On Sunday I gave a brief presentation about a new emphasis we are launching at Hope called "Sharing Our Gifts." This came about as a result of discussion we had in our Natural Church Development Church Health Team in recent weeks.
Our Church Health Team set three goals for our efforts. We will encourage fellow members of Hope to grow in their ability to: (1) Share information; (2) Share ourselves; and (3) Share responsibility. Each of these goals on their own may not sound like much, but when taken together, we believe that they will result in a much richer spiritual life among our members at Hope.
Sharing information is important to the health of our congregation for many reasons. First, we are a large congregation (even though church attendance may appear low to many.) We have over 400 households enrolled as members of Hope, some much more active than others, but they are on the rolls because, as far as we can determine, almost all of them are still living in our community. We don't "write off" families from the church's rolls when they are still living nearby and are not attending another church. In fact, over the past 25 years, I have seen many people come and go and come back into the mainstream of our church's life. I wish they would ALL be active, but that's just not the way things are, so since they're still around, we try to keep some line of communication open to them—the monthly ANCHOR, special mailings, and, if possible, the ANCHOR NOTES e-mail newsletter.
Second, we have four services each weekend, and most people attend a particular service every time they worship. That means that they may not see other members they know for a long time and may be out of touch with them. Add to that the sporadic worship habits of some, and it could be months before members see certain others they are close to.
Third, there are many activities, groups, and programs around the church, and they are constantly coming up with new ideas. Only a few groups like our musical groups, the XYZ Fellowship and the Men's Breakfast have "routine schedules," and even they have special events and information to share from time to time. Keeping people informed can enable people to become more active around the church.
Sharing ourselves is a second goal we are pursuing. It isn't easy, of course, given the nature of our diverse congregational community, to create the opportunities for people to share themselves with each other. One current effort is the creation of some "No Experience Necessary" groups that we hope will get people together in more intimate settings so they can become more comfortable in sharing with each other. Other things we do like the Farewell Party of Josh, the Bowling League, and the Steak Barbeque provide opportunities for people to share themselves beyond the "Hi, how are you?" level. But we still have a long way to go.
The "Sharing Our Gifts" emphasis is related to this particular goal in that it encourages people to look at themselves as "servants of God" with gifts God provides for the work of mission. Through the intimate setting of a personal or small group "interview," people have a chance to share their ideas and insights and fill out a survey of their own gifts that we can draw upon as opportunities arise. In the past, with our "Acquire the Fire" surveys, we collected a lot of detailed and useful information about people. Now, with many newer members and with the inevitable evolution of the Total Life Caring Ministry vision, the Health Team wants to make the interview process a regular part of the way we assimilate new members into our church.
Ultimately, of course, as people become better informed and develop more meaningful relationships with one another, they will be more inclined to share responsibility for the mission God has given us at Hope. Unlike churches in previous generations, Hope's "Lutheran identity" is not linked to any ethnic heritage or immigrant story. Most of our members are "first generation" members of Hope, and many are even first generation Lutherans as well.
When it comes to taking responsibility for ministry, therefore, there is no "Loyalty Button" we can push to get an automatic response to needs or crises that arise from time to time. Our members always respond well to special needs, but that says more about the kind of people that they are than anything else. We are hoping that as members form deeper roots in our congregation and community, they will feel more comfortable about taking responsibility for providing leadership and resources to advance our shared mission.
"Sharing Our Gifts" is being launched now so we can start the process of bringing more people on board for mission and ministry at Hope. As interviews are held and ideas are shared, we will see new things springing up that we can't even imagine right now. That's the way God's Spirit works in our life together.
A recent ELCA advertising emphasis uses a catchy slogan that I like: "God's Mission—Our Hands." I am convinced that "Sharing Our Gifts" is a vehicle that God will bless if we are willing to lend our hands to the effort.
Dear Pastor Hill and Fellow Bloggers,
ReplyDeleteI’d like to hitchhike on your latest blog concerning the journey and evolution that a church must go through in order to look at ourselves as “servants of God.” I’d like to offer what I consider to be the most fundamental, yet the most powerful and challenging biblical motif that allows a church to grow in mission and servant hood. All I would ask is that you would set aside 20 minutes with God and see where it takes you. It might possibly give you a different framework that, if taken seriously, may have a considerable impact in your life and on our life as a growing church community. So, without further ado….. Here is Dr. Arthur Caliandro’s sermon on
Giving Life Your Best
Matthew 26:6-13
Tim Russert, the moderator of the popular NBC program Meet the Press, wrote a book about his father a couple of years ago. His father was an ordinary man; he worked on a garbage truck—but he was also a very special human being. His son’s affectionate reminiscences are called Big Russ and Me. After it came out, thousands and thousands of people all over the world wrote him letters about their fathers. He took the best of these letters and put them into a book, Wisdom of Our Fathers.
One story was sent by a man from New York City named Stuart Frankel. He said that when he was eleven, he and his father happened to be walking by Riverside Chapel, on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, just as a crowd of mourners was entering for a funeral. His father stopped and asked what time it was. Stuart told him and they lingered on the sidewalk talking about the New York Giants. After a while the mourners emerged from the chapel. Again Stuart’s father asked the time. About twenty minutes had passed. His father called his attention to the fact that the funeral to celebrate a person’s entire life had taken twenty minutes. Why, Stuart asked him, was he telling him this? This was his response:
Because I hope you will live a long and productive life, that you will be aware of your surroundings, that you will stay out of trouble, and that you will be thoughtful and cautious. And above all, that you will always know in the back of your mind that someday your entire life will be summed up in twenty minutes.
Do you ever think of what you would want said at your funeral? It is good from time to time to take a long view of your life. When you do, it inspires you to ask: What am I supposed to be doing with my life? How am I doing with it? Am I giving my life my best shot?
When I ask myself if I am giving my life my best shot, what comes to my mind is now a cliché. I usually don’t like clichés; although they may represent a truth, they have become stale. But this cliché has the power of truth: Today is the first day of the rest of your life. No matter how you look at it, today really is the first day of the rest of your life. The days past are gone; we cannot recover or change them—although we can change the way we think about them.
Today, we can change our thinking, make a new choice, redirect our lives. Today is the first day of the rest of our lives.
Let me give this idea some foundation from Psalm 124. “This is the day which the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.” And I will bring it even closer to home. Yours is the life that God has given. Rejoice and be glad in it.
St. Paul, in his second letter to his protégé Timothy, was addressing some failing in Timothy. We do not know what it was. Perhaps he was doubting, or being lazy. In some way he was holding himself back. Paul said to him, “Timothy, stir up the gift that is in you. Rekindle the spark that is in you. Because God did not give you the spirit of timidity, but God gave you the spirit of power, of love, and of self-discipline.”
God gives the spirit of power, love and self-discipline to us all. We are empowered. God’s presence, God’s power, is in us. God’s love is blessing and nurturing us. Our job is to accept the blessing—to have the strength and self-discipline to go forward with our lives. This, today, is the first day of the rest of our lives.
We are accepting God’s gift whenever we make a commitment to something that is bigger than we are. I had a mentor once who was always saying to me, “Arthur, talk about big ideas, not small ideas.” A big idea is an idea that stretches you. A big idea is one that is bigger than you are. A big idea is one that draws you up into it. I dare say most of us spend a good deal of our lifetimes dealing with small, divisive ideas, not generous and inspirational, but weak and piddling. Instead, commit yourself to something bigger than you are.
Let me take that a step further. This is something that everybody can do, and it is wonder-filled: commit yourself to something that will take more than a lifetime to accomplish. It will go beyond your lifetime and into the next. So when you have that twenty-minute service summarizing your life, it will just summarize one part of your life, the mortal part. More will come later.
I have a wonderful illustration of such a commitment. In the hallway behind me there is a portrait of a man named Albert Snow. Albert Snow, for many years, would sit right here, to my left. He was born in 1900 in Wales. The Welsh love to sing; he would just belt the hymns out with joy and pride and grandeur.
He came over to this country when he was twenty or twenty-one and got a job with the Caterpillar Company, the only job he ever had. He was one of the first to sell big farm machinery and construction machinery to the Middle East. He traveled throughout the Middle East— Lebanon, Egypt, Israel, all over. When he retired to New York he never missed a Sunday morning at Marble.
One day he came to see me. “When my wife died a few years ago, she left her money to her family. I watched as it was used for bigger houses and bigger cars. I decided that when I die my money will be used for the good of humanity. I want to leave the bulk of my estate to the church, in a special fund.”
I asked him how much money he was talking about. “A million dollars, give or take.” And so we talked about how the money might be used. I suggested pastoral care. The one thing in the church which never changes is the need to minister to other people, to care for and to care about others. This became his dream.
Several months after that initial conversation, I was in the hospital for a major operation. Three days after the surgery, Al Snow walked into the room. “Isn’t this nice, to have you come and see me!” I said. But he wanted to talk business. He was excited about his gift for pastoral care and wanted to make plans.
Well into his eighties, Albert Snow died. His lawyer called to tell us the bequest to Marble was three and a half million dollars. “He didn’t know what he had,” the lawyer told me. “This is a man who never took a taxi cab. He walked or took a bus. He was always very frugal.”
When the first check arrived some months later, it couldn’t have come at a more perfect time. The United States was in a serious recession. In New York City, thousands and thousands of people were without a job. Many dozens in this church alone were unemployed.
Because of Al’s gift, we began a program of job support. We were able to hire professionals to help people through the process of preparing a resumé, interviewing, whatever you need to learn to find a good job.
For years we had wanted to have professional grief support and divorce support groups. Now we had the money to do it. We still have these programs today. And at Christmas and Easter we give special gifts to the homebound. We have been able to help people financially in so many different ways because a man wanted to give a gift that would last beyond his lifetime.
We are near the twentieth anniversary of Al’s death. We could have another twenty-minute service to summarize what has happened in the twenty years since—and twenty years after that, do it again. Because his gift, as long as Marble Collegiate Church is a church, will go on helping, loving, and blessing people.
Not all of us are able to give large amounts to help others, but there is another way to give. We are talking about the dimension of love. Christianity is all about giving and loving and forgiving; it is all about generosity of heart.
Three or four years ago, at a dinner here where our Board was hosting some of the Collegiate School officers, the Chairman of their Board came to my table. “Arthur, I want to talk to you about your niece Ann,” he said urgently. “My son just graduated from Harvard. He did very well there. But whenever he talks about the teachers who influenced him the most, the first among them is his kindergarten teacher, Ann Caliandro.”
She lives in Maine, and when I stay in my house there she and I will often have dinner in a local restaurant. Never have I had a meal with Ann when somebody did not come up to the table—an adult, a teenager—and say, “Hi Miss Caliandro, do you remember me?” And she will remember them. Often Ann will say, “Uncle Art, would you excuse me while I go to the table over there and speak with that family?” Off she will go and soon there will be an excited, animated conversation at that table.
As I watch her with children, I see what is so special about her relationship with them. She respects and cares about them. She understands their boundaries. She nurtures and encourages them. In short, she loves them. As a result of her commitment to loving children, she will live long past her years in this life.
One of the most awesome memorial services I ever experienced was in celebration of the life of a woman who joined this church about fifteen years ago. I felt a little guilty when I agreed to let her join because she had told me, “I love this church and I would love to be a part of it, but I am not sure about Jesus.” When people join the church they make a public affirmation that Jesus is the Lord of their lives.
But I asked myself what would Jesus do in the same circumstance. I remembered that He had kept “Doubting Thomas” all the way through. So I said to her, “Eva, please, you can join the church.” And she did.
I thought I would never see her again. She was internationally known in her field and traveled a great deal. I would get cards from all over the world telling me what she was doing, lectures that she was giving, conferences she was attending. Her field of study was in one of the more unusual areas of human sexuality, and at times during her life she had a lifestyle which most churches, and most Christians, would frown upon. Yet when she was in New York she would come to church, and whenever she saw me she would say, “Thank you for letting me join this church.”
Last May she was swimming in Mexico and was caught by an undertow and drowned. Her memorial service here did not last twenty minutes. It was almost two hours. Person after person came up to the chancel to talk about Eva. Each story was different, but they were all the same in some ways. Everyone talked about unconditional love. Everyone talked about listening. Over and over we heard, “Eva changed my life.” It was awesome. There was something deep inside of her, beyond her behavior, which touched people in their heart and soul. She will live way beyond her own lifetime because she loved. We Christians, and the Church, have a great deal of difficulty with unconditional love. But when it happens, it is powerful.
There is a story about Jesus which took place shortly before the Crucifixion. Jesus must have known what was going to happen. He knew He would be crucified. He knew He would go through a personal hell. He knew how painful it would be when people denied Him. He and some of the disciples were at His friend Simon’s house in Bethany, just a few miles from Jerusalem. I sense that He needed just to be, to be at peace, with His friends. While they were sitting around the table, a woman walked in, opened a vial of expensive perfume and poured it over Jesus’ head. The disciples were judgmental, critical: “What a waste! That money could have been used to help the poor, to serve many other needs.”
But Jesus rebuked them. “You will not have me much longer. This woman has done a beautiful thing. She has prepared my body for burial.” The Bible describes her as having had a sinful life before she met Jesus, yet she understood something nobody else understood. The extravagance of her action mirrored the open generosity of her heart as she showed her gratitude to Jesus for changing her life.
Jesus told the others that her action would be remembered long after her death. It is true—the story of her unrestrained love in honoring Jesus has lasted far beyond her to inspire us today.
Let us think about the twenty-minute summing-up that will be given at your funeral and at mine. When we give life our very best, when we give our lives a very good shot, we will live far beyond that ceremony. When we have lived a good and productive life, when we have been loving and generous, we can influence the world for good far beyond our years.
Bless you. Keep the faith. Commit to love, and love, and love. Let us pray.
For the gift of life, we thank You. Help us to respond with our gratitude, and give generously, with big dreams and big hearts. Amen.