Your Church Can Grow

There is something that has crept into our vocabulary in this country over the last ten years that counters completely the message from scripture we read this morning. We live in what is called a “24/7″ world. Often the expression is used with pride. “Stores are open 24/7.” “So and so is available 24/7.” We are always on, always open, always available. We live in an electronic age of instant communication and I dare say, constant communication via email, twitter, facebook, instant messaging, text messaging and the list goes on.

It has been well noted that people living in the United States take less vacation time than, say, people in Europe. A recent article in Business Week lays out the dilemma:

Futurists in the 1970s predicted that by now technology would have so shrunk our workloads that we’d all be paddling about in a leisure-and-vacation playland.

How wrong were they? Vacation season is upon us, and a new survey by employment firm Hudson says more than half of American workers fail to take all their vacation days. Thirty percent say they use less than half their allotted time. And 20% take only a few days instead of a week or two. Among so-called extreme jobholders—what author Sylvia Ann Hewlett calls the professional class panjandrums—42% claim they have to cancel vacation plans “regularly.” Americans take even less vacation than the Japanese, the people who gave rise to karoshi—the phenomenon of being worked to death.

We fill our calendars to the full–not only with work but also with non-work activities. Any parent of a school-age child knows how sports activities, music lessons, class trips and the like keeps them constantly on the go.

We learned from a survey taken by many of our churches in New Jersey that people pray less and read the Bible less today because they say that they don’t have the time.

We live at a frenetic pace exacerbated by too many cars, too much traffic. One writer, taking notice of an apparent increase in behaviors such as irritability, road rage, rudeness to salespeople and other manifestations of impatience, asks,

Do you feel like screaming at your computer to hurry up sometimes? Nerves frazzled by overwork and constant rushing lead to angry snarls. We call it ‘Irritable Growl Syndrome.’ It’s definitely hard on Americans’ health and there’s no pill to cure it. Our workers need a real ‘pause that refreshes’ . . .

The frenetic pace of life that so many people live today is part of the 24/7 world in which we live. It is different for retired people and certainly different for those who are unemployed. But working people run the risk of never getting to retirement if they burn out. There are a whole score of ‘quality of life’ issues raised by the fast-paced culture in which we find ourselves.

The New York Times Book Review published an article on a recent book written by Judith Shulevitz entitled, The Sabbath World. In fact, there have been many books written on the Sabbath in recent years as people of faith and even people who profess no allegiance to organized religion take a closer look at the ancient practice of setting aside a day for rest and renewal. Some of these books ask if the practice of Sabbath is a fossil–something unearthed from a bygone, less complicated era and something totally incompatible with our day. Others yearn for the promise of Sabbath, calling it a “gift.” In the excerpt of Shulevitz’ book that the Times published, she writes,

Jewish law is like musical notation; it gives meaning to the stuff of life by regulating it in time. The Sabbath is its most sacred interval. That I can’t subsume my schedule to its sterner rhythms testifies, I feel, to a flaw in my character. But it also says something about how hard it is for a twenty-first-century American to accept being governed by a calendar so firmly bolted down to the ground that she doesn’t get to move it around, adjust it by an hour here, an hour there.

So, if in our culture of 24/7 we complain that we don’t have enough time to do the things we would like, and moreover, feel the oppression of a frenetic paced life, then I ask, “what is the pause that refreshes?” Does not the ancient commandment to keep the Sabbath holy begin to breathe fresh air into such a busy lifestyle? Yet, the question remains, “How do we keep Sabbath in a 24/7 world?”

I have to confess, that I have not obeyed the fourth commandment. I have not obeyed either the letter of the law concerning this commandment nor have I come close to living the spirit of this commandment, as Jesus would have us do. When it comes to the Ten Commandments, I guess I would rather “plead the fifth.”

So when I come before you today to talk about the fourth commandment, I come with a message that I myself am trying to live into. The fourth commandment, according to Exodus 20:

8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work,10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

I am on a quest to experience fully the Sabbath. A rabbi once said that if we can experience the Sabbath fully–the way God intended it to be–even for one day, the messiah will come. I suppose what the rabbi said is another way of saying that Sabbath observance is vitally important. Or, perhaps, that Sabbath observance is a pathway to perfection or wholeness. Whatever he meant, I know that my attempts at observing and remembering the Sabbath have fallen way short. If I am honest with myself, I haven’t even come close.

At the same time I believe that Sabbath observance, Sabbath remembering, holds the promise and perhaps the key to a holistic life. More than that, I think that if we can begin to keep the Sabbath, we would become much more passionate about our faith because we would be basking in the delight and restfulness that comes with such observance. Even more: those of us who belong to communities of faith in the Judeo-Christian tradition have something wonderful to offer the burned out 24/7 culture in which we live.

I would like to set out on a quest to observe Sabbath the way God intended and thus today, I come not to plead the fifth, but to plead the fourth–to make a case for full compliance to the fourth commandment.

My preliminary research into the topic tells me that ‘Sabbath’ means ‘cease and desist.’ It means, “Stop” with a capital “S.” After six days of creation, God stopped. God rested on the seventh day. We are to remember what God did and do the same. That’s the essence of the fourth commandment “To keep the Sabbath holy.” Each Friday, all over the world, at precisely 18 minutes before sundown, Jewish women light two candles to “remember” and “observe” the sabbath. The two candles correspond to the two passages in the older testament that command the people of Israel to keep the Sabbath. In Exodus the charge is to “remember” and in Deuteronomy it is to “observe.”

In one of my pastorates I lived in a town with a 40% Jewish population. On Saturday mornings, hundreds of the faithful walked to synagogues. Somehow these believers found a way to keep the Sabbath despite living in the frenetic pace of the New York metropolitan area. Their witness put me to shame as often I found myself working or shopping on the Lord’s day.
“Sabbath observance,” writes Norman Wirzba, “is not merely a leisurely add-on to balance out an otherwise busy or frantic week, but rather the key that opens life to its fullest and best potential.”

Wirzba follows an old rabbinic tradition that the divine work of creation was not fully complete until the day of rest on the seventh day. What the first six days lacked “was the menuha, the rest, tranquility, serenity, and peace of God.” Thus, the crowning achievement of creation was not the creation of human beings but rather a deep sense of shalom that gives life the capacity for happiness and delight. Thus Sabbath is much more than stopping activity for one day of the week, but has to do with the celebration of all that is, all that God created. In this way, Sabbath observance is inextricably linked with the environment, the care for all of God’s creation.
Keeping the Sabbath has to do with setting aside one day for rest. It has to do with community worship. It has to do with the way we think about and care for God’s creation. How will we keep Sabbath in our lives? How will we strive to observe keeping the fourth commandment? How we keep Sabbath says a lot about our priorities. In a world that too often seems to be lived at a frenetic pace, it makes good sense to deepen our understanding of what it means to keep the Sabbath—as individuals and as communities of faith.

When I started out on my attempt to observe and remember the Sabbath, I did so not on a Sunday–for I have churches to go to and meetings to attend almost every Sunday. I decided to carve out a “Sabbath” on a Friday. When I shared that I would be taking a Sabbath in an email to my wife, I was met with an immediate challenge. My wife emailed me from her office (she has to work on Fridays):

“So by Sabbath that means no cleaning or laundry being done? When do I get a Sabbath?!? Only kidding.”

She says she was only kidding. Hmmm–maybe not really kidding. She has a point. Unless we observe and remember together, somebody gets the short end of the stick.

I sent an email response: “I love your comment. I love you! Indeed, the challenge of Sabbath is very steep. At this point I am far from being a ‘strict constructionist’ and thus will engage in doing laundry (there is a load of white in right now) and lots of other things that may or my not be true to the spirit of remembering and observing the Sabbath. I am only beginning. This is going to take time and effort. But I may as well start somewhere.”

So, there I was, in my living room attempting to live a Sabbath Day, writing an email to my wife.

While the computer was up and running, what would it hurt to respond to a few more emails, some from the office, some from friends. Should I have done this? Why couldn’t the email message wait? Sometimes I am so obsessed with responding promptly to telephone messages or emails. One of the lessons of Sabbath I am learning is that when we don’t observe it, we act as if we are more important than God himself (or herself). If God can rest after six days, what makes me so important that I have to work on the seventh day? Am I indispensable? Can the world get along without me for one day? Or, am I so doggone important that I must continue to answer phones, respond to emails, compose articles for the internet, etc. on the day that I am supposedly setting aside to observe the fourth commandment?

One of the gifts of the Sabbath is not to take yourself so seriously. This is hard to do in a culture that sets the standard for activity as going “24/7.” I am coming to the conclusion that ignoring the command to take Sabbath is pretentious on my part. Am I so self-important I cannot rest and renew myself for one day in the week? Am I so narcissistic that I cannot cease and desist for one day?

How, then, can we even begin to observe the Sabbath, to remember it and keep it holy in our 24/7 world? I want to suggest three ways to begin:

1. We can gain a clear understanding of it. We can do that through Bible Study, by reading a book about Sabbath. We can work together as a community of faith to better understand what it means to obey the fourth commandment.
2. We can choose to obey the commandment. The Ten Commandments are not ‘suggestions.’ Nor are we to obey some and not all of them. If a commandment made it to the “Top Ten” I think it deserves attention.
3. We seek support for keeping the Sabbath in a community of faith. I can’t imagine trying to keep the Sabbath all by myself. First of all, it will not work in my household unless both my wife and I observe the Sabbath or, at minimum, respect one another’s Sabbath and help one another to observe it. In the context of the community of faith, though, we can reach out to others for help and support. What if we were to form small groups that would covenant to keep one another accountable for keeping the Sabbath holy? What if such a group were to meet periodically to study about the Sabbath and to give support to finding ways to live the Sabbath?

Jesus said that “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.” I think he wanted us to understand what is underneath all of the rules and regulations of Sabbath observance. He wanted us to embrace the spirit and delight of Sabbath and truly enjoy the rest, the renewal that comes with it. Too often we Christians have taken Jesus’ words and twisted the interpretation to give license to not observing Sabbath at all. I think that was far from his intent. Jesus came, as he himself said, not to abolish the law but to fulfill it. I want to plead for the fourth commandment. I want to plead for a way for us as Christians to live into the rest and delight that God gives as a gift through Sabbath. I think those of us who profess faith in Christ have this rich and wonderful heritage to share to a world that is living life too fast. We can invite dialogue about what it means to live the Sabbath today. Will you join me in pleading the fourth?

I am searching for the Sabbath. I know it’s there somewhere. I learned about it from the time I was a child. I don’t think I have ever understood the fullness of its meaning. “Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy,” says the fourth commandment.

I grew up in a culture where we went to church on Sunday. For all intents and purposes Sunday was our sabbath. Ours was not a strict constructionist interpretation of the fourth commandment. I remember as a child how a “Sunday drive” out into the country was considered a restful activity. In those days stores tended to be closed and in general there was support in the culture at large for a restful day. And there were, perhaps, sabbath moments on such days. Surely the Sunday meal enjoyed in the early afternoon was part of it. We would eat in the dining room whereas on other days of the week we ate at the kitchen table. We put out our finest china and instead of bringing our plates to the stove to eat “buffet style” (as my mother would call it), we used serving dishes and we engaged in family conversation. There were moments of Sabbath on those Sunday afternoons.

While Sundays were more restful than other days of the week, at most I experienced a foretaste of the promise of sabbath. Now, in my later years, I yearn to engage more fully and to understand more deeply what it means.

Ideas that come to my mind upon setting out for my search included conversations with observant Jews and Seven Day Adventists. The latter being Christians who took seriously taking saturdays as sabbath. I tried to remember times when I tasted the riches of sabbath, even if for moments. I remembered the daily devotional times I would take sitting in an empty (and large) sanctuary in the city of Rosario with my Bible, my devotional guide and my journal and how I would listen to the sounds of the city and the sounds of the birds chirping outside and soak in the scriptures and reflect.

I remember the times I would go for a personal retreat at a Benedictine Monastery to pray with the monks, to read, to reflect. Those certainly were precious sabbath moments that hinted at the promise.

And yet I have not been able to keep a consistent daily practice of praying and reading the scripture. And while I have taken time apart for personal retreats, those have been few and far between. My mind often races even when I am surrounded by the most peaceful of settings. I find it hard to relax and rest and imbibe in the spirit and promise of sabbath.

And so now as I approach old age I set out on a new journey to discover the sabbath. I suspect that there is a link between the promise of Sabbath and the promise of Eternal Life. I suspect that if I learn how to live the one I may gain a glimpse of the other. I hope that my search will bring answers or at the least deepen my awareness.

The ancient wisdom of the rabbis say that if we were to experience fully the sabbath even for one day, the messiah will come. This has become my quest: to experience fully the sabbath for one day before I die.

My mother had to move over ten times during her first twelve years of marriage. My father worked as a salesman and the companies he worked for were constantly assigning him to new places. We asked my Mom how she had managed to pick up everything and move with a family of five to a new town or city where she didn’t know a soul. “I would find a Methodist Church,” she replied, “because there I knew I could make a friend.”

I thought it interesting how she worded her response. She didn’t look for a “friendly church,” but rather a church where she could make a friend. There is a big difference. The difference was underscored for me recently upon hearing of a colleague who moved to a new town and sought out the closest United Methodist Church.

In the case of my colleague, he found a “friendly church.” People were kind. They smiled at him. Some greeted him during the after-worship fellowship hour. But, he wasn’t making any friends. He even went so far as to invite some of the church members he met to his home–to try to build a relationship–but they couldn’t find the time to come over. My colleague had found a friendly church, but not one where he could make a friend. He has given up trying and now is attending a church of another denomination where within two weeks of his first visit he was invited over to a member’s house for dinner.
People long to be connected to community. They need to make friends where fellowship can be taken to a deeper level. Many churches have systems in place to meet these needs. They are intentional about inviting newcomers to join small groups. The key issue is how we help move newcomers from interest to involvement. How can our churches do a better job of hospitality that goes deeper than mere friendliness. The first thing we need to do is acknowledge that the responsibility for making newcomers feel welcomed and loved resides with us–the church–and not with the newcomer. My colleague should not have had to invite members to his house. Members of the church he was visiting should have gone out of their way to invite him to theirs. That he moved on to another church speaks to the failing of the church he left and not anything he did or did not do.
Here are five simple steps to help your church move a newcomer from interest to involvement:

1. Help the newcomer form relationships with other members. Don’t let her get away from fellowship hour without introducing her to one or two members of the church.
2. Help the newcomer find a place in a small group, be it the choir, a Sunday School class, a UMW circle, men’s fellowship.
3. Help foster friendships for the newcomer. Make time to invite him or her to dinner, or to join an existing friendship group of the church on an outing.
4. Help provide opportunities for newcomers to Grow in their faith by getting involved in some form of Christian service. Does your church have a ministry of outreach or does it take a volunteer mission trip somewhere? Invite the newcomer along! While they engage in meaningful Christian service they will also deeper their relationships with fellow members of the church.
5. Help provide opportunities for newcomers to Grow as disciples of Jesus Christ. Once the newcomer is involved in the life of the church, create a system whereby he or she is the point person for newer newcomers. In this way they multiply the blessing they received and learn to disciple others.

My mother taught me a valuable lesson about the difference between a friendly church and a church where you can make a friend. It’s a lesson of which our churches need to be reminded.

The dictionary defines ‘witness’ as having personal knowledge of something and giving testimony to it. Thus, one is an observer of an event and then is able to tell others what one has seen or heard. As Christians, we can witness to the knowledge we have of Jesus Christ and the meaning he has for our lives. Our response to simple questions such as “Do you go to church?” or “Are you a Christian?” is an opening to give witness to our faith. We can share with another what we know.

But, giving witness is even more than sharing what we know. The first Christian historian, Eusebius, defined witness in terms of the way one lived. He called it philosophou biou – a philosophy of life or more accurately, our way of life. We give witness by the way we live. John Wesley emphasized this through what is now known as “Wesley’s Rule”: “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times can, to all the people you can, as long as you ever can.” It is to live out the promise of the familiar song refrain: “They will know we are Christians by our love.”

A third understanding of ‘witness’ goes to the root of the word–literally. The Greek word that we translate for witness is martys from which we also receive the English word, martyr. To give witness, then, is to be willing to give our all for the Cause to which we testify. It is to take risks for the knowledge we have of Jesus Christ. Such witness brings others to the faith. It was Tertullian who first wrote that “the blood of the martyrs is seed.” When something is worth dying for, others want to know what it is.

How can we be witnesses? First, prepare. We need to gain clarity as to what our personal testimony is. How do we answer questions such as, “What does Jesus Christ mean to you?” or “Why do you believe in Jesus Christ?” or “Why do you belong to the church?” To give witness we need to be prepared to answer these kinds of questions. We might write what our answers are on a sheet of paper or compose a lyric to a song or paint a picture that expresses what Christ means to us. Second, practice. We should rehearse our testimony with brothers and sisters in the church. Why not start a meeting of the Administrative Council with one person sharing his or her faith story? Or, start any meeting of the church with someone giving witness to his or her faith in Jesus Christ? Thirdly, perform. Look for opportunities to give witness to your faith in word or action through daily living with the people you come into contact.

It was wonderful to be with the great folks of the Gateway North District today at the Morrow Memorial UMC in Maplewood, NJ. Great worship and message by Bishop Felton May! A number of laity and clergy showed interested in revitalizing their churches by using the Roadmap to Renewal process and from the learning gained from Paul Nixon’s book, I Refuse To Lead a Dying Church.

According to Jim Griffith, himself not a Methodist, The United Methodist Church is the only denomination that has an intentional, systematic plan to plant new churches among the mainline churches in the United States. It is heartening to see how this is being lived out in several Annual Conferences. Last night I met Mark Appleyard, an Australian. The Western North Carolina Annual Conference has recruited Mark to plant the third campus of one of their healthy, growing congregations. When churches and conferences begin to search far and wide to achieve the goal of planting new churches, we are on the right track. The movement for planting churches is gaining steam. It needs to. Jim Griffith also said that the decade between 2010-2020 will show a steep decline in attendance and giving in existing churches.

At a recent “District Day with the Bishop,” District Superintendent Bob Costello urged laity and clergy to open our churches to change so that we can reach more people, younger people and more diverse people in our area. “Take a look around,” Rev. Costello said. “We’re not getting any younger.” The message was clear and simple: open ourselves to change to reach a new generation or be part of the last generation of United Methodists.

Is there anything more urgent for us?

When it comes to passionately embracing our calling as Christians, indifference is the devil’s tool. Whether we call it apathy, lack of interest, or boredom, ‘indifference’ saps energy and sucks life out of the mission of the church. And yet, when asked to identify the root causes of a passionless spirituality, church members have given responses that point to indifference.

It is as if there is an ecclesiastical take on the popular book and movie, He’s just not that into you. In the case of the church, it would be, “We’re just not that into Him.” Why should we get excited about church when church is just one item clamoring for attention in our lives? There are a myriad of demands on our lives that at any given time trump church: the kids’ soccer game, for instance, or staying up the night before and just wanting to sleep in on a Sunday morning.

Something else more troubling gnaws at our insides: the dissonance between belief and action. I’m not talking about sin. I am readily aware that the community of faith called church has always been an amalgam of saints and sinners and whether inside or outside of its purview, sin abounds. I have been and continue to be one who falls short of the glory of God. I refer to a deeper discord where our everyday actions are indistinguishable from those who do not profess faith. We are not out there enough getting our hands and feet dirty dealing with the pain of our communities. We are not out there loving the marginalized or touching the lepers or dining with the ones least likely to get an invitation to our next party.

And what is particularly troublesome: the inability to be honest enough with ourselves and with our brothers and sisters in the faith to engage in serious conversation about it.

To not discuss matters of passion around the faith we profess is to fall into the devil’s hands, it is to allow indifference to win. And, it is killing the church as we know it. Younger people looking from the outside in at the inauthenticity of passionless spirituality move on to the other side of the street. We’re dismissed. No amount of programs or marketing will overcome the chasm we have built.

Jesus said, “Anyone who comes to me I will never drive away” (John 6:37b NRSV). Jesus will sustain us even in the moments when energies wane. All we need do is come to him in our brokenness and vulnerability. Can we begin such a conversation with him and with our brothers and sisters to address the issue of passionless spirituality?

Yesterday I drove by the address where I had grown up in northern New Jersey. I say “address” because the house where I had lived was torn down a week ago. My father bought our house in 1955 for $36,000. Builders plan to sell the new house that will go up on the property for 3.4 million. When I heard that our old house was being torn down, I was sad. So many memories: playing “3 flys 6 grounders” on the big front lawn, family gatherings in the dining room, sleeping out in the screened-in porch. What I realize is that the home that fit 1950’s needs more than perfectly no longer fits the desires of the 21st century. I wondered why 5 bedrooms, 3 1/2 baths would not be enough. The proposed new home will have 6 bedrooms plus a library and a study, a wine cellar, a deck, and of course, be air conditioned–no need to sleep in the screened-in porch to cool off in the summer.

I drove by the now empty lot and felt a pang of pain for a lost day and a neighborhood that is quickly changing from mid-scale to upscale. There is so much change going on in our world. Newspapers are going out of business. The Post Office is contemplating closing some 7,000 branches as more and more people send their correspondence electronically. Record stores are a relic of the past. The list could go on and on. I think someday historians will look back on our day and write about the cataclysmic changes that occurred in a relatively short period of time.

Churches are part of the changing landscape of our day. I am reminded that the meaning of ‘church’ is not a building, but people. While the essence of the Gospel doesn’t change, the setting for church is changing rapidly. It is painful for those of us who feel quite comfortable in a house of worship in the style of the 1950’s to realize that the 21st century is calling for something quite different. Yet, if we do not change, if we do not figure out how to adapt ourselves, one day we will drive by the address of our home church and either see an empty lot or an entirely different kind of building.

The highlight of today’s “Lay Speaker Graduation” ceremony in East Brunswick, New Jersey was the class of young people. Ten younger people all under 25 graduated as lay speakers. The question for those of us older people is whether we will encourage their service. Will we ask them to preach? Will we encourage them to engage in new ministries? Will we support them when they come up with their own ideas?