Leap of Faith
a sermon given by the Rev. Roger Paine
on February 12, 2006
at The First Parish in Lincoln
“Let your light shine before others.”
– Matthew 5:16
“I think folks come to church to share God, not find God.”
– Alice Walker
READINGS:
1. For our first reading, I have two brief observations about the church. The first is from Alice Walker’s book, The Color Purple. The second is from William Sloane Coffin’s book, Credo.
“She say, Celie, tell the truth, have you ever found God in church? I never did. I just found a bunch of folks hoping for him to show. Any God I ever felt in church I brought in with me. And I think all the other folks did too. They come to church to share God, not find God.”
“It seems to me that in joining a church you leave home to join a larger world. The whole world is your new neighborhood and all who dwell therein – black, white, yellow, red, stuffed and starving, smart and stupid, mighty and lowly, criminal and self-respecting, American or Russian – all become your sisters and brothers in this new family. By joining a church you declare your individuality in the most radical way in order to affirm community on the widest possible scale.”
2. Our second reading is from the fifth chapter of Matthew and the 2nd chapter of 1st Peter:
“No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lamp stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others... Like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people.” – Matthew 5:15-16; 1 Peter 2:5, 10.
Two or three years ago, one of our deacons, Steve Johnson,
handed me a book that was the outcome of a nationwide study of churches
funded by the Lilly Foundation and organized by a writer and producer named Paul Wilkes.
The book is called Excellent Protestant Congregations.
It seeks to identify the most important traits of an excellent church.
I leafed lightly through the book when Steve gave it to me,
but I didn’t sit down to give it a serious read until last week,
motivated by the need to prepare this sermon.
This is a watershed year in our congregational life.
Our Parish Committee has voted unanimously to seek out and add to our staff an Assistant Minister.
We are also looking at whether and how to improve our space.
The reason for all of this is something you don’t see much in this day and age:
a liberal church that is also thriving...
Even so, when I started reading Excellent Protestant Congregations
I did so with some fear and trembling –
would I find myself wincing from page to page, thinking: well, we don’t do that...
and oops – I never thought of that...
In other words, would I – after reading this book – be totally bummed out.
In a summary chapter, the author lists 26 traits of an excellent church.
I’ve mixed and mingled several of them and boiled his list down to a baker’s dozen.
Mr. Wilkes notes that very few churches would have all of these traits,
but an excellent church will have most of them,
and he wants us to know that an important criteria for making the list
was not just excellence, but reproducible excellence.
Each characteristic had to be something that any church, large or small, rich or poor, could be and do.
So let me share them with you quickly, then say a few things about our situation here,
and then I’ll ask you to finish this sermon by adding your own voice –
how would you grade us as a church and what do you hope for us going forward?
Here, then, are the points of excellence in the churches Mr. Wilkes and his team discovered.
First, excellent churches bring an excitement to what they do, whether it’s outreach or inreach –
people obviously enjoy being with each other in church, on committees, in small groups,
and each gathering is brimming with possibilities along with a quiet trust in each other.
Second, these churches are willing, in George Bernard Shaw’s words,
“to dream things that never were” – to live on the creative and holy edge of what’s possible,
to innovate and reach beyond their comfort zone.
And they are all practical: they use what works and they set aside what doesn’t.
There’s no “we’ve always done it that way” if the way we’ve always done it isn’t working anymore.
Third, Wilkes says that a church that “doesn’t make mistakes,
sometimes even major mistakes, will never become an excellent church” –
you may, as a church, reach for more than you can grasp, but at least you tried,
and if you stumble, you have the humility to admit your faults and move on.
Fourth, excellent churches put their members in positions of leadership at every level,
from teaching and preaching and leading congregational prayers
to chairing committees, watching the finances, and helping shovel snow off the walkways.
I found the fifth trait very interesting: excellent churches see themselves as unique,
not as a franchise of their denomination, but as a gathering of people unlike any other on earth, and they revel in their uniqueness.
They don’t do things the same as everyone else – and they love that about themselves.
They all understand that “there are many paths up the mountain to holiness.”
At the same time, the sixth trait of excellent churches is that they are not islands –
they create partnerships so they can be more effective,
whether it’s teaming up with other churches on a social justice project
or just making sure their ministers spend time with colleagues.
Next, excellent churches believe we are called into a relationship with something beyond ourselves –
that something beyond human community is at stake in what we are doing:
“once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people.”
You can use the word God or the divine or any of many names, but the reality is the same,
and excellent congregations can feel that added dimension to their identity,
that sense of a call to “put your lamp on the lamp stand and give light to all in the house.”
Eight: these churches also use the bible, not to close a discussion but to open one,
to enter into a conversation that puts the Hebrew prophets and the teachings of Jesus
into the same room with science, history, reason, and other world religions.
Nine – all of the excellent churches Mr. Wilkes’ team studied had a “big tent” philosophy –
many of them offer both traditional and contemporary worship services
they have great children’s ministries,
and they study other traditions to learn a variety of ways to make faith real in people’s lives.
Along those lines, and #10: all of these churches are strong believers in adult education –
“they see church as a seminary,”
they offer study groups of short duration that will fit into a normal person’s schedule,
and they budget money to send their members to outside workshops and seminars.
The last three traits are about preaching, membership, and the larger world.
The preaching in excellent churches is rooted in the practical, everyday concerns people have –
the ministers speak from a place of compassion and understanding,
and they have long-term ministries:
Wilkes says that “most excellent churches have pastors who have been there for years.”
These churches find ways for new members to become full participants in congregational life –
they are very deliberate in helping both new and existing members
find their place in the church, whether by joining a small group
and/or by taking on helpful roles that suit their talents.
And finally, excellent churches believe in Bill Coffin’s idea that when you join a church,
“you leave home to join a larger world” and you learn how “to affirm community
on the widest possible scale – the whole world is your new neighborhood.”
So the members of excellent churches “are in the marketplace, in civic meetings, in boardrooms,”
and they try to hold government, agencies, and institutions accountable
to a higher standard of conduct and of compassion for people in need.
Which is what we, here in this church, will be doing on the 28th of this month at the statehouse.
Please, if you possibly can, make yourself part of our effort to reduce homelessness in our state
and eventually even end it by persuading our legislators to make it one of their priorities.
So there they are – the key characteristics of excellent congregations based on a national study.
How do you think we’re doing here at The First Parish?
I ended up feeling better than I thought I would.
In a number of ways, we’re not that far off the mark –
many of those traits are part of who we are, or at least who and what we’re trying to be.
I’d say that as a church, we’re good – and we could be excellent.
But we will have to take a leap of faith to get there.
Two weeks ago I sent a book to the people who attend our Downtown Lunch Group.
The book is called Remember Who You Are
and it’s a collection of the short talks that professors at Harvard Business School give
on the very last day of the classes they teach.
It’s a tradition for the students to close their notebooks
and for the professor to put away the lecture notes and tell a personal story,
some experience that provided an enduring life lesson.
One of the talks is by Jeffrey Rayport, who taught the e-commerce course in the 1990's –
the students gave him their outstanding professor award three years in a row – a record –
and in his story, he recalls the zoology final exam he took as a Harvard undergraduate.
The finals in his day were held in the refectory in Memorial Hall for lots of different courses.
It was a medieval setting – snow in the ground outside, and no heat inside.
There were hundreds of students in the room, and instructions for starting and stopping the exams
were given over “a deafening sound system that would have made Mussolini proud.”
There were only two dozen zoology students, all seated at two short tables,
and when their graduate assistant arrived with their exam,
it was a large stuffed bird covered in a burlap bag from head to feathers.
All you could see was two spindly legs and an inch or so of feathers hanging below the bag.
The graduate assistant told them that this was their exam – and they could not remove the bag.
For the next four hours, they were to do the best they could with what they could see.
They were expected to try to identify the bird’s migratory patterns, diet, and mating habits.
After an hour, one of the students jumped up from his chair, charged over to the graduate assistant,
and said, “This exam is outrageous! This is an insult! I’m not doing this!”
but the graduate assistant just calmly said, “This is your final exam.”
The irate student’s decibel level went up, and neither of them would back down,
and in the end the angry student put on his jacket, turned on his heel, and left;
the rest of the students went back to their blue books and finished as best they could.
The point of the story, of course, is that sometimes we have to make decisions, even critical decisions,
with insufficient information – without being able to see clearly all of what we’d like to –
like writing an exam about a stuffed bird covered with a burlap bag.
You have to rely on your instincts and your experience –
and your determination to move toward a worthy goal
with the information you have.
As Jeffrey Rayport says at the end of his story,
“great actions always require real, if educated, leaps of faith,”
and “creative acts in business, as in life, demand courage and confidence.”
It’s always easier just to leave the room.
I believe that in this church, we are here not to find God but to share God,
not only with each other but out in the larger world,
and at this point in our story as a congregation,
we are trying to get something good and true into our blue books, so to speak,
without the ability to be certain of what’s in front of us.
I’ve begun interviewing candidates who want to come here to be our Assistant Minister
but our stewardship campaign to raise next year’s budget starts next month,
and how it will come out is not clear – like that stuffed bird covered with a burlap bag.
We are taking a leap of faith.
Which is what a good congregation that aspires to be excellent would do.
Amen.
* * *
I then invited comments from the congregation. How would you grade us as a church? On a scale of halfway decent to excellent, how do you think we’re doing? I’ve transcribed what people said on this snowy Sunday morning so that they can be part of this sermon. If you weren’t with us on Sunday and have a comment of your own to add, please send it along to me at rogerpaine@FirstParishInLincoln.org or send a note to me at P.O. Box 6218, Lincoln, MA 01773. Thank you. – Roger
Ben Wells – One of the traits of a great congregation is a willingness to look and ask questions, and in that way we’re doing a great job. But I feel we’re a little insular here when it comes to reaching out to other communities.
Sue Stason – I would give us a very good grade, and we certainly excel on #5 – we think we’re unique; and also #9 – we do have a “big tent” philosophy. Where I think we could improve is #10, in adult education, and that’s where I support our intent to add an Assistant Minister. I hope our pledges match that intention.
Roy Cundiff – One thing you didn’t mention that is critically important to an excellent congregation is financial health. You alluded to it at the end when you spoke about going forward with an Assistant Minister without knowing how our pledge drive will do. And there could be bigger issues like deferred maintenance. I’ve seen congregations that were excellent in many ways but had real problems staying financially healthy.
Harold Engstrom – Lynda and our children and I have been coming here for a year, and one thing we really like about this church is embodied in Roger. I think we need to note what characteristics we like in a minister and in an assistant minister, and make them something to strive for, not just in the way Roger is right now, but in the way Roger would like to be.
Dwight Gertz – I heard good news and bad news on Roger’s list. I think the good news is we do get a gold medal on “big tent.” That’s something we’re very good at, and we understand the secret of it, which is always for me captured in the hymnals. We’ve got this patriarchal, trinitarian, cave-age hymnal (the old red Pilgrim Hymnal) right next to the 21st century hymnal (the new gray Unitarian-Universalist hymnal) and we sing from both, and nobody storms out when we do it, and I think that’s fantastic. I teach at Babson College, and our Protestant chaplain has got a team of students studying why the United Church of Christ has been losing members, and one of the things I’ve tried to tell her is: it’s because you don’t have a big enough tent. Now, I think the bad news comes from how we deal with people who wander through the doors. You see a lot of faces come, then stand around a little uncomfortably in the Stearns Room, and then you never see them again. I don’t think the answer is to grasp them in a very un-New England bear hug; there are people who wince at the thought of being greeted that way! On the other hand, there’s got to be some way we can talk to those people without scaring them away, and I don’t think we’re very good at that yet.
Laurie Dewey – I think we’re a wonderful church, and I have some concern about the pride that may go with our sense of our uniqueness as a church. We could use a little more humility. It’s not that we shouldn’t cheer for our church, but let’s not try to impress people that we’re the best. What’s important, for me, is that we are an Open and Welcoming church.
Susan Welsh – I think we should be mindful that a lot of us found our way into this church through our children, and we’re looking to give our children a spiritual/religious education. In looking at an Assistant Minister, let’s look at how big our children’s program is [we have 200 children from infants through high school], to make sure it remains strong and vital. I also think that some of our old traditions like the Touch of Christmas Fair are worth keeping, and so we need to encourage our newer members to get involved.
Sarah Bishop – I think this church is extraordinary on many levels and for many reasons. I do feel we need to remember those who have been members of this congregation for many years, and for a variety of reasons aren’t able to come to church any longer. We can’t forget them. They need to be remembered, visited, acknowledged, and valued.
Jeff Eaton – I want to reinforce Dwight Gertz’s notion that when folks come in the door, we need to find better ways to greet them. And I want to back up a step and say that first, people have to approach the door. I hate to use the word “recruit,” but some softer version of that may be appropriate as we take this leap of faith.
Peter Pease – I’ve been here for ten years now, and this is the most wonderful place I’ve landed in my whole life. This town, this church, all of the people here – I am so happy with all of it. I am constantly amazed at the open arms everyone here has – to take a place here, to take a place in the town. There is a public-spirited tradition in this town, saving public lands, giving your land to be a trail for someone else to walk on. I am continually impressed by the example that has been set, and just delighted to be here in this church, singing in the choir, whatever it is. I’m just ecstatic.
Lorraine Fiore Browne – This is a positive comment about something I hope we continue: the student ministers you’ve hired have been terrific, and one thing you’ve done is let them add something of themselves. Last year, for instance, we had something we’ve never had – an Ash Wednesday service – because of our student minister’s interest. It was nice that you gave him that freedom, and I hope that continues. And Cricket adds so much to the church this year.
Dan Boynton – Like Peter Pease, I really love this church, and I’ve been here 30 years and hope to stay here the rest of my life. I think what we’re experiencing right here today is one of the things that’s most wonderful about this church, and that’s our ability and our willingness to express our opinions. To see so many people giving feedback – I think this is just great!
Steve Johnson – I think the wonderful thing about the organic life of this church is that we are constantly ‘renewing our vows’ – to one another, to the mission of the church, and we are also reaching beyond that comfortable place and seeking to be better. I don’t think we have to be “the best” – that smacks of hubris. But I think we need to energetically seek to be better, and bringing in an Assistant Minister is part of that process. I hope we can all make our voices heard, with Roger and the Parish Committee and the Deacons and anyone else who will listen, about the important roles and possibilities that an Assistant Minister will create.
Adam Bailey – I was very surprised to hear, Roger, in your sermon that excellent congregations don’t do things the way they’ve always been done and don’t do things like other churches. I’m surprised, given the rise of fundamentalist Christianity. But I think that we are good at thinking outside the box. We are neither strictly Unitarian or strictly mainline Protestant, but somehow we are creating a synthesis of both. We also constantly bring up what our mission is, not settling on one thing, but honing what we do and working out something new. I think that’s wonderful.
Joe Robbat – I’m tempted to give us an “A” but I’ll give us an “A minus” to leave a little room for growth. I would say that asking is something we should feel comfortable with. If we want to achieve, we need to ask for the support, and I think we’ll always get it – we just have to ask for it.