by Jason Byassee, February 4, 2014
Jason Byassee
One of our greatest gifts as a church is our children. I’ll go farther: our greatest gift is our children. Who says? Jesus. Anyone who harms them is in the deepest trouble (Mk 9:42). All of us should usher them into his presence (Mt. 19:4). We grownups need to learn how to become just like them (Mt. 18:3). The Kingdom of God has a very small door. Some of us will have to be crammed through that door. Children can apparently sashay right on in.
One way we have historically shown Jesus’ cherishing of children is with our children’s sermon. As Jesus drew the children to himself to bless them, so we invite our children forward to let them know how important they are to us. This moment is often the first word of teaching any of our churchgoers hear, whether first-timers or long-timers. We have been blessed at Boone Methodist with some of our most creative people’s time, energy, sweat, and prayer as they have prepared these sermons for years.
Yet there are problems with the children’s sermon, even when it is done “right.” Will Willimon writes, “I fear that children’s sermons tend to backfire, saying to parents and children that which we do not intend to say.” Even when done right–and we do them right with remarkable regularity–we focus on teaching content in these slots before excusing children from the bulk of worship.
Our visioning committee, seeing our love for children as one of our congregation’s greatest gifts, has coined the value “Next Generation Now.” At our church, children don’t just follow, they lead. We want to show this in every moment of our worship, starting with the children’s moment.
The Worship Committee and the Children’s Minister, in working with me over these challenges, have suggested that we try an experiment. We will spend the next few months reconfiguring the children’s sermon into what we’ll call a children’s blessing. The emphasis will be less on teaching information and more on incorporating children into the movement of worship. I’d wager the children are not in the most teaching-receptive place as they sit in front of the rest of us. Perhaps the way forward is to see them less as passive recipients and more as active leaders. Because for Jesus and our church, that’s precisely what they are.
We also want to encourage families that want to keep their children in worship. Worship is what we’re made for. We’ll spend eternity at it. We all need to start practicing now. When any of us hears a fidgeting child in worship, let us give thanks that God became a child. And if I or another speaker can’t speak over a badly-tempered child with a microphone, then speakers need to speak up and we all need to focus better.
We have some ideas for our folks who want to continue bringing their gifts to bear in teaching children. We would love their help in teaching children’s Sunday School (the most terrifying assignment in our church!). We would love to draw on their help in children’s church where they can teach at length and the children can have time to absorb and ask questions without being on stage. And we will call on them in other areas that none of us can now anticipate.
Jeff and I will offer children’s blessings for the time being, and will share that task with others later. The goal will be to see the children’s leadership in worship. We want them to lead us in prayer. We want them to lay their hands on bread and wine and water and bless them so God can use them to make us all holy. We want them to lay hands on leaders and missionaries and those undertaking special tasks to send them out with a blessing. A “sermon” suggests content and teaching. A blessing suggests an exchange: something almost physical passes from these children to the rest of us, and we go out made new.
My hope is that our children will know their importance in leading us all toward God. And that all of us will take our cues from them in how to be small in God’s kingdom.
by Jason Byassee, January 20, 2014
Jason Byassee
I’ve been feeling kind of weepy lately. And I blame you. I keep seeing instances of faithfulness among God’s people. And since from my vantage I get to see things the rest of you don’t get to, let me give you a glimpse. Bring a tissue.
I noticed it first when I was checking out of one of our local grocery stores. My checker outer is one of our college students. We were chatting when she sprang this on me, “We’re tithing now!” I almost couldn’t speak. Here’s a student working her way through college at whatever wage our grocery stores pay. And she’s taking 10% of that hard-earned hourly wage and committing it to God through our church. What a charge for those of us who spend that money in kingdom work, to take care of every penny. What an example for the rest of us to do likewise.
That same day I was in conversation with one of our recent college graduates. I had noticed a certain lack of initiative in moving away from Boone, and told him I assumed a ladyfriend in his life was to blame. He dissented. “I refuse to leave my guys,” he said. He’s a volunteer in our youth group, and has led his guys through from 7th grade until now, 11th. And he’s not leaving until they graduate. Because these boys have seen too many men leave: dads and step-dads and others. He doesn’t want to add to the list of beloved elders who find something else more important than them and so move on. Again tears came and almost overflowed.
I might have first noticed this problem a few weeks back. A family in our church has been sitting vigil by the bedside of their matriarch. They have been shuttling back and forth from Boone to a city with a larger hospital for the sake of her care. I arrived at church around 8 a.m. one Sunday and there they were, setting up chairs and partitions and tables for Crossroads. Three hours early. Didn’t they need to be in a hospital room two hours away? “This is what we do,” one said. “We set up for worship.” They wouldn’t even be there that day–they had to get back on the road. Offering service for others, most of whom would never see it or know it. Tears again.
I’ve noticed the weepiness again in conversation with committee leaders. This work is often unsexy, undramatic, uninteresting, and absolutely crucial. One committee chair just rotated off after redoing his group’s bylaws. This is a book-length document that hadn’t been attended to since the first Clinton administration. He’d gone through, line by line, updating everything. Who would ever know, outside a few committee members and I? He wasn’t working for thanks or recognition, but for a ministry he believed in. Likewise another committee chair of a group that oversees significant funds. He inherited a grab bag of different accounting systems that others had found impenetrable. He simplified it enough that we can make it work now. He’s no longer a part of that group. But every time I look at that budget I give thanks for his doing of that old fashioned word: “duty.” Tears of thanks.
Why tears? I think because I find it moving beyond words to see God’s people stepping into their baptismal identity as those beloved and healed by Christ and working for his kingdom. In these examples they do so quietly, without fanfare, for the benefit of other people, most of whom they will never know. It’s enough to think Jesus still has work for us to do. That God is not finished with us yet. That the Holy Spirit can mold people even as self-centered as us sinners into outwardly attentive saints. There is nothing more beautiful than God’s glory working itself out among God’s people.
Cue the tissues.
by Jason Byassee
Jason Byassee
Friends I want to tell you about two things you may not have heard about that took place during Advent.
One, a man posted a threat on Craigslist that he intended to commit suicide in one of the larger churches in Boone during a Sunday sermon. We don’t know that he had our church in mind, but he could have, or he could have meant Mt. Vernon, First Presbyterian, Alliance. There was here a sort of ecumenism of the threatened–we pray for our sister churches’ safety as they pray for ours. This poor man was convinced the church has mistreated him and his overwhelming troubles in life are the fault of hypocrites in robes and pews. If he were in his right mind, we could have told him that hypocrites are the only kind of people God has to work with. We are on our way to being saints, but aren’t there yet.
Yet this man was clearly not in his right mind. Most people I know have someone in their family with mental illness. We pray for them and hope they will one day be “clothed, and in their right mind,” in the presence of Jesus. Thankfully Boone PD seem to have apprehended him. We will have security at church for the near future just the same. We give thanks for those who protect us, including our own Bobby Creed and Brandon Greer. We also know our security in the deepest sense is in God alone. Thank you to Jennifer Whittington and our trustees who worked hard on this, as they always do, to take care of our facilities and of us.
A second thing is a brief retreat I took with some church folks recently to Mepkin Abbey in Monck’s Corner, SC. I have retreated there before years ago, and wrote of the abbey in my book An Introduction to the Sayings of the Desert Fathers. Trappist monks go to church 8 times a day–they pray for a living. And a handful of college kids, our lay leader, our chair of worship and of our prayer team and some others joined them, to chant psalms at 3 AM. Jaylynn and I saw a monk we knew years ago named Father Christian, age 99, whose bright mind reminded me of Tom Cottingham. As a group we prayed for our church (including after we heard of the threat above). These Catholic monks were impressed by how diligent we Methodists were in attending worship! I trust they came back refreshed and ready to serve and lead in our church, their jobs, our community, and their lives.
I hope to take more of you to Mepkin in the future after this first, experimental visit. Let me know if you are interested. Being with them reminded me of why we’re called Methodist. We are methodical about prayer, practicing it as often as we can, like a convert to a new sport, like someone who has fallen in love, we want to sneak away and pray at every opportunity.
Advent is about the hope of God breaking into the world, first in Christ, then in our hearts, soon in the entire universe in a way that will draw all flesh to worship him. Let us pray for those most lost, those who protect, those who pray, and all of us to be drawn anew into Christ’s tiny and world-commanding arms.
by Jason Byassee
Jason Byassee
A friend of mine first visited our church when his family moved here. He was terribly put off. No one spoke to him, he didn’t know where to take his kids, the building was confusing, parking was a headache, and he left vowing not to come back. Only years later, re-invited by friends, did he come back, get involved, and join. Now he helps lead us. He remembers that initial impression.
Our church is, by nature, generous about welcoming new people. This is not a place where you have to have been here forever to have a voice. We are curious who God is bringing our way. As many of you read in Desiring God years ago, “God speaks to the church by whom God sends to the church.” New people aren’t just marks for membership. They are a summons from God about what he wants from us, to be met with delight.
But my friend didn’t feel that way that day. We whiffed. It happens.
Our welcoming committee is committed to it happen as little as possible. Sandra Ammons leads this group, with staff wisdom from Andy Ellis, and muscle and creativity from Summer Hays, Katie Lineback, Bob Kroll, Phyllis Butler and others. Our ushers, headed by Johnny Carson, are also committed to welcoming all.
And so is our whole church. Our new mission language, is this: “Loving our community, and inviting all, to discover life in Christ.” Welcoming is the foundation of who we are. Our new values language includes several that touch on welcoming: “Everybody everywhere matters.” We are all created in the image of God, we are all souls for whom Christ died, we are all folks whom the Holy Spirit longs to clasp to God’s heart. “Get ready to do something” is another value that touches on our essential responsiveness as a church. When we see a need, we mobilize to meet it. What better place to see needs than through peering into someone’s eyes, grasping their hands, and telling them we’re delighted to see them? Our measures include this question: “When have I walked with someone not like me?” I worry for folks who don’t have the church. How do they get into relationships with folks different than them? As we grow closer to Jesus we grow closer to one another. Our measures also ask when we’ve invested in someone toward a life in Christ. How might we launch a new endeavor or two in evangelism around here?
Andy and Sandra and I recently met to imagine her committee’s work for 2014. We realized together how deeply our mission, values, and measures language can help in their work. They suggested we might connect recently joined people to those who visit. If there’s a retired couple visiting at 8:45 we can connect them with someone similar who has recently joined. So too if a widow visits Crossroads, or when college kids turn up to 11. We connect most easily with those like us, why not put those most recently enthusiastic about our church–our recent joiners–in relationship with folks visiting? I love it! Creative people pouring over our vision frame and taking action to fulfill our mission.
And that’s exactly how the new mission, values, measures, and strategy are supposed to work. We can place any issue our church faces within the four-sided frame. And in this case–how we welcome–two values, several marks, and our mission proper all applied. Folks doing that together saw stuff no one could see alone. And hopefully our entire life together with Christ will be enhanced.
The goal here as ever is not to get new members. It’s not to meet budget. It’s to introduce new people to Jesus. To meet Jesus ourselves all over again in who he sends to us. And to take part in his inching his kingdom slightly closer here in the high country.
by Jason Byassee
What are some things you count?
Jason Byassee
We count what matters to us–or to avoid something we don’t care for. My grandfather apparently knew how many panels there were in the ceiling of his Baptist church. Not a good sign for the quality of the preaching . . . Lots of us count our retirement accounts carefully. Will there be enough? We all know how many children we have (even if I find it difficult to remember their ages–they change every year).
At church we naturally count attendance and money. In the ministerial resume-comparing world they count butts, budgets, and bricks–adding buildings to our big two. But some of our most creative folks have been asking what else we can count. Surely there are other signs of faithfulness besides just those two. Our visioning committee came up with some questions to measure our faithfulness. This is a very Methodist thing to do–from the beginning we have counted signs of faithfulness obsessively. Kelly Broman-Fulks’ group wants us to ask these questions as we consider whether we are successfully growing as disciples:
What did I do in response to God’s leading this week?
Did I apply scripture to a decision this week?
Where did worship send me this week?
Have I walked with someone not like me this week?
Am I praying for my friends and enemies this week?
Am I connected to church beyond Sunday worship this week?
When did I invite/invest in someone into a life with Christ?
Hard questions, if we answer them honestly. And more granular, particular, than simply money or attendance. These questions ask about the depth of our discipleship. Positive answers show we’re being successful as a church. Or even better: faithful.
God loves to count. But he sure counts differently than us. He knows the number of hairs on our heads–so he counts more better than we do. He counts one sheep as more precious than 99. God counts the years of eternity–thousands times thousands. And in the book of Numbers (1) God counts the number of everything about the Israelites. We Methodists, when we count carefully, are only doing what the bible already does.
Our staff has brainstormed what we can count as signs of faithfulness. I love their answers. Colette suggests we count teachers stepping in on the Sunday School wing in a pinch. Jennifer suggests we count utility use (much up this year). Andy suggests we count midweek attendance at church functions, not just Sundays. Brandon and Lindsey suggest we count conflict and lament–in real community not all is rosy. Jeff suggests we count the kinds of prayer requests offered. Are we going beyond health ailments and asking for prayer for spiritual needs as well?
Some of my favorite lines in hymns include God’s way of counting. Matt Redman’s “Bless the Lord,” a contemporary worship song, includes this line, “For all your goodness I will keep on singing, 10,000 reasons for my heart to find.” And Amazing Grace’s concluding stanza includes these immortal words, “When we’ve been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun, we’ve no less days to sing God’s praise, than when we first begun.”
Friends let’s join these leaders of ours as we stretch what we count as marks of faithfulness. Money and attendance matter. So too do 10,000 other things.
Jason Byassee
One of the treasures of Boone is King Street. I love walking downtown, eating well, people-watching, seeing our folks who do business down there, hearing the music–even if hula hoops and drum circles are a bridge too far. Our downtown has a unique vibe and helps make our town a special place.
King Street used to be the hub of Boone’s churches. Now First Baptist remains, while we and First Pres have left, for good reasons. Memories of when our church worshiped downtown are still strong at Boone Methodist. The psychological space from the university is now light years away from the days when students and faculty could walk to church. It was right to move (a unanimous vote confirmed this in 1997), but we lost some things that were precious to us.
What if we worshiped downtown again?
For the past few months, Luke Edwards, our fantastic director of community engagement, has been meeting with interested folks to ask what worship downtown might look like. He is meeting with folks I think of as “Black Cat” folks (Espresso News, Bald Guy, Our Daily Bread–any number of other businesses would work too). Anytime I’m in Vern’s favorite burrito haunt I remember a restaurant slogan from my hometown of Chapel Hill: “A sunny place for shady people.” This is a demographic that is often aggressively anti-institutional, unsure what to do with their lives deeply in school debt, often socio-economically vulnerable, but full of ideals.
You know them. Some of them are your kids, siblings, friends, or baristas.
Wouldn’t you love to see them in church? Wouldn’t you love for our church to benefit from their worldview?
For all their suspicions of church, these folks are not uninterested in matters spiritual. Just look at the stores hawking spiritual wares on King Street. They are also not uninterested in Jesus. Truly, in their deepest selves, they want to be in relationship to him through his church. They just don’t always know that yet.
What would it look like if we offered worship they might like? Or even better, if we asked them to help us build a worship service that would appeal to them and their friends?
Luke, a new leader named Elizabeth Reese, and a handful of others have been meeting with their friends over food, poetry-readings, and worship at the chapel at the Wesley Foundation. They will invite others of us to join them at some point. They feel like God is doing something in their midst–they’re just trying to figure out what, and join in. Our Methodist district and conference have taken notice. The Appalachian District, with the strong support of our DS Lory Beth Huffman, has offered them a $10,000 seed grant. The conference will consider a pitch soon for a much larger grant.
We are tentatively calling the thing King Street Church. Similar efforts in our conference are in Winston-Salem (newstorychurch.org) and Asheville (haywoodstreet.org). Our conference recently reorganized to move money out of administration and into mission–we are the sort of congregation that has a capacity to lead that effort.
Our congregation has a deep history of responsiveness. We founded the Wesley Foundation and our preschool in the 50s. We started our contemporary service and relationship with Patzibal in the 90s. Crossroads and Blackburn Chapel emerged in the 2000s.
This may be our next step in responding to God’s grace. “Get ready to do something,” our value says. For now, pray. Soon, visit and offer input and advice and encouragement. Always, be on the watch for Jesus. He’s on the move.
Are we ready to follow?
