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Overview
- Each volume of the series will:
- Explain why a changed vision is essential
- Give robust theological and biblical foundations
- Offer a guide to best practices and positive trends in churches large and small.
- Describe the necessary tools for change
- Imagine how transformation will look
How can our patterns of congregational life and mission renew themselves and adjust to changing culture without selling out what Episcopalians stand for? How can local faith communities stay resilient and hopeful? What styles and practices of spirituality do most to enrich our mission?
These are some of the questions James Lemler poses in this book on mission for clergy and congregational discussion. As with evangelism, there is both good and bad news about Episcopalians and mission. Lemler also provides a variety of models for moving forward in mission and hope, to a more abundant future.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780898695847 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Church Publishing, Incorporated |
| Publication date: | 04/01/2008 |
| Series: | Transformations |
| Pages: | 192 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.60(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Transforming Congregations
By JAMES LEMLER
Church Publishing Incorporated
Copyright © 2008 James LemlerAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-89869-584-7
Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Shall We Gather at the River?
I have to make a confession at the very start: I love congregations. I find them endlessly fascinating and continually significant. Being in them, leading them, learning about them, consulting with them—all have been at the center of my life and ministry. Congregations are communities in which people are transformed in their faith and life. The Spirit of God is at work in them—in their rich histories, present mission dynamics, and future possibilities for service. God is in their midst. Congregations are at the heart and center of the mission of God's church.
There are over three hundred thousand local communities of faith in the United States, approximately seventy-four hundred of them congregations of the Episcopal Church. These faith communities are found in every sort of setting, and each one is unique in its identity. People engage God and the practices of Christian faith in ongoing and significant ways within their congregations. These local communities of faith generate profound and imaginative mission both here and around the world. Yet congregations are also complex entities. They can experience vitality, strength, and growth. Conversely, they can experience challenge, weakness, and decline. Congregations require leadership, clarity of purpose, and vision for the future. Their life cannot be left unexamined and their present and future require strategy and action.
This book is written for congregations—their members and their leaders—and for people who care about congregations and their effective mission. It includes an assessment of congregational life and a theological reflection for congregational mission and transformation. It describes the characteristics and attributes of strong and vital congregations, and offers up spiritual practices that enhance the lives of individual believers and congregations themselves.
This book also recognizes that congregations cannot be transformed apart from their sense of mission, which is an even more essential focus, topic, and reality for the church at this time. By "mission" I mean the primary purpose, work, and call of God and of the church. God's mission is the continuing purpose of God in redeeming and restoring all humanity and, indeed, the whole universe. The church's mission is the manifestation of God's mission in a particular time, place, and context. Local congregations reflect God's mission, and they live out this broader mission in their own settings with their own identity, values, and priorities.
we begin with water
To engage the mission of God's church, we begin with congregations in their mission. To reflect on their character and mission, we begin with water. We dive into the powerful waters of baptism which flow in and through local congregations. We negotiate the fast-moving waters of change that are all around us in our contemporary context and world. Here begins my story of congregational life and mission, in the waters of God's grace and love.
I served one particular congregation for many years and learned a great deal about God and gospel in that community of faith as we prayed, proclaimed, served, learned, and reached out together. There are many stories to be told, but one is especially appropriate in thinking about the life, mission, and identity of that congregation.
It is the story of worship on a glorious Sunday morning. The morning was bright and beautiful, but its brightness and beauty came from something more than the sun in the sky and the lush autumn day. It was the brightness of Christian faith and hope and the beauty of God's people gathered for prayer and proclamation.
This was a celebration of Holy Baptism, and what a celebration it was. Children, adults, black, white, offspring of long-time church members as well as people for whom church life was a new experience gathered to be showered with God's abundant grace and love, to be renewed and transformed in life, to be gifted with the powerful, playful Spirit of God, and to be enrolled in the expression of faith in which God would be joined to them in this life and in the life to come. There was not a great deal of water, but there was enough ... a sufficiency of water to flow with the purpose and power of God. There was enough water to transform and change their lives forever.
This congregation was answering the question raised in a beloved African American spiritual, "Shall we gather at the river?" We sang this song in procession to the font that morning. More importantly, we answered the question raised in the singing, "Yes, well gather at the river, the beautiful, the beautiful river...." We were affirming and affirmative about what God was doing in the waters of baptism as we gathered at the beautiful river of God's love and grace.
Christian congregations gather at the river frequently and do this baptismal action regularly. They welcome people into the household of God and, in so doing, they proclaim the identity of Christian people individually and corporately. Individuals are "marked as Christ's own forever." They belong to Christ and are enfolded in Christ's love. They are made citizens of God's kingdom and members of God's church. Their identity is one that includes generosity, proclamation, service, forgiveness, compassion, justice, and respect.
The same is true for the community of faith. Its identity is also shaped and proclaimed in the action of Holy Baptism. Through this action, the Christian community is identified as a community of proclamation, service, and reconciliation. It is a community of invitation and hospitality at its very core. Thus, it is a community of mission. We can actually see the mission of the church as we look into the waters of baptism. And we can see that we are to be a church of mission, a church of purpose, a church that lives out its baptismal identity day by day.
"We thank you, Father, for the waters of Baptism. In it we are buried with Christ in his death. By it we share in his resurrection. Through it we are reborn by the Holy Spirit" (BCP 306). What powerful waters they are! What a river of grace it is. "Shall we gather at the river?" It is a question for people of faith and their congregations. Congregations exist to be baptismal communities gathered around God's word and purpose. They are empowered by God's Spirit to embody and engage God's mission in the world. The waters of grace continue to flow.
the waters of scripture
God has used waters to express purpose, mission, love, and grace since the beginning. Literally "in the beginning" a significant part of God's creation was water, the primeval great waters out of which other forms of life came. "In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters" (Genesis 1:1–2). The watery creation progresses: "And God said, 'Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters'" (Genesis 1:6).
The Hebrew scriptures continue to tell stories of powerful and transforming waters. The whole earth is transformed, as the Genesis narrative tells the story of Noah and the great flood. Everything is changed for a new beginning, a beginning that can happen only in God's purpose and will. God said, "I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights." And when the flood waters indeed began to flow on the earth, "Noah with his sons and his wife and his sons' wives went into the ark to escape the waters of the flood" (Genesis 7:4, 7). However, the story does not end with the primeval flood, but with a promise and a purpose. After "the waters were dried up from the earth" (Genesis 8:7), God clearly speaks the promise:
As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you.... This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. (Genesis 9:9–10, 12–13)
The watery story keeps flowing in the events of the Exodus. God's purpose—the redemption of God's people—happens in and through water. The waters of the mighty Red Sea are divided so that God's people may pass over from slavery to freedom, from oppression to redemption, from hopelessness to new possibility. God gives Moses a poignant command so that deep waters lead to life rather than death
Then the LORD said to Moses, "Why do you cry out to me? Tell the Israelites to go forward. But you lift up your staff, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, that the Israelites may go into the sea on dry ground." (Exodus 14:15–16)
Waters are powerful as the Hebrew scriptures continue to tell the story, even as they flow from God's own temple and throne as envisioned by the prophet Ezekiel. At the entrance of the temple the prophet is shown water "flowing from below the threshold of the temple toward the east" and "from below the south end of the threshold of the temple, south of the altar." Ezekiel is led through the waters—ankle-deep, then knee-deep and up to the waist, and finally deep enough to swim in. He is told, "Wherever the river goes, every living creature that swarms will live" (Ezekiel 47:1, 9). In this river the prophet sees the image of God's flowing grace, love, and purpose.
Here we have a vision of God's mission as reflected in the waters of creation, redemption, and restoration:
* God creates. God brings creative power and purpose to chaos. God creates life and extends that life throughout the universe, to human beings, and in the face of death itself. God also creates a community, the people Israel, to serve and live out God's mission in the world.
* God redeems. God saves God's people from slavery and oppression in Egypt, leading them through the waters of redemption to new life and hope. This is the primary action of God's mission, redeeming God's people. The prophets proclaim redemption for God's people even when they have sinned, and some of the prophets name the universal redemption which God will give to all people.
* God restores. A central part of God's mission is the action of restoration. God restores that which is broken. God searches for the lost and renews the spirits of God's people when they are flagging. God empowers return for exiles and the restoration of Jerusalem itself.
Nor does the story of God's mission through water end with the Hebrew scriptures; it continues on a river bank in the Gospel of Mark. Jesus of Nazareth goes to his cousin John the baptizer for a ceremonial washing, but something more happens in the Jordan River. Jesus' identity is proclaimed in divine voice and action. "You are my Son, the Beloved," a voice from heaven announces, and a dove descends on Jesus as a visible sign of the Spirit of God at work (Mark 1:10–11).
Jesus takes his identity seriously. He lives as God's beloved child, announcing God's kingdom, healing, preaching, inviting, serving, and caring. He uses water to describe his mission. "I will give you living water," Jesus tells a Samaritan woman at a well. She was skeptical, but he told her more. "You will never thirst again. I will quench your thirst forever" (John 4). Jesus' mission involves creation, redemption, and restoration.
* Jesus creates. Jesus creates hope and new beginnings for people as he proclaims the in-breaking sovereignty of God. He gives the gift of life to people and even raises some from the dead.
* Jesus redeems. Jesus' primary action of mission is redemption. He redeems human beings who are alienated and broken through his actions of healing and welcome. His primary action of mission and redemption is his cross and resurrection.
* Jesus restores. The mission of Jesus is one of restoration, breaking down walls of hostility and enmity so that a new and restored humanity might be made. He constantly invites the outcast into the loving embrace of God.
This was Jesus' mission, and he entrusted that mission to his followers, creating a community of mission through discipleship and service. The waters of baptism are the sign and symbol of that mission and community. Jesus' disciples carried on the mission and continued to use water as a sign of the mission of individual believers and the community. The New Testament epistles include a continual call to the recollection of baptismal and missional identity on the part of local communities of faith.
In a similar way, the early Christian writers spoke and preached often on the meaning of the waters of grace. They focused on the power of the baptismal relationship and identity. Cyprian, who was Bishop of Carthage in the third century, described his discovery of the love and power of God within the waters of baptism in his own life in this way:
I was myself so entangled and constrained by the very many errors of my former life that I could not believe it possible for me to escape from them.... But when the stain of my earlier life had been washed away by the help of the water of baptism ... and I had been restored such as to make me a new human being ... what before had seemed difficult was now easy.
The waters of mission and transformation continue to flow. We are inheritors of these waters of grace, life, and spirit that shape our identity and transform us in their power. We live in them, and we "live" them. The church became ever more focused on these waters in the latter half of the twentieth century, and this focus continues into the twenty-first century as we have become ever more aware of the power of Holy Baptism to bring about the transformation we seek.
baptismal theology
A baptismal revolution began in the life of the church about fifty years ago. We see the effect of that revolution in many different aspects of the Episcopal Church: the baptism-centered theology of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer; the entry of women to ordained ministry; the recognition of the role and leadership of the laity; the admission of infants and children to Holy Communion; new approaches to Christian formation of children, young people, and adults; new modes of raising up and training ordained and lay leaders; and the acknowledged priority of local congregations as the focus of mission for the church. Thus baptismal theology provides a vital starting point for theological reflection in the church today.
At its core, baptismal theology is a theology of transformation and mission, emphasizing both the change that occurs in the life of individual believers and the meaning of mission for the church. Baptismal theology has moved the starting point of theology about the church. The theology of the church no longer begins "from above"—that is, from a hierarchical perspective of the church as it was organized for the fifteen hundred years of Christendom. Rather, it begins "from below," or I would prefer to say "from the waters"—that is, from local communities of faith where the people of God gather for mission and ministry. The authority of mission comes from the whole people of God practicing their faith in local congregations and daily life, rather than from hierarchical structures.
This baptismal theology has transformed the Episcopal Church in the United States of America, as well as in other parts of the Anglican Communion and in churches of various traditions. It has been taken particularly seriously in the Episcopal Church because of our tradition of democratic polity and lay empowerment and because of the greater congregational focus of American religion. It is not entirely understood, however, in those parts of the Anglican Communion that tend to manifest a model of polity and authority that depend on greater hierarchical authority.
The Baptismal Covenant, as articulated so clearly and powerfully in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church, is illustrative of this church's baptismal theology. This covenant reflects a baptismal theology of service, openness, and transformation, and expresses a sense of empowerment, respect, and inclusion. This baptismal theology has transformed the congregations of the Episcopal Church themselves. Local communities of faith realize that they are at the core of mission and ministry and are seeking new ways of partnership with diocesan and national church structures of mission. Leadership is perceived as partnership between laity and clergy with both sets of believers to be necessary for furthering mission. Baptismal theology has created an environment of welcome, hospitality, and invitation in local congregations. It has changed congregations through these mechanisms:
* The public celebration of baptism. Public baptism has become the norm in Episcopal congregational life, giving people the regular opportunity to engage this ritual experience of identity and transformation.
* Baptismal education. Congregations utilize several means of baptismal education. Some occur prior to baptism for adults or for parents of infants and small children, while others focus on the renewal of baptismal vows and reaffirmation formation for youth and adults.
* Baptismal theology and spiritual renewal events. New resources have been developed for learning about baptism in children and adult formation and retreat settings. There are also retreat materials focusing on the meaning of baptism.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Transforming Congregations by JAMES LEMLER. Copyright © 2008 by James Lemler. Excerpted by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Series Preface.................... vii
Acknowledgments.................... ix
1. Shall We Gather at the River?.................... 1
2. Whitewater Conditions.................... 30
3. The Vital Congregation.................... 62
4. Communities of Transformation.................... 94
5. Practicing Transformation.................... 127
A Guide for Discussion.................... 167
Resources.................... 173
Notes and Sources.................... 177