A sermon preached at Old South Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, Hallowell, Maine, January 8, 2012.
The Rev. Susan M Reisert, Pastor
Texts: Acts 19:1-7; Mark 1:4-11
The proposed budget for 2012, which the Board of Trustees has been sweating over for the past few months, deliberating and discussing and praying over and sometimes sighing and frowning over, sets out some important changes for the church. The primary change is the reduction of the pastor’s time, my time, from full-time to three-quarter time.
This reduction allows for, among other things, the following: keeping all of the other staff members at current, part-time, levels (the music director, the handbell choir director, the sexton, the administrative assistant, and the Christian Education director), with each getting a modest raise in compensation. The reduction also allows the church to tackle an issue that it hasn’t really discussed—and that is, that each year that I have been here, my compensation has slowly, but steadily, slipped away from Maine Conference compensation guidelines, in a downward direction.
If, for instance, I received no raise in 2012, but was expected to work full-time, my compensation would be $10,000 below Maine Conference guidelines for my level of experience.
In the proposed budget, my compensation was raised by the amount equivalent to halfway to that baseline of the compensation guidelines, from where it was in 2011, and then it was cut to 75%.
For some of you, this change has been heart-wrenching, difficult, and unexpected. Certainly, it has been unwelcome. What does it mean? And, perhaps, the question that I’ve heard in one form or another the most: does this mean that we have failed as a church?
That question, we are going to explore today and next week as well. There’s a lot of cover.
Does reducing the pastor’s time from full-time to three-quarter time mean that the church has failed?
The answer is very simple: it can if you want it to. Let me say that again. Does the reduction in the pastor’s time from full to three-quarters indicate that the church has failed?
It can if you want it to.
Let me say clearly from the start, the decision to reduce the pastor’s time does not need to be a permanent one. It can be bumped back up, with more revenues coming in.
Where would we get more revenues? Well, we essentially have two choices: 1. We could shake everybody down for more cash, or 2. We could work harder to invite more people to join us in our life together as a community of faith, a place where people can learn more about God and get connected to God’s love for them, and to share this wonderful gift with others.
Now, we have been talking about this number 2 option often over the last few years, and we’ve focused on that topic in a variety of ways. But, so far, I think we can all agree that we haven’t changed our circumstances very much at all.
For the most part, our attendance and membership numbers have held pretty steady. We’ve had about the same number coming in as going out, in one way or another.
If you are truly concerned about what is happening with the 2012 budget and you don’t like the notion of a three-quarter time pastor and would rather have a full-time pastor, then you should be thinking about this time ahead as an opportunity—an opportunity to think through and pray over some of the things we’ve talked about over the last few years; an opportunity to allow yourself to be inspired; an opportunity to connect in a new way to the movement of the Spirit in our midst and how that Spirit continues to try to push us and pull us sometimes to places we would prefer not to go. But, let’s face it, continuing to do things the way that we have liked and preferred and found most comfortable, well, that hasn’t led to growth.
We have a choice, a stark choice. If we like things to be just the way they are, then we better get used to having a three-quarter time pastor, and likely a half-time pastor in the not too distant future. If we don’t like things moving in this direction, it’s time to try some new things, though we will need to spend some time carefully considering who we are and where we are called to go, and it just may be that we are called to walk the path that we are on. We’ll be looking at that next week.
But, this week, we’ll stay focused on the possibility of trying to walk a new path to growth. We have a great deal of evidence that the status quo is not the path to growth. We’ve been doing it this way for how long? A long time. It should be clear as day that maintaining how we do things just as they are isn’t going to lead to growth.
But, at the same time, we all know that we like it this way. What we do is meaningful to those of us who gather here. So, what I’m saying is that, if we choose to try to grow, we will need to find a way to balance—keep some amount of our life together just as it is, but to boldly experiment with some new things, that may help us be more inviting to new people, and, hey, this may come as a shock, but some of those new things you just might find meaningful yourself. There’s something to consider.
And, I’m not just talking here about worship and changing that from the ground up, but to consider ourselves as a whole and think about places where we could experiment.
Before we get too carried away, though, let’s get something out there in a very direct way: it’s a tough time to be the church. It’s a tough time.
At Bill Walsh’s ordination last month in Waterville, I was struck by how often this theme was invoked by people from various churches from around the state. It’s a difficult time to be the church and it’s especially difficult to be among the old mainline church.
Let’s talk about a couple of issues. These I’ve mentioned before, but they are worth repeating:
When we were the go-to church, when the culture at large was helping to fill our pews, especially in the 1950s and 60s, we became lazy evangelists. And, we’ve never recovered. We don’t really know how to talk about our faith, or why we gather as the church. We have a hard time interacting with the larger community, telling them about who we are, on a collective and individual level. It’s unlikely that the society in which we live will return to that ethos of the 1950s, so we need to let that go and think about how we are going to become better evangelists, messengers of the good news.
The culture in which we live doesn’t share some of the values that most of us probably treasure. One of those values is that we enjoy being a moderate, middle of the road, kind of place. We tend to pride ourselves on having a range of perspectives, and thoughts and opinions, in our congregation. We like that we don’t all agree on every issue. Now, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this doesn’t seem to be a value held by the culture in which we exist—at least not anymore. People tend to pick a side of an issue, or decide which political party they belong to, or movement, and then they stick to that like glue, and only hang out with other people who share the same opinion or perspective. This is happening with the church as well. Some of you have noticed that the more conservative churches have fuller parking lots on Sunday mornings, but the same is true for those churches on the other side. There aren’t as many of them in this part of the world, but they are growing too, especially some of the Unitarian Universalist churches. The clearly conservative and the clearly liberal churches—both are enjoying some growth. Being in the middle makes things especially difficult for us. It’s a hard time being the church.
And, then there is the issue of the demographics. Maine is the oldest state in the country. And, as well, this part of the world is not growing and not too long ago, between 1980 and 2000, experienced a noticeable decline in population, especially among younger people.
It’s a hard time to be the church.
So, if we are hoping to change our circumstances, if we are expecting that we can alter the path that we are on, that we can trust that a future budget will restore a full time pastor, then we have a lot to think about and consider. And, there are some other important issues that we must bring into this as well and we’ll do some of that next week.
For today, if you are one of those people who is eager to change the direction of the budget, then it’s time to get excited and inspired; it’s time to get centered on the holy One whose birth we just celebrated and whose baptism we reflect on today.
Today is just the kind of message we need. It’s a holy collision of word, water and spirit and it’s not just about Jesus—it’s about his followers as well.
Jesus leads us to this place, where we have an intimate encounter with our God, where we learn that we will never be alone, no matter how dense the wilderness seems to be, no matter how daunting the task at hand appears, no matter how hard it is to be the church. Jesus leads us to that place where we learn that we will never be alone.
Now, that doesn’t mean that we are going to have it easy, not even close. Look at Jesus. One moment he’s having this wonderful moment—the voice of God, the appearance of the dove, the exclamation of being beloved. And, then it’s off to the desert to be tempted.
But, here in this moment, we are reminded of the power of baptism—Jesus’ baptism and our baptism. We are never alone. God’s love for us doesn’t depend on us. God’s grace doesn’t wash off.
Whenever Martin Luther found himself ready to give up, whenever worry for his own life and the life of the Church he loved overwhelmed him, it is said that he would touch his forehead and say to himself: "Remember Martin, you have been baptized."
For those of you who have been baptized, I’d like you to take a moment, touch yourself on the forehead and repeat, “Remember, I have been baptized.” (the last two paragraphs are inspired by the sermon “In the Hole He Goes,” by the Rev. Timothy T. Boggess, which can be found at: http://day1.org/1191-in_the_hole_he_goes)
And, in that baptism, there’s a powerful collision of Word, water and Spirit. Don’t ever forget it.
Amen.
Holy and Gracious God, speaking into our lives
The voice of the LORD is glory and strength,
The voice of the Lord is holy splendor, full of majesty,
May we hear, deeply, may You sound-through us
May we be your body, hands, feet, heart
Reaching out to others may we extend your love.
Creator God, stir us, we pray
For the voice of the Lord speaks into our lives.
May the LORD bless God’s people with peace
May the LORD give strength to God’s people!
That we may care for the broken,
Hungry, needy, sick, bereaved,
Creator God, whisper to us in the silence
For you, God, called the light Day,
and the darkness You called Night.
You named all creation.
Baptized by the Spirit,
May we quietly hear you and
Gently follow. Inbreaking God
Shout us out of our illusions.
God of mercy, lead our leaders
Nations, cities, houses of worship,
Houses of people, lead all with mercy
That we, all, may be merciful as you.
God of compassion, through your Holy Spirit
Forgive us, redeem us, restore us, teach us, fill us.
Incarnate God, divine and human
Body and spirit, us and you
Baptized in the Spirit,
Ascribe to us, your compassion,
That we may be your voice, your heart, your hands
This day and every day.
Amen.