Easter 5 - Wednesday - From Vagueness to Clarity: Questions for the Future Church

Text: Matthew 6:19-24 (see below)

A couple of days ago on Facebook, William Doubleday, a former professor of mine at The General Seminary, published a reflection in response to a blog posting by Robert Terrill who documented the rapid decline in the viability of so-called pastoral size and family size parishes in the Episcopal Church. Terrill’s piece is entitled “Where Have All The Rectors Gone?” and can be seen by clicking here. It is a worthwhile and short read.

Professor Doubleday wrote in his post: “Clearly bi-vocational clergy, worker priests, retired priests, supply clergy, locally trained priests, under-employed priests, locally trained priests, shared clergy, liturgical deacons, parish clusters, ecumenical collaboration, overworked church wardens, and a variety of other strategies are part of the temporary "fix" for this situation. Alas, all this is essentially reactive and largely survival minded.

“My more serious concern is that we urgently need to work on proactive future strategies that:

1. deal with reality rather than denial;
2. reassess and ultimately re-imagine and redeploy the gifts of the whole people of God: bishops, priests, deacons, laity, young people, church musicians, EFM mentors, LEMs and LEVs, church administrators and parish secretaries, sextons and vergers; diocesan staff, etc., etc;
3. proclaim the Good News that the Gospel is being heard and proclaimed in the Episcopal Church in ways which are:
1. faithful to the Baptismal Covenant;
2. serious, but not simplistic, about the complexity of the Bible;
3. powerfully blessed by a rich liturgical, musical, sacramental, and pastoral tradition;
4. true to the classic Anglican embrace of God's gift of the human mind: history and the knowledge of world religions; science and medicine; philosophy and theology; literature, poetry, and all the arts; and the fruits of faith, doubt, imagination, and hope for the future;
5. cognizant of the voices of all sorts and conditions of men and women in our pews and outside our doors.
4. recognize that huge paradigm shifts, profound losses, grief and anger; excitement and possibility; as well as creativity and new beginnings can lie ahead;
5. rediscover that CHURCH is not primarily a building or even a full-time religious professional/cleric/priest.

“Hard work is ahead if we truly belief that the Episcopal/

Anglican/Progressive/Justice-Minded/Hospitable Tradition should have place in 21st century America. I know this is too long, but it is some of the most urgent prose I have ever written.”

I admire Bill’s passion and willingness to lay out his concerns for persons to respond to. The answers to how the Church moves out of its current predicaments are complicated and will require a completely different mind set from all involved. It seems to me that some of the answers involve the following:

1. Visionary leaders with a passion to lay down their lives, whatever the cost, for the greater good of God’s Church
2. A compelling theology that is based in the 21^st century rather than in the 4^th century
3. A Pauline approach to do whatever it takes to proclaim the Good News of God
4. A complete restructuring of the hierarchy in the Church which are top heavy and drain the resources from local congregations and mission fields
5. Moving from vagueness to clarity in regards to the actual spiritual health of each congregation.
6. Praying for pastors to receive the Pentecostal fire to preach the Word
7. Gather and Scatter – Have worship that is transformative Sunday after Sunday after Sunday. But the real work begins when we (the people of God – all of us) scatter out into the world in witness. All clergy need to be spending more time in the world – listening, meeting, and responding to new voices.
8. No more buildings! Jesus did not want Peter to build shelters (buildings) at the Transfiguration. “Listen to Him!”
9. Have the courage and conviction to name the Sacred Cows that are keeping the Church (your parish or diocese) in dysfunction and turn them into Gourmet Burgers (thanks Bill Easum)
10. Pray and Listen to God – I am confident that God has a plan.

Come back tomorrow. I have a piece that I found on a blog spot that is sure to stir up the pot.

Love One Another – Brian

The Church’s Preoccupation

Brian McLaren

The church has been preoccupied with the question, "What happens to your soul after you die?" As if the reason for Jesus coming can be summed up in, "Jesus is trying to help get more souls into heaven, as opposed to hell, after they die." I just think a fair reading of the Gospels blows that out of the water. I don't think that the entire message and life of Jesus can be boiled down to that bottom line.

Source: from the PBS special on the Emerging Church

Matthew 6:19-24

Jesus said: ‘Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.’