Who Are We

This is the sermon I (Pastor Tom) wrote to give this morning, June 12, 2016. I didn't give it because I woke up the horrific news of the mass murder in Orlando, Florida. I gave an ad lib-ed sermon on Jesus' teaching of nonviolence and how we humans kill each other when we think we have the only truth and when we dehumanize our victims. The audio recording of that sermon will be available at maltbychurch.org/service. Please listen to it. Here's the sermon I didn't give this morning.

Who Are We?

Rev. Dr. Tom Sorenson, Pastor

June 12, 2016

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

Next Saturday, June 18, all of you and every member and friend of the church is invited to come here for breakfast. After breakfast, I want us to have a frank and open discussion of the question “Who are we?” Who are we as the First Congregational Church of Maltby? This morning I want to talk to you some about that question as a way of preparing for that discussion. Don’t worry, I’m not going to try to answer it in any detail or at any but the most basic level. It’s not my question to answer. I think it’s my question to ask, but it’s our question to answer. That means that it’s primarily your question to answer. This question arises in a particular context. That context is what I want to talk about this morning. So bear with me. I hope you’ll find what I have to say interesting and helpful. Or at least not stultifyingly boring. Sometimes we pastors have to settle for just not stultifyingly boring.

First of all let me say just a word about why this question Who are we? matters. For any church to thrive or, frankly, even to survive today, it has to know who it is. It has to have a clear identity, and it has to have a clear mission. Those two things, identity and mission, are closely related. They intertwine with each other. Without a clear identity a church can’t know what God is calling it to do. Without a strong mission the church doesn’t have much reason for staying open. Mission flows from identity, and identity is made real in mission. So my question Who are we, and the next question that flows from it What is God calling us to do, are about the most important things we can be working on today.

This question Who are we arises in a specific context, and that context has several different aspects to it. On the most fundamental level the answer to the question is obvious: We are a church of Jesus Christ. We are a Christian church. No answer to the question Who are we? can deny that we are a Christian church. This church will never discover who it really is unless not only our answer to the question but our very asking the question and attempting to answer it are grounded in the fundamental reality that we are a church of Jesus Christ.

Another foundational answer to the question of who we are is that we are a Congregational church. That truth means a lot. It ties us to a tradition that goes back to the Pilgrims and the Mayflower, back beyond them into the Protestant Reformation and the Church of England, and back beyond them all the way to Jesus Christ. Being Congregationalist ties us to a particular way of being church. It means that you, the members of this church, the congregation of this church, are the final authority on all questions that arise in or relate to the church. Nobody with the title Pastor, no person with the title Moderator, no person or institution outside this church, can make decisions for you. Congregational means the congregation is both the foundation of the church and its highest authority. No answer to the question Who are we can deny that we are a Congregational church or change our Congregational structure and understanding. That doesn’t necessarily mean that our name has to say Congregational; but it has said that ever since the church was founded, and it does say a lot about who we are.

Being Congregational means a couple of other things too. It means that we value individual freedom of conscience. Because we believe that each person has a direct relationship with God through the Holy Spirit, we are non-creedal. You don’t have to be able to recite the Apostles Creed or the Nicene Creed, or any other creed without mental reservation to belong to this church. No answer to the question Who are we can change our nature as non-creedal.

Being Congregational also ties us to a strong tradition of social justice. Congregationalists ordained the first Black minister in a predominantly white church back in the eighteenth century. Congregationalists led the abolitionist movement against slavery. Congregationalists ordained the first woman ordained to Christian ministry anywhere since New Testament times in the 1850’s. Congregationalists were active in the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960’s. Some Congregationalists, most but not all of them in the UCC, have led the way to inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity minorities fully in the life of the church. Congregationalists have always been committed to and worked for social justice for the rejected and the marginalized. No answer to the question Who are we should take us out of the social justice tradition of Congregationalism. Just what that tradition means for this church is of course for you to decide and yes, those can be difficult questions. We won’t all agree on the answers, but Congregationalism has been a movement committed to social justice for over two hundred years. So we have to deal with it if we truly are Congregationalist.

There’s more yet to the context in which the question Who are we arises. It is the context of every church in the US today. It is a context that is seen most clearly in the so-called mainline Protestant churches, of which Congregationalism is one. It is on one level the context of decline. Mainline churches have been losing members and losing financial contributions for a long time now. This church has declined too over the years. You are a wonderful group of people, but you are a very small group of people, much smaller than this church has been at certain other times in its history. A lot of really bright people have spent a lot of time and energy trying to figure out why the mainline churches are declining so much and what to do about it. Well, here’s part of my answer to that question. Our whole civilization is going through an historic transformation. We are passing from the world of modernism into the world of post-modernism. The mainline churches that are so declining are modernist churches. So are the big community evangelical churches that have held up a bit better than the mainline churches, but even they are starting to decline as our culture moves beyond their modernist assumptions and understandings. Our world is changing. Or better, our world has changed; and it’s not going back to what it was. For any church to survive it must understand how the world is changing and how it can adapt itself to those changes without losing its core identity as a Christian church.

The biggest problem any church has today when it tries to discern its future is that while we know that what once worked no longer works, we don’t really know what does work in this new world that is being born. We do have a few general clues. Here are some of them. First of all, very few people care about denominational affiliation anymore. It’s unlikely that anyone would join this church just because it’s Congregational. Beyond that, people don’t want to be told what to think. The younger generations don’t accept truth on the basis of some kind of authority like older generations did, whether that authority be parental, ecclesial, or biblical. People today discover their own truth on the basis of their own experience. Yes, people seek out information and wisdom from others, but today they look for those things online more than they do in person to person relationships. Any church that has a chance to reach them must have a powerful online presence.

Here’s one of the two most important things we know: When people today come to any organization they come mostly to do something. People used to be content coming to church and just sitting and listening. The worship style we use is geared to people mostly sitting and listening. Most young people today aren’t interested in doing that. They may do it if the sitting and listening leads to them doing something. If doesn’t , they’ll leave. People who are relatively comfortable economically want a way to give back to the community. If church is a place where they can do that, they’ll come and they’ll stay. If it isn’t, they won’t.

Here’s the other of the two most important things we know. Many people today crave community. Not all people. A lot of young people think that having friends online constitutes being part of a community. A church that serves those people will find a way to do it online. You know, maybe I just think this because I’m not young anymore, but I think those people who think that online community is real community will discover sooner or later that it isn’t. And people of generations a bit older than my grandchildren know that online community has real limitations. People in our society today, for the most part, don’t have a real community they can be part of. Church can be that community. I think that reality may be what keeps a lot of churches going.

Finally, fundamental human needs don’t change just because culture changes. How those needs are expressed and how they are met may change, but the needs themselves don’t. That, I think, is good news for churches that are attentive to the context in which they live. Humans need God. We humans need something bigger than ourselves that we can look to for meaning in our lives. We humans need something bigger than ourselves that grounds us, guides us, and saves us. Churches like this one have that. Churches that are really being church and not just a meeting place for friends meet the spiritual needs of their people. They do that not by dictating truth to people but by listening to them. Hearing their innermost longings, then walking with them as they walk their own paths of faith to satisfy those longings.

I really hope you’ll all join us next Saturday. Whether you can or not, here are some questions that I think are worth pondering for all of us. Why are we here? What is our reason for being? What difference to we make to our members and friends? What difference would it make to our members and friends if we weren’t here? What difference do we make to the community around us, and what difference would it make to that community if we weren’t here? How do we show the love of God in this place? What needs are there in Maltby that we could do a better job of meeting? What gifts to we have to offer to people outside our church? What about us can attract people to us? What about us is a barrier to people coming to us? Most importantly, when we pray and discern together, what do we hear God calling us to do? Who do we hear God calling us to be? You may well have other questions that relate to the question Who are we? If so, good. Bring them with you next Saturday. If you can’t be here next Saturday but have something you want to share send it to me in an email. I’ll make sure it gets shared with the folk who gather on Saturday.

Who are we? We are at least a small community of really good people who want to hear and do that will of God. For that, thanks be to God. May God guide us as we try to discern beyond that just who we are. Amen.