Giggles, Groans, or Mission?

Recently, I preached the same sermon in two different locations. Part of the sermon talked about our changing context due to the constant development of technology and shifts in population growth. To explain this, I read off a bunch of statistics that I found in this video:

What fascinated me was the differences in how each of the two congregation responded. The first church was the Upper Room, the church I’m planting. This group is comprised mostly of young adults living in an urban context. They responded to the statistics in the video mostly by giggling. The second church I preached this sermon in was a suburban church with an average age that’s a bit older. As they heard these statistics, they groaned is disbelief. Some even told me how sad the statistics are.

This got me to asking myself two questions. First, why these differences in reaction? I can think of a few reasons. The Upper Room’s members live in the city, and thus in a significantly more diverse environment than the suburbs of Pittsburgh. The shift in population demographics is right in front of the every day. They’ve also grown up and been educated as this shift has developed, so their educations reflects, at least in part, a preparation for these shifts. The older, suburban congregation has lived without these shifts for some time, maybe they feel as if they’re actually losing something.

The second question I have may be more difficult to answer. What are the consequences to reacting in each of these ways? The title of the sermon I preached was “You Are Stewards of the Gospel,” based on the first half of Ephesians 3. The sermon explained that Paul understood the gospel as something entrusted to him, that God has revealed the mystery of Christ to him not merely for his own benefit, but also so that Paul might proclaim it to others. The sermon challenged the congregation to think of themselves as stewards of the gospel, as people entrusted with the message of Christ so that it may be proclaimed, and then reflected on how we do this in our changing global context. In light of globalization and developed technology, we all ought to adopt a missionary mentality.

The folks in the suburban church may not be prepared for this shift. Their groaning may reflect a refusal to acknowledge these shifts and to respond accordingly. However, I also wonder if those of us who giggle when we hear about these changes are also unprepared. Imagine the missionary work someone like Paul could accomplish in our age of Iphones and Blackberries, when we literally carry the entire world in our pocket. Perhaps our giggling is a sign that we take these changes for granted? Perhaps our education and context has so eased us into this much more connected world that we actually fail to see fully the opportunity that lies before us.

Our present context presents us with opportunities for mission that didn’t exist even 1o years ago. If only the whole church would seize the fullness of these opportunities…

Maintenance or Innovation?

Last week, I was in Estes Park, CO for a national gathering of the Company of New Pastors. I spent the week with recent graduates from all of the PC(USA)’s seminaries who were selected for this program because of the particular promise that they showed for ministry. There were some good things about this week, but there were also some things that I’ve observed that leave me worried about the future of our denomination. Here are a few:

1.) We gathered for prayer three times a day. The first session was Tuesday evening. Chris and I were running late, and as we were walking down the hall to the meeting room, we heard the sound of voices singing “In the Secret.” We were both pleasantly surprised to hear passionate singing, no less singing of a song written this century. We then neared the meeting room, opened the door, and discovered a room full of young pastors sitting around and waiting for things to begin. The singing was coming from another room. Instead, our worship, (admittedly with some noble exceptions) slavishly followed the Book of Common Worship’s daily prayer rubrics. This made for worship that was theologically sound, but missiologically ineffective if ever attempted for use with laity (and even some clergy) under the age of 40 (and even some over 40).

2.) The retreat also included a panel discussion in which we could learn from several experienced mentor pastors, all of whom were very qualified for the task, and had good things to share. Since we’re all entering a ministry context in which the denomination we’re serving in is declining in numbers, young people are seemingly uninterested in the gospel (or at least they way in which it’s traditionally been presented), and we had a panel of entirely white pastors and the Company of New Pastors class was probably about 90% white (maybe even higher) despite the fact that ethnic minorities are all growing, you’d think there would be some significant discussion about missiological, evangelistic, and cross-cultural aspects of ministry. Nope. Most of the discussion centered on administrative issues of ministry; interacting with sessions and personnel committees, handling vacation and continuing education time, and so forth.

3.) There was also a time for people to meet in small groups based on ministry situations. (Solo pastor; associate pastor; still seeking a call; women in ministry). Given the context I described above in 2., and the fact that this was a gathering of the seminary graduates showing great promise, there would be a significant number of people going into new church development or the mission field. Once again, this wasn’t the case. Apart from Chris and I and those still seeking or not-yet-seeking a call, everyone else was in a traditional pastorate.

What bothers me about all of this is that our denomination is declining, even failing, and we desperately need new ministries and new structures if the ministry of the PC(USA) is going to continue. Instead, much of this retreat encouraged the maintenance of the present institution. The Company of New Pastors is an opportunity to challenge some of the PC(USA)’s best new leadership to taken on challenging and innovative ministries that can renew and revitalize our denomination. If only that challenge would be given…

How Mission Has Affected My Ministry

This past Monday, I spoke at the World Mission Initiative dinner at Pittsburgh Seminary. I was asked to give a short talk on how my experience with mission through WMI while in seminary has affected my approach to ministry now that I’ve graduated. It was good to reflect on this; I don’t think I realized just how much mission has changed my sense of call and understanding of ministry. At any rate, this is what I said:

I am working half time as the organizing co-pastor of the Upper Room New Church Development in Squirrel Hill, and also as a campus minister for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship’s Graduate and Faculty Ministry at Carnegie Mellon and University of Pittsburgh.

 

I have to confess, before coming to seminary, I wanted to be a pastor who was comfortable. I wanted to be the pastor of a nice church in the suburbs that was just like the church I grew up in. Now, as a seminary graduate, I find myself not in such a comfortable position. I don’t live in the suburbs; I’m in the city. I’m pastoring a new church development that meets in a living room and looks nothing like the church I grew up in. And that call is only a half-time call, so it’s supplemented by doing ministry through InterVarsity, where I have to raise my own support.

 

Something changed in me from the time I started at PTS to the time I graduated from this place. The change is that I was exposed to the mission of God, largely made possible by WMI.

 

First, I learned that the mission of God was not about me, but about seeing all nations know and worship Jesus Christ. Through WMI, I was able to go on a short term mission trip to Southeast Asia where we worked with an unreached minority ethnic group. This has instilled in me a passion to see all ethnicities worship Christ, and so I’m now working on a new church development that we hope to be multiethnic. On the same trip, we worked with pastors from a housechurch movement, and so being a pastor there usually means giving up your living room or the top floor of your house so that it can be used as a sanctuary. We see no reason why a model like this couldn’t be used in the U.S. and so the church we’re planting is currently meeting in Chris’s living room.

 

Second, exposure to the mission of God has made prayer a more integral piece of my ministry. Once I returned from Southeast Asia, the sole extent of my involvement with mission there has been prayer, and it’s been a blessing to see how God has answered those prayers. So, I now see how prayer is deeply important for my ministry as a church planter. Our sense of call to plant a church in Squirrel Hill came out of prayer walking that neighborhood. Once we were committed to that neighborhood, the first thing we did was assemble a prayer team of people who have committed to interceding for us and for Squirrel Hill. I’ve also made it my personal goal as a pastor in Squirrel Hill to prayer walk the entire neighborhood, so that I pray over every house and business there. Exposure to the mission of God made me a more passionate pray-er.

 

Lastly, exposure to mission made me more aware of who God is, and made me to fall in love more deeply with my God. WMI allowed me to attend the Association of Presbyterian Mission Pastors conference. What I remember most about this conference is the worship. It was the most vibrant and heartfelt worship that I had ever been a part of. I realized that I was worshipping with people who were on the front lines of the Kingdom of God. Their involvement in mission meant that they had seen God at work. They weren’t just worshipping an abstract concept, but they were worshipping the real, living God who is at work in the world today. If I had gone through PTS  without having been exposed to the mission of God, I would have been very prepared to be a pastor who could talk a lot about a God whom I knew about but whom I had never seen myself. Through WMI, I saw with my own eyes the God I read about in Scriptures and learned about in the classroom. Because I’ve now seen for myself the hand of this God at work, I’m now prepared to be his witness.

Myths and Facts About Support Raising

For the past 6 weeks or so, I’ve been working on raising my ministry budget so that I can begin work with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship’s Graduate and Faculty Ministry at CMU and Pitt. Raising support is about as difficult as it sounds, but I will say that InterVarsity is great about providing resources to help along the way. One of those resources I encountered early on was something called “Myths and Facts about Fund Development.” This document was written for people who are raising support and helps to clear up some misconceptions and fears new IV staff might have about fundraising. This was a really helpful resource for me, but I’m realizing that for as many fears, misunderstandings and doubts I have had about asking people to support me, the people who I’m asking tend to have just as many, and they need to have some things clarified just as much. So, if someone entering the mission field ever comes asking you for support, keep these myths and facts in mind:

Myth: The fundraiser is only interested in your money.

Fact: If the fundraiser was only interested in money, they would have chosen a different, more profitable profession. In fact, the fundraiser is excited about the work s/he’s preparing for and wants to share it with you! You do no favors to the support raiser by just writing a check without ever talking with them about their upcoming work.

Myth: When the fundraiser asks for prayers and other forms of support, that’s really just a guise to dillute the fact that they’re asking for money.

Fact: The fundraiser is preparing to invest his/her life in the service of God, which is incredibly intimidating. They need to know that their brothers and sisters in Christ are behind them. Prayer support and even emotional support and friendship are much more needed and desired. The money is obviously needed and appreciated, but just getting a check from a person who doesn’t express any interest in the actual work of the missionary makes the missionary feel like s/he is just asking for handout instead of partners in ministry.

Myth: The fundraiser is disappointed if you’re not able to give.

Fact: The fundraiser’s primary hope is that you’ll be interested and enthusiastic about the ministry they’re beginning. In my support raising experience, finding people who have both a high capacity/capability for financial giving and an interest in hearing about my ministry is a very rare thing. Usually, I find that I’m either talking with people who have a high capacity for financial giving but no understanding of why mission work is important, or with people with little (or even a complete lack of) capacity for financial giving but with great interest in the work of the ministry. I’d much rather talk with the latter.

Shameless Plug

CMU graduate and former KUPC EM worship leader Joseph Yu is currently on a mission trip in Haiti. You should check out his blog here. Please pray for him!