Christian Community

Identity

Presbytery Care Network National Gathering

October 20-23, 2003

Rev. Deborah McKinley

Ephesians 1:3-14

What a marvelously dynamic time to be a pastor in the Christian Church.

< membership continues to decline

< revenues are difficult to generate

< with people=s lives busier and busier it is harder and harder to procure volunteers for programs.

< Elders come to Session meetings ill prepared, coming in after a 10-12 hour day at the office.

< Sunday School teachers come in on Sunday morning having spent what they consider a generous 45 minutes - hour in lesson preparation the night before.

< Deacons, afraid of infringing on someone=s life are reluctant to make a phone call or a home visit.

What an exciting time to be a pastor in the Christian church!

While the above examples may be extreme - and there are often very faithful church members who are generous with their time for programs and preparation -still, it=s a challenging time to be a pastor. And, I=m convinced it=s an exciting time.

I believe we=re in a pruning time in the Christian church. The plant has gotten big and gangly in the last several generations. It=s time, now to trim the dead wood - to cut it back, to prune it so that it might flourish. Let=s be clear - the biblical image of pruning has God as the gardener - not us. As many in those faithful generations die off, there are many younger people who hunger for faith and depth and meaning and life - and they thrive in our churches. And, there are others who find the call of the Christian faith simply too demanding and costly, as the rich man in the Gospel of Mark who turned down Jesus= invitation to discipleship because he was wealthy - and Jesus called him to give away what he owned. He just couldn=t do it. There are others who find the Christian faith simply irrelevant in today=s world. The bush of the church is being pruned - we=re getting smaller. And, I believe, healthier.

One of the exciting aspects of that, I believe, is the opportunity to discover anew, discover again, who we are - bare bones - who are we as the Christian church? What is our foundational identity?

For a community to be authentic, it must know who it is, and who it is not. Driven by fear of diminishing membership numbers and the consequential diminishing income, many congregations have forgotten who they are as they seek to market themselves to people living in a secular culture. They have become market-driven. Consequently there are blurred boundaries and a fuzzy identity. Seeking to welcome all, they=ve forgotten to maintain what it is they=re welcoming the newcomers to.

Caroline Westerhoff takes up the question of boundaries, identity and hospitality in her book, Good Fences: The Boundaries of Hospitality. AA boundary is that which defines and gives identity...@ she begins in the forward to the book. A simple idea, perhaps, but an essential one as the church seeks to be faithful to its calling to be the Body of Christ in the 21st century. Westerhoff argues that the boundary for the church must be flexible enough to allow for the work of the Holy Spirit (A>Behold, I am doing a new thing,= says the Lord.@), while at the same time remaining firm in maintaining its core identity. AMaintaining our boundaries involves holding both sides of a tension: firmness coupled with a willingness to keep the boundary flexible and to look for alternative ways of doing things. It calls for an eye open to opportunity and the time to move ahead.@ (page 81). The boundary line enables the group to know who it is and who it is not. For the church, I think, this boundary defines who we are in the context of an increasingly secular culture.

The world in which we live - as pastors, as congregations, as presbyteries - has changed so dramatically - and we have to change with it. Though not according to its definition of who the church ought to be. We take our definition from God as revealed in Jesus Christ. We take our definition from scripture, from wisdom gained through the working of the Spirit. The culture challenges us to say who it is we are - and who it is we are not.

How is it that the culture of our time seeps in to the life of your presbytery? Is it by the constant attention to numbers and growth? Is it by an absorption in attention to itself - by a preoccupation with the presbytery=s problems, while ignoring the needs of neighbors? Is it by an increasing decline in attention span at presbytery meetings, coupled with a decreasing ability to articulate theological conversation?

Perhaps its by the increasing busyness among pastors. Pastors, as you know all too well, are notorious for fusing personal life with church life. As a result, they=re working all the time, with little break. A pastor can never be with members of the congregation and not be the pastor. That=s the primary and overarching relationship. And, in a culture in which work demands are increasing, are we seeing pastors get even more caught up in such hyper-responsibility? Doesn=t the church see work differently? Not as that which gives us identity and meaning, but as an activity in which we participate in God=s good creative work, as an activity that carries out the mandate to Atill the earth@. Perhaps busyness is another way the culture of our time seeps into the life of our presbyteries.

Who is it we are called to be as the Christian church as it manifests itself in the form of a presbytery? I=m not sure there=s an easy answer to that question. But it is an essential one if we are to be an authentic Christian community, holding at bay the tempting powers of the culture.