Renewing Hilltop
Because Christianity grew from
roots that were Judaism, it should not surprise us that Jesus was firmly rooted
in the Jewish tradition. Examples
abound: his followers acknowledge him as
“rabbi” (teacher) and his preaching is drawn from material in the Hebrew
Bible. The Passion narrative is best
understood within a context of Passover.
Pentecost is a spiritual “first fruit” built on the idea of a Jewish “first
fruit” festival. Jesus’ ministry was a
renewal movement, not one to create a new religion, but one to introduce
spiritual renewal among God’s chosen people.
Our calling here at Hilltop is about
spiritual renewal to all who come through our doors.
I talk at times about “The New
Hilltop.” I wrote in our annual church
conference report as a goal for 2013:
Define The New Hilltop: Acknowledge that a “new” Hilltop is being
created before our eyes and we are creating it with God’s help. How do we use the various metrics of Vital
Congregations augmented by our own metrics to measure that vitality? We will, as a community, identify what it
means to be a church that wants to grow through an intentional and concerted
focus on families with children and youth?
This time next year we should be able to align our resources, i.e.
building, people, and budget with that identity.
While those words focused on the
idea of “families with children and youth,” the idea was in reality more than a
“New” Hilltop; it is about a “Renewed Hilltop” full of people of all ages and
backgrounds who are renewed in the Spirit.
I want to focus on one result of the “The Renewed Hilltop” -- the need
to add a second worship service.
How can we best provide
meaningful, spiritual worship as our faith community expands?
For many years Hilltop had three
worship services. Hilltop made an
important decision last year to move to one.
This decision was bold. Part of
the covenant to consolidate into one service included revisiting that decision
at a future date. At the March Church
Council a proposal to create the paradigm for a second service was presented by
the Worship Committee and me. The simple
idea of the proposal was that when a six-week moving average (not including
Easter or Cantata Sunday) reached more than 275 worshippers and when we had 100 members in
covenant to support the second service, we would launch at a future, yet-to-be-determined
date (but not immediately.)
Discussion
from the council encouraged us to go back and re-think some basic assumptions.
It is always important to ask:
“how do you know what you know?” When
that question emerged this past month, we were not precisely sure what we knew,
why we knew it, or how we knew it. We
did know facts, e.g., attendance at the three services, attendance since the
merger. Even though the leaders have
talked to various groups about going to a second service, we do not know
exactly what the congregation as a whole
thinks. We agreed that it would be good
for us in our continuing attempt to “renew” Hilltop to take some focused time
to ask the congregation very specific, directed, and targeted questions about
worship and, importantly, Christian Education.
We plan to discuss some of this
following worship on April 21st if at all possible, and between
April 21st and May 19th present a questionnaire (or
survey instrument) in which the congregation can express their wisdom and
insight. I heard loud and clear during last
summer’s “ice breakers” that we had done enough “surveys.” That said, I think the critical element of
that lament was the congregation saw little relationship between any survey and
direction of the church. Your church
leadership believes for us to understand renewal at Hilltop, we need to receive
congregational feedback about options and potential directions of renewal at
Hilltop first.
Paul in his 1st Letter
to the Church in Corinth focused on an idea of “the body” and how each part of
the body was important to the whole. It
was an entreaty to the idea of “oneness” and an appeal for genuine appreciation
of the other. I pray that our need to go
through the process of discussion and planning for expansion to another service
at some future date enhances the “oneness” we have felt since going to one
service. I pray that our quest for
“oneness” produces fruit for Hilltop’s spiritual “renewal” and our own.
Selah. Pastor Dennis
