We’ve all done it: we wake on Sunday morning and think of
all the things we would like to do with a balmy PNW summer day and then stuffed
all that desire down into a black hole where our love for worship used to
reside. Honestly, I think it’s part of what is killing our churches in the
region. We have about three months of sunshine and we spend too much of it
sitting indoors, doing the exact same things we did when the rain forced us to
come in out of the cold.
It’s tradition and it may even be
holy but it’s not ideal. So like any good pastor I’ve been looking for options
and then I found one in an article sent by a colleague. It was about a
congregation in Minneapolis that chose to meet weekly but they only had Sunday
morning liturgy every two weeks. They meet Sunday one week and Saturday the
next week so they spend every other Sunday morning doing myriad things that
bring them joy. That is the one rule: whatever you do on Sunday mornings make
sure you do it out of a desire for joy-if it’s an obligation, it’s not Sabbath.
The congregation I lead is setting out on the next leg of a long journey. We’ve come through one heck of a
year: a beloved pastor was removed without much explanation. Half the
worshipping congregation left in frustration. The other half remained and has
thoroughly exhausted themselves with all that it takes to jumpstart a stalling
congregation. The same volunteer runs the soundboard every week. The same teacher
prepares lessons for Sunday school hoping at least one child will arrive early
enough for a lesson. The same volunteer plays the piano, prepares the bread and
juice, sets the altar, counts the money and chairs the finance committee… you
guessed it: every single week.
The church is growing in numbers, in
financial stability and in faith: we’ve added new members, managed to keep up
with pledges and the scripture study group and vision team have grown. But the
money and energy for the weekly and daily tasks are running out.
It’s only going to get worse as
Summer vacations take people away and the warm weather makes it that much
harder to sit in a stuffy sanctuary when we could be at the park or garden. What
is more, we realized we do not know our neighborhood like we could. We do not
know our city like we should. Ask a long time church member what is keeping
young families away from church on Sundays and you’ll get a bunch of good
guesses… but if you really want to know where people are and what they’re about
on Sunday mornings you probably have to go out and see for yourself.
And what about those struggling
with homelessness, addictions and poverty? Are we supposed to spend Sunday
mornings waiting for them to come looking for a tank of gas or a voucher for a
hotel? What kind of street ministry would we be able to do Saturday nights if
we didn’t have to be up early on Sundays? We asked ourselves these very
questions and decided it was time for a new plan I’m calling Radical
Sabbatical. After an initial 2 months
period of worshipping together every other Sunday we will spend July, August
and September exploring the city, worshipping with other churches and resting
on the Sabbath.
I know this
congregation needs a break but I also know they have the spiritual foundation
to really take a sabbatical. They have been studying scripture and praying
together with fervor. They go to pains to visit the homebound, hospitalized and
show great respect for their elders and their saints. They care for one another
well through a ministry of presence and service through a local foodbank… but I
know they need rest because faith is formed in our working and in our resting.
They’re a little nervous about this next leg of their journey together, and so
am I. But more than nervous I am excited to see how this experience shakes them
out of their habits and forces them to notice what brings them joy.
The last week before our Radical
Sabbatical officially began we studied psalm 103:7-12. I preached about the
size of God’s love and the ways that God communicates that love for us. The
Psalm sings over ways God makes The Way plain to people-doesn’t say that can
only happen in church or on Sunday mornings. It says that God spoke to Moses (a
murdering, stuttering runaway) and God spoke to the people of Israel (a people
who time and time again turned away from God’s promises). I take this to mean
that God speaks to all people in all places… not just to those of us who show
up at a brick and mortar outlet for praise songs and handshakes on Sunday
mornings. If God is speaking to those who cannot or do not come to us on Sunday
mornings then we are to go out and find these people
We talk about outreach as an
outpouring of our love but in the poetry of this Psalm it becomes a source of
goodness. Being with the lost and least is not just about loving but being loved.
The Psalm encourages us to listen with our whole self and trust that they will testify
to God’s love and show us God’s love the same way we see it and hear it when we
are together on Sunday mornings.
I know that it is quite shocking
for a pastor to tell her congregation to stop coming to worship on Sundays. I
also know that we have to get out into the world to experience more of God. It
might seem like I’m pushing an agenda that I pulled out of a hat or being
negligent in my devotion to worship. But I’m not. The radical Sabbatical is
part of a larger strategy to restart our church-not just our congregation but
the Church in South Tacoma and maybe beyond.
And I’m not the only one here who believes this. Many in our
congregation are already beginning to see the value in this new way of doing
church (not just coming to church but being a part of the larger community in faith) and it hasn’t even started yet as of the writing of this article!
One of the people who can only
attend on Wednesday nights wrote to tell me:
“My thought this morning is about those in the
congregation who might want to get together and research who the Homeless
really are and how many and what kind of homeless people might hang out in the
neighborhood. They won't be able to find out by attending church on
Sunday morning unless a person shows up asking for a handout. It may take
hanging around the church and neighboring buildings late at night to see some
of the homeless. It may also take some time just hanging around outside
the church building or down the street at the park and talking with people to
find out about other kinds of homelessness. It may require this group to
meet over a meal to not only talk about the different reasons people come to be
homeless but to also share what they have found when they actually meet and
talk with people. Some of the talking may be with people in the
neighborhood and discussing their views in homelessness in their neighborhood
and finding out what resources that they might have or know to help in ways the
group feels called to.
There is a lot in the news these days about
homelessness and a church group with the heart to find a way to reach out and
give hope could create quite a bit of relationship and community building as
well as a feeling of doing church.”
The worship band leader wrote to me
last week to tell me about a dream that he believes explains this perfectly:
I had a dream…I was in a neighborhood
community. There were two men standing in front of a
garage. One was a black gang member, the other was a white
biker. They didn’t seem like they should be in the same
neighborhood, but they both had a serenity about them. They clearly
had a deep bond and friendship. I was talking with the black man in front of
the garage. I marveled at how he and the biker, people from
different worlds could have forged such a close bond. He told
me “The most important thing for you to learn from this is to serve
others. If you don’t remember anything else, remember that.”
But it wasn’t just the dream: he
wrote on to tell me about something that really happened:
“Sometimes the best things happen in the oddest
locations.
We went out for lunch after church yesterday.
While in the bathroom washing my hands, I was standing next to a
gentleman. We exchanged pleasantries.
He said he had a great day at church. He then
asked about my church. I told him we were embarking on a new journey
called Radical Sabbatical. I explained that every
other Sunday we were not going to have a church service. Instead
we were going to do outreach work in the community.
At this point he got really excited! He talked
about how after Jesus died upon the cross that his followers went out by twos
to spread the word. He said that he was really excited for us for going
on this journey!”
I know that we’re not all like the
two men in this story- some will think we’re killing our church if we’re brave
enough to tell them what we’re up to. Some think I’m crazy or lazy but we are
called to be like Christ-even if it calls us toward death and insult- even if
it isn’t the popular thing to do. And if it looks like it will be the end of
our church as we know it, then that may be a good thing because the church we
see now is not going to survive anyway. The dead branches are not bearing fruit;
they’re choking out the growth. We must find ways to prune her back and even
rip out the stump if we have to in order to make room for what God is going to
do in this place. Even Christ knew when to take time away for prayer and
meditation. Being on a sabbatical means we study and learn, but we also take
time to be still, to enjoy the things we are experiencing so that we can come
back to our work with a renewed vitality.
Ministry in the None and Done Zone
is not a contest to see which church can survive all the others. It’s not a
lack of faith that calls us out into the wilderness of non-religious expression
of faith; our trek into the wilderness of Radical Sabbatical is a response to
the goodness we are pursuing in the orphans, widows and strangers who will
reveal God’s love to us.
The woman who leads an outreach at
the Gospel Mission wrote to me this week to share her “Radical Sabbatical Note
to self:”
“When in the midst of kicking a four week bug that
makes you crash once again, realize that when the body screams "No!"
it is because the mind has not been saying "No!" when it should! Accept
that I am only one person; that I have limits and need to always preserve the
necessary energy that I need to be positive, healthy and thrive. No matter how
negative and demanding or how positive and rewarding the task, I also need to
rest my mind, spirit and body so that I can refocus, refresh and revitalize
into a balanced space.”
I have urged the congregation to
continue to attend Wednesday nights. These will be times for us to study the
word and pray together and they will be vital especially during July, August
and September when we are spread out all over the city on Sunday mornings. But
they will not be much like our Sunday morning liturgy. We’ll have a potluck
rather than bread and juice every week; we’ll have bible study rather than a
sermon and we’ll choose to sing whichever hymns strike us as appropriate on any
given night.
After the visioning session in
which I shared the idea with stakeholders I received a letter written by a long
time Methodist who has lived all over the world. She began worshipping with us
around the same time our vision team formed. She writes, “We want everyone to
participate in this Radical Sabbatical, as a community, to discover "how
it is with our soul"; to allow God into our hearts to reveal anything that
is not pleasing to Him. As each person
works on their individual relationship with God during this time, it will
create a place for Worship for us as a community, when we meet together.” This is
why I’m writing this article: so that everyone can participate in Radical
Sabbatical.
The forty people who are sent out
from our congregation may come to visit your church for Holy Eucharist or we
might find communion elsewhere. Some will attend your child’s soccer game and
share in the common meal of granola bars and Gatorade or meet friends at “St.
Arbucks” breaking croissant and coffee on a Sunday morning. You may see us watching
a baseball game receiving the host of hotdogs and cokes on a Sunday afternoon, but
we’re not skipping church to do it. We’re discovering who we are, who you are,
who God is and how we might put all of this to use for the community we love…
because that is our definition of what it means to be the church.
Don’t get me wrong: we’re not
disrespecting Sunday morning worship and communion. We’re diligently searching
it out. We are desperately seeking the means of grace in all places, all people
and all manner of hosts. We are ever mindful of the myriad ways we break bread
when we cannot do it at our usual altar in our traditional ways. And we do it
always in remembrance of the new covenant and the risen Christ so that we will
be in the presence of forgiveness for our trespasses.
There are many questions about how
all this will feel, what we will do and how or if we will return to each other
after our Radical Sabbatical ends. But we don’t wonder if it is the right thing
or the wrong thing. We know God gives us all we have and if we are given a
chance to seek God in new ways and new places then God will show up there. And
when we feel the questions and doubts coming on we will embrace them and give
them voice because faith is formed in the questions and doubts-
In the name of the Creator of our
labor, rest and worship. Amen.
