Jameswmiller's Blog

The 2010 statistics are starting to come in.
The Presbyterian Church (USA) lost 61,047 members this year (-2.6%). It lost 97 churches (26 of which left for other denominations). It had 2,163 less baptisms than the previous year. It took in $73 million less than the year before. It has 74 less ministers.

The U.S. population this same year grew by over a million.
Next year, it will have less than 2 million members for the first time.

The United Church of Christ lost 31,500 members (3.5%). They are now around a million members.
The Episcopal Church is down 2.83%, with around 2 million members left.
The ELCA (Lutherans) dropped by 1.99% in 2009, or minus over 90,000 members, their largest annual drop. 2010 statistics are not yet available.

Dear Sonoma,
Today I baptized you. For you it was exciting, because you were the center of attention, and there was a party in your honor afterwards. You understood what it meant and affirmed a core creed that I would want to hear from someone who follows Jesus. But I think having all eyes on you sealed it for you.

I don’t know that you will understand what it meant for me for a long time.

For just a moment I was every parent. Every parent wants to hope away the bad off of their children as easy as a bath. We want to hope away all that might adversely happen to you and all the adversity you might cause. In the back of my mind, I have some rationalized understanding of a God who uses pain, suffering, and even death for redemption, but there’s a part of my heart that would gladly stand between you and all that. I can talk about your character, but I’m mobilized by your safety. I’m not defending this; only confessing.

I realize of course, that when I pray, “Deliver us from evil,” my mind goes to shadowed alleyways in which evil lurks, the kind of evil that would hurt my daughter. But Jesus preempted that line with “Lead us not into temptation,” because the dark alleyways he was concerned with are the ones within us.

So like every parent, I wish I could wash all of the shadows away. Baptism doesn’t do that. But as a symbol, it’s a physical manifestation of that hope. I hope that those parts of my own daughter that would lead her astray might die and something else would grow in its place, submerged and arisen. The only way that can really happen is if I put you in His hands. And that is why, when we stood side by side with our friends at the pool and prayed, I had trouble catching my breath. That was a moment for me in which I had to surrender you to Jesus, knowing that only he can do some of the things that every father would want to do.

Then we tiptoe into the cold water together on an overcast June day. Also particular to fatherhood, I tell you that it isn’t cold at all, and then you put your foot in and roll your eyes at me. We wade out long enough to acclimate. You are smiling and present to the moment. I’m lost somewhere. I start to say the words and have to swallow to get them out. You disappear for a second.

I wonder if in the moment of incarnation the Father had trouble catching his breath because of all that he hoped for his Son and for all of his children. I wonder if he knows the feeling of wanting to do it quick to keep from crying.

Then you are up again, smiling. Everyone applauds and I exhale.

At the house there are friends and cake and more attention, all of which suit you well. One of your observations later in the day, after everyone leaves, apparently unrelated, is, “Two of my favorite words that begin with ‘F’ are ‘famous’ and ‘fabulous.’” Sure enough, that was today.

Now you are baptized, and again I feel the sense for why we call God “Father.” We share in the feelings of the one who made us, who died for us and who rose, who watches us be born in a world in which we die, and who has given us a way to rise.

Our little reenactments are pale shadows of the real thing, only impressions that are meant to touch our hearts with a sense of it. But in those moments we get a feel for God. Our rites are like a child invading a father’s wardrobe and dressing up like him in oversized clothes that we will one day grow into. I hope that in these younger years you dress like Jesus and then grow into him.

Two of my favorite words that begins with ‘F’ are “Father” and “faithful.”

Love,
Papa

“So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” Galatians 3

When I saw the “over a million copies sold” branded on the front cover, I figured this would be a shallow, health and wealth guide to getting rich in God’s name. I was pleasantly mistaken. It’s not a sophisticated work, but I can see why it’s selling. It’s a thoughtful and energetic attempt to reframe the way most American Christians see their money and belongings. It’s goal is to help us to let go a bit and give a bit more, and I think it’s succeeding.

The great part of Alcorn’s work is that he walks us through his own experiences, both of giving and of losing money without meaning to. His fascinating personal story includes moments at which he could have lost everything and the successful course he charted into becoming a radical giver.

I’m going to guess that the primary customers of this book have been pastors and non-profit managers (who, if they’re wise, have given out this book by the boxful). But the reality is that any Christian who knows that they aren’t particularly generous will find an encouraging challenge to give that emphasizes rationale rather than playing upon guilt.

I didn’t expect to say this when I started the book, but I’d recommend it. I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review. And honestly, they’ve been sending me some great books.

There are height tick marks charting my children’s growth in fading pencil on the kitchen wall. One day they will be painted away as childhood has been by time’s brush, and it will be only a solitary, fuzzy snapshot in our memory. The lowest ones are as faint as the babyhood of my tall little boy. The pencil, the memories, and he, I can hardly keep up with as they go running away. Wouldn’t it be humble of mortal humanity to see most of life’s tick marks as a memory of heaven, written in pencil and fading, hardly stored in the eternal history books?

So Glenkirk Church is trying a new experiment in mission and world-awareness. We’re eating on $2/day this week. Around half of the world’s population lives on $2 US per day, so we together as a congregation are trying to eat on a diet of $2 of food per day (note: not for people with health issues or dietary issues and not for children).

In the middle of my dining table is a box that says “$2″ on it. Each day, we’ll put $2 in it to donate to our church’s work with the poor at the end of the week. And each day at dinner, we’ll talk with our kids about the world we live in and what Jesus wants to do in this world. And each day we’ll be a little bit hungry.

My friend Christine Prince has provided us a creative menu to choose from.

The Christian discipline of fasting is one that believers have used to clutter free their souls in order to create a vacuum that God might fill. This simple fast through the course of the week is meant to clear our hearts of self-indulgence to make room for the love that God has been wanting to put there. I hope if you’re doing it with me, you’ll tough it out for the sake of our souls.

Glenkirk Church is working with a creative mission organization called Cargo of Dreams.

The idea is that Cargo of Dreams drops off a container (not Tupperware; the kind that goes on ships) at your church and provides instructions on how your congregation can transform it into a school, hospital, or office building. You paint it, build the interior, and stock it with appropriate supplies. You do the work together as a congregation over the course of a few months, then Cargo of Dreams ships the container to its intended location. The recipients simply cut windows and doors in the container itself and their building is built.

It’s Habitat for Humanity with a postage stamp.

In our case, Glenkirk is building a preschool for a group of children in a Black township in South Africa who currently hold their class meetings outdoors in a field.

The advantages to this unique kind of mission are numerous. It gets a much wider circle of the congregation involved in world missions than we could have by requiring people to fly overseas. It costs less than flying a team overseas to build the same building. It gives the congregation a galvanizing project to gather around, working together towards a valuable goal. And it’s obedient to Jesus. Cargo of Dreams works with churches both on the sending and on the receiving end, so it’s a work of the Kingdom and it’s clear to all spectators that it’s an act of the Christian Church. It’s attractive to people who aren’t Christian but who happen to find themselves at Glenkirk, because this is the kind of things that even non-church-attenders know the church ought to be doing. Further, it should serve as inspiration for those interested in Christian mission to think outside the box of familiar patterns of mission work.

That to say, I recommend it. We’re doing it, and so should your church. Check out their website if you want more information.

So continuing in my ongoing series of posts on the changing face of denominations: there have been two new ideas proposed nationally which are interesting and possible.

First (or actually third in this list), one Presbytery has proposed expanding its borders over a much wider area. Technically, it’s not an eccentric idea, because there are actually Presbyteries in our nation that are 10 hours across. This is just a smaller Presbytery proposing to make itself that size. The difference is that it then crosses over the lines of other Presbyteries, which has not been done before. But it then allows churches to “move without moving,” that is, to change from the Presbytery they are currently in to the Presbytery that has expanded to include them without technically joining a Presbytery that is “somewhere else.” I say kudos for the creativity.

Secondly (or fourth), some Presbyteries are suggesting forming two Presbyteries that have exactly the same border. That way a Presbytery could divide in half theologically without any lines being redrawn. This could be a peaceable option for some of the Presbyteries that are simply exhausted by tension and fighting.

What interests me about all of these geographical barriers is that they are identifying that relationships in 2011 don’t look like relationships in 1911. We’re not bound by proximity or even by transportation in the Facebook generation. Relationships and resourcing are easily done over vast boundaries. The world is flat again. And if it’s one thing the Church needs to figure out, it’s that living 50 years behind the culture doesn’t exactly make it appealing, especially to the most innovative leaders out there.

Further, it’s interesting that proposals like these are neither permitted nor prohibited by the constitution of the Presbyterian Church. That is to say, they’re truly out of the box. Which then requires the people in the place of decision making to show their true character. Either they prefer narrow interpretations (“what isn’t permitted is prohibited”) or broad (“what isn’t prohibited is permitted”). Polity exists to serve the mission of the church, not vice versa. Whenever polity gets in the way of mission, the Church is returning to its old mantra of “We’ve never done it that way before.” Want to lose innovative Pastors? Tell them “no” a lot, especially without good reason.

I’d say that in an era where denominations are actually facing their own termination, out of the box, never-been-done-before thinking is exactly what we need. Whichever of these creative experiments seem most feasible…let’s try them.