The church as ambulance base

Matthew 5:1-16

When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. ²Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:

³“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ⁴“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. ⁵“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. ⁶“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. ⁷“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. ⁸“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. ⁹“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

¹⁰“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ¹¹“Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. ¹²Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

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 lampstand, 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.

John 1:35-51

³⁵The next day John again was standing with two of his disciples, ³⁶and as he watched Jesus walk by, he exclaimed, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!”

³⁷The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. ³⁸When Jesus turned and saw them following, he said to them, “What are you looking for?” They said to him, “Rabbi” (which translated means Teacher), “where are you staying?” ³⁹He said to them, “Come and see.” They came and saw where he was staying, and they remained with him that day. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon.

⁴⁰One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. ⁴¹He first found his brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah” (which is translated Anointed). ⁴²He brought Simon to Jesus, who looked at him and said, “You are Simon son of John. You are to be called Cephas” (which is translated Peter).

⁴³The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” ⁴⁴Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. ⁴⁵Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” ⁴⁶Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”

⁴⁷When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” ⁴⁸Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” ⁴⁹Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” ⁵⁰Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.” ⁵¹And he said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

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            We’re unpacking different ways of thinking about the church in this sermon series. Last week Susan talked about one of the images we think of most often, the image of the church as a family. We’re all adopted sons and daughters of God through Jesus Christ. In the church we get to know each other as brothers and sisters and we take care of each other with love.

            This week we’re looking at a very different image, which is suggested but not spelled out in the Bible. The image we’re exploring this week is the church as mission station. In John’s Gospel at the last supper Jesus says he is sending the disciples into the world in the same way God sent him into the world. After he rose from the dead he repeats the same message to the disciples: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” The church continues the mission of the first disciples, so at our core we are sent into the world like Jesus.

            Mission means “sending.” We are a community that is defined by mission, defined by being sent. One theologian says it like this: “God’s church doesn’t have a mission, God’s mission has a church.” Another says, “The church exists for mission like a fire exists for burning.” If fire stops burning it isn’t a fire anymore, and if the church stops going out into the world it isn’t really the church. The church’s mission is its purpose. It’s not something we do, some extra thing that is a nice part of the church’s activity; our mission is the whole reason for our existence. The church is meaningless without our mission.

            The church is defined by mission, and the mission of the church is defined by Jesus. As the Father sent Jesus, so we are sent into the world. That means we are called to heal the sick, feed the hungry, clothe the naked and invite people to be reconciled to God. We are called to be ambassadors for Jesus, to introduce people to him and to let them know that they are loved and they are not alone. Like Jesus, we are called to be powerless and called, sometimes, to suffer for the message.

            That’s not just a calling for a few of us, the professionals or the religious elite. It’s not a calling just for extroverts or for elders, but for everyone. It’s not an optional, extra credit assignment; it’s a fundamental part of who we are as the church. We have different ways of following that calling based on our gifts and abilities and occupations, but we are all called to mission.

            There are two major parts of that mission we share: there’s the part we do together and the part we do on our own. We have a mission together: Laurelton has a mission on this corner to share the love of Jesus through our words and our actions. We do that through café and worship, through Christmas baskets and supper and scripture. We do it through supporting other partners in mission, like Cameron and People’s Ministry in Christ and the Community Food Cupboard.

            The point isn’t getting people into the building; it’s using the building to get the message of love into the community. The point of the building is to give us space to welcome people, space to learn for our mission, space to cook and share fellowship to welcome others and strengthen the community.

We all have a part to play in that by using our gifts and possessions to build up the church for our mission. Maybe you love to cook: come on out on a Saturday and help make breakfast for your neighbors. It’s a great way to welcome people practically to a warm space and remind them that they are not alone. Maybe you like to visit: there are so many people in our community who are hungry for fellowship, hungry for someone to listen to them, desperate to know that they matter. You can do that just by sitting down and listening while you eat breakfast.

We do mission together not only as a congregation, but with the wider church as well. We are not a big enough church to send a missionary to another country, for instance, but together the Presbyterian Church sends many missionaries to countries around the world to share God’s love through Bible teaching, healing, building schools and providing clean water. We take part in that wider mission of the church through our gifts to the denomination and through our prayers for the church around the world. We also take part through going on short term mission trips like Bob, Karen, Karen, Susan, Carl, Linn, Charlie, Sue and Allison are doing this week in New Jersey.

That’s the part of the church’s mission that we do together, and that’s an important part of the story. Maybe even more important than that is the mission we each do on our own. We all spend more time outside the church than inside it. Your main mission is in your everyday, Monday through Saturday, world. The best way to get the church’s message into the world is through you, because you are part of the church and you spend most of your time in the world. The church’s job is to prepare and equip you for that mission.

When I go to work at Rural Metro I start my shift at base, that’s 811 West Ave. At base I check in, get my gear and my truck and make sure everything I need for the day is on the truck. At base we have a big parking area for the ambulances as well as a bay to wash them at the end of the shift. There’s an equipment room where we replace the supplies we’ve used. There’s also a training room to learn and practice skills and a dispatch center where the calls come in. That base is where we go to get prepared for the mission of providing emergency care for the people of Rochester. But our main work obviously isn’t at base, it’s on the road in the city, so we only spend a small part of our shift at base.

The church is a base for mission in the same way. It’s an important place to come to be refreshed and equipped for our mission, but it’s not where we spend most of our time, and it’s not where we do our most important work.

When we come to church we gather to share stories of what we’ve seen in the mission field, new things we’ve learned, new challenges we’ve come across and new questions that our work in the world has brought up. Together we give thanks for the week of ministry, for all the things God has done through us in the world. We praise God in song and prayer for what we’ve seen and experienced. We encourage each other like my coworkers encourage each other for our work and you and your coworkers encourage each other.

We dig into scripture together for new wisdom for our work in the world; that’s our training room. In worship and in education, we bring our questions to the passages and we find new things to try out. My job as pastor is to study scripture and other resources to equip you for your ministry in the world. I can do a better job with that if you actually bring your questions to church. If you tell me what you wonder about because of your work and ministry, I can do a better job figuring out what kind of equipment you might need. Without your insight about your unique ministry and unique experience, I can only guess what will help you.

If we keep the image of the ambulance base, I’m the equipment manager and training coordinator. I’ve got tools and equipment for you, but I need you to tell me what kind of things you need for your mission. Then you go out and live out that mission in the world knowing the church will support you.

Maybe your weekday ministry is teaching kids. For that mission you’ll need stories about Jesus to remember how Jesus reaches out to kids and to others who have trouble in the world. You’ll also need some biblical tools for thinking about how education and justice are related.

Very specifically coming up, there is a special UPT evening on October 17^th at Trinity Emanuel about educating the traumatized child. There you’ll meet others who are excited about education and you’ll hear some of the unique challenges of urban education. That’s important for all of us because we are all invested in the city, so we’re all invested in our city’s children. It’s also important because even if you teach in a suburban school with lower rates of poverty and violence than the city, some of your kids bear the scars of different traumas, so those insights will make you a better, more loving, more Christ-like teacher. You will be better equipped for your mission in the school.

Maybe you spend a lot of your time caring for children in other ways. That gives you different opportunities for ministry for which you need equipment. Part of what you do is working with the kids in your care, so like teachers, you need to be reminded that Jesus loves the little children, especially for the times they are being difficult to love. You also have opportunities at the playground and elsewhere to interact with other parents and caregivers. That means you have opportunities to share the love of Jesus with people who might not know they are loved. Maybe some training around faith sharing will help you in that mission.

Maybe you spend a lot of time in a challenging workplace where everyone feels constant deadline pressure. Your mission there as an ambassador for Jesus is first, to do your job well so you can help your team perform. You can also create a better atmosphere by remembering that no matter what happens, God loves you. The more you remember that the more you’ll be able to stay calm under pressure and help others stay calm as well. You can also share love by treating others kindly. You need to be equipped with biblical wisdom on handling stress, or responding to bad behavior in the workplace.

Wherever you go and whatever you do, you are on a mission from God and the church is there to equip and support you for that mission. Our passages give us three different ways to look at that mission. In the sermon on the mount, Jesus pronounces blessings on different kinds of behavior like gentleness, peacemaking, and humility. Do those things wherever you are and you have God’s approval. Jesus also instructs us to be salt and light wherever we go. In little ways and big, at home and at work and at play, our job is to shine the light of God’s light so others can see God.

In our passage from John we see it a different way. We see John, Andrew and Phillip all introducing people to Jesus. It’s not our job to convince someone to believe in Christ, we just help make the introduction. We invite them to “come and see.” People everywhere need to see the truth: that God is love and that they matter to God. We can show them that. We can show them by treating them like precious brothers and sisters. We can show them that by being kind even when it’s unexpected. We can show them by being calm under pressure because we know our meaning in life isn’t what we produce but our being as beloved sons and daughters.

That is our mission: love God and love others. This church, this building, this community is the place we go to get equipped, encouraged and prepared for our mission. Your brothers and sisters are team members and blessed companions. So let’s enjoy the time we have together and get excited to go back out in service. Be peacemakers; be salt and light to a world that is often bland and dark. Serve and love, introduce people to Jesus and do your part to make the world just a little more like heaven. Jesus sends us in his name today and every day.

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.

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.

Ministers of the gospel, 5.5.13

Proverbs 2:1-11

My child, if you accept my words and treasure up my commandments within you,
²making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding;
³if you indeed cry out for insight, and raise your voice for understanding;
⁴if you seek it like silver, and search for it as for hidden treasures—
⁵then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God.

⁶For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;
⁷he stores up sound wisdom for the upright; he is a shield to those who walk blamelessly,
⁸guarding the paths of justice and preserving the way of his faithful ones.
⁹Then you will understand righteousness and justice and equity, every good path;
¹⁰for wisdom will come into your heart, and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;
¹¹prudence will watch over you; and understanding will guard you.

Ephesians 4:1-7, 11-16

I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, ²with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, ³making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. ⁴There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, ⁵one Lord, one faith, one baptism, ⁶one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all.

⁷But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift… ¹¹The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, ¹²to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, ¹³until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ.

¹⁴We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. ¹⁵But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, ¹⁶from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.

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            People often ask me what they should call me, what my title is. Those who grew up in the Catholic church sometimes call me Father. Others aren’t sure what to say, so they ask. I say they should call me Sam, but sometimes that’s not enough.

            The answer depends on what we’re talking about. The title the Presbyterian Church gives me is reverend, so that’s the “correct” way to address me formally. The new Book of Order, which is the second part of the Presbyterian constitution, refers to me as a teaching elder. That emphasizes my role teaching in the church and also reminds us that, like the elders you will elect in June, I am an elder. We vote with the same weight, and we’re eligible for the same offices in the church.

            When we talk about what my job is, what my role is in this church, the correct word is pastor. In Spanish “pastor” is the word for pastor and for shepherd. My job in some ways is to guide the church and care for it, like a shepherd, which is where the word comes from. Another advantage of this term is that people outside our church understand it, whereas if I tell someone I’m a teaching elder they won’t have any idea what I’m talking about .

            Often people will say I am the minister of a church. That’s correct because that’s a term we have used in much of the church’s history. It also makes sense for people outside the church, because, like pastor, minister is a word people recognize. But the truth is that we are all ministers, so sometimes if people say I am the minister we forget that you are also ministers.

            Minister originally meant a servant. It means someone who serves others. Ministry means service, and the ministry of the church is everyone’s job together. That ministry is proclaiming the good news, serving the poor, encouraging people to live righteous lives, providing for fellowship, education and worship, and making our life as a church reflect God’s kingdom, so people can see what God wants our life to be like. That is not my job, it’s our job together. We are all ministers at Laurelton.

            Along with ministry, we talk about calling. God calls people to ministry in different ways. Some are painfully obvious and others are difficult to figure out. But there is a calling for everyone. God calls you to ministry. That starts with the calling to follow Jesus. Like Jesus invited the first disciples, Jesus invites each of us to follow him now. That’s a calling all Christians share. We don’t just happen to show up at church or Bible study. God calls us here.

Our calling shapes every part of our life, because following Jesus means turning away from certain other things, things like hatred, selfishness, judgment and sin. That’s why Paul urges the church, urges each Christian, to lead a life worthy of the calling to which we were called. Our call to discipleship and ministry is a high calling from God, and it takes work for our lives to be worthy of that calling.