higher on the niceness scale. 

When I’ve stated this theory to friends, they tend to disagree.  They tell me that they think what I’ve observed about the niceness of people in Florida just has to do with living in a small town.  My town in Florida has a population of about 23,000 people.  While that is much smaller than the population of the sprawling metropolis in which I resided in the Golden State, it hardly strikes me as a tiny town.  Besides, I’ve visited small towns before.  I do think the people tend to be friendlier and more connected to each other, but I don’t know that I’ve ever felt that they were particularly kind to your average, garden variety interloper. 

I think I’ve figured out what it is.  I think it is community.

I’m not sure I’ve actually lived in community as an adult before moving to Florida.  I always lived in apartment or condo complexes when I lived in California.  Neighbors typically didn’t even know each other’s names.  Amazingly, you could live adjacent to someone, separated only be a wall, and never even speak to that person.  I didn’t have children, so I never developed a network of neighbors, school volunteers, or other parent-related groups.  I worshiped as a Roman Catholic, in huge congregations.  These congregations seemed to connect on Sunday mornings and then disengage back into the mainstream with no residual tie to each other.  The sign of peace usually meant nodding to your immediate pew neighbor and avoiding touch. The isolated structure of my environment did nothing to overcome my basic shyness.  It is a bit tortuous for me to interact with people I don’t know when they make the first move.  There is no way on God’s green earth that I would be the one breaking down the social barriers to create community.

If I did have a community, it was my workplace.  I made most of my friends at work and they were very important to me.  I have been retired almost five years and I am still close to many of these community members.  In some ways, my workplace did seem like community.  The people with whom I inhabited my career are like family.  I knew their struggles and their triumphs.  I knew who was good at what and what challenges I could expect when interacting with each person.  There was a sort of forgiveness of foibles that happens with people you know and love.

On the other hand, considering your workplace to be your community might not be the healthiest perspective.  I was lucky in my colleagues, but it would be naïve to think that everyone in the workplace community is free of personal agendas and defenses.  After all, there is much more at stake in the workplace community than in a neighborhood.  Getting along may not always serve a colleague’s purposes.  As I said, I was blessed with absolutely wonderful, supportive colleagues and superiors, but it can be dicey to perceive a coworker through the same lens as a neighbor.  Also, if one looks at the workplace as the community, it is sometimes harder to disengage from the work situation.  Burnout can be more of a factor.  If workplace is “community,” is it also “home?” If so, how do you “go home and leave the troubles of the day behind you?”

In Florida, I live in a subdivision, a distinct neighborhood.  I do know my close neighbors and I also know a fairly large circle of other folks who live in the community.  The subdivision has activities and I participate in some of them some of the time.  People seem to enjoy crocheting a cozy afghan of connections with those who share their neighborhood.  The afghan consists of different kinds of stitches, some looser than others, and some just barely hanging by a shredded piece of yarn, but those connections are there.  It doesn’t feel like too much, even to someone like me who is perhaps too easily spooked by too much interaction with too many people.  In addition to the warmth, there is respect so the afghan stitches don’t tend to knot and constrain.  The pattern is really rather beautiful.

My church in Florida is similar.  People talk about “church homes” and “church families,” but I don’t think I ever really understood.  Now I get it.  My church isn’t tiny, but it certainly seems small and manageable after a lifetime of going to services with 800 other people who changed week to week.  The other day, I was thanking a church friend for helping me with something.  I gave him a small gift and he seemed truly astonished that I would think his help was any big deal.  He said, “It was nothing.  You are my sister and I will always help you in any way I can.”  That moment was truly one of the most significant experiences of my spiritual life.  The passing of the peace in my current church is a “get out of your pew and greet everyone you come across” kind of affair.  After a couple of years of attending the Episcopal church, I know many of the other parishioners.  I can identify unfamiliar faces and “peace” the people who may be new to the congregation. I see the facets of community I saw in the workplace- everyone has different blessings and everyone has different broken, rough places in their personalities and competencies.  I love all of them with the gratitude, forgiveness and tolerance that comes from being family. 

This journey has taught me something about retirement.  If you, like me, had a workplace that was your community- maybe your only community- you may find it helpful to actively search for a way of connecting in a communal kind of way in your post-career life.  It is great to feel connected with the cozy “niceness” that is community. It is pretty freeing to feel that connection in a way that is not conditional upon the vagaries of the workplace.  I think finding that community may have been the best part of moving to Florida for me.  For me, nice matters.  It matters a lot.

Have you experienced “community” differently since you retired?  In what way?  Please share your perspective by leaving a comment.  In the alternative, you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com 

Have a NICE day!

Terri/Dorry 😊

Heads Or Tails

I am a truly gifted worrier.  When I was working, people used to marvel at my seemingly endless capacity to fret.  I used to tell them that I believed God gave us all talents and He expected us to develop them.  My talent just happened to be worrying.  Colleagues, annoyed by my incessant hand-wringing and brow-furrowing, often suggested that it was time I got another talent.  Well, I think I may have finally found one. 

Recently, the women’s group at my church held their annual bazaar.  The bazaar is quite an undertaking.  I’d say it is the social event of the season in Episcopal circles.  Hours and hours go into planning and producing the bazaar.  Virtually everyone in the parish has some connection with some part of the event. 

The bazaar is also a significant rainmaker for the church.  Although we refer to it as the “bazaar,” it is really a three-part event.  There is the traditional bazaar facet of the project- selling crafts, homemade goodies, and used “stuff” that ultimately migrates from the donor’s garage to the purchaser’s garage.  It is a good thing that other people’s junk is much more appealing than our own junk.  Most churches would go broke if people didn’t donate their old stuff and other people didn’t buy it.  The second facet of the bazaar is the turkey-themed lunch.  That’s right, a week before Thanksgiving, we earn money for the church by selling turkey sandwiches.  As improbable as that sounds, it seems to work.  There was a lot of gobbling going on.   

The third facet of the bazaar is the grand auction.  People donate some higher end items- a week at a timeshare, a baseball signed by a famous player, an original watercolor painting of the church, a homemade dinner party, or something of that ilk. Volunteer auctioneers monitor the bidding and sell these items for, usually, much more than their intrinsic worth.  It is good clean FUN… and it raises a lot of FUNDS. 

This year, we had a 50-50 raffle at the grand auction intermission.  Now, most 50-50 drawings I’ve seen are pretty simple.  You buy a ticket for some amount of money, someone draws a ticket, and the lucky winner goes home with half the proceeds of the 50-50 pot.  We gilded the lily a bit with our 50-50 event.  Instead of buying a ticket, you bought a pair of plastic sunglasses.  When the time came for the “drawing,” there were no tickets and, in point of fact, no drawing at all.  Instead, the leader had us play a game of “Heads or Tails.”  He asked us to stand and then to choose to place our sunglasses either on our heads or on our behinds.  Then, he flipped a coin.  If you had made the wrong choice as to where to place your sunglasses, you sat down and were out of the running.   

We played several rounds of this game, with more and more people plopping their tails back into their seats each time a coin was flipped.  I did remarkably well and became the object of unwanted attention.  The attention was also unmerited since there was absolutely no skill whatsoever involved in making the correct choice as to where to anchor my sunglasses.  I was kind of uncomfortable standing there with everyone looking at me to see if I would choose heads or tails.  Given that I wasn’t that keen on anyone staring at my butt, I was tempted to always go with “heads.”  Luckily, I did not give in to temptation.  I just randomly chose heads or tails each time until only two people were left.  The other guy chose heads and I accepted tails.  I won. 

I tried to bid on some items during the sale to give back at least a portion of my winnings, but I was outbid each time.  There was something in the air- probably charity and goodwill- that was inducing people to pay over $30 a person for a spaghetti dinner.  Since I wasn’t as good a bidder as I was a “heads or tails” chooser, I walked out of the auction $162.50 richer. 

It looks like I have indeed discovered a new talent. I will have to work on developing it.  Who knew that knowing your head from your ass could be so much more lucrative than worrying?

What’s your hidden talent?  Please share your perspective by leaving a comment.  In the alternative,  you can email me at terriretirement@gmail.com.  

Have a heady day!

Terri/Dorry 🙂

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