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dreamprayact

~ Reflections of a preacher, poet, and contemplative activist

dreamprayact

Tag Archives: christian congregation

Before Heading for the Exit

05 Saturday Sep 2015

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Reflections, Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

beloved community, blessing, Body of Christ, christian congregation, church, church membership, differences of opinions, diversity of viewpoints, genuine Christian community, grace, pastoral care, rituals for saying goodbye, shepherding a congregation

Photo credit: Dallis Day Richardson

Photo credit: Dallis Day Richardson

Here’s a topic most pastors don’t want to talk about – what to do when someone leaves your congregation. I don’t mean because they are moving out of the area or being relocated by their employer. We have rituals for saying goodbye to people as they make these life transitions, especially if they have been intimately involved in the life of the church. We acknowledge the pain in farewell and pray God’s blessing upon them. We celebrate the gifts and graces they have brought to our faith community and express our thanks. More often than not there is cake and ice cream! Grief, grace and gratitude mingle in such moments.

I am not referring to these expected partings when people are simply living their lives and for a time we are blessed to be in beloved community with one another and then their life circumstances change. I am referring instead to those occasions when people make a conscious choice to leave a church because they no longer feel in sync with the direction the church is moving.

It’s never easy. Maybe that seems obvious, but I just want to acknowledge the pain. For everyone involved. For those choosing to leave. For those being left. For those charged with spiritual leadership of a congregation. Even for those who are only minimally aware of what has happened. The sudden unexpected loss hurts. There’s no way around it.

You may have guessed by now. This happened recently in the church I currently serve. A couple who had been involved in many dimensions of church life for years informed us one Monday morning that they were withdrawing their membership, effective immediately. It is not an understatement to say that most church members who knew them were left in stunned disbelief when they heard the news. No one, not even close friends, saw it coming.

To their credit, this couple had fulfilled their annual giving, completed various assignments on committees, and tied up loose ends. They did not leave angry or maliciously. Over a period of some time they had simply determined that their spiritual path no longer lined up with the theological emphases they were hearing from their pastors or their denomination. It was not a decision they made lightly, and I have no trouble affirming them as a sister and brother in Christ.

Every pastor who has been at this work of shepherding congregations for more than a year or two has experienced this kind of significant loss. We each have our own ways of walking through the aftermath with those we are called to serve. My own pastoral response involved first going to visit this couple in their home, listening as carefully and lovingly as possible, praying with them, telling them they are loved and will be missed, and asking God to bless and keep them. Then of course, I needed to leave, not wanting to prolong the new reality that I was no longer their pastor.

I was troubled by one thing though, and I heard myself verbalize it in their home that day, saying something like, “One thing I am struggling with is my belief that a community that follows Christ is going to be diverse and have many gifts and viewpoints. There is room for all of us at the table of grace. We don’t have to be in agreement on everything to have community. In fact, an important part of our church’s role is listening and caring for one another in our differences so that the world knows it’s possible.”

My pastoral default position will always be to bless people as they choose other paths. However, that morning in their home I wish I had gone beyond blessing and been bold and alert enough to venture, “I think you may be making a mistake. I think Christ calls us to something more than finding like-minded people to be our community. It would be better if you didn’t leave because of differences of opinion. It would be better if you stayed and continued the hard work of being in community with people who don’t always agree on everything, because honestly, that is what you are going to find wherever you go.” Those are the thoughts that were left unsaid because they were not yet clearly formed in my mind.

Creating genuine Christian community is never going to be easy, but a good place to begin is with the shared commitment to talk things through before heading for the exit in search of greener pastures!

Words (c) 2015 Mark Lloyd Richardson

Where nothing’s broken and no one’s missing!

14 Saturday Jan 2012

Posted by mark lloyd richardson in Uncategorized

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

christian congregation, core values, disciple, following Jesus, God's grace, heaven, love God, love neighbor, table of welcome

I’ve been thinking about Core Values recently as I prepare a four week sermon series on the topic for the church I serve.

It can be a challenge to identify the Core Values of a group of people like a congregation, because people bring their own hierarchy of individual values into community with them. Still, every effective group or organization has Core Values that can be clearly identified by observing what they do. Think Sierra Club or the United States Army and you have a good idea of who they are and what values guide them based on what they do.

Likewise, every effective Christian congregation has clear Core Values that keep us on the same page as we seek to be the people God needs us to be for the sake of the world.

Even if you don’t belong to a church or believe in the church, I hope you’ll bear with me as I share why Core Values are important.

Core Values are like guiding principles that never change. As a child I learned the importance of telling the truth. When I was caught in a lie, I soon understood that I had betrayed the Core Values of my family. It wasn’t even spoken. I just knew, and that “knowing” and those “feelings” were punishment enough for me to think twice the next time I thought I could do an end run around the truth.

Core Values are like DNA – they identify what is unique about you and tell the story of who you are. Each person has a story and each church has a story.

Sometimes there are portions of our story we would rather not tell, because they are not as positive as the rest of the story. I served a church once that was approaching a significant anniversary and a member was asked to compose a history booklet. When he brought me the final draft to review, I noticed that it mentioned an episode in the life of the church that had been divisive and painful. Even as I said out loud to him, “Does this have to be in here?” I knew he was right to include it as part of our story. Even seemingly negative details shine a light on what the real Core Values are.

Before I go on too long and lose you, let me say that people have generally understood the Christian faith to be a matter of professing a set of beliefs in the teachings of Jesus Christ. But Christianity is so much more than a belief system. Beliefs only take people so far and then they crumble under the weight of human experience – the sorrows, disappointments, and heartaches of this shared human life.

To be Christian is primarily to be a follower of Jesus – that is, to have Jesus guide you in the way that leads to deeper trust in God and deeper compassion for your neighbor (and yourself). This is about movement, about action, about choosing to align your life with God’s Realm of blessing and life. It goes beyond mere belief to a place of growing trust in the goodness and grace of God.

When Jesus was asked which commandment is the greatest, he answered, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matthew 22:36-39).

Jesus’ way is the way of love!

Love God, love your neighbor, love yourself!

Following Jesus, being a disciple of Jesus, means learning to love with the same kind of reckless abandon as Jesus did, who ate with prostitutes, tax collectors, and a variety of other sinners – maybe even wealthy politicians!

“We may be surprised at the people we find in heaven,” according to Bishop Desmond Tutu. “God has a soft spot for sinners. His standards are quite low.”

If heaven is not some distant destination in the future but rather the Realm where love reigns, then it is a reality toward which we dream and pray and act in this life.

Someone has said that heaven is where there is room for all God’s children at the table, a place where nothing’s broken and no one’s missing!

Heaven is the Realm where love of God and neighbor and self flow together in healing, restorative and life-giving ways! We get glimpses of it in this life if we have eyes to see.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. saw glimpses of it. He had eyes to see a world where love would conquer indifference, cruelty and hate. He had the strength to persevere in the long, hard work of justice and peace because he knew that in the Realm of God’s love the table is spread and all people are welcome. Dr. King once said, “Human progress … comes through the tireless efforts of those willing to be co-workers with God.”

I intend to start with this extravagant God-inspired servant love as I consider the Core Values of the Christian community I serve, and God only knows where it will lead!

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