April 5, 2008
Change in emphasis for Grace Church’s Mission Congregation
Dear friends,
Stilson’s computer crashed soon after our last Saturday visioning meeting March 29th, but when it is up and running he will be providing his notes on the entire meeting, including the reports from those who had taken on exploring various areas of service to the community.
My part is to fill you in on the shift in emphasis that took place at the end of that meeting.
The agenda we were sent for the last meeting included on the last page a “problem statement”: why, when we have good worship, our finances are not yet in crisis, we are not going out of business, is our congregational participation static and our attendance declining? The background of the problem statement was that in the planning for that meeting I stated that while we were trying to find a vision outside of ourselves, a mission from God, it was clear to me that we already had a vision under which we were unconsciously working: To save Grace Church.
And in that way lay disappointment, for the paradox is that a church that has as its primary goal saving itself, is doomed to fail. “Those who would save their life will lose it…” said our Lord. And those churches that thrive are those that are seen to give themselves away. But our giving away of ourselves must be in response to the imperative of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, not as a means to saving ourselves, our church.
This became more clear when, at our last meeting, we heard reports from those who had agreed to do some exploration into areas of need in the community. One of those explorations, to talk with current older members of Grace, revealed that the majority of the congregation are content with things as they are, that we are free to make any changes we want to, but that the congregation themselves are already happy with the things they are doing in their lives and to please not ask them to take part in our decisions.
We realized two implications of this:
Contentment with things as they are include the family atmosphere of Grace Church. This is a repeated theme here. Family thinking results in family size congregations, maximum Sunday attendance of 70, which, unless a congregation has massive endowments, results in churches that are not financially viable in today’s world. We have no money problem now, but soon we will if we keep thinking “family”. Sooner rather than later Grace will not be able to support a full time priest.
If Grace is to become a congregation that relates to and is essentially involved in the greater community of Norwalk, it will only be the 10-15 people who have been meeting every month for about a year doing everything. And quite frankly that was and is overwhelming.
While it is true that in most non-profits, including churches, most of the work is done by 10% of the organization, the work of revitalizing a non-profit such as a church is way beyond doing most of the regular work of keeping an organization alive.
I personally, also, am not sure keeping alive a church that is not engaged heart and soul in the community by all its members is a worthy endeavor.
At this point, Jeffri Harre realized we were in the very situation the people at 815 (international headquarters in New York City for The Episcopal Church) have learned about churches such as ours: When you have a small group of members that are hungering and thirsting for something more than contentment with the status quo, it is recommended they become a congregation within the greater congregation. (Hence the working name of Mission Congregation for our Saturday meetings until something better comes along.)
The purpose of the Mission Congregation is to live the life of the Grace Church we would want Grace to be, while honoring the wish of the majority of the congregation to be Grace Church as they currently experience and love it.
This will change how and why we gather. We have a vision, which is to be all that Grace can be. In getting to this point we shared some deep things about ourselves. Of the things we shared, from Alan Singewald’s report, we found a desire to return to an identity of Grace Church as a place that feeds others, but this time, not indirectly but directly, here at Grace. Some of us are already looking into how we might feed school children breakfast and send them off with a bag lunch in the mornings.
Gay King volunteered to work with me to design our next meeting. It will include the kind of exploration of scripture we are becoming accustomed to, sharing our own work, thoughts and feelings, and prayer together, as well as work. Focusing on being a place of feeding does not preclude other forms of “feeding” – education, worship, joining other Episcopal churches in southern Fairfield County in a Habitat for Humanity project, or, one-time services like a blessing of the bicycles, to tie in with our being one of the termini for the bike path.
In our last few meetings, beginning with the Vestry retreat, our gatherings around the future of Grace Church have felt more like real worship than business meetings. If you have not already experienced that sense, think about it now. This is not worship in the ordinary sense. It is truly the “work of the people”, which is what “liturgy” means. And as such, since all “worship” in the Episcopal Church is public, our Saturdays are open to any all who desire to come once or more frequently.
This does not in any way preclude Sunday worship for any of us. Part of the point is to continue within the structure of the existing Grace Church. We will work out what that means together.
If you have any questions, because you were not there at the last meeting, or if you were there and you still have questions, please do contact me so we can talk. This is a work in progress, and we are all part of that work together.
Peace to you all,
Lois Keen
Priest in Charge
Grace Church, Norwalk
