"Restoring Relationships: God, Creation and Humanity"
The First United Presbyterian Church of Loveland
“Restoring Relationships: God, Creation, and Humanity”
Rev. Amy Morgan
October 31, 2021
2 Corinthians 5:17-20
So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!
18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation;
19 that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.
20 So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
John 12:23-26
Jesus answered them, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.
24 Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
25 Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
26 Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.
Everywhere you look, people will tell you the church is dying. Surveys and polls and studies will tell you, in black-and-white, irrefutable numbers and graphs, that church membership, church attendance, religious belief are all in precipitous decline. Church finances are unsustainable. More churches are closing than opening. Young people aren’t going to church, and they don’t believe in God as much as their elders.
Then there are the folks who will tell you why the church is dying. Pastors and denominational leaders, academics and theologians and church historians. Writers and professional opinionists.
Some will say the church is dying because it has lost its soul. It has become too liberal, bending to the whims of secular society and values. Others will say it has become too fundamentalist, ignoring the movement of the Holy Spirit toward love and justice and compassion while holding to ideals of purity and toxic theologies. Both groups wills say the church has stopped following the way of Jesus. It’s just that the way of Jesus is defined very differently by each of these groups.
Others will say the church is dying because of all the infighting and scandal. Christianity has lost any moral authority it once had to the exposure of sexual and financial indiscretions, conflict over inclusion and theological disagreements, and the hypocrisy that is made manifest through these clashes and disgraces.
Still others will assert that the church is dying because it has simply become irrelevant. Christian theology and practice have failed to address the questions and issues that hold practical meaning for people today. The church is seen as peddling in superstition and uncritical, unreasonable, anti-scientific belief. It’s music and liturgy and doctrine are either incomprehensibly ancient and anachronistic or saccharine and shallow.
And finally, some will say the church is dying because it has failed to keep up with the advances of technology and media. They will point to the success of churches who were early adopters of social media and online platforms, or who have enormous production budgets that make church entertaining.
I’ve been reading these reports and listening to these voices pronouncing the death of Christianity, the death of the church, for nearly 15 years. I’ve been fretting, pondering, and occasionally, panicking. I’ve read the books, gone to the conferences, watched the YouTube videos on what we’re supposed to be doing to turn this thing around. I’ve innovated and developed programs, new worship services, curriculum and practices.
Everyone seems to have a plan for fixing the church, bringing it back to life. My office bookshelves are lined with books advising the church to be more missional, more youth-friendly, more relatable, more multi-cultural, more adaptable, more prayer-focused, more mindful of God’s commandments, and more mindful of those who are excluded.
Oddly, none of these books advocate for the church to just die already.
When I came here to 1st on 4th 4 years ago, I found out what happens when the church dies. It falls to the ground and bears much fruit.
You see, this church has a unique story. In the early 1980’s, the congregation split over, as I understand it, theological disagreements, specifically the ordination of women – as elders. A large faction of the congregation, including the pastor, left to form another church in a different Presbyterian denomination. What was left were a few members with few resources. The Presbytery determined this church was dead and sent someone in to close it.
But the church said, “no.” They insisted that out of death comes new life, that in Christ there is a new creation, and they were determined to be that new creation. They knew that there were some things about the old church that needed to die. Complementarian theology that claimed women were not called to leadership, for one. They wanted a new church that would utilize the gifts of all and reach out into the community.
And so they got a part-time redevelopment pastor, and they got to work. Some of you were here at that time. I’m sure the work was hard and the future was uncertain. But the church grew, the finances stabilized, the pastoral ministry was able to expand from half-time, to three-quarters, and finally, to full-time. Money was raised for capital improvements, renovation of the organ, and historic restoration projects. New programs for children and youth brought young families into the congregation. And even through several years of pastoral transition and tumult, this congregation remained steadfast, healthy, and vital.
This church has died. And it has arisen as a glorious new creation, reconciled to God and sharing the message of reconciliation with our community. It is naming and claiming that ministry of reconciliation in our new mission statement – a space and community restoring relationships between God, creation, and humanity.
Over the last few weeks, we talked about each part of that mission statement individually, but the truth is, these are interrelated relationships
[Luminous web quote]
The luminous web of relationships here at First on Fourth testify to the abundance of fruit in this new creation. We have folks in their 80’s and 90’s who, in our faith formation classes, will say “wow, I never knew that. I learned something new. This changes the way I see things and might just change the way I live the rest of my life.” We’ve got folks thinking about retirement wondering what they can do to be of service in the mission of the church. We’ve got folks in their mid-life, mid-career, middle of raising their families and doing DIY home renovations who are making time and giving their energy to serve as Elders and Deacons, lead committees, and help out wherever they can to make sure the ministry of this church continues to thrive. We’ve got teenagers who are back at the sound board and computer and cameras actually paying attention to the worship service so that we can have terrific online and onsite worship experiences. Last Sunday, a crew of people of all ages, from elementary school to older adults, showed up in the afternoon to set up a tent and stage a manger scene and put on costumes out on the sidewalk to make a video for Christmas in the middle of October so that, no matter what happens with this pandemic, we’ll have a way to remember the joy of Christ’s birth and our shared faith as a community. This past week, we celebrated Lorraine Albert’s 103rd birthday, because at 103, most of the people you know aren’t around anymore, so we are her family and friends. On Thursday night, we celebrated and supported the ministry of Yucatan Peninsula Missions as we connected with each other and strengthened our connections with YPM’s ministry with our neighbors in the Yucatan.
A few weeks ago, we asked for funding for the MEND fund, which had almost been depleted. We had paid rent for a family to keep their spot in a trailer park. We had helped a member out with a utility bill. We had paid for a membership to the Chilson Center so an unhoused family could shower there. We had paid for prescriptions and car registrations and rental deposits. We kept people safe and well and moving forward in their lives in challenging circumstances. We met emergency needs with dignity, as the fund acronym states. And when we needed more funding, y’all responded with incredible generosity.
You all are generous with your money, but you’re also generous with your time. Serving in the Community Kitchen, working with Together Colorado, and serving individually with various organizations all over town.
When we let you know there’s a need, you jump in to fill it. With clothes and gift cards for unhoused youth in the school district. With meals for folks who are ill or recovering from surgery. With cards for folks having special birthdays or going through difficult times. With cookies and care packages. You all give and give and give.
And your giving is doing this amazing work of restoring relationships. That is something that may not show up in polls and surveys. It may not be visible to academics and opinionators. It may not be reflected in studies and graphs.
And no one is writing a book on how our church is thriving and bearing fruit because it died. But maybe they should be.
The pandemic may have accelerated the death of some churches and some things in the church. Some congregations have shut their doors permanently because of lack of members and money. Others have closed down programs and ministries because of lack of volunteers or funding. I’ve gotten in trouble with folks here, including my husband, for talking too much about the death of the church.
But what I’m talking about, what I’ve been talking about, isn’t death. It is new life. It is a new creation. It is following Jesus, who died on the cross, so that we can serve him and be where he is at.
This church has already undergone that metamorphosis. We aren’t scared of what the future holds, because the worst has already happened, and we survived it. We are serving Jesus fearlessly, and, yes, we are growing. In membership and in funding and bucking all the trends that are panicking folks across the spectrum of Christianity in America. But what’s really amazing is how we continue to re-create around here.
Y’all gave $15,000 this year so that folks online and onsite could have clear, quality audio and visual experiences that allow us to hear and see and share the good news of Jesus Christ in new ways and with more people. Lots of churches pivoted during the pandemic and bought some equipment and did some stuff online. But a lot of them also stopped doing it as soon as they thought they could. They didn’t lean into it a year into the pandemic and decide this was something they knew needed to happen going forward.
We created a new, permanent, administration and communications position that is focused on digital communication, our website, social media, live-streaming, and worship instead of going back to a person in an office answering phones and folding paper bulletins. We allowed some things to die, like having someone at the door to greet us when we pop in during the week, so that something new could thrive, like new folks worshipping with our church family from New Mexico and Oregon. In the last month, we’ve had 109 unique viewers of our YouTube videos. A quarter of those viewers came from YouTube suggesting our video, not from people already somehow connected to our church. And our YouTube subscriptions rose 25%. We are reaching new people, widening the loving embrace of this community, and restoring relationships with folks who may not have a church near them that engages in this life-changing work.
When Angela had to leave the position of music director to follow her career path in musical theater, I know it felt like a death to a lot of us. But it sowed the seeds for Sam to come into our ministry with his gifts for teaching and re-igniting our choir, his passion for our organ and for creating fabulous music with it. His ministry is bearing wonderful and abundant fruit in just the short time he’s been with us. And, as they like to say, we get a “two-for” with Libby joining us on the violin and accompanying the choir. But again, their work, at the core, is about restoring relationships. Their music lifts our spirits to God and helps us offer praise and gratitude and sometimes lament. They are connecting us back to each other as we sing together as a congregation or in the choir. They even connected us to the creation through outdoor singing when it was possible and necessary.
Look, I know this has been an enormous pep talk, but what I hope you all see is that all the bad news about churches dying is not bad news for us. You can judge Christianity through whatever lens you want. You can say the church has too much money and power and is greedy and abusive. You can say the church doesn’t have enough money to be sustainable or enough power to effect change in our society. You can say church membership is in decline and churches are closing. You can say megachurches have too many members to really grow people spiritually and connect them as a community.
But you can also say that some things have to die so they can fall to the ground and bear much fruit. And you can see that fruit in churches that are serving the crucified and risen Christ, who are located where he is located. You can see that fruit here, in the Heart of Christ in the Heart of Loveland: a space and community restoring relationships between God, creation, and humanity.
All glory and thanks be to God, Amen.
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