By Tom Sine —
I enjoyed offering a Futures/Creativity Workshop at First Christian Reformed Church in Grand Rapids last March.
As I was leaving the Workshop Pastor Randy Buursma shared “that First CRC Church has always been a “two-fer” congregation.” I asked “what does that mean?”
Randy said “several years ago when I first came to the church being a ‘two-fer’ meant members attending Sunday morning and Sunday night.” He added, “Now he said it means members attending twice a month.”
Randy’s experience is not unique. I am finding over the past decade more and established evangelical and mainline churches have also been experiencing a sharp decline in attendance. How do we fix the drip?
A couple planting a new church here in Seattle started with meeting for worship twice a month to make it easier to get started.
As American Christians become more affluent not only is their attendance declining. So is their annual giving.
According the State of Church Giving 2015. Sampling 11 of the major American protestant denominations their members gave 3.02% of their income in 1968 and only 2.17% in 2015. How do we fix the drip?
Even more concerning is these members and their congregations gave even a smaller share to neighbors in need. In 1968 these churches gave 64% of their giving to benevolence as compared to only 34% in 2015. How do we fix the drip?
Research show members in established evangelical and mainline congregations also have less time to volunteer to reach out to those in need. How do we fix the drip?
How do we fix the drip in established churches? How long can reduced participation and giving continue in evangelical and mainline churches before the vitality of congregations disappear?
For this blog I suggest that some of us who are older can help fix the drip before it begins by supporting Gen Next as they launch!
Young leaders who are planting new churches and seeking to make a difference are often facing even more daunting challenges than established churches.
Recently we were fortunate to have JR Woodward, from V3 Church Planting Network, meet with church planters in our home. He provided some very helpful insights, based on discipleship models in early Methodism, to enable members in these new plants to be better stewards of both their time and money as followers of Jesus.
I am encouraged to find that many older leaders, in our established churches, want to find ways to support the young starting these new church plants. However, I find that few of them recognize how much more difficult for this generation to launch economically than when many of us got started.
First, millennials are saddled with much higher school debt than older generations. School debt is averaging almost $40,000 for recent college grads. Some seminary grads I have met recently, that want to plant churches, are carrying over $100,000 in college and seminary debt.
Second, housing costs take a much higher percentage of total income for millennials than they ever did for Boomers or Xers.
Christine and I are enjoying experimenting with one alternative housing model to help a new generation launch, plant churches and make a little difference in times like these.
Over 20 years ago Christine and I bought an old house built in 1910 here in Seattle that was divided into three separate flats to experiment in intergenerational living we call the Mustard Seed House.
We offer reduced rent. Every week we share a meal, checkin time and prayer once a week and seek to be mutually supportive. We also garden together once a month, enjoy the produce and enjoy sharing in hospitality with friends as well.
Our top floor is a three bedroom flat. Trevor and Hilary and their two young sons live there. They are very invested in planting the new church I mentioned earlier with Converge.
Christine and I live in the middle floor which is a two bedroom apartment with our pup Goldie.
Dan & Lisa live in our basement unit which is a one bedroom flat. They are also involved in the church plant with Trevor and Hilary though they are employed elsewhere. We enjoy learning from them.
Finally, Luke, a recent grad from Seattle School of Theology and Psychology, also lives in a separate unit in the basement that we call our “monk’s cell” that has it’s own bath. Luke is an active member at an ElLCA innovative congregation that also attracts a lot of younger Christians here in Seattle called Church of the Apostles.
One way, those of us who are older followers of Jesus, can both reduce the drip and increase our investment in growing the church is to open our homes to a new generation of changemakers in times like these!
We would be happy to email you a copy of our community contract at Mustard Seed House and answer any of your good questions.
We would also be interested in any ideas you have come up with to SUPPORT A NEW GEN OR REDUCE THE DRIP IN CHURCH PARTICIPATION IN TIMES LIKE THESE!
twsine@gmail.com
SMALL PARCELS
We carry ourselves in small parcels,
forgetting grace likes to burst at the seams.
We carry ourselves as apologetic examples of humanity,
forgetting all vessels here are made from clay.
We carry ourselves as small voices amongst a strident world
forgetting how sound carries from another sphere.
We carry ourselves as dim candles,
forgetting faint lights shine brightly in the dark.
We carry ourselves as so much less than we are.
Let’s raise our heads and breathe.
Smile at ourselves until our hearts swell.
by Christine Sine
I It’s Sunday afternoon and I am still struggling to put my Monday Meditation together. It will be October 1st and my plan was to write to start our new focus “Getting Ready For Advent and Christmas with a post on simplicity and sustainability but this week’s events totally derailed that idea…. or did they? They have encouraged me to think about how Jesus’ mother Mary was treated by her society too.
Like many of us I have been riveted to the screen as Dr Ford and Judge Kavanaugh testified before the Senate committee. I tried to listen with an open and impartial mind but as the events unfolded I realized that is impossible. All of us are shaped by pre-existing beliefs and values and that always colors the ways we interpret events. I posted some of my feelings on Facebook and have been both horrified and intrigued by the responses. I found this BBC article (thanks Jennifer Porter) and this one both gave very helpful information to those who are still suffering with traumatic memories.
Here is some of what I am mulling over as this investigation continues.
- None of us are impartial in events like this. I wanted to weep as I listened to Dr Ford share respectfully and lucidly to an all male and obviously hostile committee who seemed to have no respect nor belief in what she was saying even before she said it. *h contrast Kavanaugh’s appeal to power and his conspiracy theory comments as well as his anger and lack of control in front of a committee that was obviously already receptive to what he said appalled me…. but that of course is my opinion – as a woman and as won who has been abused both by physical violence and by the use of power.
- Women hurt and often wait years to be heard. Whatever happens, this very painful, public hearing has encouraged many women to “come out” about their own pain. Some shared openly on my Facebook post. Others messaged me privately. Others posted their own or shared on YouTube. Evidently hotline calls spiked 150-200% during the hearings. Most have hidden these assaults for years. Some didn’t want to say anything “because it wasn’t rape”.
- Sexual violence of all kinds can have life-long effects and should be taken seriously. It was heartrending to read some of these reports, even more horrifying to hear that many of these victims were disbelieved by their families and friends. Some have not spoken to parents and siblings for years as a result. Some have faced violence as a result, just as Dr Ford and her family have faced. That they have had to leave their home is horrifying.
- Many still see women who are raped and assaulted not as victims but as perpetrators. Part of what amazed me was how many called Dr Ford “a party girl and a slut” and therefore she needed to accept the consequences. No such allegations were leveled at Kavanaugh for his heavy drinking and heavy partying. He was not expected to accept the consequences of his out of control behavior.
- Most of us are unwilling to really listen with an open mind to those who think differently from us. I have tried to read all the reports that people have referred me to with a willingness to have my mind changed, but so many others do not seem to be willing to do the same. In his sermon this morning, our rector Rich Weyls reminded us that we are called to be path clearers and obstacle removers. Part of what it means to follow Christ is that we clear away the obstacles that prevent others coming closer to Christ. Tragically the response of many Christians to this debate has created obstacles rather than destroying them.
Icon Mary and Jesus
How did Mary’s Society Respond to Her?
As I reflect on these things today I realize that this is probably a very important place to start my preparations for Advent and Christmas. How was Mary treated after she announced her pregnancy?
- Was Mary forced to stand in front of the village elders for her “crime”? In Palestine 2,000 years ago adultery could condemn a woman to death by stoning – only the woman mind you. Who I wonder saved her from that fate? Was it her family? Somehow I doubt it as they are never mentioned in the story of Jesus birth. Was it Joseph who stood beside her? If so he must have been an incredible man to go against his society in this way and to believe the unbelievable story that she told about Jesus’ conception.
- Was Mary labelled as a slut and a loose woman? I wonder if Mary was spat at and called a slut as she walked down the street in a heavily pregnant state. Did she have to face the advances of men who wanted to take advantage of her as she moved towards birth, and even after? Was she violently attacked by men who thought she should have been stoned? How could she possibly hold this story to her self. Yet, to tell the story of what had really happened would have been considered blasphemy and for that too she could have been put to death. What an incredible woman she must have been.
- Who were the safe people Mary could go to and share what had happened? I wonder as I read the gospel account of Jesus birth in Luke 1 if her cousin Elizabeth was her safe person to talk to. She lived about 90 miles from Nazareth where Mary lived. That is quite a journey for a young girl to make. Did she go because her parents rejected her and she knew her cousin would welcome her?
- Was Jesus thinking of his mother when confronted with the woman caught in adultery as told in John 7:53–8:11? I have often wondered about this. This story is a poignant story of the forgiving and loving nature of God. It is also the story of a young man who loved his mother deeply and, I suspect bore much of her pain.
The hearing this week has brought a new and very human dimension to the story of Jesus birth for me. It has taken me away from the rather sterile images of a glowing Madonna and child to the realities of what it must have been like for this mother and her infant. Why God came as a vulnerable infant to a vulnerable and possibly despised woman at the outskirts of a powerful and corrupt empire I don’t know. How this divine infant survived until birth and then beyond as his family fled as refugees to Egypt is amazing. Makes me believe in the power of divine intervention. How about you?
by Lilly Lewin
Last Friday, I was in the midst of the Story Gathering in Nashville. It’s a conference of creativity where story tellers from all walks of life gather to be encouraged and inspired to keep on creating and bringing beauty and our gifts into the world. The theme for this year’s gathering was Wonder… the curators took us on a journey down the rabbit hole into Wonderland, following Alice and the White Rabbit into a place where anything can happen and often does!
Along with the great visuals and speakers, the amazing team at Uncommon Creative Studios curated spaces throughout the venue to help us engage the story and theme in more tangible ways.
One of these ways was the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party.
They set up multiple tables for two in a beautiful lobby and invited us to have tea with a stranger. 
As an atmosphere architect myself, I loved the beauty of the table décor and the use of real tea cups and the centerpieces on the table. We had a choice of hot or cold tea in our tea cups and since it was in the upper 90’s I chose a decaf herbal tea rather than my usual choice of hot black tea and milk. I loved that we were given a playing card as our table number and escorted to our seats. The conference had us sign up for this experience in advance, and do a simple survey, so the person we had tea with was not entirely random. But in all honesty, I had forgotten that part and was excited to meet someone new and have a conversation. The Mad Hatter, in costume of course, invited us to put our cell phones away in a beautiful wooden box found on each of the tables. Being an extrovert, I had no trouble starting the conversation with my new friend Philippe from San Diego who is the creative director of a nonprofit called Plant with Purpose. But if we needed help, there were some great questions on cards in a teacup on the table.
This experience got me thinking about my need to do this more! To have tea with friends and maybe even with people who aren’t friends yet! This experience inspired me to consider hosting tea parties at home or going to my local café at Thistle Farms and having tea there. The motto at the café at Thistle Farms is “Every cup has a Story” and they collected tea cups from all over the world to help decorate the café and bring the stories to life.
What if we all started a Tea Practice in order to hear more stories?
What if we started having tea with others as an act of love and as an act of resistance to the US vs THEM culture that is so bitter in our world today?
Who could you invite over for a cup of tea? Who can you invite out for tea?
What would you talk about?
What questions would you ask?
Are you willing to take the time to listen?
Since Every cup has a story…what’s your story?
Brew a cup of tea and consider your story and where you are on your journey with Jesus today.
How can you tell your story to someone this week? How can you listen to a story that is different from your own? Are you willing to be willing?
What things stop you from connecting with people you don’t know or don’t think like you?
Whose story do you need to listen to? Here in America, the culture of conflict and US vs Them needs an alternative strategy and that might just start with something as simple as a cup of tea!
How can you plan to have tea with someone or a few people?
Could you plan a tea party for friends?
You could plan a tea party for people you don’t know well but would like to know better!
You could throw a tea party for your neighbors as an opportunity to hear their stories and get to know them better!
Start with yourself….
Healing with Tea:
Make yourself a cup of tea and reflect on your story.
Reflect on a relationship that is broken.
Make yourself a cup of tea and take the time to consider a person with whom you need to be reconciled.
Pray for this person to be surrounded by God’s love and grace today.
Maybe it’s a group of people that you need to learn to love.
Ask Jesus to help you love them. Ask Jesus to help you love yourself.
As you drink your tea, ask Jesus to fill you with
Hope
Peace
Love
And Forgiveness
Ask Jesus to help you practice Reconciliation.
Breathe in the aroma of the tea and allow Jesus to breathe love into you.
So take time for a cup of Tea today and consider having Tea with someone else. And if you are ever in Nashville, I’d love to take you to tea, (or coffee) and hear your story!
It’s time to get ready for the Advent and Christmas seasons. The decisions we make over the next couple of months will determine how we celebrate this important season. We hope that you will join us for our upcoming retreat.
In The Rhythm of Life, through reflection, contemplation, and creative explorations, Christine Sine, will assist you to rediscover God’s sustainable rhythms that provide balance between work and rest, effort and waiting, doing and not doing. Using the seasons of the year and the liturgical pattern of life they gave birth to we will explore how to reconnect our lives to God’s patterns and the practices that should undergird them.
This seminar is specially designed to help us prepare for the Advent and Christmas seasons by encouraging us to cultivate our own sacred and sustainable rhythms.
Where: Mustard Seed House, Seattle
When:November 10, 9am -12noon
New Prayer Cards Available
Don’t forget to order you prayer cards. We have new prayer cards available for download or pre-order for 1 set or 3 sets and in the next few weeks will add two new sets – one for Advent and one of Celtic prayers. These have always been popular and we are delighted to have them available once more. We hope you will order yours soon.
TO UNRAVEL
When we unravel
we can find in the strangest way,
we are taking shape.
A shape we couldn’t see
when wound up tight in a ball,
all contained.
But if we unravel,
pull a thread and watch it unfurl,
dangerously loose,
we might find
it falls as its meant.
A picture to speak a thousand words.
A picture that reveals
in our unravelled form,
we’re more beautiful than we thought.
Are more valuable than we had guessed,
or had forgotten we were
before life caused us to hoard our treasure.
Yes, when we unravel
it’s as though a muscle memory comes back
to remind us of our strength.
We’re to never fear the unfurling,
or the pain that begs
a question,
to find an answer in
the twirling,
dancing thread.
The shape it makes when it lands
we recognise
as an old friend returned.
‘Could it be’, we hear ourselves ask,
‘that we have always been
what we imagined?’
As many of us head back to school this fall, here is a great post by Rodney Marsh —
I call myself a teacher… but am I? Schools have long been known to be an ‘efficient’ means of passing on facts and techniques, but ALWAYS, when we are teaching children, we pass on far more important knowledge – what it means to be ‘grown up’. Children can only learn to grow up from a grown up, but who of us qualifies as grown up? The vision of the New Testament is to “grow up into him who is the head – Christ”. This growth comes through our direct relationship in prayer with Jesus but also, in our workaday life, from those who see and treat us as the beloved child of God we are. The two keys to be a growing teacher to those learning to be human are to daily renew our connection with the source of our humanity and, with sensitivity and compassion, value those we work with.
Jesus commented on the teachers/preachers of his day –
“You can tell what they are by what they do. No one picks grapes or figs from thornbushes. A good tree produces good fruit, and a bad tree produces bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot produce good fruit. Every tree that produces bad fruit will be chopped down and burned.”
During Monday’s staff briefing, K Sensei spoke movingly of the reunion of the class of 2008 that she attended. She told of how the teachers had shaped the lives of these alumni during their schooling. She observed that the relationship these students had formed with their teachers was ‘life shaping’. K Sensei gave a couple of beautiful examples of how these young men and women had been encouraged, by their teachers, to become who they were. Ten years after their schooling adventure, K Sensei could see the fruit of the seeds of ‘self-belief’ planted and watered by their teachers. These examples demonstrated that the essence of the practise of teaching is the relationship between teacher and student/disciple.
The Teacher/student relationship is, like all relationships, two way – the giving and receiving of both partners. The student trusts a good teacher and a good teacher is always trust-worthy. “No printed word, nor spoken plea can teach young minds what they should be. Not all the books on all the shelves – but what the teachers are themselves” wrote Rudyard Kipling. Jesus’s saying (above) tells us that lived human virtues are essential in a teacher, since virtues are caught not taught and it is the virtues are what make us human. By our fruit we show who we are and teach our children who they can be. A good teacher is also skilled and, as an adult, sees, respects and teaches individual students at their age and stage, whilst at the same time, sensing each student’s unique capacities and needs.
An example: recently, an episode of Gardening Australia featured a Japanese master-gardener pruning wisteria. The ‘disciple’ of the master-gardener commented that, in Japan, a master does not speak, just does. It is up to the student to ask “why?”, “how?”, “when” etc.. The responsibility for learning lay with the student and a student must want to learn in order to learn. The desire to learn is not a gift that any teacher has to give. The teacher’s responsibility is to teach a person how to be a human – not fill an empty bucket!
A prayer for teachers:
Lord, give me the gift of sight. Enable me to see each child today and to be wise, strong and kind so they may grow into the person you created them to become. Amen.
A prayer for students:
Lord, I want to learn and grow. Send me a teacher who will shine a light on my path to becoming who I am. Then, help me to walk my path with persistence and courage. Amen.
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