Doing is on the way to Becoming

“Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse.  'It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.'

'Does it hurt?' asked the Rabbit.

'Sometimes,' said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. 'When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.'

'Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,' he asked, 'or bit by bit?'

'It doesn't happen all at once,' said the Skin Horse. 'You become ….’”

The Velveteen Rabbit

I once was asked why I didn’t title my sermons.  

My not serious, tongue in cheek, quip was that I was a closet Episcopalian, and while I believed in Jesus, I didn’t believe in titles.  Episcopalians do not title their sermons, Methodists normally do.  But I assure you, I am not a closet Episcopalian.  Their Sunday duds are just not me.  I might become an Episcopalian, but I doubt it. 

The real answer is titles box me in. 

Here at Hilltop, we print the bulletin on Thursday, and I am often, very often, not ready to put a title on a sermon at that time.  A title forces me into a direction I am not always ready to be go. Yes, I can be stubborn at times with the Holy Spirit and the direction of a sermon. 

When I have a good title and know with great certainty where the Holy Spirit is carrying me, it’s easy.  Look at the bulletins for Sunday worship in September; titles will be present. But that title creation prompted me to think about a lot of stuff. 

The act of creating a title for this Sunday’s sermon produced a jumble in my head.  As we look at the book of James in September, that jumble is stirred by contemplating the answer to the question:  “What does it mean to live as a Christian?”  

The theme for the month, “Doing Church” is also messing with me. Several weeks ago when it was proposed, it generated no dissonance in my head at all.  Now, for some reason, it keeps clashing in my head.  (To be clear, this a good dissonance, like in Jazz or the Blues or Stravinsky). 

I was glad to read that the theme had an impact on Mary Jean Davison as she wrote her excellent Music and Arts article in our newsletter. Mary Jean suggests that by doing church, we start to experience transformation and get to a place of becoming where we are the church.  You don’t stay at doing. At some point, you become. 

Spanish has two verbs to be.  One has an element of permanence, and the other is understood to be temporary.  If you use the wrong verb to say someone is smart or beautiful, you are actually suggesting it is not part of their normal state.  I see this doing/being in the same way.  We have to do the church enough, that at some point it stops being doing, and it becomes a vital statement about who we actually are. 

I assure you that after having prepared right at 500 sermons I am not the same person I was 500 sermons ago.  Church is a different reality for me than fifteen years ago, sometimes even fifteen minutes ago. 

Being the church is, in the sense of the two Spanish verbs to be, permanent and temporary.  Gradually as we become real in terms of being little Christs, the meaning of Christian after all, he becomes permanently part of who we are, and we leave more and more of the temporary behind. 

I suspect it is never completed, that in this life we are never fully 100% finished.  To paraphrase Paul from 1^st Corinthians 13, I suspect it is a state of constant becoming, a state of seeing in the mirror and just getting it dimly, always seeking more light, more clarity, moving from doing to a state of becoming. In the words of the Skin Horse, you become real. 

Selah, Pastor Dennis

Diligence, Vision, and Remembrance

Be Diligent

1 Timothy 4:13-16, New International Version -- Until I come [that is Saint Paul], devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching. Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through prophecy when the body of elders laid their hands on you.  Be diligent in these matters; give yourself wholly to them, so that everyone may see your progress. Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.

Despite summer not officially being until June 21st, many have started attending to summertime events. Marilyn and I took advantage of the beautiful weather on Memorial Day to visit the Golden Spike Historical Site, the Bear River Bird Refuge and the Spiral Jetty. It was a full day we thoroughly enjoyed. We have not traveled in Utah as much as we should have, and hope to take some time this summer seeing the incredible beauty that exists here.  But this past Memorial Day was a time of growth: spiritual and intellectual. We plan to have other times this summer where growth will continue to be a primary focus. 

The First Timothy speaks to public reading of scripture followed by preaching and teaching. In fact, we are encouraged to be diligent in these matters. Paul is rejecting in this pastoral letter an attitude of complacency; rather it is an advocacy towards a culture of growth. 

Your Sunday attendance is important for growth. When I thank people for a first time attendance at Hilltop, I use nourishment as an image: “I pray you were spiritually nourished.” Just as our bodies need a regular dose of rest, fluids and food, our soul requires regular spiritual nourishment. My car needs to be topped off with fuel periodically, and our soul needs to be topped off with spiritual fuel in the same way. I will go so far as saying that if you are at home, the place you are called to be on Sunday morning is Hilltop. Here is where you are supposed to be. If you are on the road, I pray you avail yourself of a chance to experience worship in a different setting or location, and see how others might be fed or refueled. But your Sunday attendance is important for your spiritual growth and health. How are you going to grow spiritually if you are not spiritually fed or fueled? Pleases continue to make it important to you and your family and be fed and fueled at Hilltop. 

Your continued financial participation is important for sustainment, and potential growth, at Hilltop. Many summers see an economic downturn in giving leading to anxious moments by those in financial leadership (see Galen Ewer’s article from the Newsletter below). With a drop in attendance, the members’ checkbooks are not brought to church, and anxiety is born out of that downturn. What happens is that instead of a culture of plenty, we enter into a culture, induced by a history of low attendance and giving in the summer that sees only scarcity. An enormous portion of our monthly spending is for staff and non-discretionary expenses, e.g. mortgage.  We might take a vacation, but servicing the mortgage, for example, does not. I would pray that if you plan on being gone for much of the summer, take some steps to get your pledge or programmed contribution over onto automatic. The sustainment of key activities of your church depends on it. 

Paul in his letter to Timothy above speaks to being diligent. To be diligent suggests we will attend to life in a way that shows care and conscientiousness in our duties.  I pray you show care and are conscientious in your weekly attendance at Hilltop and supporting her with your time, talent and treasure. It is important. It is important to sustaining a culture of growth.  Paul says to “give yourself wholly to them.” I think that is excellent advice, and I pass it on for your consideration and possible implementation.

Thank you for attending to this issue of great importance.  

Vision Casting

Our Proposed Vision:  Hilltop – An inclusive community of hospitality, healing, help, and hope, leading hearts to Christ.

Our Proposed New Vision Statement!

We are getting close to looking for congregational buy-in on our proposed Vision.  Belong, believe, and become has served us well, but your leadership believes it is time to cast a new vision from which to navigate the next ten to fifteen years. The amount of time we might use the proposed vision above is “God knows.”   

On May 27th, I spoke to the idea of allowing the Holy Spirit to be the wind in our sails and we use the testimony of God to pick our destination. There were two other options mentioned that morning, one of which was to row like it all depends on us and the other was to get on board a raft and allow ourselves to be blown by the winds. One says it all depends on God, and the other says it all depends on us.  What about opening our hearts to a biblically ordained destination, and allowing God’s holy breath to blow us along towards that destination. 

We pray that is the plan we follow. 

Selah, Pastor Dennis 

Don’t Forget Hilltop Over the Summer

By Galen Ewer, finance committee chair

I am nervous.  Each year as the summer months come Kathy Wheeler, our treasurer, and I get nervous about Hilltop’s cash flow. Last year the congregation was good about keeping up pledge commitments during the summer but that has not been the case in prior years.  Some of the past years we have had to skip our obligation to the conference or stretch out other bills.  Not good business practices!

As we enter the vacation months please do not forget the needs of your church.  If you noted the monthly report in the 3rd Sunday bulletin we are about $10,000 in the red for the year.  If giving slows over the next three months our financial situation could begin to look bleak.

Please keep up on your pledge and giving.  Remember the bills do not take a vacation in the summer!

Gifts of the Spirit

1^st Corinthians 12: Verses 4–7: Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

Galatians 5:22-23: By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.

Galatians 5:19-21: Now the works of the flesh are obvious:…impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these.

 Scripture is NRSV

Paul is big on the idea of the Spirit. The Spirit is clearly an important theological idea for Paul. References to the Spirit fill Paul’s letters as he coaches his far flung flock. Three are quoted here. Paul was having trouble with both Corinth First UMC and Galatians Community UMC. Things had fallen apart after he had left.

 

Things are not falling apart at Hilltop UMC, let me assure you. We are doing well.  We can do better. 

I personally like to think of the two Galatians readings in terms of car dashboard lights. When we are in proper relationship with God, our fellow co-laborers in the church and ourselves, our dashboard lights are green. Love, joy, peace and other good things are displayed consistent with what Paul enumerates in Galatians 5: 22-23. The machine should work well when the lights are all green. However, we need to check our spiritual engines when the dashboard lights are red with strife, anger, factions, envy and the like. In the car dashboard world, green is normally good, red is normally a problem. Fruits of the Spirit are good; Works of the Flesh are not. Galatians 5 helps us understand and measure how we are doing with this relationship stuff. The passage is an indicator of relationship.

 

If Galatians 5 is about how we are doing, 1^st Corinthians 12 helps us frame what it is we should be doing.

 

Paul’s specificity in Galatians is largely absent in the Corinthians. In Galatians Paul gives us the names of lights we can read as green or red. In Corinthians Paul resorts to an illustration of the church as a body and points to body parts as how the body should function. An ear listens but it does not see. His illustration is very good.  I augment the body illustration from Paul in terms of team, and as a baseball fan, I see it in terms of baseball. You need a variety of different skill types to play baseball, and a team made up of Yogi Berra’s, a Hall of Fame catcher and pontificator, might be a good one for providing pithy quotations, but it might have trouble pitching effectively. 

The church, like a team, like the human body, needs different skills, as given to us by the Spirit, to be put to labor on behalf of the Kingdom of God.

 

What are your God-given gifts? Sometimes we know what they are: I am good at numbers, and I am not particularly good at small engine repair. But I didn’t know I was good at numbers until I got dropped into a position in 1973 that called for me to be a numerical analyst. I struggled for a while but mentors and coaches helped me and turned that struggle into strength. What we now see as a gift was at one time not a gift. It was honed and developed by others, enhanced by my own willingness to be coached to success. I had to be a numbers disciple, a student, for a while. In reality, I am still a numbers disciple, constantly looking at web sites and articles about how to better display data so that it becomes information, but I digress.

 

I had to trust others to see that gift in me that I didn’t know that I possessed. 

In my learning and growing here, I didn’t become angry or exercise poor self-control. In fact, this endeavor became an object that lead to joy. When it comes to being a numerical analyst, my dashboard lights here were never red, always green.

 

Here are some thoughts:

• Gift Assessment Axiom: When you don’t think something is a gift, you might be mistaken. 
• The Converse to that Axiom: When you think something is a gift, you might be mistaken. 
• The Corollary to that Axiom: Listen to others about your gifts. Another might see your gifts more clearly than you. 

Look to the dashboard lights and crosscheck them against Galatians 5.  Green is good.  Red is not good.  Listen to your heart.  Listen to others.  Listen for God.  Remember that God sometimes speaks in a small, still, voice, except when small, still isn’t working. 

Selah, Pastor Dennis

End of Year – Sort of …

In June, we made dramatic changes in where we spent our money at Hilltop.  In addition, the church leadership saw a need for us to speak more frequently about how we are doing from an income basis.  For those in worship on Sunday, December 22, I spoke for a few minutes on where we are from an income level and our financial position.

We have available to us three piles of money.  They are not equal in terms of our ability to reach them to help us handle our obligations.

 

We have an endowment (shown in green on the chart in figure 1) and it has grown over $20,000 in the last two years.  It is by intentional and appropriate design, the most difficult to access.  This is good.  This account has over $120,000 in it as of the end of November. 

Figure 1:  Resources Potentially Available to Hilltop

Next we have money that has either been designated for specific purposes by the donor or the church (shown in blue on the chart in figure 1).  Donor designated is more restrictive in what we may or may not do with those resources.  Money by a donor for a new sound system is restricted.  Money designated by the church for a new sound system is not.  This is also good.  This account has over $60,000 in it as of the end of November.  Various building accounts, mission resources, and funds generated for both choir robes and youth make up the vast majority of these resources.

 

Finally, we have those resources that provide us the banking fluidity to conduct monthly business (shown in red on the chart in figure 1).  Frankly it was the $30,000 drop in this account between January, 2012 and May, 2013 that prompted us to set in motion a change in authorized spending and our more active discussion of church finances.  This account has rebounded.  This is also good.  This account has over $47,000 in it as of the end of November and that is +$13,000 over where we were in May.

 

We have over $220,000 to help us finance the church.  It is not all liquid.  It is not all disposable at a moment’s notice.  But we are in a better place than we were in May.

 

Our spending for 2014 will be based on our approved budget which decreases proposed budgetary spending by right at $40,000.

Figure 2:  Congregational Giving

Figure 2 represents monthly cash flow by the congregation to support the operations of the church.  Blue was 2012 and red is 2013.  This is not choir robe, building designated or a pass-through heading to Denver, Salt Lake or Nashville. It is what comes in from the congregation to support the operations of the church.  As I write this, we need for a little over $35,000 to come in for December to allow us to exceed last year for December.  December is a five-Sunday month and that usually helps a little. 

Figure 3:  Some Thoughts

Figure 3 is a collection of thoughts.  It does extend a request to those who plan on catching up by December 31^st for IRS purposes.  This last Sunday past is basically our probable last collection opportunity for that.  We count and deposit once a week.   The real point newsletter point here is the Capital Campaign for the Sound System.  We want to get this in time to install and work out the newness by Easter.  If you were here for the December 8^th Community Event, you heard the board issues in our welcome and initial invocations.  We cannot fix this too soon.  That said, resources for the Sound System must be from extra mile giving and not a diversion of operational resources.

 

We have in the last few weeks made decisions to resume the payment of our “apportionment” to the Conference.  On another day I will write an article on what that is but I do ask that you trust it is a good investment in the ministries of the United Methodist Church.  Additionally, we shared nearly $6,500 with others beyond our walls.  These include but are not limited to:  Crossroads, United Methodist Committee on Relief, Salt Lake Rescue Mission, the Utah-Western Colorado Committee on Native American Ministries.  Finally, half of our Christmas Eve offering went to Imagine No Malaria.  We are well on the way to making our $10,000 goal here, standing at $9,000+ on December 30, 2013.  In fact, in this area, we are the best UM Church in Utah.

 

Overall, I am optimistic, cautiously so, but optimistic nonetheless about our finances.  We are managing our spending more consistent with our real income.  I do continue to believe that we are under resourcing the building and long term, we need to be more diligent in designating resources away from operations into infrastructure sustainment.  We will get there.

 

Selah, Pastor Dennis

Getting Smart

We sometimes think of planning and visioning as a secular enterprise.  If we do indeed “sometimes think” this, we could be be missing a key theme of scripture.  For example, scripture gives us:

• Proverbs 29: 18a (King James Version) “Where there is no vision, the people perish.…”
• Proverbs 21:5 (English Standard Version) “The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance, but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty.”
• Habakkuk 2:2-3 (English Standard Version) “And the Lord answered me: ‘Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it. For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.’”

That is a lot of wisdom from our ancient words.  They tell us that we need to plan but at the same time; we need to exercise patience and self-control in this planning. 

We are asking the leadership of your church to generate planning goals by November.  We are asking for these goals to be SMART.  SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely.

I pray we are casting a compelling vision for the church in our growth within the framework of worship, discipleship, ministry to children, youth and their families, and our missional activity to the world around us. 

I pray the compelling vision we are casting will produce abundance, the type of abundance Jesus is speaking of in John 10:10 when he reminds the disciples he has come to give them life in abundance.  Abundance – abundance of fruitfulness for God’s kingdom; abundance of Holy Spirit qualities; abundance of discipleship.

I pray the abundant, compelling vision will be plain and allow us to run towards God’s transformative vision for His creation. 

I pray we can be patient, and certainly prayerful, in our development of that vision for Hilltop. 

I am proud to be the Pastor of this church:  A church that has a SMART vision of making an impact on the lives of God’s people. 

Selah, Pastor Dennis

This blog is my October newsletter article for Hilltop.  

Smart Creating

In my theme article of the newsletter I write:  “I am proud to be the Pastor of this church: A church that has a SMART vision of making an impact on the lives of God’s people.”  I want this blog to focus on how we might go about creating SMART Goals. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely.

Specific: A specific goal is much more likely to be accomplished than a general goal. Some questions to ask while evaluating a goal are: What should be accomplished? Why should it be accomplished? When and how will it be accomplished?

Specific goals show exactly what, when, and how much is expected. This means spelling out the details of the goal from start to finish. Keep in mind that simple goals are better. The easier it is to understand, the easier it will be to achieve.

 


Measurable:  Measurable goals are quantifiable. Establish a certain set of criteria for measuring progress toward accomplishing each goal that is set. Questions like the following can help identify if a goal is measurable: How much? How many? How will I know the result has been achieved?

Is there something observable that can be measured? When progress is measured, it is easier to stay on track, reach target dates, and achieve success.

 


Achievable:  For a goal to be achievable key people must possess the skills and have access to the resources necessary to accomplish the goal. Achievable goals should include flexible objectives and tasks to allow for changes in the church. Good questions to ask to establish whether a goal is achievable are: Is the desired result of the goal attainable by the team or the church? Do we need training individually or as a team early in the year to help achieve this goal? How challenging is this goal? How much direct control does the team or individual have over the goal? 


Keep in mind goals that are too high or too low are meaningless. Goals should be realistic and attainable; they should be challenging, but not so difficult that they result in discouragement. Goals should also not be so easy that they become routine and boring. To stretch is good, to break is not. Setting goals together within the team or the church will help ensure that the goals are achievable.

 


Relevant: Goals should be relevant to the church’s vision and mission, the committees’ specific function in the organization, and daily tasks. Think about this question when determining a goal’s relevance: How will the goal impact committee performance as well as the performance of the church?

Goals should also be relevant personally; a goal should represent something the team member is both willing and able to work toward.

Timely:  Setting a realistic time frame to accomplish a goal will result in continued progress towards achieving the goal. I want us to focus on goals for 2014 this time around with the understanding that those goals should support our Hilltop 2020 Vision. Goals without time frames will often be pushed aside by the day-to-day time wasters that are a part of most organizations. It is easy to forget about a goal when there is no deadline for completion. Meeting a deadline helps keep goals properly prioritized. It also creates a sense of urgency that will help motivate one to complete the tasks necessary to reach the goal. For goals with many steps or action plans, it is helpful to break down the goal into manageable stages. Work out a time frame for the accomplishment of each stage and add in time for unexpected delays. The deadline will be the date by which all stages are complete.

Here are a few examples of some SMART goals I am thinking are good for me. See how these might work for you within your leadership responsibility.

• In order to improve the annual average worship attendance at Hilltop I will ensure all families who do not attend three weeks in a row, six weeks in a row and nine weeks in a row are contacted by me through email/phone call, at three weeks handwritten note at six weeks, and finally a personal visit at nine weeks so as to contribute to the raising of our average by at least 10 percent by the end of 2014.
• In order to raise congregational giving at Hilltop I will monthly review congregational giving and report on our achievement as a direct result of that review so as to contribute to the raising of our congregational giving by an average of $5,000 a month for 2014.
• In order to celebrate the impact of time and talent given to Hilltop I will recognize parishioners for their service by at least ten handwritten notes and a leadership coin per month so as to recognize volunteerism with the desired impact of raising overall volunteerism at the church by at least 10 percent for 2014.

These are examples, and I will work with key leaders in our church to determine if they are SMART goals for me. How might setting a SMART goal or two for yourself, independent of your participation in a committee improve our life at Hilltop?

Selah, Pastor Dennis

I harvested and edited material from the internet to create most of this article.  

Renewing Hilltop -- April Pastor's Musings

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 21^st if at all possible, and between April 21^st and May 19^th 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 1^st 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

Attendance and Stewardship

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

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