Where Will Our Next Pastor Come From?

If your congregation has a settled pastor, this may not be the question at the forefront of your congregation's thoughts... but perhaps it should be.

The mainline church is in the midst of significant change, but that's not news anymore. One of the often overlooked components of that change is what the future of pastoral leadership looks like. Here are some startling facts: 

·         80% of all authorized ministers in the UCC are over age 50.

·         Only 6% of all authorized ministers are under age 40.

·         From 1992 to 2012, the number of employed ordained ministers decreased by more than 1,300.

·         Licensed Ministers now account for 9% of all authorized ministers.

·         There is some good news - the number of female pastors is up to 46%. (although they are, on average, still paid less than their male counterparts)

·         70% of all UCC churches have a worship attendance of less than 100.

·         Here in Vermont, only about 1/3 of our churches have a full time pastor.

So, most of our pastors are over 50 years old, opportunities for full time pastorates have declined significantly, but even so there aren't enough new pastors in the pipeline to offset the massive upcoming retirements. Starting to think this is something to pay attention to?

The way we 'make' pastors is getting a lot of attention these days. I don't think our denomination's appreciation for a learned clergy is going away anytime soon, in fact I think the 4+3 (undergrad degree plus a Master's of Divinity) education model as part of a Member in Discernment process should remain the normative one.  And yet, there are significant obstacles before us, including:

·      With fewer churches who can afford one, there are limited opportunities for newly minted ordained pastors to be called to a full time pastorate.

·      Many seminarians graduate with more than $100K in total college debt, and face decades of student loan payments.

·      Local Church Pastor is not always the first career choice - even for those attending seminary.

At the United Church of Christ General Synod this past summer, one of the resolutions we considered tried to address at least part of this systemic problem. It was the resolution that sparked the most debate, more than mountaintop mining and divestment from fossil fuels and all the others. The initial resolution draft called for the establishment of a sixth all-church offering to be used for financial assistance for seminarians swimming in debt. In one of the closest votes at Synod, the resolution language was changed from "an annual all-church offering and other possible funding initiatives" to "an annual all-church offering or other possible funding initiatives." The amendment passed with 51.3% of the votes in favor. Our General Minister and President was for the amendment, stating that requiring a sixth offering would "tie the Collegium's hands...". The national setting of the church is working on options that will likely be brought to the next General Synod in 2015.

While the urgent matters before our churches call to us with loud voices, we cannot allow them to drown out the important matters that are also before us. Multiple Paths to Ordination and Licensed Ministry will have an important role as we go forward, but they are a partial solution to a larger challenge. How will we provide a continuum of support to those called to pastoral ministry to ensure that they are well prepared and unburdened as they begin their calling?

So, do you know where your next pastor is going to come from? It's not a rhetorical question.

Peace,

Jim

Facts, Truths, Future?

Somehow I appointed myself "Fact Checker of the Internet." When one of my friends forwards an email, or posts on Facebook something that doesn't look right; off I go to Snopes or other places in an attempt to verify. And I know I'm not always completely gracious when my suspicions are correct. I do think we have an obligation to ensure what we say (or forward) is correct.

Now, I'm not talking about debating opinions. You can malign the President's performance, or do the same for the Tea Party, and you'll get nary a twitch out of me. We're entitled to our opinions, even if they're wrong. And with a Facebook friends list that is comprised of military veterans, industrialists, and progressive church folks, my page is a very interesting intersection. Almost anything I post makes someone unhappy. Which is why some days I stick to cat videos.

But facts are important. When we are barraged by information from 24 hour news channels, and websites and emails, it's easy to become an unwittingly complicit information consumer, or, if you will, a lazy acceptor of things-with-which-I-want-to-agree-whether-factual-or-not.

Remember what Honest Abe said (Happy Birthday Mr. President!):

But truth be told, I'm much more concerned about your faith than your facts. We can be very busy in our churches with worship and mission and ministries and such. But I wonder if the busyness keeps us from asking ourselves the important questions: How is our faith? How are our souls? How are our communities of faith a respite from our culture rather than trying desperately to mirror it? How does the time we spend together change ourselves and our world?

There are all sorts of ideas about how to attract young people - to call to us the generations lost. Maybe we could start with this: a willingness to have an open conversation with them about what we believe and our faith and our doubts, rather than an emphatic recitation of the facts as we think they are. To share our truths - our Good News - instead of our doctrine. To share the richness and fullness of a life as a follower of Jesus than exacting certitudes about how our way is the best way. To not simply hear but attentively listen and respond.

Are we yet malleable? Do we have room to consider and ponder and grow and change? Are willing to accept into our midst those who may challenge our facts while acknowledging our truths? Do we really want new people who will challenge our understanding of worship and even church itself as they mold it into something that works for their generation?

I hope so. I think it's the way forward.

Peace,   

 

Jim

Welcoming the Stranger on Christmas Eve...

Well, here we are. The 18^th of December. One week until Christmas. The Advent Express train has been gathering a head of steam, racing toward Christmas Eve and our annual celebration of the Birth.

This has been an unsettling Advent for me, the first time in 12 years I was not actively planning the season as a local church pastor. And I have a confession to make (lay folks, change the channel now. Your pastor might not want you to read this next part).

I miss it. I miss the hustle and bustle, I miss the balancing of what Christmas has become in the secular world with what it means to us as a congregation, I miss the controversy over whether it’s OK to pull out our Pilgrim Hymnals so that our generally inclusive congregation can sing the old beloved carols unreformed by gender neutrality, I miss the sometimes snarky discourse over the color of the Advent candles, and…

 

Whoa. Just had one of those moments. I can’t get this vision out of my head of Flora & Merryweather from Sleeping Beauty standing over an Advent Wreath with their magic wands, “Make it pink!” “Make it blue!”

Whew. Still with me? Here’s the part that you may find surprising. In spite of all the things that conspire to make it hard, I love Advent. And I suspect most pastors do too. And in addition to all the obvious answers to why, here’s my #1 reason.

On Christmas Eve, you have a chance to be with and love people who only enter your sanctuary once a year. It’s your congregation’s opportunity to take marginally attached folk and help them find a spiritual home. It’s a night when you put your best foot forward, not just for yourselves, but for the stranger among you. It’s when you can make the case that your congregation, your United Church of Christ congregation, is a sort of hospital

for the religiously wounded, where no matter who they are or where they are on life’s journey, that they are welcome. A place where the spiritual but not religious could find a home. Where the questioner and doubter would be welcomed. Think of your church as the stable. The best accommodations? Perhaps not. But the stable is the one that welcomes the stranger, the disenfranchised, the downtrodden, the vulnerable.

So, as you finish planning for Christmas Eve, keep these people in mind. Be sure your worship is welcoming, hospitable, that you print the words to every prayer in your bulletin, that you avoid ‘church-speak’ whenever possible, that you present love and acceptance as your chief witness. In Randolph Center we served communion on Christmas Eve. Perhaps that seems out of place to you. But we thought of those who only come on Christmas Eve, or are there for the first time in years, or never before, and we wanted to welcome them to the birth and the table. Jesus’ table.

Blessings to you and yours this Christmas season. God has great things planned for us. I can’t wait.

Peace,

Jim

Is your congregation a place embracing change or a refuge from uncomfortable change?

I recently finished reading a book authored by Alan Klaas titled "In Search of the Unchurched: Why People Don't Join Your Congregation." The book was the result of a million dollar, two year, Alban Institute funded project which had some findings that may appear self evident, and some surprises as well.

The researchers began by asking themselves some questions (here's a small sample):

● What were gas stations like thirty years ago?

What are they like now?

● What were grocery stores like thirty years ago?

What are they like now?

● What was communications like thirty years ago?

What is it like now?

You can perhaps guess what questions came next.

● Is the church affected by similar changes?
● Is your congregation a place embracing change or a refuge from uncomfortable change?

The book asserts that 80% of congregations are in decline, due to a combination of factors, not the least of which is the change from a churched to an unchurched society. People no longer automatically participate in a community of faith; and as a result, the way we interact with the community outside the walls of our church must change.
 

I'm reminded of the analogy I once heard Brain McLaren use - "Are we in the phone booth business, or the communications business?" Because if we're in the phone booth business, we're through. If we are in the business of communications, the methodology can be fluid - even when our message is not.

There's a lot to digest in this book, but the point I'm pondering right now (and invite you to ponder with me) is this:

In the churched society, in our church 30 or 40 or 50 years ago, "mission" meant something very different than it means today. Congregations functioning well in the unchurched society of today see themselves as mission outposts in a mission field. These congregations perceive mission as starting at their property line, not in some far off land. Rather than focusing all their energy to meet the needs of current members, they instead invest in new ways to speak to the people in their community.

Peace,

Jim

(gay) Marriage, LGBTQ Christians, the Bible, and Me: A reflection...

I have friends from all over the spectrum, and to avoid heated disagreements I've been more silent than not about this, but I can't do that any longer. It's time for me to say what I believe. Here is a message I wrote for a member of my church.

I was recently asked by a member of my church how I would respond to a woman who left her church because the pastor openly supported LGBTQ rights. It is as divisive and emotionally fraught as any topic in our current public discourse, but I’ll see what I can do. I’d much rather have a conversation than produce a written response, but all I can hope for is that one will read it with an open mind.

            I think to begin; we have to address the thorny problem of the authority of the bible. The bible was not delivered by angels in the form of the King James (more correctly, the Authorized Version) in 1611. We Protestants have been given the Bible by the Roman Catholic Church. Which books would be part of the Canon were debated for 300 years, finally settled at Pope Damasus I's Council of Rome in the year 382. Well, not finally settled. The contents of the Canon have been under review and attack ever since. Even Martin Luther proposed to remove 4 books from the Bible, but it has survived more or less intact. So we are given these particular books because Rome said so, some getting in and others excluded not just for theological reasons but ecclesial, political, and cultural ones as well. And the Authorized Version was translated with a specific purpose in mind: King James directed the translation in many ways, including instructions designed to guarantee that the new version would reflect the episcopal structure of the Church of England and its belief in an ordained clergy, and to limit the Puritan influence on this new translation. (I’m not going to footnote this, but most of the above is from Daniell, David (2003). The Bible in English: its history and influence. New Haven, Conn: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-09930-4. It is also searchable on Wikipedia.)

            All of that leads me to a place where I don’t believe that the Bible is inerrant, infallible, or divinely inspired in the sense of written by people, dictated by angels. In a way I do think the Bible is divinely inspired in the sense that it is a sacred text, just not one that communicates the unaltered word of God. The Bible is the word of God, not the words of God.

            So, whenever I preach on a biblical text, I seek to both place the text in its proper cultural context, and interpret what that text means for us today. I am not worried about the historicity of the bible, but in the underlying truth. The Bible is full of parables and allegory – when Jesus says he is the gate for the sheep, he does not mean that he is an actual, physical gate.

            Now, it is possible to hunt and peck at texts which seem to pass judgment on relationships that are not heteronormative, but you must place each within the correct historical and cultural reference. The Leviticus passages (Leviticus 18:22 and Leviticus 20:13) are the easiest to dismiss. Both of these passages are a part of the Levitical holiness code, which is not kept by any Christian group. If it was enforced, almost every Christian would be excommunicated or executed. It has been logically argued that science and progress have made many of the Levitical laws irrelevant. For example, fundamentalist author Tim LaHaye states that, although Levitical laws prohibit intercourse during menstruation, medical authorities do not view it as harmful, and, therefore, it should not be viewed as sinful. He further explains, “Those laws were given 3,500 years ago before showers and baths were convenient, before tampons, disinfectants and other improved means of sanitation had been invented.” (The Act of Marriage, p.275) With that, LaHaye makes this law irrelevant and rightly so. Ironically, though, in his book, The Unhappy Gay, the Levitical laws are one of the chief cornerstones of his arguments. Much of the holiness code is now irrelevant for us as moral law. Thus, having children, which was of exceptional importance to the early Hebrews, is now made less relevant by overpopulation, just as the prohibition against eating pork and shellfish has been made irrelevant by refrigeration.

The Bible never addresses the issue of homosexual love, yet it does have several beautiful examples of same-sex love. David's love for Jonathan was said to exceed his love for women. (2 Samuel 1:26) Ruth's relationship with Naomi is an example of a deep, bonding love, and Ruth’s words of covenant to Naomi are often used in heterosexual wedding ceremonies. (Ruth 1:16-17) The Bible clearly values love between persons of the same sex. (portions of the above two paragraphs from the writings of Rev Mike Piazza)

It is curious to me how the Leviticus passage is used as an axe against the LGBTQ community. We have easily thrown away most of the rest of the rules from that book, yet we cling to this one. Why? Because it suits those who wish to use it to affirm what they already believe.

Paul had something to say about this, but it is not surprising, given his status as a Pharisee. But again, the context is important. The Rev. Peter Gomes makes the point in The Good Book that it was homosexual behavior by heterosexuals that was being condemned in Genesis and Romans; it was homosexual prostitution associated with pagan worship practices being called sinful, not homosexuality per se.

Why has the Bible been used to damn relationships which are not heteronormative? Perhaps for the same reasons that Holy Scripture has also been abused in history to oppress women, slaughter Jews, Indians, and Muslims, and enslave Africans. Thank God we learn (eventually). Hate is a sad legacy for a book that tells us the greatest commandment is to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.

And what did Jesus say about this? Nothing. Not a word. How would he feel about them and treat them? Well, my understanding of Jesus is of one who always stood up for the marginalized, the down trodden, and the disenfranchised. And there I find my answer. Along with the new commandment which instructs us to love. And regardless what you think about LGBTQ people and gay marriage (which I like to call marriage) it wouldn’t hurt to begin from a place of love.

For the Christian, sin must be understood as a disease that results FROM a broken relationship with God and that results IN a broken relationship with one another and with ourselves. Hence, Jesus' supreme command is to love God and to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Christianity is not a religion with new rules and laws but rather is a new relationship with God. Those things that the legalists are fond of labeling “sins” are actually just symptoms of the much deeper disease of alienation and estrangement. Much of the energy of the Church has been spent dealing with symptoms while leaving the disease intact. Jesus did not seem overly concerned about the legal transgressions of those to whom he ministered. Rather, he was much more concerned with healing the physical, spiritual, emotional and relational brokenness of people. (Piazza)

I don’t understand what causes two people to love each other, and I’ve been married for over 30 years. And I am in no position to call another’s love wrong or imperfect or anything else. I embrace diversity in our congregation and community, and affirm the dignity and worth of every person created in the image of God. I honor the principle that discrimination is incompatible with Christ's Gospel of unconditional love, and welcome into full membership and participation in the Body of Christ persons of every race, language, age, gender, sexual orientation, physical or mental ability, economic or marital status, and faith background. I affirm and celebrate all loving and committed relationships. And specifically, as a follower of Jesus, I wholeheartedly support marriage equality.

Jim Thomas 

Does It Matter Where the Rockets Come Down?

Some years Lent and its purposeful reflection sends me down some odd rabbit holes. This year I'm pondering to what extent we take our Sunday morning faith into the rest of the week - I mean - do we live into being a disciple of Jesus away from church? And does it matter?

I'm intrigued by the life of Wernher von Braun. Wernher wasthe central figure of the German rocket program from the 1930's until the end of World War II. A real life rocket scientist, perhaps the greatest one in history. He developed the V-2 rocket, built with workers from concentration camps, and more than 3,000 were fired upon England and Belgium during the last 18 months of that war. After the war, he was whisked to the United States along with several members of his team. His history was whitewashed, and we put him to work. Designing ICBMs. And later, the Saturn 5 rocket that took our astronauts to the moon. It's fair to say we might not have made that trip without him.

Tom Lehrer

Wernher was contrite about his past later in life, resulting in some revisionism. In his recollection of the day of the first successful firing of a V-2 at England he quoted himself as saying "The rocket worked perfectly except for landing on the wrong planet." Nice one, Wernher. He described himself as apolitical, and cared more about designing rockets than what they were used for. He was famously spoofed in the mid 1960s by satirist Tom Lehrer in his song "Wernher von Braun" which included the lyrics: "Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down; That's not my department," says Wernher von Braun."

But.

But, it IS our department, isn't it? We can't hold the moral high ground for an hour a week and put it away for the rest of it. If discipleship means anything, it means this: That we live our whole lives as followers and disciples of Jesus, and whole means not just all of us, but all of our time.

Some of us seem to have built a partition that we hide behind, disconnecting our professed faith from how we actually lead our lives. This Lenten season, I am being intentional about not doing that. The mantra I repeat to myself (and I invite you to say to yourself) is:

"I DO care where the rockets come down."

All the time.

Every day.

Amen.

Resistance to Change: Stumbling Block to Church Vitality

Do not say, 'Why were the former days better than these?'

   For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.

-Ecclesiastes. 7:10

This week, fresh from vacation, (it was wonderful, thank you) I've been pondering resistance to change. It may be the single most significant stumbling block to our future vitality. There are many factors, but let's explore just a few to see if they resonate with you in your setting:

Connection to the Old Way: We feel more comfortable with things the way we have grown used to them. In addition, individual tolerance for change varies depending on self-esteem, past success in negotiating positive change, a life time of impressions about change, conviction as to the need of change, and the degree to which one has a firm unchanging place on which to stand. Or stated differently, change is related to a person's / congregation's / committee's / association's / conference's general sense of security. Change, even good and necessary change, is difficult. Successfully negotiating change can happen when you are able to exercise what my Zen friends would call "beginner's mind"; that is, to be able to look at something with fresh eyes and leave your preconceived notions (connections) behind.

Identity: If ones sense of security and personal identity are related to something that is changing, change will be resisted more. Indeed, the more a particular change renders obsolete ones learning or ability to function, the stronger the negative reaction to it.

Concern about Skill Sets: This is a fear seldom admitted out loud, but for leadership, change in organizations necessitates changes in skills, and some people will feel that they won't be able to make the transition very well. They may thus resist change on that basis alone. Moreover, it can result in early or unexpected transitions, as those feeling unequipped may leave a position for which they are otherwise well matched.

Too Much, Too Fast: As Alvin Toffler states in Future Shock, change is difficult to deal with when it comes to fast, too hard, or unexpectedly. Given that we have been stuck in a bit of a time warp for the past four decades, this has not been a problem in most of our churches, although as the pace of change accelerates, it could be. Then again, has your church tried even small changes like new music? Projection screens? Different times or days for worship? Perhaps 'small' is a relative thing.

Depressed? Angry? Confused?

Yeah, join the club. But I think it is quite necessary to understand what's holding us back before we can get free of it. In my work with local churches around visioning, a fairly consistent pattern emerges: We're really good at visioning, at writing mission statements, at saying who we are or who we want to be. But moving from vision to action is the difficulty. Too many of us keep repeating the visioning process, wondering when change will happen, failing to acknowledge the stumbling blocks before us that must be dealt with before beneficial change is possible.

We say we are a God is Still Speaking church, that there is more to learn and discern. Indeed, the preamble to our UCC constitution states: "It affirms the responsibility of the Church in each generation to make this faith its own in reality of worship, in honesty of thought and expression, and in purity of heart before God."

I transited the Panama Canal last week. As I stared down at the huge locks that open and close as ships pass through, it would be easy to see them as gates preventing movement. But, in truth, the gates facilitate passage. They're not meant to hold something back, but to get it to the right level (or place) so that forward motion is possible. And so I wonder, how is your setting stuck? Do you see an un-transit-able passage ahead blocked by closed gates, or is it possible to name the gates and deal with them so that they will open once our institutional water levels equalize? Can we give our 'stuckness' an honest look, and find opportunities for movement?

It's not impossible. It's happening in some of our congregations already. If you're ready to move on, be in touch. Lynn, Pam, and I have set aside time to be with you to help. It's one of the ways that we're living into our mission statement:

Equipping congregations for Christ's ministry and mission

today and tomorrow.

Peace,

Jim     

Memorial Day...

I'm not sure when the 'mission creep' happened - but these days I hear Memorial Day referred to as a day for remembering all who have died. Call me old fashioned, but as a veteran, I prefer to honor those who gave all in service to their country. All gave some, some gave all.

No one loves war any less than those you send to fight it - because only they know completely the costs paid. To my brothers and sisters who served - thank you. To those who gave their lives - we salute you. To those who came home with physical or emotional wounds which will never fully heal - we will not forget your sacrifice and pledge to provide you the best care possible.

Stuff and Baggage

Summers, especially as I look out the window wistfully today, are both wonderful and short. We each have to find our own way to partake in the awesomeness that is summer in Vermont. For Lynn and I, that means kayaking our ponds and lakes, and camping. We have a camping trailer we pull behind my truck and we steal weekends away when we can, even though it usually means racing to Randolph Center on Sunday morning for church from wherever we’re situated. When possible, we enjoy being close to water, and an evening campfire. It’s not roughing it, by any means, but being ‘away’ and close to nature and the primal forces of fire and water restore my soul. 

It is time for a new camper this year, and we’ve had one on order that we’ll pick up this weekend. That means for the last couple of weeks we have been emptying out and cleaning our old camper that we’re trading in. Oh, the stuff we found! Emptying a compartment, I found a box full of stuff that had been placed in this trailer from its predecessor years ago – and hasn’t been touched since. Guess we really needed that stuff.

And that got me to thinking. How much ‘stuff’ are our churches carrying around, taking up space and effort and time and resources and not doing anything to further our ministries and mission? I suspect we all have some things, in one degree or another. For some of our congregations it might be the building itself – of a size which could support a worshipping community of 250 in which today’s congregation of 20 seems almost lost. And what sort of a drag is supporting that building, and how does that baggage steal energy and resources away from mission and ministry?

Now it’s quite possible that a congregation which today stands at 20 active participants can be revitalized into a worshipping community of 60 or 75. In fact, that’s an important part of our vision for the future. But it’s a lot less likely with the building hanging over their heads. And even with a successful rebirth – does the new congregation need a 200 year old building that’s still three times as big as it needs to be?

You know what I long for? The day that we stop using the words church and building as synonyms. We can be church, we can do church, we can birth a church, we can renew a church – and none of those things requires a building. Our buildings are a tool – and if that tool feels more like baggage that you are dragging around - or is dragging you around – well, that’s not a very useful tool.

Here’s some homework for you. Take a close look at your church’s budget, and figure out how much of it supports your building, how much supports staff, and how much goes to mission and ministries. You might be surprised at how much you spend to support and maintain your building. Money that could ensure your pastor’s compensation package meets Conference guidelines, or that your other staff earn a livable wage, or additional support you could give to your missions.

I know it’s hard to separate our hearts from our heads when discussing our buildings. They have a hold on us that’s difficult to look past. And that’s the problem – they may well hold us in the past, and prevent some new thing that could happen in our midst.

At a gathering of Conference staff to talk about church vitality and new church starts, I heard a startling thing: A majority of all new church starts have put language in their constitution that prohibits the ownership of a building. If they have a worshipping community of 50, they rent a space for 50. If they grow to 150, they move to a space which will hold that. If they later shrink, they can adjust again. How liberating. They know something we could stand to learn.

Where is Our Mission Field?

I've been spending some time this week digesting the Pulse of Vermont Quality of Life Study 2010. If you're not familiar, it's a survey done by the Vermont Business Roundtable, this being the fifth analysis since 1990. There are many interesting things to be found inside. If you'd like to read or download the report, click here.

One of the things that surprised me was that more Vermonters would be willing to pay an additional $250 in taxes per year for the preservation of open land or for better public transit than to improve our schools. At 42%, the people willing to pay extra taxes to support better schools was the lowest level ever recorded by the survey.

Only 13% of those surveyed thought life in Vermont is getting better, also the lowest ever recorded.

But here is where I'm doing most of my pondering. One of the sets of questions was about the level of confidence in Vermont based institutions. Colleges and Universities scored the highest, followed by hospitals, banks, public schools, and major Vermont corporations. The bottom three? Organized religion, courts and the legal system, and, at the bottom, the government in Montpelier.

Really? We rank lower than Vermont Yankee? Whew.

It used to be fashionable to think of our congregation's mission field as somewhere 'away'. Some far off land, Africa or the Middle East perhaps, where we could send missionaries, or aid workers, or money to improve the life of those less fortunate. And that's good work we should not abandon, but it's not our only mission field.

A Pew Research survey a few months ago said the Hew Hampshire and Vermont were the 'least religious' states in our country. And we've just learned our congregations, associations, and conference are considered only marginally more trustworthy than our state government, and less than banks, IBM, and our health care system.

Here's a (not so little) secret I'll share with you. Your mission field? It's right outside your door. It's on your street, in your neighborhood, at your local market, across your community and our state. As we face the declines we all have been experiencing head on, and recognize that change is not only desirable but imperative to our survival, perhaps one of the ways to do that would be to put some of the energy and good will we focus on world mission a bit closer to home. We should not abandon our world mission efforts, which are helping to change our world, but where could we also be a force for good locally? Perhaps at our local food shelf. Or homeless shelter. Or in communion with other local non-profit aid agencies. Or by providing free community dinners. Or by increasing your support for, and highlighting the work done through the Conference on your behalf in support of low income Vermonters, or summer lunch programs. By helping those close to home, while demonstrating to your neighbors that our version of the church of Jesus Christ still has relevance, purpose, and worth.

The mission work and the ministries of your congregation are more needed than ever, and the cost to do it higher. It's no coincidence that our last two Conference church growth events have centered on living and then telling our story. And we have some additional work to do, helping others to understand what we do and why we do it.

Let's get to it.

Peace,

Jim