Mission Trip to Russia 1

In December 2011, a small group from our church met with Ellen Smith, a PC(USA) mission worker in Russia, to discuss the possibility of a mission trip in the summer of 2012.  Ellen gave me a Word document that I am sharing with others who may be interested in the trip (please request this if you would like it).  Here, I want to highlight some of the more practical matters that came up in our initial meeting.

1.  The best time-frame for a trip is 10 days, sometime during the last two weeks of July and the first week of August.

2.  The optimal size of the group is 4-8 persons, youth/young adults encouraged.

3.  Ellen will accompany the group at all times: she will arrange scheduling, housing, transportation in country, provide translation, etc.

4.  There is an option of taking a day at the end of the trip to tour Moscow.

5.  In terms of the cost, the largest expense will be airfare, approximately $1400 per person round trip.  Costs in country will be determined by which mission project we select.  (First Pres does have mission funds available to help cover costs).

6.  There are three good possibilities for mission projects.  Ellen will investigation further when she is in Moscow in January 2012 and provide us with more specific details.

A.  Work in a summer camp for handicapped children.  This is a ministry of a Russian Orthodox congregation.

B.  Work in a summer camp for orphans.  This is a ministry of a Russian Baptist Church.

C.  Work in a Roma church camp.  This would connect us with a more Pentecostal group with a charismatic pastor.  The camp itself would be the most “primitive” because we would be staying in tents along a river.  However, it might also be the most fascinating because of the culture and vitality of the Roma people.

After hearing from Ellen later in January 2012, we will schedule another meeting of interested persons, and perhaps meet monthly thereafter if God continues to lead us in the direction of this trip.  Let me know of your interest!

Current Trends in Spirituality 5

     According to the book American Grace, the turmoil of the 1960s spawned a religious conservative reaction that has, for the past twenty years or so, resulted in turning young people off to churches in general.   The book describes this group of young people as the new “nones.”  These people are not hard-core secularists, nor do they self-identify as atheists.  Many of them express some belief in God and say that religion is important in their lives.  The research shows that they are not attached to organized religion (“none”) because they identify it with conservatism.  

     The authors of American Grace do not use the terms “spirituality” or “the spiritual life.”  They employ terms like “religious” and “religiosity.”  They have compiled data to support the view that among rank-and-file Americans spirituality and religiosity go hand in hand.  They claim that we are a religious people, although to different degrees.

     To assist them in their analysis, the authors have developed what they call the “religiosity index.”  They ask six questions to develop an indicator of one’s religiosity, from low to high.

1. How frequently do you attend religious services?
2. How frequently do you pray outside of religious services?
3. How important is religion in your daily life?
4. How important is your religion to your sense of who you are?
5. Are you a strong believer in your religion?
6. How strong is your belief in God?

     The answers to these questions provide the authors with a measurement tool for analyzing how varying levels of religiosity relate to one’s views on certain issues.  The authors discuss many issues, too numerous to summarize here.  Among them are 1) how we tend to view other religions, and 2) whether the non-religious can be good Americans.  On these two issues, it is interesting that we tend to view other religions and non-religious Americans in a favorable light.

     How do we account for this fact?  The reason suggested by the authors is that religious diversity has touched us personally.  

     Religious diversity has crept into our neighborhoods, friendships, and extended family.  The researches call this “the Aunt Susan principle.”   Most Americans are intimately acquainted with people of other faiths.  We all have an Aunt Susan in our lives, that is, a saintly person whose religious background is different from our own.  Maybe you are Methodist and Aunt Susan is Jewish.  Maybe you are Catholic and Aunt Susan is not religious at all.  Still, you know her to be a good American and you feel good about her.  She becomes a bridge to  other people of diverse religious background.  If she can be this way, others can to.

     A similar phenomenon is called “the My Friend Al Principle.”   You become friends with Al because you have a similar interest—let us say beekeeping.  After getting to know Al at beekeeping seminars, you learn that Al is an evangelical.  You had not thought much about evangelicals, and when you did, you were a bit uncertain and suspicious.  But Al is alright, he is a good guy, so maybe evangelicals are okay too.

     This is America’s Grace, the title of the book.  As Americans, we are devoted to our religion.  We are a religious people.  But at the same time, we co-exist with religious diversity because of our interlocking personal relationships with people of different faiths or no faith.  We are devoted to our own religious tradition, but also experience bridges to people of other traditions.  Because this describes most of us, future successes in ministry will go to those who build bridges to others not to those who demonize and polarize.

Current Trends in Spirituality 4

             The book American Grace (by Robert Putnam and David Campbell, published by Simon & Schuster, 2010) is a massive study of religion in America over the last 50 years.  The book is filled with research data and statistical analysis gleaned from surveys.  There are more charts and graphs in this book than this reader could possibly digest!  I decided to use this book to help me see the “big picture” of what was currently happening in the spirituality of Americans.

            An interesting feature of the book is that we get a reprieve from the numerical overload by getting stories of local congregations.  That is, the research is interspersed with vignettes in the life of local churches.  One person I know said he bypassed much of the research data and simply took pleasure in reading about the congregations!  The local congregations featured in the book include:

• Trinity Episcopal Church, Concord, MA
• Saddleback Church, Orange County, CA
• Our Savior Lutheran Church, Houston, TX
• Bethel AME, Baltimore, MD
• St. Pius V Catholic Church, Chicago’s lower west side
• Living Word Christian Center, Minneapolis
• Beth Emet, a synagogue in suburban Chicago
• LDS Congregation (Mormon) in Salt Lake City

             The data in the book reinforces the conclusion that Americans are a highly religious people.  For example, 80% of Americans are absolutely sure there is a God.  Moreover, Americans believe in a God who is loving.  About 62% say they “very often” feel God’s love in their life.  If we look at weekly attendance at religious services, Americans rank far ahead of other industrialized, democratic nations.  38% of Americans attend worship weekly, compared to 8-10% in France and Germany.  

            However, there have been some interesting changes in the last 50 years.  The decade of the 1960s, with its promotion of an open sex and drug culture, sent shock waves through society.  According to the book, there were two major aftershocks in the religious world.  First, in the 1980s there was a conservative backlash.  Evangelicalism and fundamentalism grew.  These religious folks began to influence the political and social agenda, organizations like the Moral Majority experienced growth.  But then there was a second aftershock which began in the 1990s and is still reverberating.  Young people, turned off by the association of religion and conservative views, began disavowing religion.  They left, not only evangelical and fundamentalist churches, but all churches.

           Where does this leave us today?  More from American Grace next time!

Current Trends in Spirituality 3

I mentioned last time that I recalled learning from my seminary professors that one should even sweep a floor to the glory of God.  This lead me to similar references in C.S. Lewis and Martin Luther King, Jr.  However, I was left wondering–where does this striking and memorable image come from?   Where had my Presbyterian professors heard it? 

To seek an answer, I went up to the choir room at First Presbyterian Church, Green Bay, and pulled from the shelf a Presbyterian hymnal that dates to 1914.  Hymn 343 is written by Rev. George Herbert (1633) and revised by John Wesley (1738).  It goes like this:

Teach me, my God and King,
In all things Thee to see,
And what I do in anything,
To do it as for Thee.

To scorn the senses’ sway,
While still to Thee I tend:
In all I do be Thou the Way,
In all be Thou the End.

All may of Thee partake;
Nothing so small can be
But draws, when acted for Thy sake,
Greatness and worth from Thee.

If done to obey Thy laws,
E’en servile labors shine;
Hallowed is toil, if this the cause,
The meanest work Divine.

Clearly this old hymn teaches that the lowliest, smallest thing we do is still a sacred act.  Wesley’s revision preserves the sense of the original poem, but I wanted to read Herbert’s own words.  I just so happen to have in my office the Classics of Western Spirituality volume titled George Herbert: The Country Parson, The Temple.   On page 311, I found his poem, The Elixir.  A footnote explains that the elixer is a philosopher’s stone, claimed by alchemists to turn base metals into gold.  The point is that when God touches even our most mundane actions, they turn to gold. 

The fourth stanza that Wesley revised above  reads as follows in the original poem:
A servant with this clause
Makes drudgery divine:
Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws,
Makes that and th’ action fine.

A seventeenth century English poet used the image of sweeping a room as an example of a fine spiritual activity!  From there the teaching (but not the image itself) found its way into a Presbyterian hymnbook.  I heard it from my teachers who were able to recall the old hymn and perhaps even knew the original poem.  Herbert’s poem, and especially the stanza I have just cited, fits beautifully with the current trend to appreciate a spirituality of the mundane.

Current Trends in Spirituality 2

The recent emphasis on the spirituality of the routine that I call attention to in my previous blog has taken me back to my Reformed roots. 

The father of Presbyterianism, John Calvin, begins his Geneva Catechism this way:

Question 1.  What is the chief end of human life?–That men should know God by whom they were created.
Question 2.  What reason have you for saying so?–Because he created us for this, and placed us in the world, that he might be glorified in us.  And it is certainly proper that our life, of which he is the beginning, be directed to his glory.
Question 3.  What then is man’s supreme good?–The very same.
Question 4.  Why do you hold this to be the supreme good?–Because without it our condition is more unhappy than that of any of the brutes.

The Westminster Shorter Catechism does a nice job of combining Calvin’s points into a memorable first Q & A:
Question 1.  What is the chief end of man?  Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.

The Reformed tradition teaches us that we are to glorify God in everything we do.   This is the purpose and goal of human life.  Whatever our vocation, whatever our task, we are to undertake it with a desire to bring glory to God.  I have come to prefer the expression “worshipful work.”  I recall being told in seminary that one should even sweep the floor to the glory of God!  

C. S. Lewis in The Weight of Glory, rejects the idea that certain activities in the culture (such as learning) are more spiritual than other activites (such as cleaning).  He writes:

“I think it was Matthew Arnold who first used the English word spiritual in the sense of the German geistlich, and so inaugurated this most dangerous and most anti-Christian error.  Let us clear it forever from our minds.  The work of a Beethoven and the work of a charwoman become spiritual on precisely the same condition, that of being offered to God, of being done humbly `as to the Lord.’  This does not, of course, mean that it is for anyone a mere toss-up whether he should sweep rooms or compose symphonies” (55-56).

Lewis goes on to say that each of us is different in terms of our upbringing, talents and circumstances.  We are responsible to discern our vocation in life.  I would add that even composers must do mundane things, perhaps even sweep their rooms!  A composer brings glory to God with every aspect of his or her life, not only with writing music.  It is the whole of life that is spiritual.

The passage from Lewis brought to mind a similar point that was made by Martin Luther King, Jr. 

“Whatever your life’s work is, do it well.  Even if it does not fall in the category of one of the so-called big professions, do it well . . . If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, like Shakespeare wrote poetry, like Beethoven composed music; sweep streets so well that all the host of Heaven and earth will have to pause and say, `Here lived a great street sweeper, who swept his job well’” (I Have A Dream: Writings & Speeches, 20).

Lewis and King illustrate that the view that the whole of life is to be lived to the glory of God is not Reformed in particular, it is more broadly Christian.  But surely those of us in the Reformed tradition, who have learned this from Calvin and the Westminster divines, should welcome the recent trend in spirituality that seeks to affirm the spirituality of our daily routine as well as our sporadic creativity.

Current Trends in Spirituality 1

The following column appeared in the Green Bay Press-Gazette on July 22, 2011.

        Summer offers us time to get away for a spiritual retreat at a remote camp or conference center.  I remember going to the mountains of North Carolina a few summers ago to spend a week at a United Methodist church camp.  It was a wonderful time of spiritual reflection. 

        However, this summer I have no such plans.  Perhaps you do not either.   You and I will go through our daily routines from week to week.  Even so, is there the possibility of a spiritual experience for us?

        It has been interesting to me that some recent spiritual writing has centered on what we might call the spirituality of the mundane.  It is suggested that we do not need to travel great distances, spend a lot of money and learn esoteric techniques to advance in the spiritual life.

        Author and poet Kathleen Norris speaks of the quotidian mysteries of doing laundry, baking bread and housecleaning.  Episcopal priest and theologian Barbara Brown Taylor includes among the disciplines such things as digging in the garden, going through the checkout at the grocery store, and walking barefoot.   

        So what can we make of these dog days of summer?  We regularly perform menial tasks such as mowing the lawn, washing the car and watering the plants.  You can add to the list. Is there really the possibility of spiritual growth in any of this?

        There is if we will approach menial matters with some awareness rather than merely going through the motions.  Norris reminds us that the word “menial” derives from a word that connotes family and household ties, thus connections.  Taylor’s perspective is that to become more spiritual we must become more fully human, for there is no way to God apart from real life in the real world.  

        We need to ask some simple questions in the mundane activities that fill our days.  How does this activity connect me to the earth, to my fellow human beings and to God?  What does this activity teach me about my own humanness?   

        Let me give an example.  On two occasions this summer I cleaned the gutters on my house.  I saw my neighbors on their ladders and I realized this was a shared experience.  I felt fortunate to have a roof over my head and to be able-bodied enough to climb a ladder.  I was thankful for the rains and the shade provided by the trees.  I especially liked the sound of water rushing through the downspout after I removed the blockage.  Water flowed where it belonged, in the earth.  As I pulled handfuls of seeds from the gutter—helicopter seeds from maple trees and the white tufts of cottonwood seeds—it brought to mind the fecundity of nature and the abundance of God.  I dumped the seeds in the woods because seeds too belong in the earth, not in rain gutters.

        Whenever I see plants actually growing in gutters on the roof’s edge, it gives me pause.  I wonder if I am growing where I belong.

Stewardship Conference 2

Don Schultz from the James Company spent a morning with the Stewardship Committees of First Presbyterian Church Green Bay and First Presbyterian Church Neenah.  Both committees have used Herb Miller’s stewardship program far beyond its expiration date!  We are now at the stage of adapting elements of his approach to our local situations and to elements of other programs.  I will say more about this in the next blog.  At present, I want to comment on the second major topic of Don’s workshop, namely, endowments

Gifts that Last a Lifetime . . . and Beyond

Both of our congregations have significant endowment funds.  Of course we want to be faithful in managing these funds and using them in ways that support and promote the mission and ministry of the congregation.  Our funds have made somewhat of a “comeback” after the recent downturn in the economy.  Still, the ups and downs of the market are a powerful reminder that we must be wise and diligent with the gifts given to our endowments.

Don began with an interesting “object lesson.”  He gave each of us a red and yellow post-it slip.  He asked us to place the red post-it slip as high up on the wall as we could.  Of course, I jumped up, reached up, and slapped my slip far above my head.  Mission accomplished!  Then, Don asked us to take the yellow post-it slip and place it higher!  All of us could do that.  Some by being creative and getting a chair, others (like me) by simply resolving to jump higher and reach higher.  Don’s point?  There is always more to give.  People can reach higher and they will be happy to do it.  There is more money to be given.  Don has a friend who told him about the “Rule of Tens.”  If someone gives $500, they are capable of giving $5,000, etc.  Endowments are a tool to make it possible for people to give more.

I was especially intrigued by a segment of Don’s presentation titled:  Endowment Funds: Helpful or Harmful?  He said that endowment funds are helpful when they:

• Provide members with opportunities to fill a spiritual need to perpetuate their faith and values beyond their own lifetimes.
• Provide an income stream to support a growing ministry.

Endowment funds are harmful when they:

• Undermine current member giving.
• Cause conflicts over the use of the funds.
• Are mis-managed.

Obviously, good endowment policies are essential to accentuating the positive and deterring the negative possibilities.  We need to re-visit our policies, which date from the 1990s when our endowment was much smaller.

One important issue for us in Green Bay is how endowment funds relate to the annual ministry budget.  Don seemed to send a mixed message in this regard.  On the one hand, he said earlier on that a helpful endowment fund may result in annual budget contributions that can fully support ongoing ministries.  On the other hand, he said later that endowment funds should not be used to support the operating budget except in limited and/or catastrophic circumstances.  I pointed out that both congregations use their endowment funds to support the annual operating budget.  We cap the amount that can be used (a percentage of growth over time), but we do use the fund this way.    Don responded by saying that his later point was simply a “consideration” and not a hard and fast rule.  He brought up the danger that this could undermine current giving. 

We will continue to think about this at Green Bay First.  Does it make any real difference if we put an endowment line in our annual income stream as opposed to funding a specific ministry and taking that ministry out of our annual operating budget?  What are the pros and cons of each approach?   Whatever approach we take, we need full disclosure to the congregation about what we are doing and why.

More about stewardship next time.

Stewardship Conference 1

On Saturday, May 7, I travelled to Neenah to attend a stewardship conference that was put together for the stewardship committees of the First Presbyterian Churches of Neenah and Green Bay.  Rev. Richard Moore and I had met earlier with Don Schultz from the James Company to explore the idea of a  joint workshop.  We shared some of our experiences and expectations with Don and he put together an agenda for a half-day retreat on current approaches to stewardship.  Seven of us from Green Bay loaded into a van and spent a beautiful morning with our counterparts from the church in Neenah.

At the conclusion of the event, before I offered the closing prayer, I mentioned that I would write a blog and share some of my reflections.  I encouraged the participants to reply and share their own thoughts and impressions with others.  Hopefully, the conversation we began that Saturday will continue.

Don divided the morning into two presentations:  “Financial Stewardship:  The Basics and Beyond” and “Gifts that Last a Lifetime . . . And Beyond.”  Along the way, he stopped to answer many of our questions.  In this blog, I want to comment on the first presentation.

The Basics and Beyond 

In terms of the basics, Don said, “Begin with a biblical understanding of financial stewardship.”  As he talked about this, I was struck again by the power of a biblical vision.  Our cultural assumptions run directly counter to this vision.  What our culture teaches us is:  you earned it, you deserve it, you can do with it what you want.  But the biblical vision is that “The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it” (Psalm 24).  A huge part of stewardship is conveying this basic truth.  All that we possess and all that we acquire is a gift and a trust from the Lord.

Near the end of this presentation, when he was taking us “Beyond” the Basics, Don said that we needed to address consumerism head-on.    The average credit card debt in America is more than $8,000 per person.  This puts many church members in a dilemma.  They may want to give more to the church but cannot afford it.  The money issue for such individuals is not what more can I give but how can I pay it all off?  The church should provide opportunities for church members to come to grips with their finances.  If we were to hold a workshop (Don suggested “Good $ense” or “Financial Peace University”) and only three people showed up, it would still be a success.

If we are going to GROW GIVERS, we have to impart the biblical vision and help people get their financial houses in order.  This puts them in a position to respond to our stewardship efforts.  Still, the bottom line is that giving is truly an act of faith.  When we give back to God, we do not have that money for tomorrow.  We are trusting that God will take care of us.

One of the other points that stuck with me in Don’s first presentation was the idea that we all have a  “money script.”  He summarized the book, The Financial Wisdom of Ebenezer Scrooge—Five Principles to Transform Your Relationship with Money.  We all know the character of Scrooge from The Christmas Story by Charles Dickens.  Scrooge had a money script that needed to be re-written.  It read like this:

• You can’t trust anyone with your money
• People only want you for your money
• You can never have enough money
• The more money you have, the happier you will be
• Giving to the poor encourages laziness

Thankfully, Scrooge underwent a transformation.  The Ghost of Christmas Past helped him face the negative money scripts he learned in early childhood.  The Ghost of Christmas Present enabled him to face his spiritual and emotional poverty.  The Ghost of Christmas Future allowed him to see his future without change.  The good news is that Scrooge did change from greed to generosity.

We all have “money scripts,” that is, some early experiences with money that have shaped our attitudes about money.  Some of this may involve what we learned about money from our parents.  The more we are aware of our money scripts, the better position we are in to make wise decisions and to control our money, rather than having our money control us!  Don asked each of us to think about one of our early experiences with money and how that might still influence us today.  It was a helpful exercise.

Next time, I offer some thoughts on the second presentation which was specifically about endowments.  Please check back in a few days!

Life Together: Confession and Communion

Chapter Five
Discussion Questions

1.  In preparation for this final chapter, read one of the seven penitential psalms each day (Pss. 6; 32; 38; 51; 102; 130; 143).  Which of these spoke most powerfully to you?  Can you discern why this was so?

2.  What does Bonhoeffer mean when he claims that “In confession the break-through to community takes place”? (112)

3.  Do you find that it is easier to confess your sins to God or to a brother/sister?  (115-116)  Why is it important to do the latter?

4.  Bonhoeffer is clear about our need to confess specific and concrete sins.  He suggests self-examination on the basis of all of the Ten Commandments.  (117)  How does this deliver us from hypocrisy?

5.  It is possible, Bonhoeffer says, that a person may never know what it is to doubt his or her own forgiveness after a private confession to God.  Others, however, may doubt whether they have really been forgiven.  Can you understand both types of response?  What does Bonhoeffer propose for those who doubt their forgiveness? (117-118)

6.  What attributes would you want to be present in someone who hears your confession? (118-119)

7.  How would you describe the connection between confession and the Lord’s Supper? (120-122)

8.  How do you experience Christian community on the day the Lord’s Supper is celebrated? (122)

Life Together: Ministry

Chapter Four
Discussion Questions

1.   Read Luke 9:46-48.  How does self-assertion and self-justification threaten Christian community? (90-91)

2.  Describe the “matchless discovery” and the “amazement” that comes to one who has practiced the discipline of the tongue. (92-93)

3.  In a Christian community, “each individual is an indispensable link in a chain” (94).  How can we help everyone realize this?

4.  To what does Bonhoeffer attribute the “sin of resentment that flares up so quickly in the fellowship”? (95-96)  What is the solution?

5.  Read 1 Timothy 1:15.  What do you think of Bonhoeffer’s claim that we must each think of ourselves as the greatest of sinners? (96)

6.  Have you ever experienced that “listening can be a greater service than speaking”? (97)  Explain.

7.  How do you respond when God interrupts your schedule or cancels your plans by sending you “people with claims and petitions”? (99).  How should you respond?

8.  What are the two senses in which we are to bear the burden of a brother or sister? (101-102)

9.  “Where Christians live together the time must inevitably come when in some crisis one person will have to declare God’s Word and will to another.” (105)  Give examples.  Would you find this hard to do?  Why is it important that you do it? (106-108)

10.  Where is genuine authority found in the Christian community? (108-109)

11.  Bonhoeffer discusses seven different “ministries” in this chapter.  In which do you find your gifts and strengths in ministering to others?  In which do you need someone to minister to you?