Great Day Yesterday

Wow.  What a great day we had yesterday!  The music was outstanding.  The instruments shined.  The house looked beautiful.  The sanctuary was full.  Thank you to all who made it so special.   

Tough Questions & Thoughts

            As we turned out for a Saturday morning of power washing, garland hanging, and pageant practicing, I experienced the joy of God’s people working together.  I also found myself once again pondering questions that Cocoa Pres must face.  (I say, “must face,” but I a reminded of Lucy in the Charlie Brown comic strip saying that there is no problem so big that I cannot avoid it!)

            The questions spin out of one – how do we be a viable congregation?  As we covered one end of the campus to the other one had to wonder, how do we keep up this aging facility when we are a congregation getting smaller in numbers and older in years?  Will a pastor hired just part-time turn our decline around?  Will a pastor hired full-time turn our decline around?  If we don’t turn it around, we are in a hospice mode. 

            To maintain the facility, hire staff, and run programs we need cash.  That means revenue streams having to do with members – more $$ out of the members we have, more members and $$ out of them, or a combination of the two.  That means revenue streams having to do with income generation by renting or selling – renting part of the facility to another congregation trying to get started or needing more space, selling more land, running a thrift shop, opening a tea room, putting in a boat and rv storage area, …. 

            We easily say that we need to minister to the neighborhood and that is absolutely true.  However, our ministry needs also to lead to supplying us with sustaining members.  Otherwise we give away and continue to shrink and age as a congregation.  (Now I have more than once travelled to be a part of a church seriously involved in mission in their community.  So the flag that needs to be waved is, “Come join us as we are a group of people making a serious difference in our community.”  To do the ministry without getting sustaining members or to say we are doing the ministry when we are not, won’t cut it.)

            The other part of cash is, of course, cutting expenses.  There are soft and hard expenses.  Hard ones are set, like the insurance we carry on the property.  Soft ones are cut-able, like staff.  We can put services into Flanniken Hall to reduce electricity expenses.  We can go to volunteers for custodial, landscaping, and secretarial services.  
            Again lower expenses, selling property, increasing cash by micro-business enterprises … without growing the congregation just means being able to tread water longer.  Growing the congregation may mean, and this is ok, growing only at a rate that replenishes typical losses (members dying, moving, drifting away, or switching churches).   But if it is less than a replenish rate (typically 10% of the congregation's size), a trendline of decline can be plotted to a congregation’s expiration date. 

            Sounds gloomy? There are other ideas that can go on the table – merging with another church, selling the property and moving someplace where people like us can grow more easily, making the end of our life as Cocoa as we know it a giving ourselves away to become an African American or Hispanic congregation of the Presbyterian flavor or some other denomination all together. 

Who is Cocoa? Week 4 of Congregational Meetings

Who is Cocoa?  Week 4 of Congregational Meetings

What aren’t we doing that we need to start? 

·         Connecting with the proximate community

·         Getting new people, especially young families

·         Updating the worship service

·         Evangelism training

·         Asking members to do more

·         Offering our facilities to the community

What are we doing that we need to stop?

·         Being closed-minded and resisting change, living in the past

·         Judging others (incl the RFM school)

·         Thinking we are a big church

·         Territorialism

·         Being PCUSA

·         Being the big, white church on Dixon

·         Beggaring the facilities

What are we doing that is contributing to our success & should continue?

·         Our relationship with The Sharing Center and The Special Gathering

·         Being friendly

·         Mission involvement, BIRP

·         Fixing the facility

·         Music

·         Connecting with Westminster/Asbury

·         Our Shepherd Program

·         Women’s Ministry

What do we need to fix?  Keep it but fix it. 

·         Parking lot

·         Sound system

·         Lighting in sanctuary/narthex

·         Session committees

·         “Bridges” to WIC, Boy Scouts, RFM, Westminster/Asbury

What realistically are our main sources of new members?

·         Those like us who are near us

·         Those like us who are somewhat near us (Canaveral Groves/PSJ)

·         Those we have some connection to – Boy Scouts

·         Our own personal friends, family, neighbors, coworkers

What skills are most important to getting the above done?

·         Handyman

·         Senior Adult Ministry experience

·         Multi-ethnic, transitional ministry experience

Pastor Wood comments—I inserted a few comments above already.  Many of the points need a follow up question of, “How?”  Or, “What do we have to offer them?”  As in, “Get younger families.”  And what I call “the invite factor” must be owned by every member.  I’m going to Circle, who can I invite.  I’m going to clean up day, who can I invite?  I’m going to choir, who can I invite.  Thank you, those of you who came, for all your good work. 

A Little Comment on Church

In the last post I shared what we said together about what the church is and does.  In the notes you can see we made it a location and facility.  We made it a group of people doing the will of God.  Giving it that people definition means church, while being location and facility at times, exists beyond location and facility as well. 

Under us being a group doing the will of God we put sharing the Good News.  The Great Commission says making disciples.  Same thing.  But I want to niggle us on point here and I am right there in the thick of it for being responsible for this issue.  The point can be made this way.  Let's say our business was to be a pregnancy center, let's say, helping people get pregnant and then helping those babies develop in a healthy way.  And there are a 100 of us employed there and we know that that is our business.  We like our office space.  We like our co-workers.  We like our employee banquets and our employee study sessions.  At the end of the year if no one got pregnant, if at the end of five years it was the same, and so on, then using our business heads, we'd say something was wrong.  But this is the case for church after church.  People show up already pregnant and we help them.  Sometimes it is not even that.  Most of the time, however, there are ... no adult baptisms (indicating someone who wasn't a disciple becoming one).  ie, a key, if not the key, product of our business is not getting produced. 

There are lots of complicated reasons for such a state of affairs.  They're valid.  Maybe we let it be too complicated.  I'm not sure.  If we go back to Peter Drucker's two key questions for any organization (What's your business?  How's business?) and keep the answers pretty basic and simple, then many or even most churches are not doing so well.  If we were a business, needing to pay for inventory and overhead and taxes and salaries, we'd need to close. 

I don't mean to be doom and gloom or point the finger.  I am, as I said, right in the thick of the responsibility for this problem.  It does keep me thinking about how I can reach out.  It does keep me thinking that session's should spend at least a few hours each year, before doing anything else almost, in developing this year's plan for making new disciples, getting those who were'nt pregnant with Christ, pregnant with Him. 
And, of course, then a few hours on how we can do worship really well in the coming year.  Then what this group of disciples needs equiping in. 

Peace.

Congregational Meeting Week 3

Who is Cocoa?  Week 3 of Congregational Meetings

                We already went through our thoughts on what Christians believe, experience, and do.  What are our thoughts on the church?  What is it?  Who are we and what do we do and what results are we to achieve? 

    We said that a church is

·         A place for worship and for teaching the Bible (a location and two activities)

·         A group of people who as a team does the will of God (sharing the good news & helping the poor)

·         A community for mutual support in the walk of Christian faith and in the events of life (ups and downs, breaking bread, sacred ceremonies of marriage & funerals)

·         A community offering the sacraments

Who comes to Cocoa Pres?  Our answer -- about a 100

·         Middle class people

·         WASPs

·         Old but still able people

·         Medium educated people

·         Giving people

·         English speaking

           What do we value?  What gets on our radar screen and how do we do those things?

·         Being formal /  Being informal   ??

·         Being traditional

·         Being not too big

·         Being intelligent

·         Being Presbyterian

·         Being ecumenical

·         Education

·         Praying for the sick

·         Visiting the hospital

·         Pastoral care

·         Lay ministry

·         Music

·         Children

·         Pot-lucks

·         Mission conference

·         Our facilities

·         Preaching

·         Playing it safe/conservative

·         Scouting

What doesn’t get on our radar screen that gets on others’?

·         Small group ministry

·         Men’s ministry emphasis

·         Financial type classes

·         Inward Journey/Spiritual Formation

·         Spiritual gifts

·         Social justice emphasis

The interim pastor shared first impressions as an outsider were –

·         We have more facility than we can maintain

·         There were a lot of signs

·         For all the love there is interpersonal tension between some members

·         The sanctuary and narthex are not well lit

·         Getting an ethnic pastor might be the way to go

·         Being very focused on senior ministry might be the way to go

·         This group is medium on formality and being Presbyterian

·         There have been disappointments here related to some pastors

Key Questions for the Congregation Searching;

Who are we? 

            Our key experiences – highest, lowest, for us normal means a,b,c

            Assets

            Liabilities*

To have a future as a viable congregation we must

            Start _____________________________________

            Stop ­­­­­­­­­­_____________________________________

            Continue _________________________________

            Fix_______________________________________

What realistically are our main sources of new members?

What we are called to do?

a combination of what we want to do

     what the Bible says we are to do

     our assets

     the opportunities around us

What skills are most important to get done what we are called to do?

How can we best articulate who we are and where we need to do?

How can we most innovatively search for a person with the skills we want and “win” them into coming?

The Congregation Meets -- Part 2A & 2B

Who is Cocoa?  Week 2 of Congregational Meetings – Part A

            We are working together creating fodder for a document helpful in the search for a new pastor.  It is resume of sorts saying who we are and what we want to do or think we need to do.  Given this, what skills do we need in the next pastor?  Make all that explicit – who we are, what we think we want or need to do, what skills are key – and then advertize and search. 

            Last week we looked back at funny moments, ouch moments, and proud moments.  That’s who we were and are.  We could look back all day and in umpteen ways but that bit of looking back is good enough.  We are still going to be left with, “Now what?” 

            We might say from the past successes and failures we have learned how to do or not do this or that.  We have learned.  That’s good.  We can carry that forward.  On the other hand remember the silver back gorilla.  For thousands of year he was successful by, when threatened, having all the other gorillas get together behind him while he beat his chest.  Now with poachers who have machine guns, that strategy is the exact wrong thing to do.  What we learned in the past, then, might be helpful or might not be.  So let’s go forward flexibly.

            Who we are has to do also with conscious and unconscious organizational choices we make.  Mom and pop stores cannot keep doing everything like a mom and pop store and be the size of IBM.  Nor vice versa.  Mom and pop operations had all three employees eating lunch together every day and that was super.  There’s a tear shed when that can’t happen because there are many employees and everything is busy.  It’s a loss.  But it is also a trade – for more friends, more activity, more income?  Seldom can we have our cake and eat it too.  There are choices to be made.

If we expect the pastor to be at the hospital whenever a congregant is in the hospital and no one else will do, then because the pastor is only one person with finite time, the church will grow to the size that he or she can handle.  And what members’ mindsets or expectations can handle.  If a pastor needs to be in control of everything and is not good at training or delegating, again the church will size itself accordingly.  A lot of pompons waving feverishly won’t change that.  If the parishioners needs to know everyone and everyone going on, then the size of that person’s awareness will affect the size of the church.  One size is not necessarily better than another (although all sizes must figure out how to stay viable).  But we are often self-cancelling without realizing it.  We say, “Grow!” while maintaining attitudes and choices and skill sets that say no to the growth.

Our choice exercise (done in our meeting time) overall pitted a pastor being caring by attending personally against a pastor being caring by training.  It’d be overly simplistic to say that it pitted a person being a pastor against being a leader.  It’s interesting how we define pastoral.  We import into the thoughts of tending, caretaking, soothing.  Thoughts of leading, goading, confronting are not there.  We’ll give a pastor high marks if he or she is caretaking but if he or she is demanding, watch out.  Yet won’t it take both for a church to be healthy?  to grow?  Yes.

So who are we?  We’re our past.  But we are also our organizational choices and expectations. 

Who is Cocoa?  Week 2 of Congregational Meetings – Part B

            Being a Christian is some combination of certain beliefs, experiences, and practices.  You are a Christian if you believe in Jesus Christ as being God and having died for your sins, for example.  You are a Christian if you have experienced conviction of sin and the peace that passes understanding, for example.  You are a Christian if you practice the Ten Commandments, for example.

            In table groups we listed our key beliefs, experiences, and practices.  Key beliefs are that Jesus is Lord and Savior, that he died for our sins, that he offers us eternal life, that the Bible is true, that the church is a community, and that there is one God.  Key experiences are, as said above, conviction of sin and peace from God related to our confession and trust in Jesus.  Key practices are prayer, the Ten Commandments, forgiving others, giving, teaching and sharing our faith, loving and respecting others, and helping the poor.

            Who are we?  We are also these beliefs.  We are our past, our organizational choices, and our beliefs.  Again, we could give more time to teasing out our beliefs and having more of them listed.  But this is a good start.  And maybe gets us 75 or 85% of the way.  Another four hours might get us another 5-10% more of the way.  You’ll have to decide if that time is worth the additional percentage.  Be assured, however, that we’ll never, even with months of work, get 100% of the way. 

The Congregation Meets -- Part 1

The congregation works with a study group to put together a "resume" for the church that says who we are, where we are going, what we need.  Here's week one of the congregation working together. 

Maybe 18-20 people plus me. 

Who we are is partially, not totally, our past.  So we went through the church’s history – the good, the bad, the ugly, and the good!  Some neat things to remember.  The Charles departure being the big blip on the radar screen.  Everyone is not going to know everything about that or agree.  Unfortunately, I guess for many of us, life isn’t always without loose ends.  That's the way it is.  Accepting that and moving on is important I believe.

We did touch on the congregation’s viability given shrinking size and finances against aging membership.  Continuing forward for any real length of time will require ministry that acquires a certain amount of participating members (show up and give) against expenses. 

So to do neighborhood ministry that doesn’t net members is doing ministry but there will be an expiration date for the church.  However, if more of the church was rented, for example, that would carry expenses and the membership could stay the same or shrink.  Or, if the congregation moved into just Flanniken Hall, for example, for the six hottest months, it could have a smaller membership because there are smaller expenses.  This same thinking can continue with regard to staffing … the same or less members can continue if the staff expenses shrink – less secretary, custodial, security, music, pastoral expenses.

Of course, we lowering expenses tends more to be talking about sustaining than growing.  Regrouping and conservancy can lead to growth at some point.  Or it can be how to prolong maintenance. 

Where are the likely sources of new members for Cocoa?  This is a key question.  Many noted how the community is changed and the inside membership is different than the neighborhood make up.  So will the immediate surrounding zip code be a source of new members?  Bud Timmons got us going in one thoughtful direction in observing Asbury Arms, the retirement center next door, is expanding it operation.  It would do that based on a good or expanding market of senior citizens. 

Consider this -- The potential new members leads us into considering then the profile and skills necessary in a pastor to reach them.

Hope this is helpful to someone.

Review on $$

Here's a quick review on 3 money messages --

WEEK 1

• Money is more than a thing.  Highway signs are things and don't become fetishes.  Money is a thing and becomes a fetish.
• Money can't and won't.  It's limited.  It can't make the lame walk.  You won't take it with you. 
• Money is to be used in the service of love.  The temporary serves the eternal.  It is termporary and people are eternal.  Don't use people and cherish things.  Cherish people and use things.

WEEK 2

• from Malachi 3:6
• How to get right with God is a question asked in hard times for a person or country.
• Answer:  Tithe.
• Huh?  It's a core issue and for that there was a core story.  A part of the Garden of Eden the Lord said was his.  One tree.  Everything else he shared.  We think that if take it all, we'll have more.  We think that taking his is ok.  Was it ok for Adam & Eve?  That thinking?  What the tree was in the garden, is what the tithe is in our income.  And we don't get back on track until we go back to where we got off track.  Not surrendering to God.
• When we don't tithe we rob God of his desire to share and the way he has worked the natural laws on this is, "You give me the tithe, I bless."  So when you don't tithe, he can't do what he likes.  We rob him of pleasure. 
• When we tithe there's a three-fold promise:  blessing comes, depreciation kept away, and respect given.

WEEK 3

• God set up a sacrficial system so we would remember him ... we do better when we do remember him and we don't when we don't.  So he sets up a system. 
• Sacrifice means it isn't superfluous or unfelt.  It is meaningful, costly, and perhaps even painful.
• Sacrifice = giving.
• Giving in the Bible is Regular, Responsive (fluctuates according to what extra comes in), Reliant (I'll trust God to provide me with $5 extra a week to give ... but I give first and then rely on him to provide), and Revelational (a specific cause he tells you to give to). 

QUESTION:  HOW AM I DOING ON GIVING?

A Season for Christians

In the next eight weeks Americans will have more special gatherings than the rest of the year put together I think.  We will meet at the Thanksgiving table.  We will then find each other at the Christmas party at the office and the Christmas open house at the neighbors'.  Before you know it we will be at the table again for Christmas Eve and/or Christmas Day.  Next up is New Year's Eve.  Some of us will be toasting with others of us.  January 1 is football and football and nachos and nachos.  More cavorting. 

In all of these situations there will be someone who is lonely, someone who is not in the inner circle, someone who drinks too much, someone who overstressed, someone with a daughter who is struggling, someone with a parent with dementia, someone who is labelled the black sheep of the family, someone who dislikes his brother, someone going through a divorce, someone who's dating a member of the family, someone invited because they're a "stray," .... 

The world is divided up into guests and hosts.  Christ-followers are hosts.  They go into the above situations not trying to be saviors but asking of themselves to be servants.  They go into the avove situations asking God for less judgmentalism inside themselves and a lot of, lot of mercy.  They go into the above situations knowing that they will pull themselves away from their natural cliches and build a bridge to someone outside their circle.  They go into the above situations with prayer, "God, help me to be sensitive to your Spirit, to speak when you would have me speak, to not speak when you would have me not speak."  They go into the above situations being willing to say to someone, "I'll pray for you about that." 

You are the light of the world.  Let that light shine. 

Thank You & & &

Cocoa's family sure surprised me on Sunday!  I knew my sermon was heavy-weight and had waved off one announcement and was hoping for short children's message.  So when Kathy asked to make an announcement and wouldn't tell me what it was about, I was like the rooster to the hen who wanted for some reason to lay an egg on the highway. "Well, then I'd lay it on the line and do it quick!"  What followed was a lot of love to me and thank you, thank you.  It continued all the way to my kitchen and as I unpacked cocoa and more cocoa :) as was again blessed.  Thank you. 

I ended up in the last blog with the pastor.  I am afraid today that too often we give points to the pastor in terms of pastoral care and not in terms of pastoral leadership.  The pastor is to visit hospitals and when it comes to session, to moderate the meetings but not lead them, or so we think.  

And the session, it is thought, then provides leadership.  However, as a tour of Richmond, VA will show, there are many statues of generals and not a one of a committee.  When we go to the Bible, instead of to the secular business arena, we will find the first “elders” being suggested by Moses’ father-in-law for assistance to Moses in a great work.  If a leader is to endure, if a bottleneck is to be avoided and a work is to expand, then there must be help and delegation.  Once the elders were appointed for helping Moses and all the Hebrews manage better, we don’t find the elders sitting in judgment on Moses like a Board of Directors or him asking their permission to do this or that. 

Now just to clarify, in Presbyterian polity the pastor is a member of the session and has a vote.  So he or she is not just a moderator but a member of the session who participates in its discusssion, work, and votes. 

As I bring up the elders with Moses let me at the same time say the Bible clearly commends to us that we are part of a body and one part is not sufficient unto itself.  So others’ gifts and viewpoints are needed.  There is wisdom, the Bible continues, in counselors.  We are not talking, then, about leaders without accountability.  But we are talking about leaders leading. 

And remember the Ephesian elders who wept and enjoined Paul, by virtue of their sense of the Holy Spirit, not to return to Jerusalem?  What did he do?  Returned to Jerusalem.  The conscience of the leader (and all of us) must always act ultimately in response to God. 

If They Are Not Bothering You, They May Not Be Doing Their Job

The congregation must decide.  It is a nice statement.  But what does it mean?  The congregation is made up of people and some are bossy, some are crazy, some are quiet, some are gone for that meeting, some are just really sweet, some get what the issues are and some don’t get what the issues are. 

John Carver, who has written extensively about governing boards, reminds board members that they are trustees.  They are entrusted with the task of operating in the best interests of the organization.  One might be tempted to say, “In the best interests of the members.”  That is perfectly okay if the board members understand that the members may renege on the purpose of the organization here and there and must, therefore, be withstood.  They may renege out of short-sightedness or excessive self-interest.  Or the members may not have all the information necessary to comprehend what is best for the organization.  So boards must always be educating the very membership for whom they are trustees. 

Boards are servants of the membership as trustees not as people to whom the congregation says, “You will do what we say.”  They are to look out for the interests not of any subset but of the whole.  They are to look long term.  They are to keep fixed on the founding purpose even if members forget.  They are trustees.

So for a congregation to decide, the session must educate and lead them.  There must be process of laying the groundwork, letting ideas germinate, and getting everyone involved.  For the session to educate and lead, shouldn’t the pastor be to them what they are to be to the congregation?  Otherwise, we have a small group of the blind leading a larger group of the blind.  Or the bland leading the bland. 

One caveat – the church is a privately held company.  Trustees act on behalf of the owner who is God.  Aaron got that mixed up and built a golden calf.  He acted on behalf of the congregation rather than the owner.  If your session is always making you happy, watch out.  The session should always be making God happy.  And given our sin natures that will mean, from time to time, that their being faithful to God necessitates being firm with us. 

Do You Have a Special Call?

I was off on a Presbyterian pastor matter called CREDO for eight days.  I am grateful for the caring ways of our denomination when it comes to pastors.  But now it is time for another blogpost and what I am going to give today is NOT related to anything I have experienced recently.  I find there are some things that it is good to talk about when they are not on the front burner.  Sometimes if we talk about it in regular ol' times, we less frequently have that matter go to the front burner!  So here we go.

I have a friend, Ron, who is pastor in Texas.  He has kind of a gravelly voice and I can still hear him telling me about a conversation in a new church that began in an unnerving way for him.  I think it was the way the man approached him and made eye contact.  But it ended up as a conversation of great blessing. 

The man said, “Pastor, do you know who I am?” 

Ron replied, “No.” 

“I am a man who will take a bullet for the pastor of this church.”

This was not blind allegiance to Ron but it was dedication to the office of pastor and Ron was grateful.  It reminded me of a friend who was in the Secret Service.  I asked him about taking a bullet for a President you may not personally like.  He said that he was caring for a human being in front of personal tastes but more importantly he was protecting the office of President, a democratic decision of the American people.

Now fast forward several years and I will give you a conversation as a pastor with a church member of my own.  Steve seemed very quiet to me.  Maybe he was shy or uncomfortable around church.  I couldn’t tell.  But the first words I remember hearing from Steve were, “I am called to help pastors.  So whatever you need, please let me know.  Is there a way I can help you today?”  He kept that up until I finally really did ask him to help me with something I really did need. 

I know that there are stories of pastors who are bulls-in-a-china-shop.  And they need love plus truth just like everyone else.  But there are also a lot of stories of pastors getting roundly criticized, of the prevailing wind not being forgiveness or respect but something grumpier.    Just like in a marriage where you can love yourself if you’ll love your partner well, so in a church.  If you love your church, love your pastor! 

There is no pastor who’s perfect.  There’s no church member who’s perfect.  I like the small group curriculum where everyone begins by asking for forgiveness because in the course of doing real life together we’re going to offend one another.  Let’s admit the difficulties we all face in doing church together and move forward. 

Paul tells us to esteem and honor church leaders.  It is a tough job being out in front and viewed by many, many others who can be armchair quarterbacks.  So let’s watch gossip.  Let’s shovel on encouragement and prayers.  Amen?   Amen.