One of the major underpinnings of emerging church visions should be, it seems to me, is to be Christian.
That is to say, to see others as Jesus saw them,
and to do what Jesus did.
It seems to be an almost universal descriptor of the time to come just before things get better:
a time when the old folks will dream dreams, and the young folks will see visions.
In 1926 there were a lot of folks dreaming dreams and envisioning a new church here in Drexel Hill –
there were the men in the Presbytery who envisioned and built this very building in which we gather today – at a time when Drexel Hill was largely vacant lots and unpaved roads;
and there was the minister who was charged with gathering a congregation to worship here;
and there were the forward-thinking people who wanted to be a part of this new way being church in a suburban neighborhood.
They all were driven by their dreams and energized by their vision of what this church could and should be.
Of course even before that there was the vision of the early settlers who came to these parts from Scotland and Ireland in the 1700's.
As they established new lives for themselves and their families here they felt a need for churches – churches like they had back home,
churches that had educated ministers that could help them find aspects of the faith that would help them cope with the new realities of their new lives in the new world.
And there was the vision of the ministers who came here from Scotland – being sent as “missionaries” charged with the purpose of starting churches among the folks that were here.
The reality they found upon their arrival here was so different from their experience back home, that they were driven by dreams and vision of what could and should be.
And, I spoke of the changing reality this church had to deal with throughout the 84 years of its ministry here:
a changing reality some of you may be able to actually speak to, but all of you would be able to relate to.
The excitement and energy that enveloped the folks here during the first few years of ministry could only be described as enthusiastic – enthusiastic: a word that literally means God-filled.
Things were going great.
The new homes were being built.
People were moving in.
The church was growing.
The church provided ministries to the community that were needed and wanted.
And then, within three years, everything changed.
The bottom fell out of the economy.
No one was unaffected.
No community was unaffected.
No church was unaffected.
Construction of the new homes stopped.
People were out of work.
Lives were interrupted.
And the people of the church here were forced to revision its hopes and dreams,
to reinvent itself to a new reality.
And then, by 1940, as construction started picking up again, people started working again, things were beginning to look much differently for the folks in Drexel Hill.
This room could no longer hold all the people that were wanting to be a part of this church.
All kinds of creative ways were designed to utilize the space for the maximum benefit for the most people.
And plans were made to construct a new building with a sanctuary large enough to hold several hundred people at one time.
A campaign was undertaken to raise the funds to construct such a building,
and by 1941 construction had started and hopes and dreams abounded as the whole community watched the holes dug, the foundation laid, and the walls started.
And then the war broke out.
Reality changed again.
It was a time for new dreams and new visions of what this church was to be and to do during these new times of war.
Construction stopped.
New ministries were started.
The church saw itself in a new way during those years.
And it didn’t take long for new vision to arise of the need to finish the construction of the building because the soldiers and their families would be needing what this church could offer when the war was over.
A similar revisioning and repurposing happened in the early 1950's as the folks here wanted to better serve all of the children and families that were in need of what the church could offer to them.
And a new building was funded and built.
It seems that revisioning and repurposing was an ongoing part of the ministry of the folks at this church.
Conversations were held with every Presbyterian congregation within two or three miles of here to encourage thoughts of new ways of doing ministry with possibilities of combining efforts and begin to dream dreams of new ways of being church.
A crisis occurred in 1989 that precipitated another revisioning of how ministry could be done here.
I vividly remember being interviewed at that time and listening to representatives from the congregation and the Presbytery telling me that there were funds available for six months of ministry before the church would have to close its doors,
would I consider serving here for those six months.
It was a six-month contract.
Well, in January, I began by 22nd year here.
Clearly God was not through with His church at any of these past points in this church’s history.
What has been called for again and again,
and what the people here have able to do over and over again,
is a rethinking,
a revisioning,
a reworking,
a redesign,
of what this church could do and be.
Theologically, we would say “being open to hearing to what God was telling us to do – and then doing it.”
All of this is as background for what the Session and the Congregation here has done to this point.
The successful sale of the building here was a result of a lot of prayerful listening, and thinking, and dreaming, and visioning of other possibilities for doing ministry as a church in the days and years ahead.
An immediate result of the culmination of the sale of the building here is that all of the stress of worrying about how to pay the bills is gone.
We now have the ability that few churches have – we have been given time to rethink what we could be – and might be – in the days ahead.
The Session has agreed with my assessment that this gives us unique opportunity to spend some time listening – for God’s will,
contemplating the dreams that will occur,
fleshing out the visions that will come,
to develop and design for what this church might look like if it responded as God leads.
(I’m calling this emphases VISION2012)
In the past few years and months I have been doing a lot of reading and studying about new possibilities of being church that are emerging to better be engaged with world we are living in.
I don’t know about you, but I get more and more annoyed when folks representing my faith misappropriate it for some misguided cause or another.
I often feel certain parts of what I know as Christian faith are being hi-jacked – and being used for purposes at odds with what Jesus taught.
As I engage in this revisioning process myself, I look to what are the underpinnings of whatever forms a new way of being church might take – what are the basics that ought to be there in order to be recognized as a community of faith.
One of the books I have been spending time with was published last year.
The title itself intrigued me from the start:
If the Church Were Christian: Rediscovering the Values of Jesus
It seems to me that many churches today have gotten way off track as to purpose and practice.
You know Jesus never went to church.
There were no churches in Jesus’ day.
There is no record of Jesus ever even using the word church in any of the teachings or sayings attributed to him.
There is a persistent unspoken thought that if Jesus were to come back today, he would not recognize anything that goes on in Christian churches.
Anyway, the author of this book, Phillip Gulley, speaks to me – and to the concerns of many people I know – in the way he organizes the chapters in his book.
Chapter 1 begins: If the Church were Christian . . .
Jesus would be a model for living – rather than an object of worship
This is something that has bothered me for a long time.
It seems that churches are much more interested in promoting right thinking (orthodoxy according to code) rather than doing what is right.
Instead of setting up barriers to keep the wrong kind of people out of our churches, we should be paying attention to the teachings of Jesus – as James reminds us faith without actions is dead.
The author writes: if we in the church were serious about honoring Jesus, conducting ourselves as he did would be our chief concern.
Other chapters in this book are:
If the church were Christian . . .
Affirming our potential would be more important than condemning our brokenness.
If the church were Christian . . .
Reconciliation would be valued over judgment
If the church were Christian . . .
Gracious behavior would be more important than right belief
If the church were Christian . . .
Inviting questions would be valued more than supplying answers
If the church were Christian . . .
Encouraging personal exploration would be more important than communal uniformity
If the church were Christian . . .
Meeting needs would be more important than maintaining institutions
If the church were Christian . . .
Peace would be more important than power
If the church were Christian . . .
It would care more about love and less about sex
If the church were Christian . . .
This life would be more important that the afterlife
Well, these are Phillip Gulley’s ideas, but I find them intriguing –
even maybe helpful as we start thinking about what church should be,
what it might look like,
and what it might do.
What if the church were Christian?
And so, one of the major underpinnings of emerging church visions should be, it seems to me, is to be Christian.
That is to say, to see others as Jesus saw them,
and to do what Jesus did.
Through my encounter with another popular thinker and writer, I would say also that another underpinning of a new church would be compassion.
That is to say that compassion would be one driving element that informs whatever we would do and become as a church in the days ahead.
But enough about me and my thoughts.
What about you?
What are your dreams and visions for being church?
For new or different ways of doing church?
As you spend time listening for God’s lead,
what is coming to you as basics – underpinnings – essentials of what we should call church?
Basic to my understanding is what I talked about last week.
It’s what Peter picked up on and started promulgating.
Our faith, our church, is not built of brick and mortar, but our church is built out of living stones.
You and I are living stones –
living building blocks that when connected to one another become strong with abilities to withstand onslaughts of outside forces.
I would hope that in whatever form it may take, our church would be known as place of a forgiveness and compassion;
just as I would hope you and I would be known as people of forgiveness and compassion.
This week please pray for your church.
Pray for a vision.
Pray for wisdom of discernment.
Pray for courage to pursue whatever comes as God’s will for us.
Amen.
- a sermon the congregation at Christ Presbyterian Church heard on February 20, 2011.
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