What About Launching a New Congregation in our Area?

Rick+ writes:

I have often said publically that we should always understand God's Great Commission to the Church to include five different kinds of growth:

1) our spiritual growth as people ("Experience God")
2) our growth into deeper community ("Create Community")
3) the growth of our ministry to others ("Mend the World")
4) the growth of the parish in terms of size, and
5) the sponsoring of new congregations.

St Marks has been experiencing the first four, but we have yet to seriously consider or engage with the fifth kind of growth.

Before I came to St Marks, some of the leaders expressed hope that St Marks, rather than growing larger, would support the launching of a new mission -- that is, to help start a new Episcopal congregation. (My view on this, as with so many things, is always to think about "both/and" rather than "either/or" and never to consider "neither/nor!")

Over the past number of years, some members and leaders of St Marks have continued to express their preference for supporting a new mission. However, we've been so engaged in so many new initiatives, we have never gotten around to seriously considering it.

In our recent considerations about acquiring additional land, several persons have again urged us to consider supporting the launching of a new mission. I admit freely that there is nothing that would excite me more. To foster the launching of a new congregation, at least once in my life, is one of the things near the top of my "bucket list."

Because we haven't yet seriously engaged it, and because several people are continuing to urge us to consider it, and because it would have an effect on how we might pursue things over the next few years, I believe it's important, perhaps even urgent during our current time of discernment, for us to discover whether there is sufficient interest among us to take a serious look at what launching a new congregation might mean.

If we were to discover that there is little or no substantive interest in our becoming engaged in launching a new mission, then that is something we should know. Those who continue to urge it at this time have a right to know this. But if were to discover, on the other hand, that there is sufficient substantive interest, then perhaps we should collect those interested into a focus group, for prayer, learning, and planning. Even if most members of St Marks were to continue to focus on the first four kinds of growth, with no interest in a new mission, those who are interested deserve both the opportunity and my support.

The crucial question is whether the interest is both sufficient and substantive. If the continued urging to consider a new mission turns out to be primarily a way to avoid thinking about our other growth considerations, then it is neither sufficient nor substantive. If the interest is only a pipe dream for some of us, then we should learn this and put it aside for the time being.

To help us discover our interest level, I put together a quick, initial survey. If you're part of the St Marks community, or would like to join with us in launching a new mission were we to do so, please complete the survey between now and New Year's eve.

If we should discover that we have sufficient, substantive support, then I will make sure that our Strategic Planning committee considers how this will impact our current discernment. But if there is not sufficient, substantive support, then the Strategic Planning committee can continue their current considerations without thinking about a new start in the foreseeable future.

You may take the survey on the St Mark's website by going here: http://www.stmarkshighland.ang-md.org/aboutus/newmission.php

It should take you no more than a minute to complete it. When you click on "submit," it will automatically tally the results. I'll let you by January 2 what those results are.

Grace and peace,

WWJR

In her recent article, Rich and Rick: A Post-Partisan Parable, Diana Butler Bass notes:

For more than a century, American Protestantism has been as divided as American politics. Two camps--modernists and fundamentalists (a.k.a. "liberals" and "conservatives")--have vied for the American soul, with each claiming to the most faithful and most biblical rendering of the Christian religion. As a result, Protestant churches and denominations have often been as partisan as political parties, exacerbating larger cultural divides.

The article was spurred by the curious juxtaposition of Rich Cizik's recent, forced resignation from leadership in the National Association of Evangelicals and Obama's invitation to Rick Warren to offer the Official Prayer at the Inauguration.

More conservative types were outraged by Cizik's recent non-conservative remarks. More liberal types were outraged by Warren's invitation.

Business as usual.

We continue to make ideology and agreement-about-point-of-view as the arbiter of who we will allow to participate in any given gathering, celebration, event, or party. We used to enforce segregation by skin color. We still segregate by ideology and viewpoint.

Some years ago I grew tired of seeing WWJD blazoned everywhere on T-shirts, hats, pens, decals, and bracelets. (Especially since there wasn't all that much evidence that wearers really were more increasingly transforming their every-day behavioral choices by a thoughtful reconsideration of What Jesus really Would Do.) But I'm now wondering whether we shouldn't begin asking the question: WWJR?

Who Would Jesus Reject?

Our expressions of outrage indicate who we reject. One might consider, how would Jesus respond to the same situation that raises our ire? Would Jesus have been as outraged by Rick Cizik's remarks? By his ouster? Or by Obama's invitation to Rick Warren?

Obama and Warren hold sharply contrasting ideologies, beliefs, viewpoints and values on a great many things. That Obama, rather than rejecting someone so different from himself, would inite him to pray for his inauguration, and that Warren, rather than declining an invitation from someone so different from himself, would actually go, pray, and bless the other, could be interpreted in at least two different ways.

1) The cynic might say, "Good grief! They're pandering to the other side."
2) The hopeful might say, "Good news! They're modeling the greatest of all American values!"

1) The cynic might say, "Good grief! What hypocrites!"
2) The hopeful might say, "Good news! There's hope for the future!"

1) The cynic might say, "Good grief! Don't they know what the other believes?"
2) The hopeful might say, "Good news! They're exorcising the demon of Ideology!"

I'm really tired of cynics and cynicism. And if I allowed that to control my behavior, I'd reject them from the party, the event, the celebration, and the worship gathering. But when I ask, "WWJR?", I'm stuck with the terrible irony that I have to welcome both the hopeful and the cynic to the party.

Drat.

Oh well... maybe that's the purpose of the party. If we strike up the band and pass around some margarita's, maybe both the liberals and conservatives can learn to dance together.