​Small church ministry is very much a ministry of place. We are grounded in a particular place, and in a particular time. For some churches our primary role in this time of disruption will be to hang on to the holiness of this.

Our place is not only our building, but where we are in town, which street corner, which neighborhood. Our place includes all the people around us, and near us, and the roads and yards and woods and lakes that take up that space. Many who are in this place do not know us, and we don't 'know them.

And yet, together, we are beloved by God

Psalm 91 suggests that living in the shadow of God is living in a place of refuge. This is a time that it feels there is no refuge from the chaos and violence being perpetrated on our nation. God's protection does not feel sufficient. We need to do more to recognize God's presence in this place.
One project we might engage in is to focus on caring for the people who are under attack in this location.

If you don't know your neighborhood now is a good time to get out there. Figure out who lives around you and what they are dealing with. Look for people strengths and engage in Asset Mapping (from Asset Based Community Development). This is where you identify who you know, and who they know, and identify strengths, skills, passions, and connections. You are building a web of information about who is available in a crisis.

If you are engaged with a particular part of the community, now is a good time to expand that engagement. What is one more thing you can add. You'll figure out what by asking the community members you already are connected to.

Pay attention also to who is hurting. Immigrants, trans people, people who are poor, and people who have been laid off from Government employment come to mind, but this will be very specific to your community. Remember to focus on these people strengths, skills, passions, and connections, too. No one is only a need, everyone has something contribute.

And consider the strengths of our church. Are you an available meeting place? Do you have leadership with particularly useful expertise and passions? Are your members good community organizers, bringing your neighbors together? Do you have the skills to bring the powerful practices of lament, or the tiny embers of hope to a secular conversation--without telling others how to feel or what to do?

Perhaps your church will start these community conversations, or perhaps you will join the gatherings already happening. Either way the take seriously your role as a church to be part of what makes this local community a refuge, a balm, a support. For God to be a refuge, God's people must step up to build safe community.

Be Here. Now.

If there is anything that churches know how to do well, it is to feed people. We do this well metaphorically, and we do this well literally. Today I want to talk about ways we can use our skill at feeding people to support the resistance.

There are so many opportunities to feed people! Start with some local gathering where your neighbors are talking about how best to support immigrants, or trans people, or democracy--show up at the meeting with food! I suggest that your church be represented by two or three people. Bring easy to eat finger food to meetings: cookies, grapes, a pitcher of water or lemonade. Don't bring too much, bring the simplest of paper goods, and adjust what you bring next time based on whether it gets eaten. Home made is a delight of course. Meetings are better with food; food helps to create connections.

First Congregational Church in Rindge, NH funds dinner for the local Bridging Differences group. A volunteer orders from a black owned business in town; students at the local university are more likely to join the conversation when dinner is provided.

If you are showing up at town meeting or an controversial discussion, your congregation should send a delegation rather than and individual. And bring brownies and/or tangerines. Connect with folk over the snacks before the meeting starts, making it easier to feel like you are talking to friends, not adversaries. My congregation brought granola bars and lemonade to people standing out at election time--we brought them to both sides, introduced ourselves and then went on our way. It was tense, but some of the people we think of as "against" us showed up at our active bystander training later in the year. We provided food for that, too!

A bag of jelly beans, or candy canes, or valentine hearts, and certainly almost always chocolate might be good for when your church delegation visits with an elected official.

If you already have a meal or pantry, add some posters, table cards, or other markers to make it clear it is open to people regardless of their immigration status, and that LGBTQIA+ people are welcome. I heard of a church that had one table reserved at their dinner for discussion about how to stay safe. If you have the capacity consider adding events specifically for a group that is being attacked.

In the early church, the evidence that the Kingdom of God is at hand was the existence of dinner every night, open to all regardless of their status as poor, female, or slave. The image of going from being a beggar to someone who was welcomed into the church family dinner still fills me with awe. It is the simplest of tasks to feed people, and it is the greatest as well.

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So far, I'm sure you noticed that I haven't mentioned anything about what is going on right now. Certainly one of my points is that the best reaction to the chaos is to take a deep breath and figure out how to do well those things that churches do well. The name Act! Be Church Now is something I thought of in terms of the current crisis in our government, but Be Church and the idea Act! are essential to my ecclesiology.

The internal work of church is definitely to learn how to be with God. Who we choose to be as a community is what defines our health as a congregation. I'll write more on this in later weeks. But I'm not good at sitting around and praying. My prayers happen while I'm doing things. The answer to these times is to Act! The answer to how to be church has always been Act!

To be sure, especially in dying churches, some people choose to do everything. To try everything. To aim to be everything for everyone. That is not going to help. Anxiety driven action is not what helps us to be the Body of Christ. (Thus, more on how to be coming soon.) But to have a single action, or two actions, that define your congregation to the people outside your doors is essential to my definition of church. The purpose of church is to meet the needs of the people of God--members, visitors, and those in the community we are a part of. (Not all the needs. One of the needs. Two of the needs.)

Both of the churches that I serve right now, and most of the churches I have every served have food pantries. We are taking seriously Jesus command to feed those who are hungry. One church I served also had a moving ministry, providing support, and a truck, for people moving into or out of our town. Another had a healing service and worked with Rape Crisis Center. One of my present churches provides a Rainbow Senior Meal once a month, lunch for the shortest days, dinner and an outdoor BBQ the rest of the time. Another is the sponsor of the town's Bridging Differences group, providing conversations about how we can welcome people across differences in racial identity and sexual orientation.

As you can see, all of these projects are somewhat connected to political environment we are in. But we didn't start them because of that. We started these ministries to serve the needs of people in our community who would otherwise be overlooked. Each of these programs took years to become embedded in our community and to become markers of our identity as church.

That is the gift of church. We have the time to be the steady presence reaching out to a group of people that might be hurt by society at large. We have the time and the foundational values that allow us to set the priority on the relationships that we build. We are not necessarily the most politically astute and we don't have the legal chops. We have, or can choose to build, the relationships with the people who need to be heard. Often it is the church in town that calls the community to gather after a disaster.

So to churches that are making connections with people who would otherwise be ignored--keep going. Keep doing the work you are doing. These relationships are essential to the future of our communities. If your church is not yet making those connections, spend time now figuring out what group that you can reach, and begin the work of building relationships.

I offer to us all this youtube video from the Ezra Klein show.  The point is this--the chaos is meant to overwhelm you. The chaos is meant to distract you. The chaos is the actual strategy. Remember that God creates the world out of chaos, so we can choose to stay focused on God, and focused on our relationships in the community. We can Be Church Now.

​(Send me a note about what your congregation is doing in these times!)