St. Anne's Episcopal Church in De Pere, Wisconsin is my home parish. It is the ninth parish that I have been a member of. It is probably the first that had a simple and clear enough "mission statement" that I could remember for more than five minutes, while still saying something worthwhile. That mission statement is the title of this post.
(A digression: the most effective "mission statement" I know of is "Less filling, tastes great!" Employees at Miller Brewing can measure everything they do against that standard).
For a mission statement to be useful, it needs to translate into action. That means, it must cause us to do things. Measurable, noticeable things. As our Presiding Bishop Michael Curry has said, we are the Episcopal Branch of the Jesus Movement. So, what is it that this mission statement is telling us to do in "Moving With Jesus"?
Growing in Christ
In the Episcopal Church, our Sunday service always includes a reading from one of the four Gospels. The Homily (Sermon) follows, usually involving explanation or expansion of the words and actions of Jesus that we just heard of. Why do we do this, and is 20 minutes a week enough? If we are to be actual movers in the Jesus Movement, we must first know what Jesus thinks, says, and does. Last Sunday's gospel was Luke 16: 19-31, the rich man and the beggar, Lazarus. It's a very sad story of broken relationships and consequences of brokenness. (Some interpretation is needed. Casual reading may leave us thinking that wealth is a bad thing. Since Jesus had rich friends, we have to think deeper. This rich man's sin was the chasm he built between his riches and the community around himself). We learn from this the critical importance that Jesus lays on community, neighbor, compassion.
The future of this, and any parish, depends on the expansion and deepening of our intimate knowledge of Jesus, of his thinking, his sayings, and his actions. And the answer to my second question is, NO! 20 minutes a week is not enough. 5 minutes of reading and 15 minutes of sermonizing are not enough to fill our minds and hearts with the actual person of Jesus. Compare that to the amount of time we are spending lately in getting to know our candidates for office. (I wish I could hold that down to 20 minutes a week!)
The next step in our mission statement is not possible until we really know Jesus.
Living in Christ
Most of us are familiar with the WWJD bracelets. "What Would Jesus Do?" It recently occurred to me that a stronger and more useful question might be "If I were Jesus, what would I do?" There is where we find the bridge between "Growing" and "Living" in Christ. The temptation in WWJD is to remain a spectator on the outside of the Jesus Movement, evaluating the thoughts, words, and actions of those trying to walk the path of Jesus. When the question is "...what would I do?" there is not easy out for us. When we have done the work of "Growing" into the figure of Jesus, in thought, word, and deed, we will know what our next step needs to be. This "Jesus Movement" is not a Sunday morning retreat from the world. Jesus is the pattern of our Tuesday afternoon staff meeting at work, our Thursday evening bowling league, and our Saturday morning at our children's soccer match (What was that you said to the referee after last week's game?).
So?
Wrapping up, I'll say that any parish intent of spiritual growth will do well to focus their programming on these two thoughts:
- How can I come to better understand Jesus' thoughts, words, and deeds?
- How are my thoughts, words, and deeds today resembling Jesus.
No comments:
Post a Comment