Month

Dear People of Christ Church,

This week, it was a pleasure to distribute the thank you notes written on Sunday in response to Sarah Staley’s stewardship talk, which you can see here. Many of the notes were general in nature—thanks to all who make the church “go”—from altar guild to readers to building maintenance to children’s education—so even if you didn’t receive a personal one in the mail, please know that it matters that you are here.

It matters—and not just because of what you do, but because being the church is a less and less common endeavor. The results of a nationwide study of Episcopal Congregations were published this month, and the news for our denomination is not great. The median Episcopal parish had 77 people in church in 2003, which then dropped to 66 in 2009, and dropped to 61 by 2013. People just don’t go to church as much anymore.

Over the last ten years, the average Sunday attendance of Episcopal Churches has declined twenty-four percent. We can point to all kinds of things outside ourselves to explain why this is the case. Sports are taking over every family’s life, not just those who want to go to church. All households are impacted by the change in work expectations, where we’re all attached to our digital tethers 24 hours a day. And that’s those of us fortunate enough to be employed and to have time “off” in the first place. There’s no end to work or homework, or anxiety. To claim, then, that one ought to make it a priority to sit in a 115 year old building for an hour every Sunday—every Sunday?!?—when the rest of our lives are so chaotic sounds pretty crazy. Isn’t it more compassionate just to stay home and take a nap? Can’t you pray from the couch? Is God worth praying to if God can’t find you there?

In some ways, this is the “time” version of the piece I wrote last week about how important it is to give our money to the church. Spending time and money are both ways to signal our commitment. I said last week I give money to church because church helps make me who I am. I’m fed, supported, loved by God. That’s true for time, too, but when it comes to actually showing up for church, the reverse is also true; me going to church makes the church who it is.

The church needs everyone not just to fill seats, but to be faithful to the vision God has for us, a substantial part of which is being together, bodily. One thing I was struck by in the thank-you’s was that several people thanked each other for being an inspiration to them—you are teaching each other to be faithful. When each of you show up, it makes it easier for the others to do that. For you to hear each other’s voices, to smile at each other’s kids, to laugh when the sound system malfunctions. To celebrate at baptisms and marriages, and to mourn for the dead. There are plenty of things that your church community needs you to do, but the most important thing is just for you to be. Church is on a human scale. We can enrich our community with all the blogs and facebook posts in the world, but we still need to be in the same room together.

Christ Church has been growing steadily over the last ten years—there was a big jump between 2006 and 2008 of 15%, and then from 2008 to 2013 another 11% of growth. That’s pretty fantastic…only 25% of other congregations have had similar growth. But for it to keep going, you need to keep going. You are smart, dedicated, loving and faithful. You come from all different backgrounds and live in all different kinds of households. You are the Body of Christ. Thank you.

Blessings,
Sara+

Dear People of Christ Church,

This past Sunday we had our first speaker as part of our stewardship series. These three Sundays of November we imagine what it would be like to be fully offer ourselves—all that we are and all that we have—to God. Maureen Fowler gave us a wonderful beginning in inviting us to think about the barriers that keep us from giving our gifts. Everyone was invited to write their responses to the talk on slips of paper throughout the pews, and we gathered them in a (confidential) offering basket to be blessed with the food for Grandma’s Pantry and our gifts of money for the work of the church.

As you all know, we haven’t distributed pledge cards yet, the idea being to first spend some time thinking and praying about what we will give. In her talk (which you can watch here), Maureen talked about how when tithing was first created, there were no 5 K races for breast cancer. There was no Land Trust or Community Day Center. There was no fundraising for mosquito nets to fight malaria or subsidizing children’s education. There are a lot of things you can give your money to. And, arguably, a la Matthew 25—when Jesus says “when you did it to the least of these you did it to me”—when you give to all of these other fantastic things, you are most certainly saying yes to that call to serve God in others.

So the question you may have asked yourself is why, exactly, giving to church is a good use of your money. The parish heating bill is $20,000. Do you really want to be part of that? As well as we’re growing at Christ Church, parishes all over the Episcopal Church are in decline. Are our pledges propping up a dying institution? Maybe you’d come closer to God staying home and praying in silence. Maybe you’d come closer to the Jesus who is in solidarity with “the least of these” going out into the world and giving to every person on every street corner who asked you to. What kind of positive investment is this, really, apart from all the spiritualized “shoulds” and “oughts?”

Like anything, your answer may not be my answer. But here’s one idea. The reason I give a ton of money to church is that I think being part of church makes me who I am. Being part of a church cultivates in me the vision to see the people on the street who ask for money. Being part of church gives me the vision to see why giving to care for God’s creation is part of practicing my faith. Being part of church helps me to be nourished in ways I didn’t even realize I was hungry. I wonder if giving to church makes it possible for you to be who you are, too.

Being part of church makes it possible for me to make a bigger impact than I could on my own. I can’t invite a yoga class for trauma survivors to meet in my living room, but REACH has organized one to meet in our parish hall every Monday for eight weeks. I don’t want to host an anger management class in my own basement, either, but here on Tuesday nights there’s one that has met for five or six years. I can’t be home every Friday morning to hand out food for seniors or diapers on Saturdays, but my parish pledge goes to that work.

I can’t celebrate the Eucharist by myself—no “Take, eat, this is my body given for you,” eucharistic as sometimes it felt when I was nursing my babies. Practically, I also give to church because when I come to hear Sarah Staley talk about holy gratitude next week, I want the heat to be on, and it falls to all of us to help make that happen. I give to church because no matter where God and I may find each other throughout the week, knowing we will meet at a place and time makes it that much more likely I can meet God in all places and times.

Blessings,
Sara+

Dear People of Christ Church,
This week, of course, I’m still reeling a little after Bishop Tom’s funeral on Saturday, which was just marvelous. You can find the text of Brother Geoffrey’s sermon here. One of the things that I have long loved about being an Anglican is that our worship is actually intended to accomplish something—at Holy Week I always talk about how we do the last week of Jesus’ life, with foot washing and prayers at the cross and celebration of the resurrection. It’s not an abstraction. The funeral on Saturday, too, did what it was supposed to do.

We laughed at stories like Tom telling a visitor to the monastery who asked about it that he was the only one wearing a cross because he was “monk of the month.” We cried when we sang “King of Glory, King of Peace,” Tom’s favorite hymn. We cried when the silence seemed to stretch forever when Brother James, who was to begin the Prayers of the People, just couldn’t speak.

We shared in the Eucharist that is the Body and Blood of Christ who unites us and in whom we find our peace, in whom, the dead are not dead and we all rise to life again. We cried—again—when the brothers sang the Song of Simeon—“ Lord, you now have set your servant free to go in peace as you have promised/ For these eyes of mine have seen the Savior, whom you have prepared for all the world to see.”

And so he is set free, and so are we.
There’s a really important tension to hold when we stand in the middle of life and death. We can say that Tom is set free, along with all of those names we printed in the bulletin on Sunday for All Saints Day, and believe that he is free and sees the glory of God face to face. We hold that reality in one hand. We treasure that promise that Jesus Christ has gone before us and by the grace and miracle of God defeated the power of death. In our other hand, we hold the reality that life is a wonderful, astonishing, and precious gift. In its messiness and mud as well as in its joy and laughter, life is a gift. To welcome death as also a gift is not to diminish the importance of our course on earth—holy as the dying was, the living was holy, too.

Brother Geoffrey quoted the second century bishop Irenaeus of Lyon—“the glory of God is the human person fully alive.” Fully alive includes grief as well as joy. For now, I’m trying to take my time for both.

Blessings,
Sara+