Moving Vision Forward

The members of Central Presbyterian’s Session spent most of Saturday, January 30th together, thinking and praying and making plans related to Central’s three vision goals:

Goal 1: Changing Hearts: Strengthening Connections to God — We strive to grow closer to God, through worship, education, and spirituality, with the realization that a close relationship to God leads us to action in the world.
Goal 2: Changing Hearts: Strengthing Connections to Each Other — We strengthen and grow as a community of faith by caring for one another through ministries of care, communication, connection, integration and evangelism.
Goal 3: Changing Hearts: Changing The World — through thoughtful ministries that challenge the people of Central to put our faith into action, we will change our world. Our faith compels us to serve as the hands and feet of Christ as we are called to action, partnership, and reflection.

In order to turn these challenging words of vision into concret action steps that will move Central towards God’s call into the future, Session created three task groups. Each group has a very specific charge, and over the next three months is to develop a three to five year action plan for its particular area.

The first group will address issues related to WORSHIP — how our worship can help Central be a sustainable congregation; define two or three meaningful and faithful and measurable goals that will align Central’s worship with its vision; identify staffing and resource needs(space, equipment, money) to achieve these goals.

The second group will address issues related to EVANGELISM and MARKETING — using the vision goals this group will establish what Central’s external face to the community will look like, and figure out how to use technological tools such as the church website and facebook as well as simple publicity to convey this identity. Needed human and financial resources, and appropriate timelines will also be determined.

The third group will address issues related to STRUCTURE — determining the best and most appropriate governance structure needed to carry out Central’s vision. What methods of organization and communication will best enable the members and friends of Central to act together as faithful disciples.

Three months isn’t a lot of time, but Session knows that getting to specifics is crucial for God’s vision to succeed at Central! Please continue to pray for your Session members and pastors as we we define measurable steps and tasks for the next few years. And stay tuned for more vision updates!

See you in Worship this Sunday…

Community Cures Contagious Loneliness!

In a recent Christian Century article, L. Gregory Jones, Dean of the Duke Divinity School, discusses a fascinating study on loneliness, and suggests that a sense of community (like we share here at Central!) offers an important and powerful counterbalance for those who are lonely and isolated.

“In a ten-year study researchers have found that loneliness is contagious and that it spreads through social networds. A lonely person can affect people as many as three degrees of separation away. If someone directly connected to me is seriously lonely, for example, I am 52 percent more likely to be lonely. A second degree of separation leads to a 25 percent increase; a third degree, 15 percent. I may be affected by the emotional reactions of my co-worker’s spouse’s brother.”

The study shows that people who are lonely tend to see the world more darkly, and as more threatening than it really is. The part of the brain that processes feelings of loneliness also makes us aware of physical pain. Someone who is lonely can easily convey to those around them feelings of fear, threat, and pain.

Jones makes clear that loneliness is not the same thing as introversion; that it is one thing to like to spend time with few or no other people, and another matter all together to be lonely through experiences of rejection and shame and physical or emotional woundedness. One of the study’s researchers says that it is in the best interest of the members of a group to pay attention to those in the group who are lonely and on the fringes. For, “like pulling a signle thread could unravel a sweater, a lonely person could destabilize an entire social network…”.

The proper response to loneliness for people of faith, says Jones, is Christian community. The Gospel is full of invitations to discover that human beings are created for communion with God and others. In community we learn that our wounds can be cared for and healed in Christ. In community we learn that even our worst actions and personality traits are forgiven. In community we learn that nothing puts us beyond the reach of God’s grace.

Our culture’s love of indivdualism, which is often mirrored in American churches by spiritualities that foster a “me and Jesus only” attitude, create environments where loneliness thrives. In opposition to these isolating social phenomenon, we disciples are invited to live with and for one another in community…community that is relational and caring and loving…community that invites folks away from loneliness into the life for which God created us. Jones says that disciples are called “to cultivate contagious friendships”!

Who are those on the fringes that need to be better pulled into our group? Who among us doesn’t need at least one more friend? The work of building community is holy and it is hard, and it takes all of us!

I’ll see you this Sunday, my friends, in worship!

L. Gregory Jones, Faith Matters in The Christian Century 26 January, 2010

Members, Numbers, Dollars…God’s Future

Earlier this week I learned from Central’s Clerk of Session, Betty Stoddart, that Central received 35 new members in 2009! A great number!! When you subtract those members who died, transferred their membership, or simply removed their membership, we had a net gain of 6 members for the year…and now claim a membership of 615. 2009 marks the fourth year of membership growth in a row…which is the first time that Central has experienced this many years of positive membership growth together since the mid-1950’s! This is good news to celebrate, my friends!!

Without losing track of the positive nature of this news, I want us all to realize that Central had to welcome 35 new members to grow overall membership by 6. This means that just to maintain our current membership base we must add 30 new members every year. To grow church membership by 10% or 20%, or back to the 800 member level of twenty-plus years ago, will require intentional and sustained effort.

Why should we worry about membership numbers? Isn’t our purpose as a church simply to invite people to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and then work together to become ever more faithful disciples? Of course Central’s primary purpose is making disciples by sharing God’s love for us in Jesus Christ. In order to maintain our disciple-making ability, however, we must also maintain our church community…which is why numbers are important.

Just before I sat down to write this blog post, I met with the Budget Committee and helped shape the recommeded 2010 budget that will be presented to Session for their consideration next week. The members and friends of Central are very generous in their financial support of the mission and ministry of our church. Central’s financial glass is way more than half full! Yet, despite this good news, the Budget Committee is having to recommend some tough potential cuts to programs and missions. What are we to do when the generous giving of members isn’t enough to pay for the ministry and mission we envision and desire? I see three possibilities. We can scale back…we can try to maintain the status quo…or we can grow our membership base…so that there are more people and more financial resources for the disciple-making worship and programs and missions of Central.

I believe that the future toward which God is calling Central is rich in meaning, exciting in purpose and deeply faithful! I also believe that faithfully responding to this future will take more of us.

Growing the membership base at Central requires everyone’s participation, without exception. All of us need to be inviting others to come discover Jesus Christ with us. All of us need to welcome those who come visit us on Sunday morning or any time. Coming into a new church as a stranger is a hard thing to do! All of us need to make room for new members and friends – that they may join us in service, and so that we can benefit and learn from the gifts they bring with them.

Members, numbers, dollars, God’s future…are all connected to one another…and require our attention at the same time.

See you…and hopefully a guest…in worship this Sunday!

A Prayer For The People Of Haiti

The heartbreaking images that have poured forth from Haiti these past few days have been overwhelming. Given the grinding poverty in which the people of Haiti already existed, the new destruction of this earthquake seems like unfair piling on.

There are certainly a number of faith-related questions raised by this disaster. Some rightfully directed at God, and some rightfully directed at all the other children of God – ourselves included. But now isn’t the right time for such questions…and certainly there is never a right time for the accusations that have been made by some supposedly Christian commentators in the last two days – blaming the people of Haiti for what has befallen them. Now is the time for action.

In the weekly email from the church, where most of you will connect to this blog, there is some information about Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA) – a program arm of our denomination that does an amazing amount of good with a limited amount of resources. In most large scale disasters like this earthquake, church groups like PDA are the first in and the last out. PDA is still deeply involved in the recovery work from Hurricane Katrina in Mississippi and Louisiana; and will still be involved in Haiti several years from now when the world’s attention has shifted elsewhere. If you are able and wanting to make a financial contribution to relief in Haiti, PDA is a good place to give. Click on the link in the weekly email.

The one thing we all can do immediately is pray…prayers for those that need rescuing, and those who are trying to rescue them…prayers for those who are mourning, and those who are broken in body and spirit…prayers for the spirit of a people and that they may find hope for a way forward.

Finding the right words to pray has been hard the last couple of days, and so I have turned to the words of others for guidance. In case you’re like me, and stuck for words, let me share a couple of prayers you might use:

All power, honor, glory be to you!
You…sometimes hidden, silent, absent, unresponsive.
We are so privileged that we seldom sense you
hidden, silent, absent, unresponsive.
But we know people who do,
we think of places where you do not appear.
We imagine you defeated,
weak,
held captive.
And we wait a day,
two days,
until the third day.
And then, most often then,
quiet reliably then,
you appear then in your full glory.
This day we pray against your absence, silence, and hiddenness.
Come with full power into deathly places,
and we will praise you deep and full. Amen

Walter Brueggemann in Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth

God of heaven and earth,
you know the sound a sparrow makes
when it falls to the ground.
Hear now our voices joined in quiet outrage.
We are thunderstruck, and we cannot find words.
Send your Spirit to speak for us, O God,
to plead our case before you,
that those who have suffered so much might be cared for,
and that we might be energized by the anguish of our hearts.

God of all consolation,
we cry for peace, and there is none.
Send your river of life flowing -
flowing over all,
to cleanse the wounds of sorrow
and to still the turmoil.

We cry against the flagrant waste of lives,
promises that will not be kept,
friendships lost, the love of family left ungratified.
Our cries protest the deaths
that rob the living and the dead of precious time
and plunge us into depths of grief and pain.
Because we cannot understand,
show us your peace that surpasses understanding.

God of life,
your anger sears the mountains
and strikes terror in those who spurn your will:
Open our eyes to your presence and let us see
that death is always counter to your word.
Show us your streams that rush with living water,
your midful watch in every struggle against death.
Give the grace to know your gift of Jesus,
who is the companion through death’s night,
and the guide to your new day’s glory.
Fill all with your Spirit’s breath of life,
and let your sorrow be known, deep as deep and wide as wide.
And, in this knowing, may your word of hope be heard.
In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Blair Gilmer Meeks in Standing In The Circle Of Grief

See you in worship this Sunday, where we’ll pray some more…

God’s Time vs Bill’s Time

As I sit down to write this morning, the snow is swirling outside the window covering everything in a silent white blanket. It is a beautiful sight! The day now holds the promse of sledding with my sons later this afternoon – a rare treat!

But for all its beauty and promised activities, the snow also means that the day I have planned so carefully is now thrown into turmoil. Meetings and activities will be canceled. Traffic will be a mess, meaning longer drive times and the constant threat of an accident. Everything will take a little more effort.

Snow days are a blunt, yet wonderful reminder, that as much as I like to think that I am in control of my life, and as much as I like to pretend that I can plan my time any way I choose…that I am not in charge, and can only suggest the schedule on which I would like to operate! The interruption of snow reminds me that as a disciple of Jesus Christ, I have given all of my life – the clear days and messy days, and warm days and cold days, and especially my well-planned days – that as a disciple, I have given all of my life over to God. I have asked God to guide and direct me, so that my life and example and activities might reflect God’s purposes, and not just Bill’s purposes.

This ‘giving over’ and ‘letting go’ of control – especially of time – is one of the hardest aspects of discipleship for me. I’m guessing this is true for most of us. On the good days I give way to God with some amount of graciousness. On the bad days I have to be drug kicking and screaming into God’s purposes…never a pretty sight! But on most days, like snow days, I grudgingly let God be in charge only when I have to.

I am going to work very hard on this snow day to remember that by embracing Jesus as Lord and Savior, I have invited God to set my time and priorities. And, more than just remembering, I’m going to make every effort to practice God’s schedule. I really hope, however, that God has planned some time for sledding!

See you in Worship this Sunday!