how do we pay for it all?

This isn’t a stewardship question. It’s a question of how the church works best, most faithfully, most responsively to needs it perceives.

Most of us have a typical set-up, we analyze the budget from the previous year and God willing we give ‘em all a little bump or a bigger bump if they plan ahead enough to ask for it.

But is that really the best way? I’ve noticed over the past few churches that people tend to circle their wagons around their money, guarding it, and making sure that nobody trespasses on it (forgiveness of trespasses notwithstanding).

What if each group, ministry and function in the church had to justify its existence each time they wanted to spend money? What if every time the Sunday School supervisors wanted to explore a new curriculum they had to sell it to the council, and the same thing for the Property Committee, the Worship Committee and the rest of the ministries in the church? How do you approach the spending of money when you know you’ll have to defend the expenditure?

I like the idea because it makes each decision an examined one, one that is thought out and justified and mulled over before it is done. Nothing is done, no funds are given on the basis of “the way things are always done” but instead, no reimbursals are approved without some justification, no plans are finalized without some sense of the relative benefits and pitfalls of the proposal.

You could streamline the process by making the appropriate committee examine the proposals in detail and then have the council act on their recommendation. That way council meetings are not swallowed up in debate over minutia unless there is a serious disagreement or question.

Nobody is entitled to money, so instead of building a fortress around “my money” each expenditure needs to be justified not only on the basis of how much it will cost versus how much it will “earn” but also on how much of the congregation will be involved, now much of the activity is based on outreach, how many of the church’s ministries will be impacted etc

Churches need to stop looking at internal issues in terms of “mine” and “theirs” and begin looking at it as “ours” if we are going to be relevant. If all you give people is compartments, then there’d better be one for them, or they’ll find a place where there is. If you approach as a family, united if not always harmonious people have the chance to make a place for themselves.

Empowering Lord give us the vision to see the future where your word is all in all and give us the strength to live as if that day were today. We trust that if we live in that faith, others will follow until there is nothing but your word, etched upon our hearts.

Appreciative

I've been plagued by the suspicion that many people only find value in condemnation or criticism.We all hear the criticisms of the organist, the liturgy, the choir, the bulletins whatever and seldom are actual solutions offered (treasure them when they are!). It's as if the thought process ends at what's wrong and fixing it is "your problem."

Is it possible that the entire human race is hardwired for this kind of passive aggression?

Without this tendency there would be no need for people like Ann Coulter (wouldn't that be nice!) who never seem to have anything to say that isn't denigrating and inflammatory. I can stand loads of denigrating and inflammatory if its accompanied by a thoughtful alternative or a position or anything constructive that demonstrates that someone is home and not just a wall that ideas bounce off of.

I think one of my favorite exercises in Seminary had to have been the constructive theology papers that Paul Sponheim assigned. Imagine being asked to explain God, what you think that God should/might/could be and how that might affect the relationship with creation. The fact that it was all thought-out, constructed by the background thinking that had been in my head, unexamined for decades made it a fascinating exploration of what I thought about things. I have come to love those people who come to me with ideas, plans, schemes and things that have come from within them, their experiences. Some of them are completely antithetical to my way of thinking and yet there is an actual thought process going on there, a sense that it is important to contribute. And if it is examined thinking, then it can be reasoned with.

Its the react-ers that confound me. They too make statements that are antithetical to my way of thinking, but there is nothing there to argue with "We don't like that" isn't a position, it's an anchor.

Dear Lord

give us the boldness to use the huge brain we have been given for more than a place to keep our hymn lyrics and memorized bits of liturgy. Show us the fullness of possibilities and remind us that just because something is uncomfortable, doesn't mean that it is not your will.

Children in Church

an excellent post in a colleague's blog, check it out here!

(some excerpts, emphasis mine)

Some churches dismiss children after the initial Gathering (Processional Hymn, Kyrie, Hymn of Praise, Prayer of the Day), and welcome them back for Holy Communion. Other churches simply discourage children from worshipping, while others offer seperate liturgies for families that seek to be child-friendly. Many churches have a Sunday morning schedule that offers worship and Sunday School at the same time – parents go to worship (but never learn), and children go to education (but never worship). I dont really like any of these options. How will my child learn how to worship if she never goes to worship, or if the first time she goes to worship is when she is 6 years old or worse – when she is in 7th grade as a requirement for Confirmation Class?

Is this a problem you face in your congregation? It has always been my feeling that if you teach kids that the service is not for them, then they will believe you and it runs the risk of never becoming for them but if you honor them by allowing them into the worship, even if it is distracting, then they come to feel as if it is for them. in re: distractions, the post continues:

But, some of you might ask, how can the parents worship if they are tending to their children the entire time? Worship is not a consumer experience for me. I do not attend worship in the same way I attend the Philadelphia Orchestra or the Philadelphia Phillies. I go to the orchestra or ballpark to be entertained for a few hours. A child can distract me from enjoying these experiences, but church is different. Church is a lived, participatory, organic experience. Church is that multi-layered gathering at the foot of the cross and outside of the empty tomb at which we see, hear and touch the life-giving death, resurrection and real presence of Jesus.

Is it a distraction to lift up my daughter so she can see the brass horns, even though I have to put down my hymn book? Is it a distraction to help her with her crayons during the sermon, or pull her trapped foot out from under the kneeler? If worship were simply about my singing and my hearing, yes. But worship is more than that. Worship happens in the gathering, in the standing and the sitting, in the hearing, in the praying, in the passing of the peace, in the eating and drinking. For too many of us, worship is overwhelmingly a cognitive, abstract-thought kind of experience, and in this setting children can be a distraction. Yet if worship can be more than an exercise in religious consumerism or pseudo-intellectual spiritual self congratulations – if worship can become a true gathering of community – then children must be a part of it.

While I think that some of his characterizations of worship are a little harsh, there is serious food for thought in this.

anyone else?

Bob Mahre

We mourn the passing of Bob Mahre, a man of uncommon love and gentleness, whose spirit knew not the limitations of his flesh and whose heart was as big as all outdoors. If the measure of a man is the love that gathers in his passing, then Bob was a giant.

He has won the race and the prize is his. We'll be together again soon and very soon.