Lent 2 - Monday - A Vision for the Future Church

The Sixth Question that Gary Nicolosi asks the Christian Church is: If money were not an issue, where would you like your church to be five years from now?

He writes: “Here is an invitation to envision a new kind of church for a new kind of world. Remember George Bernard Shaw’s observation famously quoted by Robert Kennedy: “Some people see things as they are and ask ‘Why?’ Others see things as they could be and ask, ‘Why not?’”  Peter Senge, author of The Fifth Discipline, says, “Vision is a set of guiding principles and practices and shared pictures of the future that provide energy that draws us into the future.” Any true vision will deal honestly with reality, no matter how brutal or unpleasant, but also give us hope that tomorrow can be better than today. Think of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, and you have a fine example of vision. In developing a vision for your church, it needs to inspire and motivate people to sacrifice, serve and give generously. The end result needs to be worth the present effort. Above all, people must sense the purpose and will of God for the future of the church.”

What strikes me in the last paragraph is the sentence: “Any true vision will deal honestly with reality, no matter how brutal or unpleasant, but also give us hope that tomorrow can be better than today.” So, let me ‘deal honestly’ with what I see happening in our local parishes today speaking truth to power. I do not intend to be unpleasant, but if the Church that I love is to move confidently into the future, it must deal candidly with where it currently resides and what must be overcome so that it can be free to follow God’s vision into a bright and hopeful future.

The first thing that I would like to see five years from now in a local church is for all of its member to embrace and commit to the philosophical belief that the ministry in which we are engaged is all about Jesus. There is truly no room anymore for persons who are more interested in self-serving ambition or promotion.  The ministry that we are about is to give glory to Christ for it is His Church; it is His Mission; it is His Kingdom.

That sounds elementary to some but for some reason, many years ago, the folks who make up the local church decided it was better to become a club than a life-saving station. Church congregations turned inward and when we did we lost any hope of making significant change in our world because it became all about “me” or all about “us” and not about the Kingdom of God.

As I wrote in a post a couple of days ago: When I have been invited to speak at a Church program or with a leadership team of a local congregation, it is a fairly safe bet that somewhere in the conversation I will say: “It’s not about you. It’s not about me. It’s all about Jesus.” That is why the Church exists. We are to be about changing lives for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If your parish, congregation, denomination, or faith community is not about that mission, please clear out of the way and let others be the leaders.

Last week there was tremendous chatter on the blogs and Facebook about the proposed budget for 2013-15 triennium of The Episcopal Church which will be voted on this summer at the General Convention. Jesus said: “Where your treasure is there your heart will be also.” Here is a Church that has completely lost touch with reality! The budget can be found here.

Tom Ferguson, who blogs under the name “Crusty Old Dean” works and lives in Columbus, Ohio. On a recent post concerning the budget for the National Church, he wrote the following:

“We essentially are restructuring the church by de-funding programs....  Let's start with the obvious one. Youth, young adult, and formation ministries are slashed about 90%, from about $3 million to $286,000. No more EYE or national Episcopal youth events. No more children and youth ministries, and on and on. Is there a person alive who is not completely delusional who honestly thinks that if GC consisted overwhelmingly of people under 40 instead of overwhelmingly people over 40 that this would happen? …. There will be no young people in the church in part because for more than a generation we have consistently cut those budgets first….

“And let's look where there are increases. In all of the usual places, naturally. The Office of the Presiding bishop has $364,000 in additional staff. The President of the House of Deputies has $212,000 in additional staff. Neither of these offices lost anybody in the 2009 bloodletting, and they get increases here. The Controller's office at 815 adds $421,000 in staff, Human Resources at 815 (despite laying off a lot of people on the national staff the past four years) adds $271,000 in staff, the Treasurer's office $120,000. That's $1.4 million in added staff costs….

“There is no transparency on any of these staff questions, yet it is over $1.4 million in increases when we are cutting $4.6 million overall. Likewise, there is no transparency on our debt: there is an increase of nearly $1 million in debt service and repayment. Add that additional $1 million to the $1.4 million in staff added costs, and there's $2.4 million of the $2.8 million of our eviscerated youth and young adult programs. Maybe they need $421,000 in additional staff in the finance office to manage our additional debt, but there's no way we would know because there's no transparency here….

“There are other curious choices made: curious in its strictest sense, in that you really wonder why these were made. On the one hand, funding is slashed to the Anglican Communion Office. On the other hand, funding is increased directly to other provinces of the Anglican Communion. Is this a policy shift of some kind? On what basis? Who made this decision? If so, could we be informed of it? Or is it just coincidence? Likewise, aid to domestic dioceses and the historically African American colleges of the Episcopal Church is significantly cut. However, funding to Province IX (Latin America) dioceses is increased dramatically. What is the policy behind it? Who made these decision shifts in policy? How were the decisions made? Are we doing something other than telling dioceses with strong Native American constituencies (Alaska, North Dakota, and Navajoland among the cuts) to go f**k themselves while we give more money to Province IX? If not, please explain the rationale.”

You can read more of Tom’s thoughts here.

However the General Convention decides this summer to fund its triennium budget, it is clear from the proposed draft that the leaders of our Church have placed more emphasis on maintaining the status quo. The hierarchy in the Episcopal Church is out of touch. The choices that have been suggested emphasize a Church that places more weight on self needs than the mission of the Gospel and the call to bring about abundant life. As disciples of Jesus who have chosen the Episcopal denomination as our way to God, we should be vocal in our opposition to our monies being used in such selfish ways: demanding that the leaders of Church repent and embrace a different set of mission values. Is the National Episcopal Church, or for that matter any local congregation, a club or a life-saving station?

“It is not about you. It is not about me. It is all about Jesus.”

Second, in five years I would like to see the members of a local congregation embrace fully the concept of the tithe. By doing so, amazing ministries and opportunities to proclaim the Kingdom of God would come to fruition. For example, I live in Hudson, Ohio were the median income is $111,782 (based on 2009 information). When I shared that fact with members of my parish, you should have heard the push-back: “Oh. No...No.  I don’t make that kind of salary. Only those folks who live over on Hines Hill Road make money like that!”

Whatever!

In such denial lies our dysfunction.

So, let’s be conservative in our approach. Let’s say that the median income in Hudson, Ohio is $80,000. An average tithe would then be $8,000. There were at one time 190 pledging units in this particular congregation. If you do the math, that amounts to $1,520,000. That number is three times the current budget.

Start dreaming….. the local church could actually achieve the 50/50 Giving Plan established by the Episcopal Diocese of Alabama a number of years ago. The church could run the local congregation FULLY staffed with ministries FULLY funded for around $750,000 (that would include the often spoken of but highly allusive Youth Minister) and then be able to give $770,000 to local, national, and international agencies and ministries. When the news of such a parish actually existed, I wager the attendance would significantly increase because our actions would be a witness to what we believe.

Is anybody reading this blog actually excited about the potential of such a plan?

Third, David Prescott, the Executive Vice President of Gund Investment Corporation in Princeton, New Jersey wrote an online article entitled “The Christian Church: Engaging the Future.” Near the end of the piece, he wrote these words: “We are called to live our faith in the day to day world. Jesus was a transformer of people and institutions. We need to be the same. We are not merely a social club with many beneficial activities. The Church's eyes must be open to injustice and poverty, to hunger and deprivation around the world. We must do more than simply acknowledge the growing gap between the rich and the poor at home and abroad.” You may read the rest of David’s very fine article here.

I live less than twenty miles from the city that has been designated to have the second highest poverty rate in America among major cities: Cleveland, Ohio (Plain Dealer, September 2010). Only Detroit, Michigan has a higher poverty rate. Having spent more time recently in the inner city and driven through many neighborhoods on the East side of Cleveland, there is a cancer that is destroying a way of life for many people and denying any sense of hope for the future. The cancer has a name: poverty.

As Christians we can no longer sit back in the comfort of our well established homes, pretending that there is no problem and negating all of the responsibility to elected government officials. It is clear that the local government has no plans to alleviate the problems of poverty when redevelopment is primarily concerned with building casinos on the waterfront. Have any of our elected officials actually studied the merits of casino gambling down South along the Gulf coast – in States like Mississippi? Do the leaders in Cleveland truly believe that casinos are the way out of the myriad of problems facing our inner city neighbors?

There is another way. It is called the Kingdom of God.

The mission of Jesus is to announce the good news, to heal the sick, and to liberate those in bondage. It is the Christians who are called to be the hope bearers in the 21^st century. It is the Christian Church that is called to do things that are seemingly impossible to do by ourselves in bringing about the life of God to others.

Jean Vanier writes beautifully about this concept of the Church being a light to the world. In his book Community and Growth he suggests: “A community becomes truly and radiantly one when all of its members have a sense of urgency in their mission. There are too many people in the world who have no hope. There are too many cries that go unheard. There are too many people dying in loneliness. It is when the members of the community realize that they are not there simply for themselves or their own sanctification, but to hasten the Kingdom of God, that they will truly live community. A community is called to be a light in a world of darkness, a spring of fresh water for all people” (Community and Growth, page 89).

I see a day in the not too distant future where the local church enters fully into the life of an inner city neighborhood in East Cleveland working to break the cycle of poverty and to bring hope to those who feel utterly hopeless. Working in partnership with organizations already engaged in the battle, for there is no sense in reinventing the wheel, we are called first to listen – hearing the needs of the poor and entering into a personal relationship of love and communion with them. We must ask the question of the Master, who throughout the four Gospels was constantly inquiring: What do you need? Jesus never began his ministry of compassion and healing from a place of superiority or domination. Instead, he was a servant who lovingly asked those in want how he could serve them. We are called to do the same.

I see a day when that $770,000 which I spoke of above is used to shed light and bring hope to the neighborhood between Cedar and Carnegie from 55^th street to 75^th street. I see a day when the Church invites major foundations to join in the cause and make a difference in the inner city ($100 million or more). I see a day when a community center takes up five city blocks along Carnegie and is a center of life for neighbors to come and grow, to be healed, to find shelter, to learn about breaking cycles of poverty and violence, and to be fed both physically and spiritually.

I see a day when the Christian Church of the suburbs finally awakes from its perennial slumber and is sent to be a presence to people who are living in darkness and despair. I see a day when the members of the local church in Hudson enter into covenant with Jesus and the poor and we finally begin to see our Master in the faces of the marginalized. I see a day when the people of East Cleveland can live truly as human beings, where they can be healed and strengthened in their deepest emotions and where they can find freedom and hope. I see a day when the poor of the inner city teach the rest of us how to live the Gospel.

Accomplishing this type of vision will take tremendous effort, will power, patience, understanding, dealing with and overcoming complex issues and political structures, and a willingness to see it through to the fourth or fifth generation. This type of ministry is not about a quick fix. It is all about overcoming and eliminating the systematic roots of poverty, violence and inequalities that are found in the inner city neighborhood. It is the call of Jesus to bring light to darkness and being about the hope of the Kingdom of God.

Love One Another - Brian