We have been talking in worship, all this year, about the Five Developmental Tasks that the Unitarian Universalist Association recommends congregations spend some time examining when a congregation is in an interim period, as this one is, the period between the departure of one settled minister and the calling of a new settled minister.
The first four were History, then Leadership, Identity, then Mission. Today we arrive at the last of the five: Connections.
Over the next two months, to the end of the church year, we will look at our connections, our connection to the Unitarian Universalist Association, our connections to the Pacific Western Region. Three weeks from today we will make our connection the Pacific Southwest District manifest when we host the District Assembly.
And then in May, we will look at our connections to the community of Long Beach and organizations in our local area. Are we tied in? Are we working in partnership? Do we know where to ask for help if we need it? Are we willing to be held accountable if our partners in the faith or in the community suggest we might have gotten off track from what would be most helpful to our shared goals?
Today is also the first day of voting as the members of the church select the seven persons who will serve on the Search Committee, who will lead your search for a new settled minister. The search is a year-long process that will get started next month and conclude likely in April or May next year when you get to meet the candidate the Search Committee will present.
Finally, today, in this busy Sunday, we are also still in the midst of our annual Stewardship Campaign.
And somehow, all of these different events coming together on this Sunday; connections to the larger faith and local community, leadership training graduation, electing a Search Committee, do find themselves in the broad category of Stewardship.
I only have time for a short message this week so let me get right to it.
Stewardship is about caring for and carrying forward a healthy congregation. To begin talking about the developmental task for the next few weeks: connections, we need to begin by talking about the point where the connections are anchored from: a healthy congregation. And a healthy congregation is the work of Stewardship.
Stewardship is partly about the pledge drive. As Joe Eggleston reminded us earlier this morning there are a lot of reasons to give, and give generously to your church. And I hope if you haven’t yet made your pledge for the coming church year that you will do so right away.
But the Stewardship Campaign is more than the Pledge drive. And Stewardship is more than money.
Every week in our liturgy, after we collect the morning offering, we respond by saying together what the offering is for. “For the work of the church, in our community…”
The offering is for the work of the church. The money in the basket, or the pledge mailed in, or the money electronically transferred from your bank account or credit card, all go to the work of the church.
But the work of the church also requires, well, the work.
The money pays the bills. And the money pays the salaries of the staff who do some of the work. But the work of the church requires more than what the resources of money or staff hours can cover. The church runs on your gifts of work, as well as your gifts of money. Ideally, every church member gives some of both, depending on your circumstances. For some of us time is short but financial resources are more abundant. For others, it’s just the opposite.
The church, to be strong, needs those who can give money. And thank you to those who support the church financially. And the church needs those who can give their time, their work, their skills and talents, their ideas, their muscles, their hours.
We need, as we sang in our opening hymn: “The prophets, the teachers, the dreamers,
designers, creators, and workers, and seers.” We need the folks who come to the work party on the second Saturday of every month. We need the folks who will serve on our Search Committee. But for those of you who were willing to serve but won’t be one of the seven elected we need you just as much in other areas. There are seats available at the Board of Trustees table in the coming year. We need a Clerk to take the minutes and keep other church records. We need you on the Children’s RE Committee, or the Adult Faith Development Committee. We need you to cover the sound board, or staff the welcome table, arrange the altar, pass out the hymnals, sing in the choir, play an instrument, organize a discussion group, decorate Wylder Hall for a party, serve as a Worship Associate for a guest preacher, be a guest preacher, do some accounting in the church office, or update the website, or administer our facebook page. I’ve barely begun, but I’ll stop there.
You get the picture.
It starts to sound overwhelming. Like the church is an endlessly needy sink of work where you could spend your day, and expend your spirit.
But that’s the wrong impression. So let me correct myself.
First off. We don’t need you to do everything on that list. We need you to do one thing. Or maybe a couple. We need you to do the thing that you can do. We need you to do the thing that you are called to do. The thing, as said about mission, where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.
Do you remember that quote from Frederick Buechner that I gave you last fall? How do you know what work is yours to do? Here is what Frederick Buechner advises:
“By and large a good rule for finding out is this: the kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need most to do and (b) that the world most needs to have done. … The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”
The work the church calls you to do should not be soul-draining, but soul-nourishing. It should feel good to do. It should feel strengthening and inspiring and fulfilling to do, the way any of the church’s programs should make you feel. The work the church asks of you is not mundane work that supports the real work of the church, it’s holy work that is the real work of the church.
It’s the same reason that we collect an offering every Sunday as part of our worship. The offering isn’t there to support worship; it is worship. The Offering is not in the liturgy because the church needs the money (although we do) but because collecting an offering is worship, because to be spiritually fed, you need to give. The offering is an opportunity for you to practice the spiritual act of generosity. Giving yourself to the things of worth in the world. A practice you’ll hopefully repeat in other situations throughout your life, giving to your family, to your friends, to your neighbors, to your community. Your offering in the basket is, of course, a gift to the church, and thank you for it, but it’s also a gift to you. An opportunity to give. An occasion to remind yourself of all that you have. To recognize how gifted you are. And what a gift to your soul it is, to be able to give.
Your gift of work for the church is the same, a simultaneous giving and receiving, an extending of yourself so that your expanded self can accept even more of what life has to offer. Work that supports the church and supports you, work you do that works for you, work that grows the church and grows your soul.
“I want to be with people who submerge in the task,” says Marge Piercy. “Who go into the fields to harvest and work in a row and pass the bags along, Who stand in the line and haul in their places, Who are not parlor generals and field deserters but move in a common rhythm when the food must come in or the fire be put out.”
Work like that feels good. It invigorates, not depletes. It fulfills, not empties. That’s the work that creates a healthy congregation and healthy congregants. Work that creates and sustains a strong and valuable partner for our connections to the larger faith and wider world.
Maybe today some work in the church is calling to you. Listen. And say yes. Not to do everything, but to do one thing. Not to do the thing that wears you out and tears you down. But the thing that lifts you up. The thing that when done fills you with pride. The work that gives of yourself to yourself, and to the church you love.
“All are architects of fate, working in these walls of time; some with massive deeds and great, some with ornaments of rhyme.”
Teach a class. Paint a wall. Pull a weed. Write a policy. Greet a newcomer.
“All our joys and all our groans; all our lives are building stones. Whether humble or exalted, all are called to task divine; all must aid alike to carry forward one sublime design.”