From the Senior Minister
Dear Edwards Church Community,
Recently I reviewed a list of the ministry teams that were already in existence or planned for launch four years ago after the annual meeting in 2020. Some were renamed groups doing close to the same things before and after we adopted the new way of organizing the church. Others were new ideas of interest to several people.
I was reviewing the lists at the request of two dedicated volunteers to confirm which teams are active now and which are not. About half are not. This decrease (or the decision in to never launch a new team) is consistent with the change in the number of folks who used to attend with some regularity and no longer do. A drop off of about one half is the average among churches like ours over the same period.
The ministry of Jesus – which we gather to join in and share with others – has never been primarily about numbers. Yes, reaching more people is important. Having more people experience and understand what it is that keeps us engaged is good. And if you think about what drew you in and kept you coming back, what took you from visitor to regular attender, there was probably a combination of factors, but the one that sealed it was most likely making a friend or two.
For much of the latter half of the 20th century, church growth was almost a given. Now, not so much. There are numerous church growth techniques, seminars to take, and marketing approaches for attracting new “customers” if we treat church growth as an exercise in consumer marketing. There is also another way, which accepts the full range of human experience and offers what Jesus offered – companionship through life’s ups and downs, acceptance of the gifts one brings, grace for the struggles one has, and the promise of a new life of depth and even beauty, when we let go of our need to demonstrate our worthiness or strength. What better place to acknowledge that we need each other, than at church, in the name of the one who said “I call you friends.”
In his book Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, Richard Rohr describes how a maturing faith accepts as natural our movement from an emphasis on achievement and acquisition (the first half of life) to accepting that some degree of suffering and even death necessarily precedes the arrival of new life or liberation. Moving from conventional “success” the discovery of new life in the spirit, he observes:
Setting out is always a leap of faith, a risk in the deepest sense of the term, and yet an adventure too. The familiar and the habitual are so falsely reassuring, and most of us make our homes there permanently. The new is always by definition unfamiliar and untested, so God, life, destiny, suffering have to give us a push–usually a big one–or we will not go.
Jesus was right up front with the nature of what it means to follow him:
He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If any want to become
my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.
For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for
my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. (Mark 8:34-35)
In preparation for Easter, which will come “early” this year on March 31, Marguerite and I invite you to test drive several spiritual practices. Each of them is a way of inviting God deeper into your life, to have influence not just on your way of thinking, but also your ways of being and acting in the world. Moving through life, we all need ways to feed our spirits, to deepen our rootedness in a growing awareness of God. Effective spiritual practices cultivate that rootedness. The practices we will share all “work,” but not all work the same or as well for all people, so please try a few.
What I hope for in this coming season of preparing for new life is simple: that the community of this church, through its individual and shared worship and spiritual life, can become more ready, willing and able to offer spiritual friendship to everyone who crosses our threshold. Not just friendliness, but the prospect of making a real friend in a setting devoted to life in the Spirit. Offering a sincere welcome is a spiritual practice born of the awareness of God’s still-speaking voice in each one of us, whether a life-long regular church attender or a somewhat skeptical spiritual seeker. In some monastic communities, the most experienced monks are the greeters, because they know that in every stranger coming to their door, there is something of Christ to welcome.
During the childhood and early adult lives of most of the members of this church, participation in organized religion was the norm. Believing in God was a given, not just in your head but in your pattern of regular practices. Now, it is increasingly counter-cultural. Perhaps it is a coincidence, but we are also living during an epidemic of loneliness and isolation. The Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. Vivek Murthy, has sounded the alarm, calling on all of us to cultivate more connections with more people. For him, it is a matter of national and individual health. For us, it is a first principle, loving God and our neighbor as ourselves.
In faith, with hope, for love,
Michael
The the Bridge Associate Minister
My goodness! How could it be that by the time you are reading this I will have been serving as your Bridge Associate Minister for a whole month. And what a wonderful month it has been (even with my first Sunday with you being snowed out.)
I have met many of you, at church, on Zoom, in activities and on the run. You are a warm and welcoming faithful group who take seriously Jesus’ invitation to follow him, and meet up with him, in both expected and unexpected places. Thank you for welcoming me on the bridge of transition. That bridge can at times feel nerve racking (what is going to happen now?) and also comforting (we are well connected with our past, our present, and the just around the corner, yet to be known, future.)
This month I read a daily reflection by Richard Rohr. It has stayed in my mind as have been thinking a lot about hope, faith, and love. The reflection was entitled The Inefficiency of Faith. Here is the part that got my attention.
“I am talking about just holding the tension, not necessarily finding a resolution or closure to paradox. We must agree to live without resolution, at least for a while. This is very difficult for most people, largely because we have not been taught how to do this mentally or emotionally. We didn’t know we could—or even should. As Paul seems to say (and I paraphrase), hope would not be the virtue that it is if it led us to quick closure and we did not have to “wait for it with patience” (Romans 8:24–25).
I think opening to this holding pattern is the very name and description of faith. Unfortunately, in Christianity, faith largely became believing things to be true or false (intellectual assent) instead of giving people concrete practices so they could themselves know how to open up (faith), hold on (hope), and allow an infilling from another Source (love).
We must move from a belief-based religion to a practice-based religion, or little will change. We will merely continue to argue about what we are supposed to believe and who the unbelievers are. We need contemplative practices to loosen our egoic attachment to certainty and retrain our minds to understand the wisdom of paradox.”
With the idea of faith as opening up, hope as holding on, and love as allowing the infilling from another Source, I look forward to our Lenten season here at Edwards Church. You will find much about it in this issue of the Spire and in our weekly email messages over the next two months. From my experience, faith formation is built on practices, connections, contemplation and actions. Here, in your company I am experiencing the great opening, holding and allowing, that deepens faith for all ages! In faith and hope and love, Marguerite
To read the full Spire click here.