Faith Works 8-5-17

Faith Works 8-5-17

Jeff Gill

 

Stewardship preparation and a question

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We were talking recently about worship styles and "engagement," and that subject carries over to something that many of our church leaders are starting the behind-the-scenes preparation for in this month of August: stewardship and giving campaigns.

 

For (too) many of us, stewardship and budget and a vague but pernicious concept of "paying your dues" comes into the picture when we think about and plan these annual fall churchwide pushes.

 

In my own congregation, our stewardship chair is always very intentional about pushing the teams and committees and working groups to develop their financial requests as soon as possible for educational purposes, but we do our stewardship education and commitment campaign before the budget is assembled.

 

We are far from alone in wanting to remind all the members and friends in our church family that giving is a spiritual discipline, a faith practice that helps us get over our earthly assumptions and material needs. We can put the spiritual first in our hearts in no small part by making our faith a priority in our spending and giving.

 

Proportional giving is key to this, in my opinion; books have been written on the question of what the Bible really means to tell us today about "tithing," and people of good will can debate whether that means ten percent of our gross, a tenth of our net after taxes are taken off the top, or a simple calculation that we hold to through other ups and downs.

 

I will say that I do believe that tithing (however you calculate it) can be a blessing to the giver, and is a building block to provident and prudent living in all of your other giving, saving, and spending. Note that I'm putting spending last: learning to do that is the key. And some of us are surely called to give more than ten percent, so I simply commend the value of having sat down, figured out your incomes and outgoes, and knowing what percent you give, and working to grow that percentage.

 

Meanwhile, we struggle, we congregations do, through the late summer, where the bills still come in but giving is often lagging. Another reason for some form of stewardship education and/or campaign is to promote the regularity of giving, so it's not just the leftovers at the end of each pay period, or a mere lump gift at year's end. Hard to plan and prepare around that sort of pattern for a church!

 

Many healthy, active, giving congregations go years without any sort of stewardship campaign at all. The process of reminding the membership about needs and opportunities for expanded ministries is ongoing through the year, and the only campaigns are capital related, for building new facility space.

 

That's an idea that's downright shocking to some church leaders, I know. Part of that is related to the mainline/oldline decline of the last few decades, where the ongoing downward pressure on church budgets, locally and on the wider front, have given rise to annual urging to the fellowship just to keep up, even as membership figures drop and staff positions are cut.

 

The flip side, though, is that when there's not a couple of weeks to defer to on stewardship and giving as a spiritual discipline, there's more implicit pressure on everyone to do that kind of teaching and discipleship all the year round.

 

How do you do stewardship promotion and education in your congregation? And what would a change mean to how your membership approaches the question of money and faithfulness?

 

On a completely different subject, if you are out at the Hartford Fair tomorrow, Sunday morning, at 8:30 am there's an ecumenical worship service I'll be helping lead up at the Natural Resources Pavilion. Come join us! Thirty minutes of re-centering and celebration before the week really gets rolling, and the sound of bleating lambs in the background . . . I really look forward to this every year.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he really loves that outdoor worship, and you will, too! Tell him about your outdoor services you've attended this summer at knapsack77@gmail.com, or @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 7-29-17

Faith Works 7-29-17

Jeff Gill

 

Engaged worship in and out of church

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Contemporary, traditional, blended.

 

Oh, wait, didn't we start there last week?

 

Yes we did. And it's still what people nowadays think of as the choices, especially among our most common faith traditions in this area, of Protestant Christian church worship styles.

 

Contemporary has a band, and probably no windows, but big screens and chairs for people to sit upon. There's no bulletin, and no hymnals.

 

Traditional has windows, often of stained glass, and a worship area with classic wooden "chancel" furnishings, a pulpit and lectern and table or altar, with pews. Bulletins are held like life preservers, and hymnals are at every place.

 

Blended, more often than not, is what we call a traditional worship space that tries to do some contemporary Christian music from time to time, and maybe sees a preacher without formal pulpit garb and a looser outline for the service. The hymnals are taken up from time to time. Less often a contemporary style church will do "traditional" hymns with the praise band, but they aren't often called blended when they do that.

 

Congregations will continue for the foreseeable future to debate the propriety, effectiveness, and evangelistic necessity of adopting one or another style of worship. For the record, I have seen how contemporary worship reaches people who for a variety of reasons cannot or will not enter a traditional looking Christian building or worship center, and that makes me think; I also believe there are people who are looking for the stability and regularity of traditional worship in their lives, even if they're still not sure what or Who they are looking for to the healing of their souls. Each has a place, and blended is more of a moving target.

 

What I believe all Christian traditions are going to have to grapple with in the coming years, wherever they do or don't put the drum set or retractable projection screen, is the question of engagement.

 

No, not marriage related engagement. I'm talking about what a seeker is often looking for in their life, and with what they would usually concede is their developing or evolving faith. People today don't want to just attend or join, they want to feel engaged.

 

If you read this space last week, you would be right to ask "wait, but I thought you said people today tend to want to be able to just sit, are not into singing or reciting stuff, and are more passive consumers than involved worshipers?"

 

Yes, I said that. And while I don't think you have to accept that trend, you need to be aware of it. Folks like being part of the audience in what we're used to calling worship, but they go home and think about it, reflect on what they heard, and consider their future with you.

 

The big question becomes one of "what can I DO now?" Years ago, people joined in order to belong, and attended because it was expected. But today, people need to feel like they belong before they even think about joining, and they attend because they see a reason to be there. That's why many churches work very hard to put more people into the picture, and spend more staff time on creating those roles and managing them, than they do focusing on pastoral care needs. If you have 47 people involved in one form or another in worship, that's possibly 94 or more people you can be sure will attend. If you only have five or ten people directly involved in worship leadership . . . you can see the problem. Or rather, the lost opportunity.

 

Even more, younger visitors especially resonate to a direct invitation. You can do an invitation to a very well produced, professionally delivered two hour worship program, or you can invite them to a simple, cleanly offered 40 minute service with everyone heading out afterward for three hours of service and ministry – and you can see more buy-in and . . . engagement! . . . with the longer commitment.

 

I grew up traditional, and I tend to be more comfortable in that setting, but I've learned to be cautious if not out-right suspicious of comfort when it comes to Jesus. He's not all about that, if you know what I mean!

 

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he struggles with his own comfort zone, sometimes in public in print; tell him about your experiences with expanding your comfort zone at knapsack77@gmail.com or @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 7-22-17

Faith Works 7-22-17

Jeff Gill

 

Traditional means what, exactly?

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Contemporary, traditional, blended.

 

These are still words that tangle up congregations from time to time.

 

As I try to note from time to time, my own perspective is Protestant Christian, and while I try to be relatively well informed about other Christian bodies, my understanding of interfaith issues may be better than most, but it's still far behind where it could be.

 

So I note sheepishly that I just don't know if Buddhist or Islamic groups have their own version of the "worship wars" controversies, where musical selections and informality of the program tug different groups within the same tradition in very different directions.

 

Judaism has seen over a century of tensions resulting in the Orthodox, Ultra-orthodox, Hasidic, Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist Jewish groups. They all share certain elements around the Sabbath and how to observe it, but their willingness to bend tradition runs from not at all to just about anything goes.

 

Buddhism is a universe of complexity in itself, with three major traditions of teaching (depending on whom you ask) and within those schools of practice that can be very modern in their tone, or the next assembly down the road of that same school working to create the sense that you're in a cavern in Asia, from décor to language to program outlines.

 

So when I hear people talk in Midwestern varieties of mainline Protestantism about how they worry about people making changes in "timeless" traditions of worship, I have to resist a temptation to roll my eyes. Because it would be rude, not because they're not wrong.

 

The enduring problem is that when we've grown up with certain traditions and seen only them at work our whole lives, it's amazing how easy it is to assume this is what Peter, James, and Paul did back in the day.

 

In fact, we've all – Presbyterian and Episcopal and Baptist and Methodist and Lutheran, et cetera – seen our polity let alone our liturgy change quite a bit over the last century.

 

My own particular Protestant tradition had a major rift a century ago over the use of organ music as to whether that was appropriate for corporate worship or not. Sociologically, the relative cost of pipe organs had something to do with the division, as those who could afford them said they were surely fine, while those who couldn't argued that they weren't right for anyone. There were also some practical and theological arguments together as to whether corporate worship was improved by the loud and overpowering voice of the organ overwhelming the congregational singing, and when you add in a question of Biblical essentialism to the debate, you had a split in the making.

 

Meanwhile, today we hear many of the same arguments about praise bands and electronic amplification.  All of which go along with a contemporary Christian music style, but doesn't address the overall loss of interest in group singing or musical participation . . . I've led singing at church and Scout camps for over 40 years, and I can tell you that it's just plain harder to get people to sing than it used to be. Period.

 

Which is where I think the "traditional, contemporary, blended" distinctions miss the fact that while these categories are themselves, rightly or wrongly, controversial, there are intersections with other social issues that can confuse the issue for church leaders and worshipers alike.

 

Especially when it comes to those who are (for lack of a better term) un-churched, who may be seeking a faith community but have no experience with them in general, it's important to understand that folks do come in off the street with not so much a hostility as an absolute indifference to things like singing out loud. "Oh, you sing out loud? That's nice, I'm not gonna." It's not personal, it's just totally not their experience. Meanwhile, long-time Christians tell me they worry about screens and "losing the ability to hear the church sing hymns in four part harmony!"

 

Um, when did you last hear that?

 

I do agree: we lose something in Christian worship when we don't have the worship songs sung as a corporate, communal experience of common confession and united faith. It IS a loss, I agree. But we also have to understand the assumptions people walk in with, and those are often more passive, more internal, more absorptive with the processing happening elsewhere than during the church service itself.

 

Engagement is still important to them, but not necessarily in long responsive readings or lots of singing. I'll have more on that subject next week!

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he loves to sing the bass line on "Softly and Tenderly"; tell him about your experiences with worship style and outreach at knapsack77@gmail.com or @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 7-15-17

Faith Works 7-15-17

Jeff Gill

 

Halfway along through the summer

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Some will bemoan my gloomy observation that we are now, July 15, halfway through the classic American summer.

 

We're past the astronomical summer start of June 21 and the solstice; you can get technical with Memorial Day and Labor Day.

 

And kids go back to school about August 22 (depending on your district, check to be sure), with some athletes and musicians starting into training camps in just a week or two.

 

But basically, we think in the American Midwest of summer being June, July, and August, and this is the halfway point. A good time to assess, and make course corrections if called for.

 

What did you start out intending to do this summer? Paint the patio furniture? Get more exercise? Lose weight? Pray regularly in the morning? Visit some different church gatherings?

 

If you said you wanted to go somewhere or do something this summer, still believe it was a good idea, and haven't checked that off the list yet, then good news: it's not too late! Go for it, but make a plan.

 

Occasionally, especially for those of us for whom summer is over about the time the Hartford Fair wraps up (which gives some of us four weeks, tops), there's a grim realization that we can't do what we meant to do this summer. The two week trip isn't happening. The twenty pounds are not coming off by September. The reading plan is going to become a nightmare if we start now.

 

So good news even so: this is an ideal point to reassess. Stop, calm your mind, take out a piece of paper and a pencil, and work within your limitations. "Good enough" can be great when you get done and realize what you did, as opposed to what you intended.

 

Intentions can be a real burden, honestly.

 

What is do-able, and what is next? If I had any pastoral advice for you all, the congregation of the column, it would be simple, "good enough" things.

 

Eat a little more plant and vegetable material. Get an extra salad in this week. Forget the whatabouts (what about sugar? what about organic? what about vegetarian?) and just say "I will have a salad today." With or without grilled chicken? No, you're over-thinking this one. Just have a salad. Make an extra veg side dish next time you cook. A little more. Good, enough.

 

I'd counsel you to go take a walk. The whatabouts ask "what about how far? what about how often? what about how fast?" Nah, just take a walk. Around the block? Sure, it's better than the sofa for the next twenty minutes! Oh, you ask, I need to walk twenty minutes? No, overthinking. Maybe fifteen, maybe thirty; if you like the path and the weather and the company, maybe sixty. Just take a walk.

 

And likewise prayer. Pray for someone. "What about who I should pray for?" Okay, whatabout, I'll give you this one. Pray for someone else. Otherwise, how you pray, how long, where you sit, how many you pray for: nope, not going there. You'll know. A good enough prayer is spending some time focusing your heart and mind towards the power of God blessing someone not at your address. Oh, and you can pray while walking! Or not, good enough.

 

Learn something new. Every day? Ha, almost caught me. Yeah, often is good, but it's not a check-off. Maybe two things learned today, nothing tomorrow; learn something new. Stretch your mind. Yes, flipping through a travel magazine counts, or even a web page if you look closely, read some captions, think about life in a different place. Something new, learn something now and then.

 

And wonder. Experience wonder, at a cloud, a sunset, a newly opened flower. Oh, nature is what it's about? NO. How might you experience wonder? For me, sunrises are good, yes even in the summer. It's easier in the winter, I'll grant you. Look closely at the world, whether a brick pavement's pattern or the scattering of stars at dusk. But make sure you consume as much wonder as you do junk food, if not more.

 

Be blessed with whatever you do with the rest of your summer: I suspect if you put some effort into it, it will be good enough.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he likes sunrises and sunsets, but rainbows aren't bad at all. Tell him where you experience wonder at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 7-8-17

Faith Works 7-8-17

Jeff Gill

 

Distractions leading to spiritual clarity

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One of the subjects I'm most often asked by you all to write about is the matter of cell phones in worship.

 

Generally, the wish is for me to find the right formula of words from the pulpit or statement printed on the bulletin or up on the screens to help get the point across to everyone: please turn off or at least mute your devices!

 

I've heard phones go off at three of the last four funerals I've done. They're as likely to be among the immediate family as they are someone in the back row, so many of the clever and sharp rejoinders I've had suggested simply wouldn't be right. It does make you wonder what people are thinking . . . until your own goes off at an awkward moment. People who live through glass touchscreens shouldn't throw stones, perhaps?

 

My own cell phone is in a permanent state of mute. That works for me because I have reason enough to check it often, and keep it with me. Ring tones always seemed to me to be a piece of self-promotion and identity statement that really didn't work -- if I had a "Wu Tang Clan" ringtone, would that make me more legit? Doubtful.

 

Others I understand need at times that sound cue to remind them to check in, let alone answer the phone. So how to get it turned off, or down, or something, when it's time for worship, let alone a wedding or indeed a funeral?

 

From time to time, I will make a comment in the "setting-up" exercises in church, before the worship itself starts, and I don't tell anyone not to put a word in special folders for certain services, but I hate to put too much effort into it.

 

If you have the sensitivity of a snail, you already know you're in a special space, a different atmosphere, and times of quiet are ahead where a ring tone will make heads snap around. And if you get that, you'll self-police. If you don't get that, you probably won't think my announcement applies to you, anyhow.

 

What I would offer up is a word to those of us who feel that a cell phone's "ringing" is a jarring distraction that takes us out of where we want our thoughts to go: let's work on that problem in ourselves, shall we?

 

Because distractions change over time – I remember the first few months when digital watches and their on-the-hour beep were a chorus of electronica every 10 or 11 am in church – but some are not going away. Babies will fuss, or cry. Older members will grow a bit baffled, a great deal deaf, and whisper in a loud voice "what's he talking about?" to their friend in the next pew during a dramatic pause. Sirens will hasten past just beyond the walls, their sound intentionally even more piercing than they were a decade ago. Thunder rumbles in the summer season, other audible interruptions are all around us, whether the AC kicking in, or the blowers in the winter when the heat comes on.

 

Does a cell phone alert actually have to take us entirely, and enduringly, out of our attitude of prayer? Why should the vocalizations of an infant be a distraction that makes communion with the Lord impossible? What issues of focus and concern and guilt are tugging at our mental sleeves, already? If we regularly work on our spiritual disciplines and times of prayer, a distraction is really a bit of a test. Any of us can get jolted into a different awareness, but can we swiftly return to the peace we were feeling? Or were we there in the first place . . .

 

I don't want to encourage cell phones in worship. This is not an excuse for rude behavior (although I am intrigued by some people's choices in ring tones, I have to admit), but a call to reflection. What are we reacting to, and why is it such a big deal for us?

 

Trust me, I've been in churches where a baby hasn't interrupted worship for years. I'd rather learn, in faith, how to handle internally and communally the distractions when they come, than end up in a faith community where you're guaranteed no sudden loud noises.

 

That sounds more like a cemetery than a church!

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him about how you deal with distractions in worship at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.