Showing posts with label Church Council. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Church Council. Show all posts

Sunday, June 5, 2022

Pentecost Potential

I feel like I've fallen out of time, more so than usual. I am away at Synod Assembly, and while our Florida Bahamas Synod (ELCA) Assembly has been rather ordinary, other synods have not been.  I still have a cast on my arm, which means I'm not sleeping well.  And we're getting ready for a move later this summer, which makes it hard in so many ways to live in the present.

It's a strange time in the life of the nation to come to Pentecost again. I am hollowed out and exhausted. I've been hollowed out and exhausted before, of course. But my low points rarely intersect with a national low point, the way they are now. We are at a time of frequent mass shootings and global pandemic and higher inflation than we've had in decades.

Pentecost visions are more important than ever, aren't they?

The festival day of Pentecost reminds us that great things can happen when the Holy Spirit takes hold of a community. If we need a reminder of that, all we need to do is to look at the state of the church on Pentecost morning, and then think about the spread of Christianity in the decade after Pentecost.

And Christianity was spread by regular people--sure, there were some superstars like Paul. But Paul came and went, and then regular people had to keep the vision alive.

They did.  They kept the vision alive and expanded on it.   Pentecost both celebrates that fact and invites us to welcome the Holy Spirit in to our modern communities.

Pentecost reassures us with the mystical promise of the Spirit. We do not have to know what we are doing; we just need to be open to the movement of the Spirit. Pentecost promises daring visions; we don’t have to know how we’re going to accomplish them. God will take care of that.

God became incarnate to prepare humans to carry on the work of Kingdom creation. And Pentecost reminds us of our job description, to let the Holy Spirit blow into our hollowed out spaces and to fill us with the fire to dream and the resources to bring our visions to life.

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

How to Be Welcoming to All

Last night, on the eve of the beginning of a Supreme Court case that may make historic decisions about marriage rights, my church council discussed what it would mean to be a Reconciling in Christ church.

Before I get lots of nasty comments about how I'm not a true Lutheran, let me remind everyone that my ELCA church is part of an ELCA synod that is a Reconciling in Christ synod.

Reconciling in Christ congregations declare themselves to be welcoming to all, specifically to transgender, homosexual, lesbian, and queer people.  Some might wonder why that welcoming stance needs to be articulated.  Some of us know that churches might declare themselves to be welcoming, but they really aren't. 

There is some part of me that wonders if we are very late to this conversation.  Many younger people aren't wrestling with this issue, the way that their elders are.

When I look at our church, it doesn't seem to me that we have a struggle with being welcoming to gays and lesbians.  In fact, we've had a transgendered person as a member for a few years, and although that situation was very new for many of us, we rose to the occasion. 

I certainly don't mind going through the process of being a RIC congregation and declaring ourselves to be welcoming.  But part of me thinks we're spending a lot of time and energy on what I suspect will be a non-issue. 

Instead, perhaps we should be talking about how to be welcoming to the mentally ill.  I wrote this blog post about our experience in church on Sunday.   It's much harder to be welcoming to the disruptive mentally ill than it is to be welcoming to most gay and lesbians who come through our door.  After all, most of our gay, lesbian, and transgendered visitors and members have been very similar to the rest of the congregation.  But the mentally ill may not be.

It's hard in modern society to know how to be welcoming and open and how to keep us all safe.  There is some niggling part of my brain that whispers, "God did not gather us together to be safe."

Our church insurance company would not like to hear that whisper.

In many ways, my thoughts this morning trace back to the burden of having a building to care for.  Did Jesus die on the cross so that we could discuss insurance issues and how to install a ramp for the handicapped and how to keep the roof from leaking?

I've written about this issue before, like in this blog post.  As I've said before, I don't have the answers.  A church building is both a blessing and a curse.  A community of humans will have different ideas of how to be welcoming.

But it is good to be wrestling with these issues together.  We have a better chance of embodying the light of Christ when we combine our flickers into a brighter flame.

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Foreheads: Crosses of Ash, Crosses of Oil

Last night, I talked to my pastor about Ash Wednesday.  He said he planned to do the final planning this morning.  I said, "Can I be an ash smudger?  I really love being the ash smudger.  I'd do it year round, if it was liturgically appropriate!"

We were at a church council meeting, so my enthusiasm wasn't completely out of line, although not exactly shared by my compatriots.  However, it surprised me, and I've been puzzling out why I like it so much.

I think about the other time we put crosses on each other's foreheads:  during our monthly healing service, for example.  Why don't I feel the same pull to do that?

I do, but it's a different feeling.  As I smudge the oil, I can often sense the brokenness and the yearning for healing.  And even though I know intellectually that it's not about me, that I'm not the Messiah.  If there's healing to be done, my fingers, words, and the oil, are a very miniscule, non-essential part.  But my emotional side feels fretful about the disappointment that might lie in wait for the bodies connected to these foreheads.

In short, so much hope is riding on that cross of oil . . . but the cross of ash isn't carrying the same weight.  Yet I feel the same tenderness as I approach each forehead.

I've written before about how I used to hate, hate, HATE Ash Wednesday as a child.  But as an adult, it's become one of my favorite high, holy days.  It's partly about the symbolism, which marks a shift to the liturgical year.  It's partly about the chance to do something different. 

But the older I get, the more I am aware of how we are but blades of grass, so quickly withered and blown away.  I like that reminder.  I think of my friend's Hindu priest, who smudges ash on his face every day as a reminder of mortality. 

Once I thought that we'd all be better off if we did the same.  Lately, I need no such reminders.  My Facebook feed is reminder enough of how quickly life can change.

It's also the time of year that my inner visual artist perks up and wants to play.  We could do so much with ash.  I am yearning to paint, yearning to stitch.  Let us see . . .

Sunday, July 20, 2014

Quilting a Meeting

Yesterday, I took my time-sensitive quilting project to our church council meeting.   I've been on the lookout for chunks of time to work on it, and yesterday's meeting seemed perfect, with its start time moved from 10 a.m. to 9:30 a.m.  I don't usually take copious notes so I thought I'd try quilting during our meeting time.

I've noticed that many of our members keep looking at their cell phones, so I didn't feel I'd be disrespectful by quilting.  In fact, I think I think checking one's cell phone is more distracting mentally than quilting.  One of our members has worked on knitting a prayer shawl, so there's been a precedent.

During my time at the Create in Me retreat, I crocheted a prayer shawl.  I worried that I might not pay attention if I was crocheting, but I found that just the opposite was true.  Having my hands busy quieted my mind.  And when I look at my notebook from that retreat, I find that I took notes too.

Yesterday, I found that the quilting calmed my mind in a similar way.  And when our meeting time went longer than scheduled, I didn't mind.  I made more progress, and that was good.

I wish I could take my quilting and crocheting projects with me everywhere, especially to meetings at work.  Alas, taking my projects to work is probably unwise--but perhaps I'll start thinking about meetings of other types as opportunities to get some quilting done.

Friday, February 21, 2014

Leaving Church Council Leadership

I have been President or Vice President of our church council since 2009.  At my old church, I was also church council president for several years before that.

On Tuesday, I presided over my last meeting as president.  I announced my intention not to seek office, and we had elections.  I'll still serve on council, but it's time to step aside from leadership.  It's time for several reasons.

We've had some grueling years where we've wrestled with a variety of financial issues, from a huge tax bill to building issues that needed serious money.  You may be saying, "I didn't think that churches paid taxes."  But we have workers, which means that some money needs to go to the IRS.  We had several years of incorrect calculations which led to quite a mess.

Happily, those issues are either behind us or on track.  But it's left me very tired and drained.

Luckily, there are others who are not so tired and drained.  Luckily, we have several people on council with leadership skills.

Even if we didn't have strong leadership, I'd still be stepping aside. I firmly believe that leaders should step aside on a regular basis to provide space for others to develop their skills.  If there's always a leader in place who will do things, very few people will fight for their opportunity to lead.  If leaders step aside, it gives an opportunity for others.

It's good for succession planning too.  It's dangerous to rely on the same person for too long.  It's better to have a team.  One person can be hit by a bus or stricken with a crisis of any sort.  A team needs to be there to step into the gap.

Unfortunately, with all our churches being so small, at least in this part of the nation, we don't have a huge pool, which means that the same people are often doing it all, in terms of leadership--which leads to burnout.

I worry about the same issues with paid leadership and staff.  We don't have the kind of church of yesteryear, with several assistant pastors and 2 musicians and a youth director and a secretary or two.  In our church, the pastor does the bulk of the work.  I suspect the same is true of many churches.

Our pastor will be returning from sabbatical soon.  At least we can give him some sabbatical time, even if we can't afford a huge staff.

Maybe it's good that we can't afford a huge staff.  It allows space for more laypeople to do more.

Except that they often don't.  There are still strong cultural beliefs about what the pastor should do and what the laypeople should do--those beliefs are hard to overcome.

I could digress into a long exploration of pastoral authority and the professionalization of the pastor as a career choice.  But this post has gone on long enough, and it's time to touch base with the new president of our church council.  We've got transitioning to do!

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Multiple Worship Locations

Jan Edmiston has written a pair of fascinating posts, which work well as separate pieces, but even better together.

A few days ago, I read this post, which talks about being one person with many different spiritual communities.  I have long felt that way.  I usually have a local spiritual community, along with distant sites where I go regularly, like Mepkin Abbey and Lutheridge.

But could one have different spiritual communities in the same town?  I haven't experimented with that as much because most weeks, it's all I can do to maintain ties to my local church, much less add some more to my schedule.

There have been times, however, when I've yearned for something different and more contemplative.  My local church has periodic contemplative offerings, but what if I actually could be a Quaker/Lutheran?  What if I could find a nearby community that chanted the Liturgy of the Hours, and I could join them occasionally on week days?  What if I worshiped someplace else, but returned to my home church to help with the spiritual formation of children?  Edmiston's post made me think about the possibilities. 

I'd love to find someplace close to work, where I could slip away for week day refreshment.  Even a noon concert would be great.  I've moved away from thinking that I need a liturgy-readings-sermon-Eucharist kind of experience for it to count as authentic worship.  A beautiful concert that turned my attention to God would help me greatly.

And no, a prayer group at work is not what I want.

As I read Edmiston's post, I thought about how many different churches see themselves as in a competition for members, and thus, if someone like me wanted to worship multiple places, that might be seen as betrayal.  Edmiston has written about those issues with this post.  She ends with this provocative question:  "One culture shift we need to make is becoming less prideful  (“Our church is Big Deal Church on the Hill“) and more Kingdom-focused (“Who cares through which portal someone enters just as long as transformation happens?“)."

Along the way, she shares a vision of what can happen if several churches join together.  It's powerful.

Of course, it's hard to know just how to do that.  My suburban church had a partnership for several years with an urban church who provided Wed. night dinners.  Unfortunately, that program was ultimately disbanded by the urban church, and we haven't done anything else with them.

And her post doesn't address what happens if no church is the Big Deal Church on the Hill, but if we're all struggling just to pay the bills and keep the building from falling into utter disrepair, and thus, can't do the visioning necessary to move in the direction that she proposes.

Sigh.  Yes, I write this on the morning of our Church Council meeting, where we will likely be less Kingdom focused and more building/finance focused.  Double sigh.

Thursday, January 9, 2014

Building Campaigns and Leadership

Our church is about to move into high gear as we get our building back into shape.  We've had flurries of e-mails; I'm already exhausted by it all.  I know that we are lucky--we were able to get a loan so that we can pay for it all.  But the process of getting that loan has left me wrung out too.

In the midst of it all, it was great to read this post about the church as warming center where people can be housed during cold snaps.  This sentence leapt out at me:   "This, my friends, is why churches have buildings.  They are tools for ministry."

Yes they are--good to be reminded.

I have been serving in church leadership for half a decade now in this particular church.  We will soon have church council elections.  I will continue on church council since my term is not up yet.  But the thought has nudged me several times in the last week:  perhaps it is time for me to become a Council member who is not in leadership.  By stepping aside, maybe I will enable someone with the skills necessary for this time to step forward.

I was glad to read this post about making a deal with the new year.  It was good to be reminded that some of my failures as a leader are not my fault.  As the years go by, perhaps they won't even look like failures.

I have served in leadership positions in many areas of life, and nothing has ever made me feel more inept than serving in church leadership.  It continues to amaze me how long it takes to get a project completed.  It staggers my imagination to remember how much ugliness one can encounter as one tries to get the most basic tasks accomplished.

Perhaps the Holy Spirit is trying to tell me something.  Or maybe it's a different spirit, speaking in evil hisses through my tiredness, painting my bleak mood into something more diabolical.

Thursday, December 5, 2013

Advent Dreams, Building Transformations

Tonight we are likely to have the kind of church council meeting that I dread.  We will likely talk about how our income is nowhere close to matching our outflow of cash.

I suspect that these conversations are not uncommon in churches across the land.  But oh, how I am weary of this conversation.

Our situation may feel more acute because we've just finalized a loan so that we can take care of building repairs (the roof, the AC, some parking lot issues).  Instead of rejoicing that the money is in the bank and work can begin, we are feeling a bit of panic because now we must repay the loan.

As a woman who did a lot of the work to get us the loan (e-mails, phone calls, e-mails, photocopying documents, e-mails, more phone calls, e-mails, filing paperwork at the Broward county office, and yet more e-mails), I'd like to spend a bit more time in gratitude before we move to panic.

Or maybe we just skip the panic please.  Do we trust in the Holy Spirit or don't we?

In the spirit of full disclosure, I'm not sure I do.  Wait, let me clarify.  I'm not sure I trust in the Holy Spirit to send us money to pay the bills.  In my quieter moments when I'm not doing tasks to finalize a loan, I'm wondering if the Holy Spirit isn't telling us something that most of us don't want to hear.

I had these thoughts again when I read this blog post and wondered if we'd rather have staff or a church building.  We can just barely afford our pastor and our building.  I'm not sure we can afford our staff members.

Of course, we have a building that's on lots of land for a South Florida location--we haven't even begun to explore utilizing/maximizing those resources.  Is the Holy Spirit nudging us that way?

If you've read this blog for any length of time, you've read my thoughts on my uneasiness with buildings; this piece is typical, plus it has a link to a great post by Nadia Bolz-Weber about the Babylonian captivity of our buildings.  Jesus sent his earliest followers out into the world, and they weren't scouting for locations for new church buildings.  Sigh.

Lately I have been wondering if Church Council is not the place where I'm supposed to be.  I just do not care about this building.  It's ugly.  The space is poorly designed.  And did I mention how ugly it is?  Why must we spend so much time talking about the building?

In this time of Advent, what is the Holy Spirit saying to me?  To phrase it another way:  if we have to spend so much time talking about this wretched building, what kinds of conversations could thrill me?

I've been thinking again about the church as a center for the arts.  Could I transform this ugly building into such a vision?

Could I make it possible for others to do that?  It doesn't have to be about me, after all.

I'm more interested in the programming than in the building.  What would that programming look like?

It's Advent, the time for diving deep into our dreams and visions.  I shall try to be more open to mine.

Saturday, November 23, 2013

Nominations for Church Council

Later today, I'll head over to church for a Nominating Committee Meeting.  How does your church handle nominations for Church Council?

I've never been part of a church that handles nominations the way my current church does.  My current church council selects a nominating committee.  The committee meets separately and very privately.  I'm not always part of the committee, but I have been, and here's what happens.

We open in prayer and then silence.  We have paper.  We write down names that bubble up.  After a certain amount of time, we compare notes.  We develop a slate of nominations to take back to Council.  From that slate, Council prays for wisdom about who would  be best.  Then Council develops a slate to take to the church meeting in January.

At the church meeting, nominations can come from the floor, but they rarely do.  Usually, the Church acclaims the slate of names.

This process is much less divisive than the ones I've heard about in many churches.  Many churches have regular elections, where people run for office--sometimes complete with campaign themes.  As you can imagine, it can get ugly.

In most churches where I've been a member, they've been small churches where it's hard to find anyone willing to serve.  The process we've adopted doesn't rely on volunteers.  We go to them to say, "Your name came to our minds when we prayed and asked the Holy Spirit for the best candidates for Council."

People can still refuse, of course.  Holy Spirit promptings or no, some people are already overwhelmed without adding another commitment to their lives.  But it feels different than the crass campaigning that's a danger of doing Council elections differently.

You might scoff at the idea that the Holy Spirit gets involved with us this way.  At first, I had doubts too.  But having gone through the process, it does feel more mystical than other ways of electing Council members.  It does feel like God will be present in the process if we ask.

Sunday, April 21, 2013

Blessed to Be Blessings

A week ago, we spent a Sunday with Rich Melheim, where we learned all sorts of techniques for enriching our relationships.  Our church has been using Faith 5 techniques*, so they weren't new to me.  I did think about how much I've come to cherish the practice of blessing each other.

When we leave each other for the day, my spouse has been blessing me this week.  With his finger, he draws a cross on my forehead and says, "Remember that you are blessed to be a blessing."  It is good to remember that fact as I go to work, a place that doesn't always bless me.

I bless him in return.

Yesterday, we had our Church Council budget retreat.  I decided to start with the Faith 5.  I firmly believe that our meeting went smoothly because the exercise helped remind us that we're all humans, doing our best.  I think that blessing each other put us in a good frame of mind.  I believe that we were more open to the movements of the Holy Spirit by opening ourselves up this way.

One of the most profound parts of the Create in Me retreat happened for me this year at the end of our second day of Bible study.  We teamed up with a partner, put our hands on the partner's head, and repeated the words that end the sacrament of Baptism:

"Sustain ______ with the gift of your Holy Spirit:  the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord, the spirit of joy in your presence, both now and forever."

Then we marked the sign of the cross on foreheads, saying these words:  "______, child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever."

My partner and I, both moved to tears, then hugged.

I haven't really done much with blessing in these ways before these past 9 months.  It's been much more wondrous than I ever predicted it could be. 

And like the best spiritual practices, it's so simple and easy to do.


*Share highs and lows, read the Bible, connect the Bible to highs and lows, pray, bless

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Moneychangers in the Temple, Rummage Sales in the Fellowship Hall

My morning prayers (in Phyllis Tickle's The Divine Hours: Prayers for Springtime) have the reading that shows Jesus throwing the moneychangers out of the Temple. In some (all?) of the Gospels, this action is part of the Holy Week actions that get Jesus in trouble.


This same morning, I got an e-mail because I'm part of the Executive Committee of my Church--how shall we pay for the roof job that needs to be done? Even though I had the Gospel ringing in my head, I suggested putting a special donation envelope in every Easter bulletin. This church building won't heal itself, after all.

I'm also aware of our example of the Babylonian captivity of our buildings, as Nadia Bolz-Weber puts it in this post. These buildings have demands on our time, energy, and money. In retrospect, it might have been wiser not to buy them in the first place.

But we have bought them. And they do require upkeep. And they can be a wondrous resource. I've written about this before. I want to get back to the issue of moneychangers and our Temples.

When we first moved down here, I was surprised by how many churches had carnivals in their parking lots. I was surprised by huge rummage sales in the church fellowship halls. It was so different from the churches of my childhood and adolescent.

Youth groups were allowed to have car washes, but that was about it, in terms of overt fund raising. We might have done a special fund drive, but unless you were on church council or some sort of committee, church members wouldn't have a sense of needing to pay the light bill, needing to come up with extra money to replace the roof.

I lived in a variety of Southern towns until we moved down here in 1998, and I never heard of a church rummage sale. It would have been too close to money changers in the Temple. I saw the occasional farmer's market in church parking lots, but that was as close as they got.

I was part of a very small church when we first moved here, and a few members REALLY wanted to do a rummage sale. Because of my background, I had reservations. I was outvoted.

Now I am opposed to rummage sales for a different reason. Holy cow, they're a lot of work! Should the body of Christ really spend its time tagging the trash of other people? Why not just put it all on the lawn and let everyone take it away for free?

Well, for one reason, it would be a mob scene. I was a bit horrified at the reaction of people at that church rummage sale back in the early part of this century. It went beyond haggling. There was verbal abuse when we wouldn't drop our prices. Ick.

If people behaved that way over items that were only priced at a few dollars, how would they behave when fighting over free things?

My slightly larger current church has rummage sales periodically. I'm amazed at the amount of stuff we offer for sale. I want to believe that the cheap rejects from one family may go on to help someone else's family survive.

Is the money worth the time? I'm not having that argument anymore. Everyone gets to make those decisions for themselves.

And back to the original question: how shall we pay for these operating expenses? I want to believe that everyone is contributing--but what to do if those contributions don't cover the expenses? Special fund drives? More rummage sales? Taking out a loan? Finding other groups that want to use our space, groups that will contribute money? Asking congregational members to adopt a bill?

You're hoping I'll have an answer. I do not. Each approach has its own drawbacks. Each has some possibilities.

What would Jesus do?  Send us out two by two?  Suggest special projects that the Church should do?  Give us a special vision that blows our minds?

Again, I don't pretend to have that answer. 

Churches will come to a variety of answers and that's cool.  At the very least, I'd like us to encourage us to behave in ways that bear witness to God, not in ways that undercut it.

Monday, March 18, 2013

A New Approach to Church Council

At my suburban church, we're trying a new approach to Church Council.  We've been doing Church Council the way that I'd guess 75% of churches do it:  we've been meeting once a month.  We approve reports and minutes, we discuss old business, and we discuss new business.

We've tried to infuse meaning by opening with Bible Study.  We've tried having periodic retreats to get to know each other better.  These things worked, but the meeting itself was still stultifying.

Now we will meet every other month over a meal.  We will invite everyone to the meal, but we'll extend a special invitation to the leaders of various church ministries.  Hopefully, we'll have both fellowship and cross polination.  Hopefully we'll all stay better informed about what each group is doing.

We also divided ourselves into 3 teams.  One team will look at budget issues.  One team will oversee our visioning the future process that we're also launching.  One team will look at personnel and process issues.  The teams will meet outside of our meetings that will take place over meals.

For a variety of reasons, I love the idea of meeting over a meal.    The most simple reason:  I get dinner at the same time I have a meeting.  It feels efficient.  I don't have to get home, gulp down a meal, and race off to a meeting.

I also love it because I think we relate better to each other when we have a chance to relax and eat together.  There's something about a meal that defuses anxiety and tension.

If it's good enough for Jesus, it should be good enough for us.  Jesus came to show us how to live our best lives as humans.  We don't see Jesus and his followers discussing old business and new business and approving the minutes of the last meeting.

No, we see them eating together and figuring out creative ways to feed the crowds and retiring to people's houses for dinner and then doing it all again the next week.

We are a church, albeit a small one, and we often operate more like a corporation than a people of faith.  I'm hoping that having a meal together will remind us of our true purpose.