Sermon for August 31

Good morning friends!

It is good to gather in worship with all of you this Sunday.

I hope that this day finds you well, and that you are enjoying the three day weekend. Tomorrow I hope that you take time to honor labor day. It is a good chance to remember the value of work, and the meaning it creates in our lives, to remember the struggles of workers through history who have fought for humane treatment from their employers and won things like paid vacation, holidays, and regulated work weeks, to consider the work yet to be done in improving conditions for workers, like better parental leave, and to pray for those who are not able to find work, or are not paid a reasonable wage for their efforts.

This is the last Sunday in our sermon series about visioning, before our retreat next weekend. I'm excited about gathering with all of you to talk about our work together with Roland Kuhl! It's going to be a fun weekend, hopefully not too hot, and filled with good friends and good conversation.

I wanted to start this morning with a quick summary our work last Sunday, when we talked about what priorities might be most important for us as a church.

We had lots of good ideas, which I hope we unpack more, but three major themes emerged out of our common reflections.

1. a focus on children and youth-there was a sense that we have a wonderful opportunity right now to expand our family friendly spirit, and work on how we care for kids in our congregation.
2. A focus on our neighborhood-working with the international institute or other neighborhood groups or on our own to increase our connections with this community.
3. A focus on inter cultural connections in St. Louis, particularly with Bethesda Mennonite Church.

Now, we had about 31 responses, and we've got about twice that many people in the church, so I don't want to say that 'these are our projects'. This will require some more reflections on how to move forward, which is part of what we want to do next weekend. But I think it's an interesting start.

And there are two things I'll point out-

First, I'm excited that we hired Jennifer-we already said she was going to work on our relationships in the neighborhood and to work with Christian Education, particularly for children, and I feel like this indicates a sense of self knowledge that is quite healthy.

And second, if you put one of those goals down on your sheet, I'd encourage you to consider how you might participate in this work in our congregation, and strengthen our current efforts. Whether that's teaching Sunday School or helping with youth group or cooking the peace meal or coming to the yard sale or singing in the joint choir with Bethesda, there are some good ways we are already engaged in this work. It is my prayer that these thoughts might serve as fuel for our conversation next week.

But today, I want to take our thoughts in a little different direction. Last week our question was 'what are we supposed to do?' Today, I'd like to reflect on 'who we are called to be?' It's a subtle difference. After all, our character is defined by our actions. But I think it is useful, as we do our visioning, to think not just about what we are doing, but how we are doing it.

The Gospel and Our Culture Network is a Christian organization working to help churches find new ways of being faithful in a changing culture. We know the changes that have happened in the last few decades. There is modern communication technology connecting us 24/7, a rapid decline of church attendance in the United States, significant shifts in our public morality, and other dynamics that have reshaped our culture at a remarkable rate. And the church universal, as well as the church particular has to be aware of and engaged with these trends. Many of the models that have served the church well for generations seem to be less constructive in our current context.

And as a way of thinking about how churches might successfully flourish going forward in the 21^st Century, these scholars looked at churches doing good work, and asked what ties them together? What are the characteristics that seem to be bringing life?

They highlight 12, which I've included in the bulletin. They are all interesting, and worth thinking about for us, but a list of 7 was already to many last Sunday, so I'm not going to try and summarize them for you. Instead, what I'm going to do is let you read them, and I'd like you to think about which ones we are good at as a congregation (pick 1) and which ones might be a growth area (1 again, if you can), and that's what you can share when we break into small groups after the sermon.

Instead I'd like to reflect on this question of congregational character, or personality. The Gospel and our Culture network does not outline theological decisions that congregations were making that lead to successful congregations-they found healthy churches in lots of different traditions, from the most liberal to the most conservative.

And they did not outline programs our worship styles that led to congregations flourishing-these congregations had all sorts of different ministries, and lots of different ways of praising God. There was no magic formula that made a congregation a success.

No, what these scholars found was that the congregations that were healthiest demonstrated a set of character traits that applied to different theological and practical ways of being church, they had a personality that connected with neighbors and strangers in such a way that people were drawn towards Jesus.

Now, this isn't exactly a clean distinction-the trait of 'practicing hospitality (number 9)' requires some particular tasks-welcoming visitors, making it easy to navigate the unwritten congregational rules, lots of easy ways to make deeper connections, things like that. We have to demonstrate our personality, after all. You may say you're friendly, but if you spend the whole party sitting in the corner, no one else will notice.

And so I've been thinking about the personality that the church should be trying to practice. And its sort of a tricky question.

Rachel and I had a conversation last week about the events in Ferguson, and how hard it is to speak well publicly in times of crisis. It is so easy to say something that is perceived as rude or one-sided or mean, or cruel. And the public dialogue can be so harsh-putting things on the internet is asking to get yelled at, sometimes by people who actually agree with you. Yet at the same time, it would be strange for the church not to speak, to ignore the structural racism embedded in our society that leaves so many out, to call for love and justice in our relationships with the poor, and to invite everyone to practice peace in times of conflict. to proclaim the gospel in the world.

Or, as the Gospel and our Culture Network would put it, we are trying to have a vital public witness (11), to behave towards one another in a Christian way (6), and to celebrate the diversity that God has put here on earth (7). Which means that we find ourselves stumbling towards good ways of speaking with one another, trying to listen well, and have open ears and open hearts, while still being clear about where we stand and what we believe in (2 and 12).

In our daily lives, we're trying to have the personality of Jesus, and that's something that we can do, regardless of what we believe, or where we fall on the political or theological spectrum.

And that is part of what I see Paul getting at in Romans 12 this morning. Paul isn't listing out programs. He isn't giving the church tasks that fit in the 7 priorities. He's outlining a way of being in the world-love that is genuine, prayers for those who persecute us, honor others above ourselves, don't be proud, feed your enemies, these are techniques that call for the nascent Christian community to try and be a peculiar kind of people in attitude as well as in deeds.

And that makes me think about parables. We often think of the parables as instructions for practice-rules for living. But I think they make sense most as instructions for being-for the personality we're trying to live out. Stories like the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son, the Labors in the Vineyard are filled with people acting in remarkable ways, challenging what it means to be good people, pushing us to think about a deeper understanding of love, justice, and real relationship. They challenge us to get beyond priorities to the very ways that we think about being human, think about who we are as a church.

So too, then should we look at ourselves, and ask, what is our personality as a congregation, and where might we want to push ourselves a little bit, develop new traits and practices, intentionally live out something new.

So I'm going to invite you now to turn to your neighbors, in groups of two and three, and reflect on the personality of SLMF, to pick out some of the missional character traits that you think we do well, and you think we might do well to work at, and we'll see what we come up with.

Ready? Begin!

1. Missional character trait: The missional church proclaims the Gospel.

2. Missional character trait: The missional church is a community where all members are involved in learning to become disciples of Jesus.
3. The Bible is normative for this church's life. It sets the standard for our life as a people.

4. Missional character trait: The church understands itself as different from the world because of its participation in the life, death, and resurrection of its Lord.

5. Missional character trait: The church seeks to discern God's specific missional vocation for the entire community and for all of its members.

6. Missional character trait: A missional community is indicated by how Christians behave toward one another.

7. Missional character trait: The members are engaged in a community that practices reconciliation and embraces the diversity that God has created here on earth.

8. Missional character trait: People within the community hold themselves accountable to one another in love.

9. Missional character trait: The church practices hospitality.

10. Missional character trait: Worship is the central act by which the community celebrates with joy and thanksgiving both God's presence and God's promised future.

11. Missional character trait: This community has a vital public witness.

12. Missional character trait: There is a recognition that the church itself is an incomplete expression of the reign of God.