Study Leave Report: Encounter with the Lost

Encounter with the Lost:
Today I had an interesting conversation with a frustrated woman who has been looking for a church. Here is the verbatim story she told me, as best as I can recall…

"So I was wanting to go back to church since I hadn’t been there for a long time.. Something was just missing. My husband’s Episcopalian and I’m Catholic, so we thought we would look for something both of us could agree on, and we started looking around. We went to a church and I couldn’t believe what happened. We walked in and a man came over to welcome us, but instead of saying, “Hello,” or “It’s nice to meet you,” the first thing out of his mouth was, “You understand that if you are not a member of this Synod you cannot take communion.” I should have walked out then , but I thought it was so out of line that it had to be just this guy having a bad day or something. So we sat down and then the pastor came over. I thought this was nice for him to take the time to welcome someone he recognized as a visitor. You’d think so, right? Well you wouldn’t believe this. All he said was “I want you to know that you can’t take communion with us. “ I was thinking to myself, “To hell with you.” But it gets worth. We should have just gotten up and walked out, but we stayed around. After church? Someone else came over to greet us, and they handed us a membership card that wanted to know how much money we made. Have you ever heard of such a thing? I gave up looking for a church. Just look at all the crap that goes on, and they wonder why people don’t go to church? Shouldn’t they be living the virtue of the faith, and all they do is tell you you don’t mean anything to them but money and you have no business being there? It’s terrible.

"I left my last church because all they did was fight over one scandal after another. They would just get through with one problem and they would have to deal with another one. All anyone wanted to do there was fight about stupid stuff, and never do anything to help you find peace and virtue. It’s ridicules. I mean I’ve just stopped looking. It’s not worth the fight."

Three things I learn from this that all of us should take into account:
First, this woman made up her mind pretty much within the first 30 seconds of walking in the door. The man who greeted her had all the ability to set the tone for the visit. Think of it, the first person a visitor meets, maybe it’s you, has a great gift to extend the hospitality of our Lord, right then and there. This is not great program. You don’t have to be elected to an office to do this. We just need just a willingness to be a friend to the searching soul in the same way Jesus is a friend to sinners. After all, who of us is not searching for some sense of comfort and care on any Sunday when we also walk into worship.

Second, this woman was not interested in doctrinal barriers or church rules, but that is all her heard. She was looking for a place where the virtues of life would be exhibited and nurtured. How often does the religion, or the rules, or the doctrine (as important as they are) instead of being guidelines for being a church, become barriers to someone’s searching heart from finding God. Maybe it is a good idea to keep church business to the enclaves of committee debates, but when living the church, it is incumbent upon us to live with grace that welcomes, cares, comforts, nurtures and loves.

Third, the failures of this one church have hurt all churches. Simply because the experience was so offensive, this woman and her husband gave up all together on searching for a relationship with God through the church. That is a shame. It tells us that what we do and how we do it may have profound influences beyond the limitations of our walls.

In summary, whatever the program, whatever the denomination, whatever the rules and order, how ever we end up structuring the church for the next phase of our ministry and growth, the most critical component will be the warm and comforting heart of the parishioner who welcomes the lost and suffering soul into the fellowship of our Lord’s praise and glory.

Future of Ministry

Dear Friends:

Our finances and structure will change in June. And we need your help to do the correctly.

The manner in which we have been doing ministry for the past six years will not be sustainable beyond June 30, simply because the design we have been using is inappropriate for where we are and where we need to be going. The Session, the Treasurer, the Presbytery and I are keenly aware that if we continue using this structure we will suffocate.

Our mission strategy for the past six years was put in place in November 2004 specifically to secure a pastor-driven program for closing out the ministry in Holyoke, planting a new church and constructing a building in a new mission field. All of us were very successful at this. The ten year task was accomplished in five.

We now need to be equally successful at making our church’s ministry expansive in its comfort the sick and dying, care and feeding of the hungry, and the nurture of hurt and suffering souls if we are to continue to flourish. In many ways this is a grand opportunity. All the energy and resources we put into building a building, can now be directed to service, compassion, teaching, comforting, healing all in the name of Christ our Lord.

This week I will be exploring how to structure our church given our size and financial position so as to advise the Session. But I need your help in this. All of us need to be part of the discussion. Please begin by participating in our Session’s “Designing Our Next Phase of Ministry” questionnaire that was distributed on Easter and is available again this morning.

The questionnaire is asks only five questions. It’s short, but we need everyone’s input. We need to ourselves protect against making inaccurate assumptions from limited input. Answer the questions, drop it at the office, or mail it back.

You can download a PDF version from the website, www.PioneerPresbyterian.org.

Ideas can be shared also on FaceBook; search “Life in the Meadows,” or “First Presbyterian, Granby MA.”

Comments can also be posted on the Pastor Blog, at LifeSparkofFaith.blogspot.com, or Google search “Life Spark of Faith Blog.”