Challenges for Elmhurst Presybterian Church

This morning in worship I outlined six challenges that we face at EPC. They are common to most churches like us. They are challenges we must address if we are to move from being a good church to being a great church.

1. We live in a pagan culture. Despite the prevalence of professed belief in God, our culture is pagan. This is not a criticism. It is a recognition that many religious voices clamor to be heard, and that Christianity has no monopoly in this country.

2. Our affluence can be an obstacle to faith. In comparison to the rest of the world, Elmhurst is a fabulously wealthy place. Our material abundance places great responsibility on us. To whom much is given, much is required.

3. Our town is homogenous. We are overwhelmingly white, well educated, professional. This is not a bad thing, but it does not reflect the great diversity all around us. God is active elsewhere, too.

4. Our demographics have holes in them. There are age groups missing in our church. We have few people in their twenties, and are underrepresented by people in their thirties. Are they not listening, or are we failing to speak to their needs?

5. Our financial strength is vulnerable. Many of our larger givers are older people. They come from a time when the church taught us how to give. We have stopped doing that, and as a result we are failing in a key spiritual responsibility.

6. We are biblically and theologically untrained. Too many of our people are unfamiliar with the contents of the Bible, and of our theological traditions. In reference to challenge #1, how can we have anything to say to a pagan culture when we are not sure what we believe?

I believe we can address all of these challenges. In the next few weeks we will be discussing all of them.

Cheap religion

True religion will at some point require you demonstrate the depth of your belief. You cannot profess one thing and do another for very long. Sooner or later what you do becomes more eloquent than what you say.

The story of Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-10) makes this point very clearly. As chief tax collector in Jericho, Zacchaeus was in the position to profit from the misery of others, and did so handsomely. To put it simply, he was a thief. He got rich collecting money for the Romans, and everyone hated him for it. On the day that Jesus passed through town, he had an experience of grace that converted him. He told Jesus that he would give half of all his wealth to the poor and that he would make four-fold restitution to anyone he had defrauded. Jesus said that on that day salvation came to Zacchaeus.

Did Zacchaeus buy his salvation with this lavish promise? Scripture is clear that you can't do that. What he did was demonstrate his salvation. In his case, a simple "I'm sorry" would have been a cheap response. A promise to do better in the future would have been a cheap resolution, lacking any staying power. No, in Zacchaeus' case, a strong response was required, not to win God's favor but to change his own life. He did not earn his salvation, but he did enable it. He believed, and acted accordingly.

Much of our religion is cheap. Too much talk makes it so. Religion without decisive action leaves no room for transformation. Is there some way you need to enable your own salvation today?

Point of view

I've gotten some interesting reactions to my sermon on pessimism. Several people have stopped me to say that what I call pessimism, they call realism. This is a common way of thinking, and it is a way to avoid the hard work of disciplining your mind. What we call realism can actually be unbelief.

Realism in Christian thinking is very important. There is no room in faith for illusions, fantasies, or make-believe. If something is bad, you have to call it bad. If something is not working, you have to see it as broken. If a behavior is destructive, you have to call it out. No one is served when anything that is true is being ignored.

Realism assesses what is, but then there is a choice. Is transformation possible, or not? Can God do something new, or not? To move from realism to pessimism is easy. To move from realism to hope is not.

The source of hope for us is the sufficiency of God's grace. Grace is always the biggest surprise of faith. Grace breaks through in seemingly hopeless situations. Your faith is not full grown if you have never experienced the goodness of God in the midst of a bad situation. Hope is the firm conviction that God can always do something new and unexpected.

If my eyes are only on what is around me, then I can easily be a pessimist. Only by raising my eyes to things I can't yet see can I be lifted beyond reality to hope. Our world needs people of faith to be hopeful, and live that out.

Can you be that?

A challenge for us

Those of us in the Christian church are facing enormous challenges these days. One of those challenges is in how we see ourselves. If churches are to live in this secular world, the way we look at ourselves in that world really matters.

I grew up in the churched culture of the 1950's and 60's in the United
States. The church had a respected and accepted place in society, and being a member of a church was an unspoken cultural expectation for many people. Those days were swept away in the social upheavals of the late 1960's and the technological developments of the 1970's and beyond. Today, churches in the United States are in decline in numbers and influence. We struggle to understand why.

One reason stands out. We are too self centered. The message of Jesus Christ is focused outward on the world and its people. Far too many churches are focused on themselves and their own well being. In the 21st century, that kind of self absorption is a recipe for extinction.

In Luke 15 Jesus tells a succession of stories that illustrate the nature of God's heart. One of those is the story of the lost sheep. As the story goes, a shepherd who has one hundred sheep finds that one of them has strayed away. Rather than accepting that one percent of his flock is lost, he leaves behind the others and finds the wandering one. When he returns, he calls on his neighbors to help him celebrate. What was lost had been found. At the conclusion of this little story, Jesus announces that there is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety nine who are in the fold. We ordinarily take this as a comforting reassurance of God's care, but it actually leads to a conclusion that would disturb many church members: God is more concerned about those who are outside than those of us already in!

That is not to say that God's providential care for people who already believe is less. It is to say that God is not as concerned for the well being of our institution as he is for the pursuit of those who do not yet to know Him. With that in mind, it is reasonable to say that a church should spend most of its time and energy in proclamation, outreach, and mission, and very little energy on its own internal concerns.

I don't know of many churches that operate like that. Most churches are stuck in the attitude that members needs come before those of strangers. Building maintenance comes before evangelism. Mission giving is the first thing to get cut in a budget shortfall. Policies and procedures manuals get more energy than Bible study. There are many who know this and work hard against it, but behaviors are hard to change. Institutional concern is the virus that is killing churches now, not demographics or economics.

Do you see this? What do you think we should do?

A tough issue

One of the toughest questions confronting our society today is that of retirement benefits and how they are provided. For many years men and women worked for years and accumulated pension benefits through the companies for which they worked. With Social Security alongside, workers could look forward to a relatively secure life beyond their working years. That picture is dramatically changing, and with it some of the basic social foundations of our country. We have to address the question now that so many of my generation are approaching traditional retirement age.

In recent months large corporations have ended their pension plans, or drastically altered them. While the already retired are usually not affected, those working now are having their future plans changed unpredicatably, and in some cases, without much notice. Fewer and fewer people in the workforce are participating in a qualified benefit pension plan. Now we are hearing that Social Security itself is under threat, primarily because of rising health care costs. This is more than a political or economic issue. A social contract is at stake. What kind of society are we going to be?

I don't pretend to have any answer to how we fix Social Security or to how we get more people involved in retirement planning. I do know that the quality of a society is determined by how its most vulnerable persons are treated. It has been a bedrock of our strength as a free country that a system of retirement security was developed and expanded so that older people could have a life of dignity beyond their active working life. Is that system in danger of breaking? It seems that it is. If it breaks, we will find ourselves facing a very different kind of national security problem.

Our political leadership needs to find a way to have a non-partisan discussion of how we can preserve this vital component of our national life. Sooner rather than later!

Watching for God

Do you watch for God in the events of your life?

That question may seem strange. While most of us do hope to see God acting in our lives, it is not common to find people who actually take the time each day to be watching for God. It will make a difference in your life if you start.

How? By simply believing that nothing is random in your life, that everything has a purpose. This is not to say that God has a sovereign purpose in your decision to buy a certain kind of shampoo, or to eat tuna for lunch today. God leaves those kinds of things to us. I am talking about events over which we have no control. When something happens, good or bad, you should think about what God is doing with you through it. Most of the time you will get no clear answer. You will, however, be developing the habit of seeing your life through the lens of providence, which enlarges your vision and expands your mind. Ultimately it will lead you to wisdom, the gold for which we all search in this life.

The very best way to watch for God is through the use of a journal. Nothing fancy. A spiral notebook would do. Literary excellence is not called for. Jottings, notes, thoughts, simple observations and the like will do. You could even blog! Regardless of how you do it, you are making a map of how God is at work. The best way to see what God is doing in your life is to see what God has already done! You only do that by watching for God, every day.

Be on the lookout. You will be amazed.

Immigration

I am unhappy with much of the discourse I am hearing on the subject of immigration. Congress is currently trying to pass immigration reform legislation, but it has been very difficult. There is a widespread belief that our country is being overwhelmed by immigrants, particularly from Mexico. Many powerful voices are calling for expulsion of undocumented immigrants, with penalties for those who assist them. These proposals go with a strong push to "secure the borders," even if it means building a seven hundred mile fence.

What troubles me about this is the loss of any kind of historical memory among us. Have we forgotten that virtually every person in the United States is either an immigrant or the descendent of immigrants? My own ancestors first came this way in the 1720's, fleeing some sort of oppression in Germany. The very idea of "America" is that of freedom and opportunity attained at the cost of leaving one's home. I don't doubt that my early American ancestors were "undocumented," and that they aroused suspicions and hostility. I am just glad they made the move!

Let me try to throw some theological light on this. The Bible story begins with immigration!
Abraham and his clan picked up and left their home in Ur (modern Iraq) and headed to a land that held a great promise for them. . They were moving because God was calling them to move. Later, when God was delivering the Israelites from Egypt and slavery, they would constantly be reminded that they were strangers, wanderers, sojourners, even as they settled into a new home. In the New Testament there are references to God's people as aliens, in exile from their true home in heaven. People of faith should have no discomfort with immigrants; spiritually, it is who we are!

Unquestionably there are many legitimate political issues to be resolved during this debate. I pray for our leaders to make a wise and just decision. I hope we can stay away from arguments about "them" in contrast to "us." At stake is what it means to be American.