Please Take a Few Minutes to Share Your Thoughts...

We are still collecting responses with our Year-End Congregational Survey. If you have not already done so, please take a few minutes to complete the online survey, found here.

Some Q and A about the survey:

Why take a survey? We're a congregation where everyone knows everyone else.

A survey is never a substitute for face-to-face conversation. However, a survey allows people to give their ideas and opinions on a wide range of issues fairly quickly. Then the range of thoughts and comments can be looked at together.

Why should I take the survey? Everyone already knows what I think.

Probably not. I'm the pastor, and I'm confident that I don't know exactly what everyone else thinks. We do know each other pretty well, but most of us guard some of our opinions and hopes pretty tightly.

Plus, you may have shared your thoughts with a few people or at a meeting. But 1) not everyone was there for the conversation and 2) we are all forgetful. Sharing your thoughts again cannot hurt.

The survey seems a little long, with lots of ratings. I'm uncomfortable with that.

The last congregations survey was taken two years ago. Six general questions were asked, only one of which was a simple "Yes" or "No"; all of them asked basically for comments. Many people gladly shared their ideas, but some found the survey difficult to take. Some people find surveys with boxes to check much easier to complete than surveys asking for comments.

This survey is an attempt to allow more people to be able to fill it out. There are both circles to check and space for comments. If you are more comfortable with one style or the other, put most of your effort on those parts of the questions.

How will the survey be used?

The results of the survey will be discussed with the Church Cabinet, which is basically all of the elected officers (board officers, elders, diaconate, trustees), committee chairs, and the pastor.

The ratings section will be used primarily to offer an idea of whether the congregation should continue doing what it's been doing, or reevaluate some things. It will also allow a glimpse of how important some aspects of congregational life are to people.

The comments/responses to the questions will be used to guide discussions about what ministries the congregation should focus on in the year 2011.

How can I be most helpful?

Take the time to fill the survey out. Be honest. If you really like something or think it's a really good idea, make sure you share that. If you're worried or frustrated about something, please share that. A congregation is at most vibrant when it is a group of people doing things that everyone feels are important and that everyone feels excited to participate in.

Last time there were 15 responses to the survey. That was good, but I believe we can get an even better participation rate this time.

Youth Christmas Program on Sunday, December 19

Tomorrow is the day for the annual Christmas pageant. This year's youth program, "The Spider's Christmas," is a story instead of a play. Two weeks ago our young people were photographed in costumes for the pictures. On Sunday, we will gather together to listen to the story, with their pictures.

Come hear again the magical story of Christ's birth, complete with angels, shepherds, and wise ones bearing gifts. All told from the perspective of one friendly, and slightly put-upon, spider. You won't want to miss it!

Habits of Highly Effective Christians

Last Sunday, we began a three-week sermon series called "Three Habits of Highly Effective Christians." The first sermon, "Investing Our Talents," focused on a couple of things, namely identifying what we have to offer (What are our talents?) and then identifying our mission (What do we want to do?).

This week, we'll continue along the same line of thinking and look at "Committing to the Mission." In particular, we'll consider how we focus on achievable things and how we maintain our dedication to those goals over time.

Before moving ahead, though, I think it's important to consider a couple of things from last week. First, I began the sermon with some questions that are pretty difficult to answer. What does a highly effective Christian look like? How does someone measure the effectiveness of a Christian? These are hard questions, and I wanted them to sound a little hard in the sermon, hoping that you would see a challenge and think about them this week.

Some might think that these questions are unfair, but I think we measure the effectiveness of most of the things in our life. Some of it is explicit -- many of us face job performance reports/assessments on a regular basis. Those of us in school get periodic report cards. Some is internalized -- we measure all sorts of things: our cooking, our driving, our parenting, our humor, our organizational skills, and on and on.

I think we measure the effectiveness of our faith too, but we almost never realize we're doing it. Even those who come to find God or their faith as unhelpful or irrelevant and who walk away from it rarely realize that they've measured faith and judged it ineffective. And for regular church-going folk, the same problem exists in a different way -- most believe that their faith is important and helpful, but few can explain this with any details.

And the details are important. Imagine that I was a baseball coach, offering to teach the sport. 'We're going to work on the things that are important,' I say. What are those?, you ask. If I squirm and say, 'you know, all of the important things,' you probably will worry a bit. On the other hand, if I talk about throwing accuracy, fielding practice, and learning to hit a curve ball, you probably feel like there's a reason to practice -- and a reason to hope that you'll get better at certain things.

The same is true in faith. Very few people think they are perfect Christians. Most of us strive to be "okay Christians" or "good Christians," but those are difficult things to define too. Jesus affirmed this definition (given by a lawyer): "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself" (Luke 10:27). The way to measure such faith is by understanding how God has changed our lives and how we have reached out to others, in faith, to help change their lives.

The great possibility of our faith is that there is almost an infinite number of ways to live out our faith in these terms. Unfortunately, the great obstacle is that there are few well-defined paths for us to follow, which threatens our effectiveness as Christians.

The most direct threat is cultural. The shift to a faster-paced, 24/7 society has put enormous strains on most people's time, particularly those from ages 6-65. We are expected to be more available and more devoted to our education and our jobs (owing to the amount of money we need to earn to support our expected lifestyle). We are expected to raise our children in a certain way and fulfill a certain number of civic obligations. We are expected to obtain and maintain a home. (And, having been heavily influenced by these expectations, we expect them of ourselves too.)

The challenge is that the expectations of faith have pretty much slipped through the cracks for many people. For a long time, society has supported churches and people of faith in ways that have made these questions less important. In particular, weekly schedules used to preserve Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings for church activities -- even in the busy American culture. But these things are fading into the distance.

This means that if faith is going to be a priority for us -- both as individuals and as a church -- we need to make it a priority in the face of opposing expectations. No longer do we have the luxury of a culture which encourages us to make time for God -- instead, we need to proactively take time to be with God.

Given our habits and the other expectations of our lives, we must believe that our faith is effective. Otherwise we will have little incentive to pursue it; instead we will have overwhelming incentive to abandon our faith and do other things that we find effective. Unfortunately, this is a challenge for churches too. It is no longer enough to be a nice place to worship -- a church's effectiveness is measured. And if people find a church to be ineffective, they take their money and their time and go elsewhere -- maybe to another church or maybe to something almost entirely unrelated to faith.

This Sunday, we'll continue exploring ways of thinking about the effectiveness of our faith to counteract some of these negative cultural influences, both for our individual faith and for our shared faith as church.

"The Lights of Advent"

As we enter this time of Advent, the Office of the General Minister and President of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) has released a video about the meaning of the season. The Rev. Sharon Watkins, joined by the current Moderator team, speaks of the light of this season, representing the Light of the world, Jesus Christ.

Advent Devotionals

I've been enjoying the first few days of the Advent Devotionals that are available in the Narthex -- the 2010 edition of Partners in Prayer (from Chalice Press) and the latest from Mountaintop Prayerscape (from the West Virginia region). I hope you've taken the opportunity to pick up copies or to follow Mountaintop Prayerscape online.

Devotionals are a wonderful tool, especially for busy people. For each day, there is a short Bible passage to read, followed by a thoughtful essay, then ending with a brief prayer. It's food for the soul.

These are both excellent devotionals. Many of you have met some of the pastors from West Virginia who contribute devotions. If not, you can treat yourself to the wonderful diversity of gifts and styles of Disciples pastors around West Virginia. This year, in an attempt to enhance the diversity and not ask for multiple devotions of everyone, David Chafin, the Deputry Regional Minister who puts the Mountaintop Prayerscape together, has used other material for some days. On Monday, in place of a reflection, was a modern translation of a beautiful Advent hymn, the Laurentius Laurenti.

Also, I find the Chalice Press devotional especially appealing this year because it is written by a Disciple who is younger than I am -- and people my age and younger are rarely asked to write seasonal devotionals. Bonnie Carenen, who I met while she also was a theological student in Chicago, has a vibrant perspective on the season and on the church. And her devotions, thus far, have been inviting and life-giving.

I hope you take the opportunity to read one or both of these devotionals this Advent season. And I hope you find the practice so helpful that you begin to read devotionals each day to help encourage and guide you along your spiritual journey.