Faith Works 11-21-15

Faith Works 11-21-15

Jeff Gill

 

Why go to church?

___

 

Why go to church?

 

For some of you that's a non-issue, you just go. It's time, let's get moving, shake a leg!

 

Not a few are reading and thinking "well, I don't, but I never wonder why, and I'm not sure I should start today!"

 

While Gallup surveys have pretty consistently for decades shown a 40% church attendance rate, measured by asking Americans "did you go to church last week?" more objective measures show it's closer to 17%.  Maybe in any given week 4 of 10 intend to go to church, and it's more an aspirational answer to what they hope to do this week than an accurate statement of what happened a week ago.

 

And Pew Research Center figures show that around 3 in 10 in the USA say "I seldom or never go to worship services of any sort."

 

About 5 in 10 Americans don't have what religious people would call "a church home," whether defined by membership or affiliation of some sort; many pastors would note that there are plenty of people on the rolls who may technically have a church home in their congregation, but they couldn't pick them out of a lineup for never having actually met them.

 

There's an awareness, too, that much of the decline in church attendance generally in the last few decades has been due to shifts in assumptions and expectations among church members. An active church member, fifty years ago, attended church three times a week. Today, if you attend church three times a month, you're pretty darn active. That could mean that you had 300 active members in 1965 and 300 in 2015, but your church's attendance average goes from something like 650 weekly in services to 150. Not fewer "in" your church, but measurably fewer coming to church.

 

If 2 out of 10 of those on your street go to church in any given week, is there anything to say to those other 8? Better yet, if later on Sunday afternoon you were one of those early risers and a neighbor asked you "why bother, when it's such a lovely day to sit on the porch, go for a drive, but sleep in first?" – how would you answer?

 

In some religious traditions, there's a sacramental reason to attend church. It is through corporate worship and the purpose of the service that you can have a closer encounter with the divine through the sacraments of the church. St Augustine, in the 5th century described a sacrament as "an outward and visible sign of an inward and invisible grace." Many traditions identify those as baptism and communion; some point to five and even seven acts of the church as sacramental, but the point is that at church and through coming together with the community for worship, you have access to the sacraments.

 

Today's world pushes against that in two directions. From one angle is the secular response, saying "there is no such thing as the sacramental or sacred." If the super- or supranatural is a myth, if materialism is fundamental reality, then sacramental anything is an illusion . . . so why participate in it?

 

The other angle is a sort of diffusive pantheism that is part of the "spiritual but not religious" trend that says "everything is sacred, trees and hills and fairways and even that scent of cinnamon from your special morning tea." If you can get the sacramental connection to the divine anywhere, and on your own terms, why come to a particular building at a certain time?

 

Decline aside, the fact is that thousands of your fellow citizens do get up, do go to church, and do believe they find something there that's just not as easily or reliably accessible in any location. And quite a few who are thinking about going, even if they haven't for a while, believe that there is that "something more" to life, and to meaning and purpose, and they want to find a connection beyond themselves, which might just come from being among others seeking the same.

 

There are a few more reasons I'd like to talk about next week as to why you'd skip (or postpone) a perfectly good brunch to attend worship. But a connection to the divine, to God, is probably the most important one for me.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's looking forward to tomorrow night's community Thanksgiving service at Neal Ave. UMC! Ask him for directions at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

 

Notes From My Knapsack 11-19-15

Notes From My Knapsack 11-19-15

Jeff Gill

 

Empty chairs at empty tables

___

 

One of the most affecting numbers in a very emotional musical, "Les Miserables," is sung after a battle is over, by a survivor who finds himself back in the wreckage of a cheerful place he once knew.

 

Marius sings "There's a grief that can't be spoken; there's a pain goes on and on. Empty chairs at empty tables - now my friends are dead and gone."

 

On Thanksgiving Day there are always homes and families who face this challenge. Sometimes it's literally a physical challenge, because of the geography of the dining room, or the particular arrangement of the people involved.

 

Someone is not there this year. Perhaps someone is simply on the road, off and away, and the meal is different but may return to the familiar next year. Who knows?

 

More often, someone is gone. A permanent move, a death, whatever the loss, it's a major jolt at those particular moments of household ritual. A position around the table is not occupied, and everyone else in one way or another has to shift.

 

Those shifts are physical, maybe you just scoot chairs around a little closer to fill the gap. And they are powerfully emotional, when the absence is felt and reinforced by those little acts that evoke the person not there. They are also ripples that wash through families, as relationships shift and splash up against each other.

 

Someone different roasts the turkey, another family member brings the pie, it's a different friend who mulls the cider . . . or the cider isn't there this year.

 

Of the usual circle around the table, there might be one in the hospital, someone moved to a nursing home, even somebody in jail. But more often, the sense of loss is because, inevitably, in any family over time, a loved one has died.

 

My recommendation to anyone when this subject comes up is to acknowledge it. Don't try to gloss over the absence, to pretend they were never there, not talking about that missing person. Prayer is a perfect platform for an out-loud acknowledgment of loss and sorrow, to say that there's someone we miss from this table this year.

 

Other rituals or intentional acts can fill that same gap; a candle on the table, a flower in a vase, a card at a place setting. I don't know that I would recommend a full place setting and empty chair, but for some families, that's almost necessary at least the first year, because the loss is felt so strongly there's no way around making that absence visible.

 

It's a different observance, but I do think of the Jewish traditions around Passover, another table-centered annual tradition. For many families, part of the meal is to have a chair in the room, if not full place setting at the table, called Elijah's chair. And in the Passover seder, there's a point where it's remembered that Elijah has promised to return, and a door is opened, and there's a moment.

 

My prayers are with everyone who will be having "a moment" in their hearts this Thanksgiving Day.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he has been converted to roasted Brussels sprouts late in life. Tell him about your holiday traditions at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 11-14-15

Faith Works 11-14-15

Jeff Gill

 

Stories of sacrifice, and of service

___

 

A quick note: a week from tomorrow, on Sunday evening, Nov. 22 at Neal Avenue United Methodist Church, a community Thanksgiving Service will be held at 7:00 pm, sponsored by the Newark Area Ministerial Association. This service moves around the city each year, but is a longstanding tradition where we can, as Christians, come together in thanks and praise for an evening. And yes, there will be an offering, which will go entirely to the Coalition of Care. Please consider joining us for an hour of scripture and song next Sunday.

 

The following really should have been written last year, on the fiftieth anniversary of a death in what was then still known in the news as the Belgian Congo, by 1964 an independent nation known today as the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

 

I'd like to lift up before you all the life of Phyllis Rine, a young woman of this area who died on November 24, 1964 during what is known as the "Congo Massacre," when some 250 Christian missionaries were killed. Obviously, I never knew her (says your columnist, born in 1961), but I've met those who did, and had heard her story told in hushed tones as a child myself, back in Illinois during Sunday school assemblies. She had been a missionary in Stanleyville, now Kisangani, when a Maoist-inspired Communist militia took over the town, and after two months of captivity as a hostage, was killed with many other missionaries, nuns, and medical workers from the West, even as soldiers landed on the edge of town to attempt their rescue.

 

Until this week, I had not tracked down the place where they brought her body back to be buried, just over the county line in her native Martinsburg. But recently I had some business in Utica and then in Zanesville, so had no excuse not to stop and search a bit in that small town along my way, and indeed found the place where she is buried.

 

Phyllis has relatives still living in Knox and Licking Counties, and I am hesitant to say too much that might intrude on their own memories. But as we become ever more aware of some of the struggles people of faith are having around the world, this one death represents some of the dangers that still exist for believers. The stories we hear today may seem as distant as fifty years and more, but standing at her grave made both her story and today's tragedies something more immediate in my own prayers and reflections.

 

She went to a church camp of the Restoration Movement tradition that we share, and heard a missionary speak who I heard speak once, years later in Indiana. His story motivated her to attend Cincinnati Bible Seminary, now Cincinnati Christian University, and to go into the mission field. In sum, she barely spent two years in Africa, teaching and working and witnessing.

 

These words, on the wall of her childhood home, made an epitaph that her friend and fellow missionary Zola Brown would use in writing a book about her all too brief life:

 

Only one life 'twill soon be past,
Only what's done for Christ will last.

 

Service and sacrifice and surrender to God's will -- may her example bring us more inspiration than sorrow, a life that has touched more of us after her death than she ever could have known and ministered to while on this earth. She left Ohio so all the world might know about the hope that was in her, and that hope did not die in Africa, but was instead reborn. Martinsburg was a good place to pray on a November morning, over fifty years after this marker was set. We never really know what will endure . . .

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; so far, God just sent him to Ohio. Tell him where you believe you are called to serve at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 11-7-15

Faith Works 11-7-15

Jeff Gill

 

The season of giving is all the year long

___

 

You're getting them in the mail, I know.

 

The pitches are on the radio, online, in the print pages of publications, even stuffed into your Sunday bulletin.

 

What will you give, how much and to what, and now, on which basis?

 

Are you prepared to donate by credit card? To have your contributions "painlessly" removed from your account in an amount designated by you each month, automatically renewable? Would you like to give a sum that will be matched by another friend of the cause or concern or church that you support?

 

They come with pictures of sad faced children, appealing puppies, weary men sitting behind a steaming bowl of soup, or Third World women behind a piece of decrepit looking machinery.

 

It might have a glossy finish and a simple pledge card attached to the presentation folder, or be a pop-up which can link you to an electronic form where your credit information is made secure by . . . little mysterious electronic gnomes. Anyhow.

 

Many of you who read this feature have a faith community to which you make an annual commitment, paid weekly or monthly or annually, which you review each year as the congregation reminds you what you're all doing together, and how your faithful response can help those works of mercy be a witness to the nations. Good for you!

 

There are also many of you who choose to give from your own blessings, out of your own resources, as a spiritual discipline that helps keep you mindful that everything we have is a gift, from money to materials, that really just pass through our hands for a time. To say it's "mine" or even that "I earned it" is potentially going to burden us with a sense that stuff is so connected to us that we get confused about who we are versus what our stuff is, or more simply: you can't take it with you.

 

Giving is a way to remember that money may be rightfully ours for a time, but it will pass through our hands like all earthly things, and the most we can do is direct it for a short distance after we've gotten it, like water through a fire hose.

 

What can misdirect even our well-meaning impulse to give is that old bugaboo, guilt. If we let guilt drive our giving decisions, we end up whipsawed by emotion and sentiment and visceral appeals without much substance.

 

Don't let sad-eyed puppies cause you to lurch over to the laptop; even honorable causes for patriotic purposes can be using the flag to drape over some unworthy or at least wasteful activities.

 

Here's my challenge for you when it comes to giving, whether it's a one-off donation or signing up for one of those "only $19.99 a month" automatic giving schemes. Ask yourself this basic question: what are my own personal priorities in this world? Which areas of our community are most important to who I am, who I'm trying to be, and what I want this world to become?

 

Figure out what areas and issues are important to you *before* you come up against a donation pitch. Ask how you want to represent your passions, your priorities through your monetary contributions. Maybe even ask yourself: if I had the time and latitude, which causes would I actually put time into myself if I could? Most of us can't do the direct service we'd like, but that's a big part of what giving does: it represents us and empowers others to do the work we wish we could do if we had the opportunity to do it ourselves.

 

Friends, once you've done that fairly simple exercise, the good news is that you now get to do two things. One, you sit down and make plans to give money where you really wish to be giving of yourself. Trust me, that will feel good, because that check or credit card pledge or cash in the collection plate will start to really feel like a part of you going forth.

 

And secondly, you will come to find that you are no longer whipsawed by those other appeals that can so tug at you. When you know what you're giving, and why, and to whom, you can rest easy in knowing you can't cover it all, so sometimes you just have to let others do their part . . . but you are doing yours!

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he knows where he wants his giving to go! Tell him where your commitments take you at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter. 

Notes From My Knapsack 11-5-15

Notes From My Knapsack 11-5-15

Jeff Gill

 

The Times, and the Sentinel, Are A Changin'

___

 

This year is coming to an end with some pretty remarkable changes happening, that in another way, most of you probably won't notice.

 

My editor in these pages will no longer be ol' Chuck, as Peppermint Patty might say. Charles A. Peterson steps down as editor for this paper and I will, Deus volent, have to get used to a new e-mail address and point of contact for this column . . . should they wish to retain my humble services!

 

Of all the many editors I've had over the years, here and with the Booster that preceded my Sentinel tenure, and at the Advocate for my other Saturday column on the "Your Faith" page, I have had Chuck as my go-to guy for more years than any of them. It's nice for a writer to know what's being looked for and how they're responding to certain subjects or topics, because every editor is a little different. When they leave and new ones arrive, more changes than just the e-mail.

 

Chuck has given me wide latitude to try things over the years that aren't common to a community column slot, and he's put me up for awards, which has gotten me feedback from far beyond our circulation area: for all that, and just for being a friendly face with a helpfully critical eye, thank you Chuck, and I will miss you!

 

Likewise I'm going to find some new adjustments in my work as a citizen who chairs your village Board of Zoning and Building Appeals. As a member for eight years and chair for the last few, I've always worked with Alison Terry as our Village Planner. She has made our lives simpler and more straightforward through those years for all of us volunteers on the panel.

 

I can't say she's made our lives easier, because that's not within her scope. The challenges that arrive in the village planning offices come with questions and requirements that are often entirely outside of any of our control, and the challenge for the BZBA is to navigate fairly and justly the desires of property owners, the wishes of neighbors, the intentions of council codified in ordinances and further interpreted by appeals court precedent, and to reach decisions that, ideally, won't be overturned. As I perhaps say too often as chair, if it were easy, it wouldn't have gotten to us in the first place.

 

But Alison's role supporting us in the requests for variances and conditional use permits and such has been invaluable. She is always prepared (would that we all on the panel could say the same!) and has anticipated all manner of twists and turns the discussion takes that we may not have even imagined.

 

I've not had but two jobs in my life that were eight years and more. The BZBA has had new law directors and new recording secretaries, but Alison has always been there for us, even when we know she'd like to get home to her kids. Well, she's decided that they need to be her first priority, so we lose her as this year ends, but hope to see her around in various roles: just not as Village Planner.

 

The new planner will have some big, and very stylish shoes to fill . . .

 

For most of you reading this or in the village in general, life will go on, the paper will come out, and new structures and remodeling of old ones will continue. But for those of us closer to the production end of those processes, it will really be a new year in 2016!

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him about transitions you see happening at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.