Epiphany
III - January 27th, AD 2008
Meadowvale
Lutheran Church, Mississauga
Pastor
Peter Lisinski
"FROM
SURVIVING TO SERVING"
It's
annual meeting time -- not only for us today, but also throughout the
Evangelical Lutheran Church In Canada.
From coast to coast to coast, as Canadians like to say,
congregations, councils, committees and pastors are reviewing membership
rolls, analyzing worship patterns, and adopting budgets, trying to discern what
light such statistics may shed on the future direction and effectiveness of
our mission and ministry.
Our congregation reflects the growing reality of most congregations
within our church and synod -- declining membership, worship attendance and
financial resources
In
fact, since the ELCIC was established in 1966-- the same year I was ordained --
our membership has seen a net decrease of about 30,000!
And all the other mainline Christian churches in North America -- that is
churches who trace their origins to old world Europe -- have a similar story to
tell.
After the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity service last Sunday, Pastor
Doug Scott of White Oak Presbyterian Church -- who celebrated their thirtieth
anniversary last weekend -- wondered aloud about how the Christian church in
our society and community might evolve over the next thirty years.
There
is real concern, not only within his congregation -- as well as our own -- but
in every denomination about our survival. After all, none of us is getting any
younger; and most of those who are younger don't seem much interested in the
church -- ours or any other.
Why is that?
Well
for one thing, the culture in which we live no longer supports the church as
it did once upon a time.
Even as recently as forty or fifty years ago, church membership was still
the socially accepted, and expected, thing to do.
In "the good old days" most of us can still remember,
congregations grew mainly through childbirth, and even our public schools taught
our children the language, if not the content of the Christian faith.
But, if our culture was ever properly defined as Christian, it is no
longer.
And
that's not necessarily a bad thing.
The Christian church is growing -- and it has always grown -- most
effectively where the surrounding culture has been unsupportive -- even hostile
-- to the alternative way of life to which Jesus calls his followers! That was
certainly the case in the ancient Roman Empire, where the Apostle Paul's
congregations struggled for survival!
Perhaps we North American Christians today should worry less about offending
our society in the hope of gaining its approval and support; and do more to
distinguish ourselves from its self-serving pursuit of wealth and pleasure
rather than blessing it -- and even participating in it ourselves!
The
Christian church, our congregation included, is called to serve, not to survive.
And the church serves the world best when we present the vision of God's
new world we have seen in Jesus Christ -- and model God's new world order in our
life together! Ironically, that's the very reason the Christian church not only
survived but thrived -- and eventually overcame -- the unsupportive, hostile
culture of the rich and powerful Roman Empire. People saw how much Christians
loved one another, in spite of their many differences, and more and more of them
wanted to be part of such a community.
For loving, welcoming, supportive churches and congregations, the
prospects of survival are good, and the future is secure.
And in that regard this congregation of Meadowvale Lutheran is more
faithful than most I have known in my lifetime.
So,
as we look ahead to our annual budget meeting today, I offer these words of hope
from Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, who was assassinated in 1980:
"It helps now and then to step back and take the long view. The kingdom of God is always beyond our efforts. We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise of God's work. Nothing we do is complete, no program accomplishes the church's mission. We cannot do everything, but we can do some thing. We can plant seeds that will one day grow. We can water seeds already planted, knowing that they contain future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capability. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step of faith that trusts Sod's grace to enter and do the rest."