Full time faith, 12.29.13

Matthew 5:13-19

13“You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled under foot. 14“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. 15No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lamp stand, and it gives light to all in the house.16In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.


17“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. 18For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter, not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. 19Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.


John 15:9-17

9As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. 10If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. 11I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.


12“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. 16You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. 17I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.
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A lot of the ways we talk about Jesus focus on big moments. If you read the Apostles’ Creed or the Nicean Creed, two landmark statements of faith not only for the Presbyterian Church, but for the church universal, all they say about Jesus’ life is that he was “conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried.”


Those are all important things, but they are not the whole story. Jesus lived a whole life between those moments. His incarnation, his becoming human for us was not just his birth. His sacrifice for us was not just his suffering and death on a cross. His life also tells us about God’s priorities and it shows us what it means to live a life in sync with God. That whole life is our example, not just the highlights.


There’s a feeling about our lives too that can go along with the highlight reel Jesus. We can think of our life mostly in terms of big moments too: our birth, graduation, our wedding, the birth of our children, et cetera. We might think of our faith journey in moments too: memories of Sunday school, confirmation, when we first claimed our faith, the moment we were “saved.” The big moments are important, they provide the outlines of our lives and give shape to something that often feels pretty squishy, pretty nebulous, but they are not the whole story or even the most important part.


The biggest part of our lives, and Jesus’ life is the little stuff. While the major moments are easier to pick out, ultimately, the day to day direction of our life is more important. While we can call single episodes defining moments with some honesty, the day to day details are what make the definition true or false. If I say I’m a Christian, then not just the big moments, but also the small, even unnoticed details should say the same thing. Otherwise, I’m a hypocrite, not a Christian.


Jesus didn’t just appear to die, and he didn’t just come to free us from sin in a flash so we could have a ticket to heaven. He came to show us what a faithful life looks like, to show us how to live here and now in this troubled, but also sacred world. If we follow Jesus, our goal is for our lives to match his life, not perfectly, not exactly, but in general. If Jesus is light in the darkness for us, we are called to be light in the darkness for others. As the Father sent Jesus into the world, Jesus sends us into the world now.


One thing we see when we look at Jesus’ life is that the whole thing fits together. In other words, Jesus lived with integrity. His birth in a barn was strange, but it wasn’t disconnected from the rest of his life. His birth was about taking a step from heaven to earth, and choosing to step into human history in a particularly humble way.


The rest of his life showed the same concerns; he lived a humble life and focused his ministry on the poor. His teachings talked about putting God first, about the last becoming first, about the care of others in all our decisions. He died a humble death like a slave or a rebel, hung between two thieves, one of whom he was welcoming into God’s kingdom. The big moments and the consistent teaching in Jesus’ life speak the same message: love God and love others.


Our goal is the same: not only to speak the faith of Christ but to live it as well. Not only to live our faith in our worship, our “saving moment,” but in our everyday choices, at work, at the bar, taking our kids to activities, in our family relationships.


The point of everything we do in church is not a moment when someone says, “I believe, sign me up.” The point is to produce and nurture lives of faithfulness that will touch other people with God’s love and grace. The goal is the overall trajectory and integrity of our lives. The goal is day in and day out loving faithfulness.


Our passages don’t use those words, but they do share that idea. Jesus tells his disciples they are the salt of the earth, which means they have to stay salty; they can’t just be salty at the beginning. He says they are the light of the world. That means they need to shine their light so people can see their good deeds and give praise to God. That means they have to do good deeds regularly, not just when people are looking. They need to shine light for others all the time, not just when it’s convenient.


The key word in the passage from John is “Abide.” That means, stay or remain. Jesus tells his disciples to abide in his love by keeping his commandments. That means we’re not just supposed to feel Jesus’ love at Christmas and Easter; we’re invited to rest in Christ’s love all the time. Along with abide, we see the word commandment; in other words, resting in Christ’s love isn’t passive, we don’t just receive love, we also actively seek it out through a life of obedience.


The other key idea is matching Jesus’ life of love. Jesus says, “As the Father has loved me, so I love you; love one another as I have loved you.” Jesus invites the disciples, he invites us, to take his life as an example for our lives. We see something special in Jesus. There’s something compelling, something inviting about his life; his story catches our attention. We’re called to be filled and transformed by his love, and to live that love for others in our own lives.


Jesus lets the disciples know that the love he’s talking about isn’t a warm fuzzy feeling, but full of courageous and sacrificial action: “No one has greater love than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” He’s right up front with them that their love for others, like his love for them, is going to cost them dearly. The disciples at that table won’t all die for their faith, but they do all put love into action as the guiding commitment, the consuming passion of the rest of their lives.


That means we can expect hardship to be part of our life too. Our faith is going to cost us something. The life we live as Jesus’ disciples is not a spectator sport, but an active engagement with other people in a loving way. Different Christians live that out in different ways, but true discipleship can’t be just a small part of our life.


When I think about Christians laying down their lives for their friends I think about Christian Peacemaking teams. These are groups of Christians trained in non-violence, who go to unstable places in the world to support people there. Christian Peacemakers from the US travelled to Iraq before and after the US invasion to put themselves where US bombs were going and show that the church in the US cared.


Similar ministries happened in Columbia at the height of the violence there. Christian accompanists stood alongside Columbian peacemakers to show that they were not alone. These folks risked their lives to show the love of Jesus for those in harm’s way.


I think also about civil rights protestors in the American south who put their bodies on the line for freedom and dignity. I think about the women’s prayer movement that took to the streets to protest the Liberian civil war and to pray for peace. Through Christian and Muslim women praying, marching and working together, the Liberian dictator Charles Taylor was thrown out and hope for peace under a democratically elected president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, is alive and well.


These are examples of Christians laying down their lives to put their faith into action. In many of these cases the ministries were not only moments of courage and risk, but also consistent commitment to a faithful struggle. The women of Liberia sang and prayed publically for peace for more than a year. Many of the civil rights leaders in the US put the rest of their lives on hold to commit to the movement. Accompanists in Columbia trained extensively and then moved to Columbia for months or even a year.


More to the point, these actions are the fruit of lives of committed discipleship. Even if they are highlights, they rise out of preparation and practice so that the Christians are ready to lay down their lives when the moment comes. The lives of true disciples are consistently about love; remarkable episodes of faithfulness are part of the wider story, not disconnected moments.


All that sounds very heavy, and discipleship is serious, life-changing business. It’s also joyful. Jesus says he’s giving his disciples this commandment to love so that their joy may be complete. Following Jesus is hard sometimes, but it’s also wonderful and freeing. When we decide to follow Jesus we are set free from chasing worldly success. We’re set free from the stress of measuring ourselves against other people in terms of wealth or accomplishments. We’re free to simply love other people, to serve other people, to listen, to care. We’re free to rest in the love of Jesus and to let that love shine through us to the world.


You and I have somehow been drawn to Jesus. Something about his story and his love attracts us, so here we are. In some way we have all decided to follow Jesus, but maybe we haven’t really committed to that yet. Maybe we’re still trying to follow with part of our life. If that’s the case for you, if you think of your faith as one small part of your life you probably feel stress and tension. You probably feel unsure about how your life fits together, and phrases like “complete joy,” don’t describe how you think about your faith and life.


Jesus calls us to follow, not as one activity we do, but as the core and meaning of our whole life. When we truly live as disciples that discipleship shapes everything else we do. Jesus tells us that’s going to demand sacrifice, but also that it’s going to bring us joy. So today I invite you to take another step in your commitment and choose to follow Jesus with your whole life. I invite you to bow your head and pray with me for a new birth of Christ within us, a new Christmas of commitment and discipleship and joy. Let’s pray:



Loving Jesus, you came to us as a baby born in a manger. Your whole life told the story of love and commitment, commitment to the world and love especially for the outcasts. You taught your disciples that love through your example and you invited them to follow. Help us follow you today and every day. Help us commit fully to your example of love, courage and sacrifice. Fill us with the joy of discipleship, the joy of community, the joy of an integrated life wholly dedicated to love. Guide our steps and claim our heart for your own. We pray these things in your precious name as we seek to truly make you our Lord, amen.

tent making ministry and the future church, 8.11.13

Acts 18:1-11

After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. ²There he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them, ³and, because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them, and they worked together—by trade they were tentmakers. ⁴Every sabbath he would argue in the synagogue and would try to convince Jews and Greeks.

5 When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with proclaiming the word, testifying to the Jews that the Messiah was Jesus. ⁶When they opposed and reviled him, in protest he shook the dust from his clothes and said to them, ‘Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.’

⁷Then he left the synagogue  and went to the house of a man named Titius  Justus, a worshipper of God; his house was next door to the synagogue. ⁸Crispus, the official of the synagogue, became a believer in the Lord, together with all his household; and many of the Corinthians who heard Paul became believers and were baptized. ⁹One night the Lord said to Paul in a vision, ‘Do not be afraid, but speak and do not be silent; ¹⁰for I am with you, and no one will lay a hand on you to harm you, for there are many in this city who are my people.’ ¹¹He stayed there for a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.

1 Corinthians 9:3-7, 11-18

3 This is my defense to those who would examine me. ⁴Do we not have the right to our food and drink? ⁵Do we not have the right to be accompanied by a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? ⁶Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living? ⁷Who at any time pays the expenses for doing military service? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat any of its fruit? Or who tends a flock and does not get any of its milk? …¹¹If we have sown spiritual good among you, is it too much if we reap your material benefits? ¹²If others share this rightful claim on you, do not we still more?

Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ. ¹³Do you not know that those who are employed in the temple service get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in what is sacrificed on the altar? ¹⁴In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.

15 But I have made no use of any of these rights, nor am I writing this so that they may be applied in my case. Indeed, I would rather die than that—no one will deprive me of my ground for boasting! ¹⁶If I proclaim the gospel, this gives me no ground for boasting, for an obligation is laid on me, and woe betide me if I do not proclaim the gospel! ¹⁷For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward; but if not of my own will, I am entrusted with a commission. ¹⁸What then is my reward? Just this: that in my proclamation I may make the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my rights in the gospel.

____________________________________________

           

            The first church I served was Beacon Presbyterian Church. Beacon had about 30 members in inner city Philadelphia. I I was an intern there during my second year of seminary, and became their pastor the next year. Throughout the fifteen months I spent as Beacon’s pastor I learned a lot. I preached almost every week and I led a weekly Bible study, but with 10 hours a week around the edges of a full time job, I could never do as much as I wanted to.

When we moved to Rochester, I felt certain that I wanted a full time position so I could do more. When I heard about Laurelton, it sounded like a great fit, except that it was half time instead of full time. So I prayed about it, met with session, and ultimately started here on February 1, 2009.

            What I learned from that whole process, and this is really going to surprise you, is that God knows better than I do. I was sure I wanted a full time position but as it has turned out, not only is this church the right fit for me, being half time has been a blessing in ways I couldn’t predict. God is teaching me a lot about ministry for the twenty-first century, and God is using our work together to remind the church of Paul’s model of tent-making.

            When Paul moved to Corinth he met Aquila and Pricilla and stayed with them because they were all tent-makers. In letter after letter Paul talks about how he works with his hands so he won’t be a burden to the church. He wants to make sure that financially supporting him isn’t a barrier to people hearing the gospel. At the same time, he reminds the church that the people who dedicate their life to serving the gospel should be able to survive by preaching, even though he doesn’t want financial support himself.

            It’s a challenging balance. The church benefits from having people who can spend most of their time working for the church. People who can travel to spread the gospel, people who can dedicate years to studying and teaching, people who can dedicate their full time to building up the church. At the same time, professional church workers are expensive, and we don’t want money to keep people from hearing the gospel or growing in faith. That was a challenge Paul saw then, and it’s still a challenge now.

            Most churches in our denomination are shrinking. Churches that employed two pastors ten years ago now have one, and many churches that have had a full time pastor are finding that harder and harder to maintain. Along the way, many churches cut basically every other kind of spending before even considering letting go of their full time pastor. For those of you who have been here more than 5 years, this is a very familiar story. Many of our neighboring churches are facing the same process now.

            That sounds like a lot of bad news, but ultimately, I don’t think it is. It is going to mean some really hard transitions for a lot of people and churches, but it is an opportunity to reexamine how we do ministry in the church.

            As early as Paul’s time, there was a place for paid people in the church; it was a good investment to allow some people to dedicate themselves fully to ministry in a way they couldn’t do if they were working. There are churches now that need full time pastors and other leaders. The question to answer is what we want to pay for and why. I think there are two main ways we can look at paid ministry in the church: doing ministry for us or doing ministry with us. When a pastor does ministry for the church, that means the church is paying the pastor to do things they know the church should be doing.

            Doing ministry with the church is different, and I think that’s most of the real calling of a pastor. Paul’s line is, “equipping the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.” What that means is things like teaching, leading Bible study, having individual conversations, and moderating session meetings. It means working with members of the community to help people find and strengthen their spiritual gifts so they can grow in faith through ministry.

            So, if we think about visiting homebound members of the congregation, doing ministry for you means I go and visit those folks on behalf of the church. Doing ministry with you, equipping you for ministry, means that I work with people who feel called to a ministry of visitation to help you feel comfortable making visits. It means helping you (through the care team) organize a system so people are being visited regularly and talking with you about how visits go and what questions they raise for you.

            In terms of welcoming visitors, doing ministry for you means it is my job to be a friendly, welcoming face and to follow up with visitors to help them connect with the church. Doing ministry with you means helping you develop skills and confidence to welcome people and helping you develop ways to follow up with those visitors.

            There’s a role for both ministry with and for you, but the ministry with you is more important. In a church this size, I should know everyone at least a little and it’s important for me to stay connected with our homebound members, so I need to visit. I also need to welcome visitors. Whether right or wrong, there is something special for many people about meeting the pastor that makes them feel more comfortable and connected.

At the same time, the more important work is equipping you to visit and to welcome. After all, the real point is connecting people to the community of faith, not to me. If I am the only person a homebound member knows, they won’t feel very connected to the church. And if I’m the only person a visitor knows they might like me or not, but they won’t be connected with the congregation as a whole. Pastors come and go, but the community lasts. And feeling connected to a faith community is a blessing that far outweighs anything I can do through personal welcome and charm.

The last century the church absorbed a lot from the culture, some good, some not so good. Like in other professions we have absorbed the idea of paying a specialist to do something for us. We pay a mechanic to work on our car, a doctor to treat physical problems and a school to education our children. Sometimes we see church the same way: we pay a pastor to take care of our spiritual needs.

This creates a cycle where church members feel that many things that are a basic part of being Christian are the responsibility of the pastor because the pastor is an expert. That attitude affects things like prayer and scripture reading as well as visiting, welcoming, teaching and sharing faith. Even though the pastor’s real job is equipping the church for ministry, a lot of the way we have done ministry ended up having the opposite effect, making people feel less empowered to do ministry themselves and more dependant on paid clergy.

All Christians have a calling to live our faith in every part of our lives. My job is not to do that for you, but to help you do it better. In a church our size I think the first limit we reach is the time and energy the members have for ministry. It wouldn’t even make sense to have a full time pastor, because that would mostly increase my ability to doing more ministry for you, and the congregation would actually do less ministry. I think for Laurelton now, half time is about perfect.

            There are other benefits to our part time arrangement too. Of course, the financial piece is an important one. A part time pastor is challenging financially; full time wouldn’t be sustainable.

One of the hardest things for churches and pastors is to get out of the building and connect to people who aren’t in church. I spend half of my working time as well as my social time outside the church, so I automatically make those connections. That not only gives me more opportunities to share my faith, it also keeps me from getting tunnel vision and it keeps me connected to the wider community. Paul doesn’t talk about how the tent-making part of his time provided ministry opportunities, but I’m sure it did. My ambulance work is the same way, as is your teaching or cleaning or childcare.

            It also reminds you and me that we are the same. I am not some ivory tower professor or a spiritual champion. I am a person with faith and questions and other work obligations like you. I think knowing that I have another job makes it easier to remember that.

It also means that we can be more open about money. When we talk about the budget, my salary and benefits are a big piece of the puzzle, which means we need to be able to talk about it. When a pastor is the biggest financial obligation and you know they depend on the church, it is hard to discuss the budget honestly because the pastor’s livelihood is tied up in that. Since half of my income comes from somewhere else, I am less dependant on the church financially, which means we can talk about the whole budget more openly, at least, I hope we can.

The church of the future needs to be more flexible and more nimble than the church of last century. That’s because changing membership patterns make the big budgets and funding structure of the past unsustainable, and also undesirable. For some congregations, that will mean sharing or getting rid of their building to be more flexible. For many having a tent-making pastor or sharing pastoral leadership with another church will be part of the equation. In UPT we’re thinking a lot now about how our churches can share resources so we can all be more efficient and effective in this new century.

Whenever I think or talk about what it’s like to be a tent-making pastor I have to give you credit as a congregation for making this work well. A big part of changing from full time to part time is changing expectations. When Laurelton had a full time pastor, the pastor did more things: both more ministry with and more ministry for the congregation. You have done a great job realizing that I will not be able to do the same things. You will have to do more or let some things go, and you’ve done both. I very rarely hear complaints about what I’m not doing. Your flexibility and openness make Laurelton a really great place to work.

The flip side of that is that I count on you to let me know what I am missing, what you need more of. I make the best decisions I can about how to use my time, but if there are areas you feel need more attention, I’d like to hear that so I can reevaluate. One of the strengths of the Presbyterian tradition is that we lead together. I need you to help me be a good pastor.

The church thrives when we are all living our faith and sharing our gifts at church and in the wider world. We all have a role to play, and my role is helping your grow in faith and ministry. For Laurelton, tent making ministry is a part of our flexibility and life together. As we work together to make our church stronger, more engaged in the community and more faithful to God, we can all use our gifts as we grow in faith.

Thanks be to God.

tent making ministry and the future church, 8.11.13

Acts 18:1-11

After this Paul left Athens and went to Corinth. ²There he found a Jew named Aquila, a native of Pontus, who had recently come from Italy with his wife Priscilla, because Claudius had ordered all Jews to leave Rome. Paul went to see them, ³and, because he was of the same trade, he stayed with them, and they worked together—by trade they were tentmakers. ⁴Every sabbath he would argue in the synagogue and would try to convince Jews and Greeks.

5 When Silas and Timothy arrived from Macedonia, Paul was occupied with proclaiming the word, testifying to the Jews that the Messiah was Jesus. ⁶When they opposed and reviled him, in protest he shook the dust from his clothes and said to them, ‘Your blood be on your own heads! I am innocent. From now on I will go to the Gentiles.’

⁷Then he left the synagogue  and went to the house of a man named Titius  Justus, a worshipper of God; his house was next door to the synagogue. ⁸Crispus, the official of the synagogue, became a believer in the Lord, together with all his household; and many of the Corinthians who heard Paul became believers and were baptized. ⁹One night the Lord said to Paul in a vision, ‘Do not be afraid, but speak and do not be silent; ¹⁰for I am with you, and no one will lay a hand on you to harm you, for there are many in this city who are my people.’ ¹¹He stayed there for a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them.

1 Corinthians 9:3-7, 11-18

3 This is my defense to those who would examine me. ⁴Do we not have the right to our food and drink? ⁵Do we not have the right to be accompanied by a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? ⁶Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working for a living? ⁷Who at any time pays the expenses for doing military service? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat any of its fruit? Or who tends a flock and does not get any of its milk? …¹¹If we have sown spiritual good among you, is it too much if we reap your material benefits? ¹²If others share this rightful claim on you, do not we still more?

Nevertheless, we have not made use of this right, but we endure anything rather than put an obstacle in the way of the gospel of Christ. ¹³Do you not know that those who are employed in the temple service get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in what is sacrificed on the altar? ¹⁴In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.

15 But I have made no use of any of these rights, nor am I writing this so that they may be applied in my case. Indeed, I would rather die than that—no one will deprive me of my ground for boasting! ¹⁶If I proclaim the gospel, this gives me no ground for boasting, for an obligation is laid on me, and woe betide me if I do not proclaim the gospel! ¹⁷For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward; but if not of my own will, I am entrusted with a commission. ¹⁸What then is my reward? Just this: that in my proclamation I may make the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my rights in the gospel.

____________________________________________

           

            The first church I served was Beacon Presbyterian Church. Beacon had about 30 members in inner city Philadelphia. I I was an intern there during my second year of seminary, and became their pastor the next year. Throughout the fifteen months I spent as Beacon’s pastor I learned a lot. I preached almost every week and I led a weekly Bible study, but with 10 hours a week around the edges of a full time job, I could never do as much as I wanted to.

When we moved to Rochester, I felt certain that I wanted a full time position so I could do more. When I heard about Laurelton, it sounded like a great fit, except that it was half time instead of full time. So I prayed about it, met with session, and ultimately started here on February 1, 2009.

            What I learned from that whole process, and this is really going to surprise you, is that God knows better than I do. I was sure I wanted a full time position but as it has turned out, not only is this church the right fit for me, being half time has been a blessing in ways I couldn’t predict. God is teaching me a lot about ministry for the twenty-first century, and God is using our work together to remind the church of Paul’s model of tent-making.

            When Paul moved to Corinth he met Aquila and Pricilla and stayed with them because they were all tent-makers. In letter after letter Paul talks about how he works with his hands so he won’t be a burden to the church. He wants to make sure that financially supporting him isn’t a barrier to people hearing the gospel. At the same time, he reminds the church that the people who dedicate their life to serving the gospel should be able to survive by preaching, even though he doesn’t want financial support himself.

            It’s a challenging balance. The church benefits from having people who can spend most of their time working for the church. People who can travel to spread the gospel, people who can dedicate years to studying and teaching, people who can dedicate their full time to building up the church. At the same time, professional church workers are expensive, and we don’t want money to keep people from hearing the gospel or growing in faith. That was a challenge Paul saw then, and it’s still a challenge now.

            Most churches in our denomination are shrinking. Churches that employed two pastors ten years ago now have one, and many churches that have had a full time pastor are finding that harder and harder to maintain. Along the way, many churches cut basically every other kind of spending before even considering letting go of their full time pastor. For those of you who have been here more than 5 years, this is a very familiar story. Many of our neighboring churches are facing the same process now.

            That sounds like a lot of bad news, but ultimately, I don’t think it is. It is going to mean some really hard transitions for a lot of people and churches, but it is an opportunity to reexamine how we do ministry in the church.

            As early as Paul’s time, there was a place for paid people in the church; it was a good investment to allow some people to dedicate themselves fully to ministry in a way they couldn’t do if they were working. There are churches now that need full time pastors and other leaders. The question to answer is what we want to pay for and why. I think there are two main ways we can look at paid ministry in the church: doing ministry for us or doing ministry with us. When a pastor does ministry for the church, that means the church is paying the pastor to do things they know the church should be doing.

            Doing ministry with the church is different, and I think that’s most of the real calling of a pastor. Paul’s line is, “equipping the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.” What that means is things like teaching, leading Bible study, having individual conversations, and moderating session meetings. It means working with members of the community to help people find and strengthen their spiritual gifts so they can grow in faith through ministry.

            So, if we think about visiting homebound members of the congregation, doing ministry for you means I go and visit those folks on behalf of the church. Doing ministry with you, equipping you for ministry, means that I work with people who feel called to a ministry of visitation to help you feel comfortable making visits. It means helping you (through the care team) organize a system so people are being visited regularly and talking with you about how visits go and what questions they raise for you.

            In terms of welcoming visitors, doing ministry for you means it is my job to be a friendly, welcoming face and to follow up with visitors to help them connect with the church. Doing ministry with you means helping you develop skills and confidence to welcome people and helping you develop ways to follow up with those visitors.

            There’s a role for both ministry with and for you, but the ministry with you is more important. In a church this size, I should know everyone at least a little and it’s important for me to stay connected with our homebound members, so I need to visit. I also need to welcome visitors. Whether right or wrong, there is something special for many people about meeting the pastor that makes them feel more comfortable and connected.

At the same time, the more important work is equipping you to visit and to welcome. After all, the real point is connecting people to the community of faith, not to me. If I am the only person a homebound member knows, they won’t feel very connected to the church. And if I’m the only person a visitor knows they might like me or not, but they won’t be connected with the congregation as a whole. Pastors come and go, but the community lasts. And feeling connected to a faith community is a blessing that far outweighs anything I can do through personal welcome and charm.

The last century the church absorbed a lot from the culture, some good, some not so good. Like in other professions we have absorbed the idea of paying a specialist to do something for us. We pay a mechanic to work on our car, a doctor to treat physical problems and a school to education our children. Sometimes we see church the same way: we pay a pastor to take care of our spiritual needs.

This creates a cycle where church members feel that many things that are a basic part of being Christian are the responsibility of the pastor because the pastor is an expert. That attitude affects things like prayer and scripture reading as well as visiting, welcoming, teaching and sharing faith. Even though the pastor’s real job is equipping the church for ministry, a lot of the way we have done ministry ended up having the opposite effect, making people feel less empowered to do ministry themselves and more dependant on paid clergy.

All Christians have a calling to live our faith in every part of our lives. My job is not to do that for you, but to help you do it better. In a church our size I think the first limit we reach is the time and energy the members have for ministry. It wouldn’t even make sense to have a full time pastor, because that would mostly increase my ability to doing more ministry for you, and the congregation would actually do less ministry. I think for Laurelton now, half time is about perfect.

            There are other benefits to our part time arrangement too. Of course, the financial piece is an important one. A part time pastor is challenging financially; full time wouldn’t be sustainable.

One of the hardest things for churches and pastors is to get out of the building and connect to people who aren’t in church. I spend half of my working time as well as my social time outside the church, so I automatically make those connections. That not only gives me more opportunities to share my faith, it also keeps me from getting tunnel vision and it keeps me connected to the wider community. Paul doesn’t talk about how the tent-making part of his time provided ministry opportunities, but I’m sure it did. My ambulance work is the same way, as is your teaching or cleaning or childcare.

            It also reminds you and me that we are the same. I am not some ivory tower professor or a spiritual champion. I am a person with faith and questions and other work obligations like you. I think knowing that I have another job makes it easier to remember that.

It also means that we can be more open about money. When we talk about the budget, my salary and benefits are a big piece of the puzzle, which means we need to be able to talk about it. When a pastor is the biggest financial obligation and you know they depend on the church, it is hard to discuss the budget honestly because the pastor’s livelihood is tied up in that. Since half of my income comes from somewhere else, I am less dependant on the church financially, which means we can talk about the whole budget more openly, at least, I hope we can.

The church of the future needs to be more flexible and more nimble than the church of last century. That’s because changing membership patterns make the big budgets and funding structure of the past unsustainable, and also undesirable. For some congregations, that will mean sharing or getting rid of their building to be more flexible. For many having a tent-making pastor or sharing pastoral leadership with another church will be part of the equation. In UPT we’re thinking a lot now about how our churches can share resources so we can all be more efficient and effective in this new century.

Whenever I think or talk about what it’s like to be a tent-making pastor I have to give you credit as a congregation for making this work well. A big part of changing from full time to part time is changing expectations. When Laurelton had a full time pastor, the pastor did more things: both more ministry with and more ministry for the congregation. You have done a great job realizing that I will not be able to do the same things. You will have to do more or let some things go, and you’ve done both. I very rarely hear complaints about what I’m not doing. Your flexibility and openness make Laurelton a really great place to work.

The flip side of that is that I count on you to let me know what I am missing, what you need more of. I make the best decisions I can about how to use my time, but if there are areas you feel need more attention, I’d like to hear that so I can reevaluate. One of the strengths of the Presbyterian tradition is that we lead together. I need you to help me be a good pastor.

The church thrives when we are all living our faith and sharing our gifts at church and in the wider world. We all have a role to play, and my role is helping your grow in faith and ministry. For Laurelton, tent making ministry is a part of our flexibility and life together. As we work together to make our church stronger, more engaged in the community and more faithful to God, we can all use our gifts as we grow in faith.

Thanks be to God.