That seems to be the message of Mark’s gospel. Where the other gospels tell us in a leisurely way about Jesus sitting on mountains or in boats, preaching long sermons, teaching people how to live, Mark’s story gallops along at breakneck pace, with Jesus hurling himself from one situation to another – teaching, healing, casting out demons. Mark is not interested in what Jesus says as much as what Jesus does. Mark often uses the term “immediately” – immediately Jesus went here, immediately Jesus did this – in today’s gospel, this word is translated as “just then” and “at once.”
In today’s gospel, Mark plunges right into the story – immediately, right in Chapter 1, without taking any time for a Christmas story. Jesus has appeared in the wilderness, been baptized, has been driven out into the desert to be tempted by the devil, and now we see that immediately, the first thing he does in his entire public ministry, is this. He appears in the synagogue, begins teaching with authority, and casts out an evil, unclean spirit from a man, so that everyone is amazed.
We 21st century Americans are left with a bit of puzzlement at a story like this, because when we hear about things like exorcising demons, we tend to think of movies like The Exorcist, with heads spinning around – and think it’s mythical. But Mark is very clear that this is the first thing Jesus does, and we should pay attention – because the first thing is symbolic of what his whole ministry will be.
What Mark tells us today is that Jesus’ whole message, “The Kingdom of God has come near, repent, and believe in the good news,” will be framed in terms of Jesus confronting evil. And what is evil? Not simply demons causing heads to spin. Evil is this: where God wants to build us up, evil tears us down; where God wants us to flourish, evil starves us, shrivels us up; where God wants us to grow into the full and glorious human beings we were created to be, made in the image and likeness of God, evil holds us trapped by the worship of false gods, lesser images. And Mark gives a little extra emphasis by calling this demon an “unclean spirit” –something that must be separated from holy society, exiled – and we see that evil is what isolates and separates us from each other.
Jesus brings this man back from exile, reconciles him to the holy community, brings him back into relationship with God and his neighbors. Which is exactly what Jesus promises each of us. Jesus comes to set us free from these evil things that hold us in bondage, to reconcile us to God and each other, to restore us to our true home with God, to establish God’s Kingdom, beginning immediately.
When Jesus shows up, things start happening.
Well, that’s as good a title as any for my State of the Parish Address – when Jesus shows up, things start happening. If Jesus gallops at breakneck pace through Mark’s gospel, sometimes it feels like what we’ve done at Nativity has been like that. In only a little over 5 years, we have seen remarkable things happening. We started meeting in homes, Jesus showed up, and immediately people started joining the team. We launched worship in a school, Jesus showed up, and immediately people found a church home with us. We lost our lease in the school, Jesus showed up, and immediately an angel stepped forward to help. We needed a permanent home, Jesus showed up, and an amazing location became available, along with the dedicated people and resources to make it happen in this coming year.
All along the way, our people, our ministers, our financial support, our growth, have all seemed like miracles, casting out evil, restoring people in our community and people touched by our ministries to right relationship with God, establishing in some small way a corner of the kingdom of God.
When Jesus shows up, things start happening.
This week I received an email from the rector of All Saints Phoenix, the largest church in our diocese, addressed to me and 14 other priests in the diocese. His email asked that the rectors of the 15 largest parishes in the diocese join him in a Lenten appeal for Episcopal Relief & Development. And I thought, wait, what? We’re one of the 15 largest parishes in our diocese? I asked him where he got his figures, and he said he wasn’t sure, but he based it on a quick glance at the mission shares. He also said that if we’re not one of the largest parishes yet, we will be soon, because what we’ve done has been amazing.
So I’m not sure if he’s correct about the figures, but let’s talk about our numbers (which will be in your annual report materials). In 5 years, we have grown from zero to average attendance of 155 in 2011. On Sundays when we have two services, that is, during our program year of August through May, we average 170 each Sunday. From 2010 to 2011, our average attendance increased by almost 20%. We had 352 people in attendance on Christmas, up from 300 in 2010. The number of children enrolled in Sunday school increased from 21 to 33; the number of teens enrolled in youth group increased from 21 to 31 (about a 50% increase in both categories). In 2011, we had 2 marriages, 7 baptisms, 7 adults confirmed, and 23 teenagers confirmed.
Those are pretty amazing numbers for a parish that didn’t exist 6 years ago, that meets in an office building without permanent signage, that is pretty hidden away and hard to find. But people do find us, because when Jesus shows up, things start happening.
But of course, what we do at church isn’t about numbers. It’s about mission. People. Our mission is to transform people’s lives with the love of God in Jesus Christ. And we believe that’s God’s mission too. Someone wise once said, God’s church doesn’t have a mission. God’s mission has a church. We are that church, empowered by God to be the agent of God’s mission.
We get an idea of how we are accomplishing God’s mission by looking at numbers of people involved in ministry here. Your annual report materials will show a list of the number of people involved in various ministries at Nativity – and by our count, there are roughly 861 separate ministries going on here. In our Outreach area alone, which gives service to those in need, over 5,000 lives were touched last year by things Nativity people did. Hungry people were fed, homeless people were given a place to live, children were given an education, houses were remodeled, Christmas presents were given – lives were transformed.
When Jesus shows up, things start happening.
But it’s not time for us to rest and congratulate ourselves – we have an exciting mission still ahead of us – and I, for one, can’t wait to get started on it. Certainly our building project will take huge amount of energy this year – I am grateful for help of Bob Christopher, Art Graf, Bill Deihl, and the other Building Committee members. But we can’t concentrate on a building as reason for existence – God’s mission is why we exist.
I have been thinking and praying about our ministries and mission. I believe we have great strengths in areas like worship and outreach. And I believe that in the coming year, God is calling us to work to develop 5 areas of mission.
First, if we are going to transform lives, our first priority in the coming year is to reach more people with the good news of what Christ is doing at Nativity. George Hartz will be leading the effort to let people in our new neighborhood know about our presence, and we invite you to join him in this project. He has some great strategic ideas for how to reach new people.
The second priority is to build on a strength we already have – children and youth ministries. We have 64 kids now registered, and a very lively and active youth group. We need to build on these strengths, increasing the depth and creativity of our offerings for children, giving our teachers extra resources to help young minds learn about Jesus’ love for them. This will be a priority for me in the coming year.
And we also need to help our terrific youth reach out to other young people in our community. Klayton Chew, our Director of Youth Ministries, will be graduating from college in May and applying for a full-time job in the business world, so he intends to move back to an assistant youth leader position. We are fortunate that our diocese has a program intended to give partial funding for a full-time youth leader for four years. We intend to apply for this program and hope to call a Youth Ministry Apprentice, a full-time person with significant responsibility for meeting new kids outside of church. We are in an amazing position of strength in this area, and we can help our kids, and others, grow spiritually, socially, emotionally, and in their involvement with the church, by making our youth program even stronger.
The third priority I see is to deepen our opportunities for adult discipleship and learning. It is our calling not only to get people in the door so they can come to know Jesus through our worship, but also to help them grow as disciples through learning and service. This area will be a challenge for us this year, as Wayne Whitney, our Pastoral Intern, will be going on to another assignment after this summer, and at this point we do not appear to have the budget to replace him. I am hoping to develop a corps of lay leaders for small groups that can enjoy short-term small group commitments to learn and build community. Our Spiritual Practices Small Group Study is a pilot program for this initiative.
The fourth priority I see is this – pastoral care of those inside and outside our church. We have strong, dedicated healing ministries, prayer leaders, LEMs. We also have five people now involved in the Community of Hope International program, which is a one-year training program to help them learn skills of listening and pastoral care. I believe this program gives us the opportunity to reach more people. We will have more people available for visitations, and we will be able to start lay chaplaincy programs with places like assisted living centers and hospitals. David Smith will be leading this effort as administrator of the COHI program.
The fifth priority is stewardship of what we have, ensuring careful fiscal responsibility. I do not want to be in a position of having the financial tail wag the church dog – I want to make sure we have adequate finances to answer God’s call to mission. I don’t have to tell you that building a new church facility is a huge financial commitment. Many, many thanks to all of you who have been such committed supporters of this project. Art Graf, our treasurer, will tell us more in the annual meeting about where we stand financially; we are in solid shape with some challenges ahead. Building is a big commitment, and it is also an act of faith. We will not let ourselves get into an irresponsible position. But we will also not be so timid and cautious that we cannot grow. We need to take the step of building to answer God’s call to reach new people, transforming lives with the love of Jesus Christ.
And the reason to reach new people is not to meet our financial obligations, The reason is that we are called to join God in God’s mission – because God’s mission has a church, and that’s Nativity. We are the church Christ calls to join in God’s mission. And I believe that what we do will truly transform lives.
Because when Jesus shows up, things start happening.
No comments:
Post a Comment