Congregational visits can inspire songs of great joy and deep laments – even in the same visit. This month has been no exception.
It might be helpful to share with you some of what we have seen and heard recently in your congregations:
- A team of volunteers stripped the bark from a huge fallen tree (casualty of the ice storms last winter) and recreated the “tree” for VBS in the middle of the fellowship hall along with a working waterfall – just to make the experience more profound for participants.
- “Thanks for volunteering to help. You don’t need to prepare. The kids don’t want to be there anyway. Just go be with them for 20 minutes and send them on to the next activity.”
- Her graduation picture is propped on a table in front of the sanctuary. The members of this small, graying, rural congregation are filling in for absent parents to support another fledgling about to fly.
- “Our fellowship hall and sanctuary are available for an emergency relief shelter.”
- A congregation cashes in a long-held certificate of deposit (proceeds from memorials and bequests) to pay the utilities. Giving per household is about what it was 20 years ago. The number of households is down 50%.
- “We had fifty adults helping and teaching eighty eight kids for VBS. The Missouri Synod Lutheran pastor taught one of the classes and led the whole inter-denominational group of kids in one of the best prayers those kids ever prayed!”
There are more stories to tell and we will tell more of them in time.
Some themes are beginning to emerge. We’ll just identify three here.
First, there is a core group in every congregation who still believe that the message and mission of Jesus is as important to happiness as breathing. That is hopeful news.
It is also true that many congregations are getting very comfortable just coasting on the momentum of prior generations of Christ-followers. The culture has so infected their faith that it is almost impossible to distinguish between the gospel they believe in and the American Dream.
There is a noticeable upsurge of local, ecumenical activity – much of it generated by lay folk. We cannot help but wonder if we are in the early phases of a very pragmatic course correction in North American Christianity – to unify the Body of Christ around local mission.
What do you see?
Grace and peace,
Bill R-H
