Missional Churches = Real Churches (Regardless of Size)

I recently had the pleasure of presenting at Episcopal Appalachian Ministries' Mountain Grace Conference, “We(e) Small Voice – Exploring Small and Non-Traditional Church in Appalachia." While there, I was honored to be part of wonderfully honest conversations about how the Holy Spirit is active in Episcopal Churches from Pennsylvania to Georgia. We talked about small churches that were thriving – doing wonderful ministry in, through, and with the communities they serve – and we talked about small churches that were not thriving – with scarcely enough participation or will to continue.

Bishop Ken Price delivered the morning's keynote address, where he sounded the refrain, “Small Churches are Real Churches.” While I appreciated this encouraging message for parishes who really needed to hear it, I will note a trend I saw over the weekend. The small churches that are thriving are those engaged in outwardly focused (what I call missional) activities in their communities. These parishes are doing ministry outside the walls of their buildings, not for the purpose of bringing people through the doors, but for that is where Jesus calls us. There happens to be a side effect of engaging the community in a missional way. As the parish lives into this call – responding in love to the felt needs of the community – more people come through the doors of the building, bringing with them new vitality and creativity.

Other parishes told stories about doing x, y, and z to get people to come into “their” space. I cannot reveal any details as I don't want to embarrass or hurt any of these congregations, but this is a tale that I have heard again and again. When a church, regardless of size, turns the focus inward instead of outward, involvement in the parish begins to shrink as do budgets, numbers, and ministry. What if it really were as simple as turning the focus outward for these parishes?

If our focus is solely inward, it does beg the question, “What is church?” What are we about if we are not about engaging the community outside our walls? Perhaps we are the “Sunday Morning Country Club” that our detractors accuse us of being. Former Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, legendarily said, “The Church is the only institution that exists for those who are not yet its members.” How are we doing with that?

 After having participated in EAM's Mountain Grace Conference I can say that the small parishes that are thriving are those that are living into this challenge. So perhaps – with all due respect to the composer, Bishop Price – we might harmonize his refrain, “Small Churches are Real Churches,” with the countermelody, “Missional Churches are Real Churches – Regardless of Size.”

This blog post was originally posted on the Episcopal Church Foundation's Vital Practices Vital Posts Blog on September 19, 2013, and is reprinted with permission.

Blog Post Featured in Diocese of Central NY's Newsletter

The Episcopal Diocese of Central New York's monthly e-Newsletter, entitled the e-Messenger, picked up a Blog Post by our own Bob Leopold. To see it in context, click here. Thanks Diocese of Central New York and to Andy Pierce, the editor of the Messenger!

Southside Abbey is already planning a summer trip up there to visit.

Their Chance to Lead

This morning I was privileged to see a high school senior give a speech to her entire school. I know her to be a person of deep faith – what kind of high school senior invites her priest to this kind of thing? As she spoke she showed grace, skill, and charisma. I thought to myself, what a wonderful leader she will make someday . . .

Then she danced. She held an auditorium full of teenagers and guests like me in silence, spellbinding us as the grace, skill, and charisma from her words was amplified as it transformed into movement. I was very nearly moved to tears by the beauty of the whole scene. After she took her bows, her schoolmates rushed the stage and embraced her in triumph. The shouts and applause were overwhelming. Thankfully, I was reminded . . .

This proud young lady won't just be a leader someday, she is a leader already. She is a leader right now.

This made me think of an experience at a previous parish I served. A similarly proud young adult put herself out on a limb enough to stand for election to the vestry. When the votes were tallied, she lost. In the days that followed, I heard variations on this conversation: “I didn't vote for her because she is too young. She will have her time to lead.” I restrained myself from saying something like, “Yes. She will lead, it just won't be in the Church. She will lead where she is given a chance to lead and if that is not in the Church, that is clearly our loss.”

How many wonderful church leaders we are holding back right now? How can the Church engage those leaders as leaders (where and when they are) and just allow them to lead. How often do we fall into the trap of seeing the easily definable attribute (such as age) and not seeing the whole person in his or her context?

The most effective ministry is contextual. The young lady I saw dance is a leader in her context. The challenge for the Church is to provide the context for yet-untapped leaders like her, to lead. Looks like I have some phone calls to make (or more appropriately texts to send).

This blog post was originally posted on the Episcopal Church Foundation's Vital Practices Vital Posts Blog on September 4, 2013, and is reprinted with permission.

More Great Press for Spencer Cantrell

Southside Abbey's own, Spencer Cantrell, made it into Chattanooga's newspaper for his work done in Palestine. Read all about it here.

Southside Abbey is so proud of him.

Spencer's Reflection on Sabeel Conference in Palestine

In between the two-to-three second lulls and jam-ups of the assembly line of buckets winding their way up the rocky hill from the demolition site, I have just enough time to wipe my forehead and press my sunglasses back up my nose, which are perpetually taking gravity's lead, aided by the sweat pouring down my face. Just as quickly as I can accomplish this, it's back to flinging chunk of broken stone and concrete rubble from the buckets onto the growing mound just above us. And so the cycle goes. As a group, we've talked a lot about "moving mountains" over the last few days. Here, at Beit Arabiya, as the joke has been made several times, we're actually moving a mountain "from down there to up here."

... Read the rest here.

Creating a Space for Yes

I'm a “yes” man. I'll admit it, though maybe not the way you are imagining. As facilitator of a non-traditional community, people approach me with all kinds of questions: 

• This All Souls' Day, can we host a meal and worship service at our local homeless center that honors all of the homeless who have died in the previous year? 
• Instead of washing feet this Maundy Thursday, can we collect shoes for our neighborhood elementary school? 
• Can we embody ministry equality and hire a Lay Missioner? 
• I heard about a Church with a Theologian-in-Residence; can we have a Theologian-in-Residence? 

I have been filled-with-the-Spirit or foolhardy enough to answer, “yes,” to all of these questions.
While it is better than being a “no” man, I did not set out to be a “yes” man. I set out to create a safe space for those I serve – a space safe enough to ask questions, but also a space safe enough for the questions to become declarations: 

• We are going to print prayerbook breviaries full of our favorite prayers and readings to give to people we love. 
• We are going to buy a Loaves-and-Fishes Food Truck to share food and celebrate Holy Communion with the poor in our city. 
• Our worshiping community is going to raise $700,000 to give away, making 2014 the Year of the Jubilee.

I was miles away from home when it happened, when the questions turned into statements. A group of lay leaders got together without me and decided to make 2014 the Year of the Jubilee in our community. They decided to raise the aforementioned $700,000. While this might sound pretty good to some of us involved in parish leadership, they also added the caveat that every penny of this $700,000 would go to justice ministries and not one penny of this sum would be spent on our own worshiping community.

I returned home to this news, and it hit me: this is what can happen when a community is open to the movement of the Holy Spirit. This is way bigger than anything I could have dreamed up. I can already hear my inner cynic clearing his throat, but I'm a “yes” man now. The conversations among community leaders have already begun. We will raise that $700,000 and my “yes” will turn into a “YES!!!”

This blog post was originally posted on the Episcopal Church Foundation's Vital Practices Vital Posts Blog on August 21, 2013, and is reprinted with permission.

Being the Beloved Community

“The beloved community may then finally be described as a gift of the kingdom of God introduced into history by the church, and thus it exists within the provenance of Christ’s mystery in the world.”

-Charles Marsh, The Beloved Community, p 207

Within eyeshot of our beloved worship space at H♥ART Gallery there is a beautiful, red brick church building.  The sign in front of the recently restored old edifice identifies it as THE CHURCH ON MAIN.  But this moniker can be misleading for two main reasons.  First, THE CHURCH ON MAIN is located at the corner of Rossville and Read Avenues, not Main Street.  Second, THE CHURCH ON MAIN isn’t actually a church; it’s a rentable event space.  Now, to be fair, a church is currently renting the venue on Sunday mornings.  And this summer, quite a few couples have decided to rent out the space so that – presumably – they could have the appearance of a Church wedding without actually having to deal with the Church.  But all this raises the question: If THE EVENT SPACE ON ROSSVILLE can proudly call itself a Church without anyone batting an eye, what do you call a building-bereft worshiping community like Southside Abbey?

The question is not whether we are a church or part of the Church.  As a worshiping community of Jesus-followers, of course Southside Abbey is a member of the Body of Christ – (part of the μίαν, ἁγίαν, καθολικὴν καὶ ἀποστολικὴν ἐκκλησίαν [One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Assembly]).  The real question is what type of member are we?  What gifts has the Spirit bestowed on us as a community and to what ministry is She calling us in our larger community here in the Southside of Chattanooga?

As our community has been discerning the answer to these questions, we have stumbled on an answer to the initial question of what to call Southside Abbey.  What we have hoped to be, what we are longing to be, what we will strive to be is the local embodiment of the Beloved Community here in our neighborhood and city.  This is a term used by many of our heroes in the faith – most notably, the Reverend Dr Martin Luther King, Jr.  The Rev Dr King spoke of the Beloved Community as that group of Christians and followers-of-Jesus and even those who do not know the Lord, bound together to work and live out the Gospel’s promise and challenge of nonviolent reconciliation and healing.  That’s a tall order, no doubt, but it is surely Southside Abbey’s calling. 

So, by God’s grace and with the help of our friends and neighbors, Southside Abbey will continue to live into our calling as the Beloved Community in Chattanooga’s Southside . . . (and THE EVENT SPACE ON ROSSVILLE can keep the name, THE CHURCH ON MAIN).