 Is your church at a pivot point? This is when the world is clearly different than it was, and you choose to change your approach. I've personally had several pivot points in my ministry--when I served my first parish and realized that many churches need to close, when I served my present parish and realized that many very tiny churches need to do what they can to stay open. They are needed to be the voice of progressive Christianity in an otherwise conservative town.
Your church may have reached a pivot point during covid. You added online worship or started sending print bulletins to some parishioners or used a radio-system for parking lot worship. If those new things are now part of your ordinary ways of being, you pivoted! Congratulations. Not all pivot points are dramatic. The slow decline of white mainline churches has progressed over decades. Some congregations recognized this and have pivoted to a more externally focused ministry. The turn to lay-lead congregations, the use of yoked, collaborating, and merged congregations is sometimes a result of recognizing the need to pivot. But most congregations continue the same as they were in 1956 (to pick a completely random year.) We are at a pivot point, and your church can choose to turn, or not. The large majority of German churches chose unity and safety by staying the same during World War II; some suggest that is why there is very little church in Europe now. The large majority of white U.S. congregations chose unity and safety rather than take a stand during the civil rights movement; perhaps that is why we remain so segregated on Sunday mornings. Sometime in the future people will look back and ask why more churches didn't pivot during this period. Some of it is anxiety, fear, an unwillingness to take risks. I think that experts will underestimate how much of our inaction is because we don't know what to do. I think the reality is that pivoting can save us, but it can kill us, also. We want to figure out a new path that is successful. Unfortunately, that is not a choice. We can't know before we get there whether a new path head to new life or to the end of ministry. All we can know is whether we are doing, and will do, Christ's work in the world. In Frozen II the message is to always do the next right thing. When faced with impossible odds, do the small step that seems to do the most good. The image of pivot seems to imply a turn-around of 180º, or even 270º, and often that is exactly what it means. But in this time of cultural chaos, our pivot might be to focus more intentionally on a ministry we are already doing. To simply be a place that people can talk about their fears. To be more public in a welcome that we have always cared about. We might be making a turn of 15º or 30º. The next right thing might be to show up at a protest someone else has organized. To hang a pride flag at our food pantry. To organize an evening making phone calls to elected leadership. To deliver food or household goods or words of support to immigrants. As you consider big changes or small, the question is not, how can we survive, rather it is how can we proclaim good news. The pivot is from good news to good news. A different form, a changed platform, new priorities, and yet always that the Kingdom of God is at hand. We are forgiven. Love our enemies and our neighbors. Trust God. Care for the least of these, for they are our savior and our brother, Jesus, the Christ.
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 "God created you from dust and to God you shall return." I'm sure those aren't exactly the right words, but it is what I say to parishioners and visitors alike as I place slightly too oily ashes on their foreheads or hands.
Growing up, Lent was a Catholic thing, by which I mean everyone in our community was engaged. The three protestants in my elementary school classroom showed up on-time on Ash Wednesday, and we waited for our ash marked friends to show up after church. Our cafeteria served meatless lunches. I knew that Lent was about fasting although we called it "giving up for Lent." What I didn't know was that Lent has three penitent activities: prayer, fasting, and charity. Interesting that I didn't know the charity component! (Although I remember now that my church's "Bunnies for Bolivia" fundraising was during Lent.) What is really interesting is that in 1966 Pope Paul VI in chapter III of the Apostolic Constitution, changed the approach to fasting. Where economic well-being is prominent, the pope writes that the church witness of asceticism is important. Where people live in poverty, however "it will be more pleasing to God the Father and more useful to the members of the Body of Christ if Christians—while they seek in every way to promote better social justice—offer their suffering in prayer to the Lord in close union with the Cross of Christ." Essentially, everyone engages in prayer, but people with excess should practice Lent with asceticism and charity, while those without enough should simply offer the suffering they already experience as their penitence. And that everyone should, as part of their Lenten practice, “promote better social justice.” I encourage congregations to focus on what they can do for justice during this Lenten season. Instead of giving something up, consider doing one action every day to protect people who are trans, to protect people who are immigrants, or to protect the environment. Choose something that helps maintain our social safety net. Imagine that your act of penitence this season could be to protect the people in our nation. Subscribe to my blog!  The Lukan version of the transfiguration (Luke 9:28-36) is unique among the gospels in at least two ways. (Check out Andrew's Version by Andrew McGowan for background information for your sermon.) Luke emphasizes that Jesus is at prayer, and includes Jesus' conversation with Moses and Elijah about his exodus. Although sometimes translated as "departure", the Greek definitely implies the connection to Moses freeing the slaves in Egypt.
The transfiguration is followed by Jesus healing a boy by rebuking an unclean spirit (Luke 9:42), and then in 9:44 predicting the passion: “Let these words sink into your ears: The Son of Man is going to be betrayed into human hands.” What does it mean to think about the connection of the passion to the Exodus story? To imagine that Jesus' journey is only toward crucifixion is to end the story of exodus at the sea of reeds. Exodus does not end in the wilderness, but in the continued life of the people in promised land. Jesus death, resurrection, and ascension is a journey toward the church--the body of christ--doing God's work in the world. Which returns us to prayer. In Luke 5:16, 6:12, 9:18, and 11:1 Jesus turns to prayer before and during significant events (McGowan). Prayer is not a private spiritual discipline that Jesus engages to be removed from the world, but rather is preparation for being in the world. It is connection to God that keeps Jesus going. How much more so we must turn to prayer to maintain our connection to God! Jesus' public ministry begins with a proclamation of the year of the God's favor, as evidenced by good news to the poor, release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and freedom for the oppressed (Luke 4:18-19). His earthly exodus is one that ushers in a church called to continue the proclamation of God's Kingdom. In times like these, when the future for the oppressed seems impossible, we remember Moses leading the exodus, and Jesus standing firm against the powers-that-be. We must focus on bringing about exodus for the oppressed, departing out of violence of oppression and into God's promise. We do that with prayers to keep us connected to God, and with action to be God's hands and feet in the world. We do that with Jesus, the anointed, guiding us, and the Holy Spirit giving us the power and courage to act. To subscribe to my Newsletter Click Here. |
My ThoughtsFor my organized thoughts, see my book Five Loaves, Two Fish, Twelve Volunteers: Developing Relational Food Ministries. In this spot are thoughts that appear for a moment--about food programs, mission, church, building community, writing, and whatever else pops into my head. History
March 2025
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