Who Are We and What are We Doing here, Anyway?

Annual Report Sermon 2012

A sermon delivered by the Rev. Dr. Thomas D. Wintle at the First Parish Church in Weston, Massachusetts, on the morning of the annual congregational meeting, February 5, 2012.
The scripture reading was I Corinthians 12:4-7 and 12:27-13:5.

“Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it” (I Cor.12.27)

I

You’re heard it before. “Jesus,” says Carl Scovel, “died as a man, and rose as the Church.” Jesus is present when we read his words, when we eat and drink from his table, when we tell his story in such a way, with such familiarity and empathy, that we become part of the story ourselves. Now you are the body of Christ. To put it another way, Christ has no hands in this world but our hands: so feed the hungry. Christ has no voice in this world but our voices: so speak the encouraging word to those in despair, the freeing word to the oppressed, the words of blessing to those who grieve. This is a view of church to which even the person who is not sure about God can relate: we are called to do the work of Christ.

If I say nothing more, I’ve yet said it all: Now we are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

It is my custom on the day of our annual congregational meeting to give an annual report sermon. As I wrote in the Parish Post, congregational meetings are not just about nuts-and-bolts administrative matters, but have great symbolic, even theological, significance: by electing officers and voting budgets we are saying that WE, not some bishop or denominational bureaucrat or anyone outside these walls, but WE run this church. The Puritans risked life and limb to leave England and create this new nation where democratic congregational polity could prevail.

My sermon this year is entitled “Who Are We and What Are We Doing Here, Anyway?”

II

Before offering some answers, however, I am remembering the advice I heard from someone (I think it was Bruce Peterson) that “bad news we need to hear right away, the good news can wait.” What is the bad news? Simply this: attendance has fallen off a cliff, in church and most especially in the church school. I first noticed it last spring, but it’s been present for a while.

Why is that and what might we do about it? Well, first: ask yourself about your own attendance: how often do you attend? What determines whether you come to church or not on any given Sunday? We did a survey of the Standing Committee, the leaders of the church, and found that 61%, nearly two-thirds, had other Sunday activities than church on the preceding Sunday: family or social commitments, ski trips, kids athletic events, and so on. In other words, they did not decide to stay away from church, they simply chose to, or had to, do something else. The competition for Sunday morning is greater than any other time in American history. I think it’s not a falling-away of interest in church: we had a parishioner here last Sunday who had to leave during the service to take their child to a scheduled doctor’s appointment [doctors working on Sundays?!].

I can tell you it’s not just us. Attendance is a major topic at clergy meetings. And it’s not just the sophisticated Northeast: I’ve told some of you about the largest Methodist church in Kansas. They have these attendance pads where everybody signs in and they track individual attendance. Ten years ago the average person attended church 2.8 times a month; today it is 1.8 times a month (less than half the Sundays). The Catholics are doing even worse: only 14% attend Mass each week in the Archdiocese of Boston and they offer services on Saturday and Sunday.

What might we do about attendance changes? Not much, I suspect. I have wondered about our new AllGEN services where the children stay in church for the whole service: some parents have said that they are separated from their children so much of the week, it’s nice to have them worship together as a family; yet some families have said that since there is no Sunday School, they don’t have to come. I hope the church school committee, aka the committee on children and youth ministries, will monitor this and make recommendations.

But mostly I suspect that changes in Sunday morning worship attendance are like the incoming tide: it is futile to resist an incoming tide; we can only hope to learn to float above the changes!

So, now the good news: Who are we, and what are we doing here, anyway?

We are the body of Christ in today’s world. The work is important; the work is holy.

How do we do that work? I suggest that the purpose of the church, and the reason why people come to church, is about three things: to get closer to God, to transform our imperfect lives, and to make the world better.

First, to get closer to God. Whatever words you use to describe your own journey of faith, we want to go deeper, touch deeper resources that inspire and strengthen us for the journey. That is the primary purpose of worship. Worship here is often profoundly moving; sometimes it is simply spectacular.

Second, to transform our imperfect lives. People often start coming to church, or return to church, after some change or threat to their well-being: the death of a loved one, or the death of a dream; a recognition that their children need some serious moral grounding; even simply the realization that “something is missing from my life.” Transformation comes from worship but also from being part of a community that cares, that educates, that redeems. Programs like our Writing Your Spiritual Autobiography, the Five Wishes End of Life classes, our upcoming Bible 101 – these are opportunities to look-within in significant ways.

Third, to make the world better. Some people come to First Parish because of our social outreach: it permeates everything we do here, from the church school mitten trees and our Christmas Day meals at Bristol Lodge to the Outreach Committee’s grants of thousands of dollars and our sharing-the-offering Sundays. We do so much that it is sometimes hard to see the whole picture. We DO help make the world better. Thank you for that.

To get closer to God, to transform our imperfect lives, to make the world better. That’s what we do. And we do it well here, thanks be to God.

So does First Parish Weston differ from other churches? I returned from a sabbatical some years ago with a recognition that this church truly IS the parish church: unlike many of the old parish churches established by the Puritans, we still do welcome people simply because they live in our neighborhood, we welcome people from many denominations and from no religious background, we are the place where people come for a 9-11 commemoration, where people with no religious affiliation come on Christmas Eve, where the un-connected feel they have a connection. That is a wonderful gift, and an important charge: serve this town, and our neighboring towns, because the founders wanted us to serve the neighborhood.

I add that we can do this because we have held on to our liturgical heritage: our worship is Protestant Christian, as formed by the Puritans and reformed by the Unitarians. Worship here has historical, liturgical, and theological continuity. We are NOT re-invented every week. We are stable, through centuries. Thanks be to God.

We are moving forward toward hiring a Director of Family Ministries. This is a change from having an assistant or associate minister. I’ve said before that we are a denomination of small churches, and because of that, there is no career track, or training for, “second ministers.” Thus we are looking for a quality lay (unordained) educator. I’m hopeful our search committee will find us a terrific person later this spring.

One of the jobs of a Senior Minister is to thank people on behalf of the whole the church. Last year we thanked the people who led the effort to purchase our new organ. After listening to this marvelous instrument for a while, it occurs to me that this very modern organ is really new technology. It has required time and dedication to learn and embrace this new technology, to work through the inevitable glitches, to re-boot the organ computer in the middle of a performance, and to master the beast with incomparable eloquence and panache. So it has to be said: Terry Decima, your church thanks you!

III

So there you are, my thoughts at year 17 as your parson. I have more concerns about what we do in the years ahead, especially about the internet (we need a more robust presence on Facebook and so on), about the Weston 300 anniversary (we have grand historical resources that should appear on our website), and especially about adult education – I wish we could have some kind of educational event EVERY Sunday after church!

But, my friends, you are the body of Christ. You will discern what we should do. You will decide what you will attend. You will make this church the kind of church you want it to be.

And for that, I thank God.