Random Thoughts

Attendance and Stewardship

2011-11-08T14:09:00.001-07:00

This blog post is about the relationship between attendance and stewardship at Stratmoor.

In 2003, when the congregation was averaging 34 in attendance, stewardship from within the church was about $40K.

In 2011, the church is averaging about 100 in attendance; our stewardship looks like it will finish the year in the $115K or so range.

Using Algebra I a simple extrapolation from the 2003 attendance number of 34 and the corresponding $40K says we should expect given an attendance of 100 to have a total income of about $117K or so, or just a little over what we expect to achieve.

We have done extremely well over the last seven years. For example, we’ve been able to do without the rent from two other congregations using our building on Sundays which has given us worship versatility. We’ve paid off the loan on our new windows. We’ve been able to have a musician dedicated to each service. We’ve been able to fix up the Fellowship Hall and the classrooms. That said, we are financially still at a fragile place. I believe our operational income needs to be in the $150K range in order for us to meet the minimum baseline requirements for our existing building and ministry expectations.

We need to continue focusing our attention on: (1) vibrant and meaningful worship; (2) thinking missionally outside of our doors; and (3) discernment of God’s call on our lives through discipleship. These are the three critical elements of our continued growth. The impact of these three foci will, I believe, lead to increased attendance, more small groups, more people involved in mission, and more resources for us to reinvest in the world through the connectional church (nationally) and to reinvest locally (Food Pantry.)

If the Algebra I extrapolation holds true for the future, I believe the path to long-term financial viability at Stratmoor rests in the continued growth in attendance. The target attendance number for the $150K annual income level is about 130 to 135. (That is a minimum, it should not be our ultimate goal.)

Attendance growth naturally leads to more people participating in mission projects while at the same time growing in their discipleship.

Vital Congregations

2011-11-07T11:32:00.001-07:00

The United Methodist Church is taking a long, and in some cases, hard look at the slow but steady decline in numbers for the church.

Our leaders are most concerned about how a decline in membership and attendance, which has been matched or exceeded by most of what are called “The Mainlines” i.e. Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Congregationalists, Disciples of Christ, etc., impacts the viability of local churches. I applaud the willingness of the national church to suggest there is a problem, and to organize a reasonably common approach to dealing with it. That said, context matters, and our individual local church contexts are different locally and across the country. Our stories are different united by a common focus.

There are about 35,000 United Methodist (UM) churches spread across the fifty states. There are a little fewer than eight million “members.” However, most of us consider attendance to be the true indicator of vitality.

A few years ago, the median for attendance (half-way down the rank ordering of all UM churches) was 65 in worship. Our average attendance is 100 so we are about 35 over the median.

The approach taken is that worship and involvement in the community are key elements of congregational vitality. Think of that as if it is our body. That is quite biblical as Paul talks in 1^st Corinthians 12 as the church as a body (Greek: soma). We track the health of our body by looking at temperature, blood pressure, pulse, respiration, cholesterol, and other indicators. Many of these I just listed can be modified through exercise, weight control, stress reduction, and the like. They are medical indicators of the health of our body.

The Vital Congregations project is using a set of five indicators as measures of the health of our churches. They are: Average Weekly Attendance, Professions of Faith, Small Groups, Members in Mission, and Dollars given to Mission.

We have been asked to provide to our district superintendent, The Reverend Doctor Melanie Rosa, a picture of where we believe we will be with these health indictors at our Church Conference on December 4, 2011 (at Good Shepherd UMC in Security at 4:00 PM). She will accept our input at that conference and then "lock it". We will be able to edit our goals over time.

Stratmoor Hills History	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010
Avg. Weekly Attendance	62	65	81	92	100
Professions of Faith	1	6	1	1	2
Small Groups				8	8
Members in Mission	0	0	0	0	0
Dollars Given to Mission	$7,034	$ 11,489	$ 11,668	$ 18,658	$ 8,161

Our Last Five Years

Stratmoor Hills Future Story?	2012	2013	2014	2015
Avg. Weekly Attendance	105	110	115	120
Professions of Faith	4	1	5	1
Small Groups	10	11	12	12
Members in Mission	10	12	14	16
Dollars Given to Mission	$ 15,000	$ 17,000	$ 21,000	$ 25,000

A Potential Next Four Years?

Average Weekly Attendance is shown here as increasing by about 5% per year. My next blog will be on the minimum number we need to get to in order to be economically viable in the minimum baseline case. As I said, my next blog will deal with this.

Professions of Faith are new Christians. I am showing two confirmation classes in the four years: one in 2012 and a second one in 2014. A person who belonged to a church in 1971 and then lapsed for 40 years is a restored by affirmation, not a profession of faith.

Small Groups at the national level is double counting. Three different classes with the same people in the class was shown by us in the national report as three. Given the definition of what they want to see as a small group, that is really one. That said, they didn’t count the choirs, our United Methodist Women (UMW), our youth, the group supporting the food pantry, etc.

Members in Mission are those engaged in local, national or international outreach ministries. This I think could include the UMW Tuesday morning prayer shawls, the B-Street Food Pantry, our Fox Meadow Middle School tutoring, and our Youth to Salt Lake (last year) and the Lakota tribe (this year). They do want individuals. This will take a little work on our end.

Dollars given to mission is our apportionment and special offerings to the conference plus other resources we provide outside of the Methodist connection. The rent we pay on the B-Street food pantry is clearly a dollar given to mission. The same is true with what the UMW sends to various ministries. We frankly overreached in this area in 2009 and we made a pretty significant retrenchment in 2010 and 2011. The “bump” in the forecast is driven by suggesting we get to a full payment of our apportionment (we are about 80% now) in 2014. Send me a note if this number concerns you.

Please look over the proposal. Again, we need to approve this as a community of faith on December 4. I see this as a statement that we realize this body of Christ is willing to provide an assessment of our health and vitality, and that setting these goals is appropriate in our commitment to continued growth. We are showing increasing vitality on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis.

Alane Sheaves has graciously said "Here I Am" and will provide the input on this (weekly) national data call come January. The means by how we will gather this data internally is yet to be developed. We are working on it.

I am proud to be the Pastor at Stratmoor Hills!

Selah,

Pastor Dennis

Leadership 201

2011-08-29T15:00:00.001-06:00

Last night, at the church, twelve souls gathered and we talked about leadership.

(I can send you a copy of the presentation if you would like to see it ... click here and send me a note ..and let me know if you have PowerPoint or not. If yes, I will send you the PowerPoint version. Otherwise, I will send you a ubiquitous link that will allow you to see it in a continuous run mode you will have to start and stop if you want to slow it down.)

We reviewed what we had said was important six months ago. We went to John Kotter (Kotter Change Principles) and reviewed his Eight Principles of Change. Finally, we came back and went over the areas of people, programs, building, and finances.

What did we "learn"?

Most important, we have people who desire that Stratmoor be a positive force in the Community. Ideas of branching out into the community and sustaining programs we have were blessed by the group.
We embraced Kotter and Jim Collins (Good to Great) in our quest for understanding and insight. We went over the eight principles, and repeatedly we tried to engage their guidance on the quest we have in front of us. For example, we are swimming in a river of information. We must use every opportunity and medium possible to tell our story. Clearly, communication was an area that has so many answers and so many challenges for us. More work here.
Key elements of Collins are 'getting the right people on the bus, the right people off the bus, and getting the right people in the right seat on the bus' and the idea of foxes as opposed to hedgehogs. Collins says companies, and by implication churches, that went from Good to Great are led by hedgehogs -- rock steady and diligent in the central idea that is the key and essential core of the change paradigm.
We are following the Collins/Kotter model of getting the right people (i.e. coalition) together before the key issue of exactly where we are going to go is formulated. That is not to remotely suggest that we are not moving: we most assuredly are. Some of our moves now are a combination of obvious and intuitive (i.e. community focus) along with pragmatic (i.e. air conditioning) that our precise end-state is secondary.
A continued core value is that we are reluctant to mortgage ourselves very much, if at all. It is not off the table as an option, but some kind of combination of grants, potential sale of land, and internal fund raising is the preferred approach. Debt is an option, but one we have to get to after some other things are done first.
We all got excited about an opportunity for ministry expansion w/in our demographic and community that warrants exploration. Details to follow.

The group was left with a homework assignment -- look over the landscape at Stratmoor and decide who is a hedgehog, present last night or not, whom we need to provide leadership: talk to them and then talk to our Lay Leader -- Nell Grindstaff (Nell Email). The role of Church Council Chair comes open in November/December time-frame and getting the right person on that seat in the bus is key and essential to us moving ahead. But leadership opportunities exists in multiple areas

Good food complemented our conversations: Ms Marilyn provided us a repast that was quality and quantity.

Selah.

Small Groups

2011-08-29T12:30:00.000-06:00

Yesterday was our annual United Methodist Women's Sunday.

My reflection yesterday could be broken down into three major parts.

First I offered a history, as best one can offer five different stories that meld into one story in 1968, of what is now the United Methodist Women (or as they are commonly called -- The UMW). The critical points here were that women at one time went to the early versions of the UMW because the church was run by men and this was a place for women to be independent of that male dominance. Their focus then was places like India, Africa, the Philippines, etc. Notice much of this is outside our normal national boundaries Thinking of service only within our country is not how the UMW started, and they are not defined that way today.

Within this framework I commented that our UMW was increasing in numbers and was younger in age, noting three young women who are now active here. In so many ways, Stratmoor is a special place that is doing things positively different, and our UMW (growing and younger) is illustrative of that difference.

The biblical text framing the discussion was from John 20: 19-23 (NIV).

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.

Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

The UMW perceived its mission as being sent. I used this passage to reinforce the idea that what the UMW is doing is biblical and should be sustained.

The second point I made was focused on small groups. How did the disciples know what to do as they were "deployed" out in to the world (I used deployed as a substitute for "sent" as my image, knowing that in a military based population, this would resonate)? They had learned it in the small group that was Jesus and his Disciples. The UMW is in effect a small group, a classically Wesleyan accountability group that helps its members grow in their discipleship through various means, not the least of which is accountability. I lifted up the UMW as an example of what I hope to see everyone at Stratmoor become part of in some kind of way: a small group. I mentioned that I ask our choirs and mission ministries to be ministries that include growth in discipleship and holding people accountable (in a loving, caring way). This is an important part of our growth as Christians.

The last part of my reflection was drawn extensively from this 10 minute presentation by the Women's Division of the General Board of Global Ministries (UMW Mission and Vision). This is quite good. I encourage all to view it.

I am proud to be the pastor of a church with a strong UMW. Those who worship at Stratmoor should be proud of our UMW. I pray that other groups will be as effective in small group ministry that includes growth of discipleship and accountability.

Selah.

Healing Beauty

2011-08-22T07:40:00.009-06:00

My theme for Sunday was beauty and how beauty heals.

The scene from the Tom Hanks/Denzel Washington movie, Philadelphia, framed the first part of the sermon. I quickly communicated enough of the story to have this scene make sense, and then described the scene in some detail. My concluding remark was that Denzel had been transformed by the beauty of the opera: something that at the beginning of the scene he acknowledged did not particularly interest him. I told the story yesterday, but you may link to the clip here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b0p9mTJOJI

All beauty in the world is either a memory of Paradise or a prophecy of the transfigured world. —Nicholas Berdyaev, Russian religious and political philosopher (1874–1948)

Beauty surely is in the eye of the beholder. For me two of the most beautiful moments in my life were when I got to see pink and blue squirming lumps covered with blood that had just emerged into our world. It is a feeling I have not had since but it was a moment of transcendent beauty: they were, and are, prophecies of a transfigured world.

Beauty can take many forms. Literature, drama, art, photograph are just examples. I confess for me, music is a special place, a special moment. I can truly feel whatever is physiologically going on with my body enzymes when I am surrounded by music I like. Love of the created beauty is also clearly something that engenders moments of transcendence.

I wonder if Jennie’s question to Forrest Gump, near the end of her life isn’t an inquiry into how he dealt with his own fear. She asks were you ever afraid in Viet Nam? And Forrest, begins to talk of the beauty of God’s creation: night skies, sun on the bayou as it is getting ready to go to bed, the skies reflection on a lake where it looks like two lakes, and finally, in the desert mountain west, where the sky and earth seem to come together and one doesn’t know ‘where heaven ends and the earth begins.’ Jennie laments to Forrest that she wishes she ‘could have been there with you’ and Forrest says to her, ‘you were.’ In a moment of intense fear of the unknown, Jennie is showered with a narrative of beauty and a reminder, like the Philadelphia opera excerpt, that love allows us to see that beauty around us.

Beauty is something that we can and should seek out at moments when we are feeling awful so that we can be full of awe – awe-full.

Psalm 8 might help to frame for us how we can biblically grasp that moment of awe-full transcendence.

LORD, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!   You have set your glory in the heavens. Through the praise of children and infants
   you have established a stronghold against your enemies,
   to silence the foe and the avenger.
   you have established a stronghold against your enemies,    to silence the foe and the avenger. When I consider your heavens,
   the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
   which you have set in place,
   the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars,    which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them,   human beings that you care for them?

That transcendence can lead to transformation.

Francis Collins in his book The Language of God speaks to how beauty moved him to take a leap of faith. You can hear him talk to this on how beauty transformed his soul ... He talks to it here: Collins and his transcendent moment of beauty.

There are clearly times we all have holes in our souls. Beauty is one of the things that can surely be used to fill those holes. Seek beauty when we experience moments of brokenness, point to it when others are shattered. Beauty is a 'foretaste of Paradise or an opportunity to see the world as it can be.'

Beauty is something that we can and should seek out at moments when we are feeling awful so that we can be full of awe – awe-full.

Selah.

The biblical Job in conversation with Charles Ives and Lieutenant Dan

2011-08-14T17:08:00.001-06:00

If last week my theme was Forrest Gump meets Henri Nowen, this week it seems that Forrest is an observer in a chat between Job, Charles Ives and Lieutenant Dan. I am serious.

Davis in the movie Grand Canyon sets the stage for the statement of the human condition: “The point is there's a gulf in this country; an ever-widening abyss between the people who have stuff, and the people who don't have [anything]. It's like this big hole in the ground, as big as the … Grand Canyon, and what's come pouring out is an eruption of rage, and the rage creates violence, and the violence is real, Mack.” We read that and we think of stuff as things but it could be health, status, or a thousand other possibilities.

A few weeks ago I spoke with my church about how we had domesticated Jesus and forgotten Jesus Wild and Wooly. I suggested that some appropriate anger where people just “don’t get it” might be a Christ-like thing to do. Today, it was about the rage or anger directed at God.

The music of American contemporary composer Charles Ives in The Unanswered Question speaks to this discussion. The strings play their music with a detachment to what is going on in the rest of the piece. The trumpet asks the perennial question [fill in the blank for yourself what that question is]. And the woodwinds try to answer in simplistic, human, proverb-like fashion, increasing in tempo, intensity and dissonance. The last time the trumpet asks the question, it is only the sound of the strings playing their constant, slow moving pattern. The question is unanswered, thus the name of the piece.

Job is a lot like the Ives piece. Job is a drama. We have been provided the program notes, and we understand what is going on, but Job, and his friends do not. At its core, Job is a critique on the simplicity of proverbs. Israel was living out Proverbs, and Job stands in stark contrast to the simplicity of that message. Job is almost like trying to solve differential equations within calculus when all you know is two plus two equals four.

Job has friends I hope you never have. They are operating in a Proverbs world: it is simple to them: Job is suffering, therefore Job did something wrong. Repent, and all will be restored but Job, while not arguing the framework of that world just wants a piece of the evidence that suggests what it is he needs to repent about. Job is a good man, and a serious theologian. ‘Show me the evidence, and I will repent.’

This debate between Job and his “friends” goes on for most of the book, and then finally God answers from the whirlwind.

If you can call what God speaks from that whirlwind an answer: Job is asking questions of justice and God answers with some ‘where were you when’ kinds of questions. God isn’t answering Job’s question. Not even close. It is like Job and his friends are asking questions that God has no intention of answering directly.

But getting his confrontation, Job suggests he is satisfied. And life is now happy ever after. There is a restoration, and everything back like it was – sort of.

Four giants of Old Testament Scholarship, Birch, Brueggemann, Fretheim and Petersen, suggest that at the end of the play we should be more than just a little bothered about a couple of things.

One is now that Israel has heard the blasphemy of asking is God really just, how does one go back to the simple aphorisms of proverbs. The world is more complicated than that, we see that complication in terms of wars, genocide, and the ultimate question, the Holocaust: having heard Job’s blasphemy debated, can proverbs still work? The question is unanswered.

More deeply, while Job gets children back, the original ten children are not who are restored, it is ten new children. What was lost [taken?] is lost forever. They make the point that “Rachel’s children have returned from the exile, but they are not the same children [who were exiled].” Restored in this case isn’t the same as those who were lost, is it? The question is unanswered.

In Forrest Gump, Lieutenant Dan’s plans to be either a hero or a martyr were thwarted by Forrest who saves him. Lieutenant Dan sees the world in terms of Proverbs: ones and zeros; on and off; black and white; yes and no; good and evil. He is clearly angry at Forrest for saving him, but near the end of the movie, in the midst of a hurricane, Lieutenant Dan goes up into the crow’s nest on the shrimp boat and Job-like has it out with God [isn't a hurrican a form of a whirlwind?]. After it is all over, Gump tells us that he thinks ‘Lieutenant Dan made his peace with God.’

What are we to make of this on this Sunday [or whenever you might be reading this]?

Rage against God has a fine biblical tradition. The Psalms, Job and possibly Jesus on the cross as he gives us Psalm 22 are examples. It might be therapeutic. Lieutenant Dan is the better for it but how things really are with Job at the end is less than crystal clear. But for us as wounded healers (Nowen’s term for all of us), maybe the role we are called to perform, as opposed to Job’s “friends”, is to silently be there and not try and explain the world in simplistic, linear aphorisms. Forrest, in spite of his propensity for aphorisms, understands that aphorisms break down in the face of life.

Our role might just be to understand that God chooses not to answer Job directly but hold and love those who are raging anyway. Let them rage and love them. Forrest just let’s Dan rage, and his raging is surely an element, along with Forrest’s agape love, of Dan’s ultimate restoration.

Selah.

Henri meets Forrest

2011-08-08T16:34:00.000-06:00

My time with the church yesterday could almost be characterized as Henri Nouwen meets Forrest Gump.

My chosen scripture was Psalm 30 where my focus was on the idea of how the psalmist has gone down into the pit but has been transformed from “mourning” (King James Version) into “dancing” and “joy”. It seemed to me that part of the message was that the psalmist had been transformed by his own acknowledgement of "mourning" that he could help others with their own transformations.

My approach was to talk to an element of the human condition, spiritual brokenness, and see how Nouwen and Gump simultaneously speak to us.

The chosen Gump scene was Jennie and Forrest encountering her home where she was exploited and abused by a father who knew no boundaries. As she sees the house she remembers and in anger confronts her demons and starts to throw rocks at the house, and eventually she runs out of rocks. Forrest as narrator tells us that sometimes “there just aren’t enough rocks.”

My big idea was that at times we are all Forrests (healers) and we are all all Jennies (the wounded). Nouwen calls us “wounded healers” and he posits the idea that it is from our woundedness that makes us better healers.

Nouwen writes: What we see, and like to see, is cure and change. But what we do not see and do not want to see is care: the participation in the pain, the solidarity in the suffering, the sharing in the experience of brokenness. And still, cure without care is as dehumanizing as a gift given with a cold heart.

The issue is in part the seeing. It is in the seeing, through our own life experiences, that we become healers.

Forrest is a simple soul. He operates off wisdom like proverbs, i.e. “stupid is as stupid does” and “life is like a box full of chocolates.” Our spiritual maturity often pulls us from this world of “do this and that will happen” simplicity into the more Job-like world where we don’t understand why we suffer.

Our journeys requires both: simplicity in conversation with complexity. Forrest Gump meets Henri Nouwen. Forrest throughout the movie is an unapologetic care provider: to his mother, to Bubba, to Lieutenant Dan, to Jennie and finally to little Forrest. He lives a complex, care-providing life framed in a vision of simplicity. This isn’t a simple story. But he helps people move from despair to a joy where they can metaphorically dance.

Forrest is an instrument of God’s Grace. He is touching people, Jesus-like. Don Bubna writes: Jesus didn't have to touch lepers. He could have been just as effective from a hundred yards away. But he touched them.

We are all called to be Forrests: touching care providers.

We are all called to be Jennies: prepared to be touched by others when it is necessary for our healing. Letting others touch us in love requires letting our boundaries down, maybe just a little., maybe a whole lot.

Sometimes, as healers we are asked to be a quiet presence when those who are compelled to throw stones at old memories just need someone to hold them in love, at least until they decide that there aren't enough stones in order to make them whole. I wonder if that isn't moving from mourning to dancing?

Selah.

Pastor's Corner -- August 2, 2011

2011-08-02T19:20:00.000-06:00