How to Handle Anger
Category: Spiritual practice
What’s up with Pastor Todd 2-23-20
What’s Up with Pastor Todd 2-23-20
I didn’t know it at the time, but looking back I can see that my childhood was filled with stories of what I would now call “mystical experiences,” that is, encounters with God. I sat on mom’s lap as she read from my Children’s Story Bible about God’s search for Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. I remember illustrations of Abraham’s meeting with the three strangers under the Oaks of Mamre. I was fascinated and frightened by the mysterious angel who wrestled through the night with Jacob on the banks of the River Jabbok. Equally scary but in a different way was Moses’ encounter with God on Sinai. I remember the visions of the prophets: Isaiah’s throne; Ezekiel’s vision of wheels within wheels was something out of a Marvel comic book, and his vision of the valley of dry bones was spooky. Then there was Jesus’ vision of the Holy Spirit at his baptism. Peter, James, and John climb with Jesus to a mountaintop where Jesus is transfigured before their eyes. Paul encounters the risen Christ on the Road to Damascus. “Mystical” in the religious context has come to mean a direct experience of ultimate reality.
I don’t explicitly talk about mysticism very often because it’s famously difficult to do. God is, as the hymn says, “beyond all knowledge and all thought.” From a mystical standpoint, God is “unspeakable.” Simply saying the word “God” is already missing God. “God” is a placeholder for that which is by definition incomprehensible. Nevertheless, inadequate though it is, language is a tool we use to point toward a direct experience of–you pick your expression–God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, Higher Power, the Divine, Ultimate Reality, Awakening, Buddha Nature, Allah, HaShem. The names are many.
Another reason I don’t explicitly talk about mysticism is the term carries with it all kinds of unhelpful baggage. People expect bright lights and heavenly voices and strange sensations. When these don’t manifest, they imagine either that it’s all just a bunch of hooey or that they are lacking the special whatever-it-is that one needs to have a mystical experience. Neither of these conclusions is true. It’s not a bunch of hooey. Have you ever had an “Aha” moment? Have you ever been moved to tears? These and other everyday experiences of “breakthrough” are what mystics consider “divine encounters.” And everyone has them or has the capacity to recognize them. So you are a mystic! Some breakthroughs are big and life-altering. More often they’re small and go unrecognized.
Church is a community gathered around the intention to recognize, name, and ever more deeply live out of these unspeakable mystical encounters.
Know Your Why
What’s Up with Pastor Todd 1-16-20
What’s Up with Pastor Todd 1-16-20
I spent Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday morning this week on meditation retreat. I came home and took a nap. Why? Because sitting on the floor in silence while maintaining as still a posture as possible for 10 hours a day is, in fact, exhausting. Why do I do it? Scripture says, “Be still and know that I am God.” Humans like to move. We rush around doing this and that. But even if we’re “vegging out,” our minds jump from this thought to that thought. The practice of meditation is stilling the body and mind together to become completely still like water on a pond. It turns out that the Bible is true! I can attest that cultivating stillness does, in fact, create circumstances in which God can be encountered in a profoundly life-changing way.
When asked my purpose, I tend to say “Helping people connect to God.” How can I help people connect to God if I am not myself living out of that connection? As a personal purpose statement, “helping people connect to God” seems to work for me. Working with our transition coach, Rev. Dr. Claire Bamberg, has taught me to ask a different question, namely, what is your “Why?” I realized this week that “helping people connect to God” doesn’t answer the “why” question. Why help people connect to God? Great question!
I don’t know the answer, yet, exactly. Maybe something like this: I know the pain of being separated from one’s deepest longing. I also know the joy of connection. A world of joyful, connected people is a world I want to live in.
As a congregation articulating a “why” is vital to our future. More important than what we do is being clear why we do it. Claire will be leading us in a congregational conversation about our why. In the meantime, I strongly encourage you to watch these short videos and think about what is your “why” and what is FCC Granby’s “why.” The videos show why the question of “why” is so important.
What’s Up with Pastor Todd 1-7-20
What’s Up with Pastor Todd 1-7-20
My family and I had a wonderful holiday together in Windsor. We took some time off to focus on reconnecting. Fiona and her boyfriend (who is from Tokyo and stayed with us this winter break) cooked for us. My sister and her family of 6 (!) stayed with us for a week. They filled our sleeper sofas and bunk beds. Olivia directed the Christmas pageant here at FCC Granby and worked lifeguarding shifts at the Jewish Community Center. Even in this age of virtual reality and social media, there is no substitute for simply sharing space. While physical proximity does not guarantee intimacy, it is a key factor for cultivating closeness. (Which, just to drive the point home, is why there is no substitute for dragging your _____ to worship on Sunday morning.)
This week I’ve been settling back into a work rhythm. The answer to “What’s Up with Pastor Todd?” is “a lot.” I’m sitting in my office with the “to do” list Office Manager Sue prepares for me every week, to which I typically add a dozen or so more items. My view is that if my “to do” list doesn’t exceed my ability to complete it, I’m not living big enough. How do I avoid a constant state of overwhelm? Prioritizing and letting go. Even so, sometimes it’s difficult to prioritize. So many things demand attention. In these moments I use a tool I’ve learned in many years of meditation practice: focus on what’s in front of you. Sounds simple enough. But then the question becomes How do I get the things in front of me that are most consistent with my goals and values? This brings me back to the practices of inviting Sue to partner with me in creating a “to do” list and literally putting it on my desk where I will see it. This brings me back to the “big rocks” of Scripture study, sermon preparation, writing liturgy, namely, the spiritual practices that ground me in what is of ultimate importance.
One of my favorite Buddhist Scriptures is called “The Five Remembrances.” It’s part of an ancient text attributed to the Buddha entitled “Subjects for Contemplation.” The fifth remembrance is this: “My deeds are my closest companions. I am the beneficiary of all my deeds. My deeds are the ground on which I stand.” The only place to act is here. The only time to act is now. What are you doing right here, right now? What practices help you align your deeds with your values? Who are your “closest companions?” Are they hindering you on your spiritual journey or propelling you forward? What is your “ground?” Is it a solid place on which to stand?
Rapture
Renunciation and Repentance
Renunciation and Repentance
Presentation to National Council of Churches Buddhist-Christian Dialogue
Hsi Lai Temple
Hacienda Heights, CA
5 November 2019
Good morning, everyone. It is an honor and a joy to have the opportunity to speak with you this morning on the topics of renunciation and repentance. These are topics of enormous importance, but we only have a short time together. So I will begin by setting the frame and focus for my brief remarks.
Renunciation and repentance are spiritual practices that save my life. For me, they are important not as abstract theological concepts but as concrete actions. As theological concepts, renunciation and repentance in Buddhism and Christianity are in many ways worlds apart. But they intersect in profound ways in my personal spiritual practice. I would like to show you those intersection points by sharing with you a little of my spiritual journey.
I was born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan and baptized as an infant in the Christian Reformed Church (CRC). The CRC is a small, conservative, Evangelical denomination of Dutch immigrants based primarily in the Midwest and Canada. For generations all of my family on both my mother’s and my father’s side have been CRC. When I was in high school, my mom left the CRC to become and ordained minister in another denomination. She left because at that time the CRC did not allow women to become ordained ministers. At about that same time my dad came out as a gay man. He also left the CRC because the CRC, like many conservative Christian denominations, is not supportive of LGBTQ people. After my parents left, I left the CRC, and I seriously considered leaving Christianity altogether.
Instead, I decided to study theology at the graduate level. First, I moved to Germany and studied there for a year. I then returned to the U.S. and studied theology at the University of Chicago with the intent of becoming an academic theologian. But God called, and I answered. So instead of pursuing a Ph.D. I ordained in the United Church of Christ (UCC) and have been serving as a pastor for the past 23 years. The United Church of Christ is a Protestant Christian denomination that shares many of the theological roots of the church of my childhood, but they have taken those roots and grown in some very different directions, the most important of which for me are that the UCC ordains women and supports the equality of women in every aspect of church life. The UCC also welcomes LGBTQ to serve equally in all aspects of church life, including ordination. The UCC is also very active in ecumenical and interfaith work, which will become important later in my spiritual journey.
The CRC placed a heavy emphasis on renunciation and repentance. Every Sunday worship featured a reading of God’s law and a call to repentance, which each of us made individually and silently sitting in pews, our heads bowed, our eyes closed. There were many things we were expected to renounce as Christians. Sex outside of marriage was a big one. Also dancing, swearing, and secular music–especially rock and roll. Working, shopping, playing with friends, or any other kind of “secular” activity were forbidden on Sunday. Renunciation was about resisting temptation. Repentance was the remedy for succumbing to it. Renunciation and repentance were the twin practices for maintaining the behavioral norms and cultural boundaries of the community.
My understanding of renunciation and repentance have changed since I was a child. It’s not that I have rejected the practices of my childhood. Rather, my spiritual journey has challenged me to expand them. Let me explain.
One of the things I really appreciate about my upbringing was its emphasis on what we called “personal devotions” or “quiet time.” The idea was that as Christians we were to extend the practices of renunciation and repentance into our daily lives. I took this very seriously as a child. I would set aside 10-20 minutes a day to read my children’s Bible and then to pray. The Bible reading I found difficult but doable. We were taught that prayer was “talking to God.” So I would fold my hands, close my eyes, kneel next to my bed and say what was on my mind. It would take maybe two or three minutes before I would run out of things to say. I found the procedure spiritually unsatisfying, but I wasn’t offered any alternatives, so I kept at it for many years until eventually as a teenager I just stopped. I longed to develop myself spiritually, but nothing in the narrow range of options available to me made that connection. The practices I was taught didn’t offer enough “quiet” (since most of the “noise” was coming from my chatty brain) and not enough “time” (since once I was done “talking to God,” I didn’t know what to do.)
Fast forward many years. I am serving my first call as an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. I am the solo pastor a small church in a small town in the Chicago area. It is not going well. The church is dying. The parishioners are fighting with each other and with me. One day I’m pacing my office looking for answers to some church problem or another. I don’t remember what, exactly. I find myself absent-mindedly looking at the books on my bookshelf and I spot one entitled Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki. When my wife and I married, we put our books together. This was one of hers. I pulled it off the shelf, started reading, and that began my Zen meditation practice, which I’ve maintained for the past 20 years. I’m currently a member of the Boundless Way Zen Temple in Worcester, MA. My teacher is David Dae An Rynick, Roshi. I received lay ordination in the Boundless Way Zen lineage in 2018.
What does this have to do with renunciation and repentance? Let’s take renunciation first. In my current understanding renunciation is a process of self-emptying. I find that in the practice of renunciation the Jesus way and the Zen way intersect at profound levels. Self-emptying in the Christian tradition is often talked about using the Greek term, kenosis. This word appears in the famous text from Philippians 2: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
6 who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
7 but emptied (ekenosin) himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
8 he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.”
Self-emptying in this context goes far beyond the understanding of renunciation as avoiding certain behaviors. In fact, my early experience of renunciation as primarily avoiding sex, swearing, and “bad thoughts,” whatever that meant, only served to reinforce my ego and self-consciousness. I had continual anxiety that I was being a “bad Christian.” My Zen practice has invited me to step beyond judgments of good and bad and into a practice of unconditional availability, letting go of self-concern so that I can be more effectively present and helpful in whatever circumstances I find myself.
Repentance is the spiritual practice of changing one’s mind (Gk: metanoia) or “turning around.” St. Paul famously described it thus: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds” (Romans 12:2). Jesus’ first sermon was a call to repentance: “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.” In my upbringing, repentance was closely linked to renunciation. One repented indulgence in things one was supposed to have renounced. For me, it took a form something like this: sitting in worship, head bowed, I silently pray, “God, I’m sorry for fighting with my brother this week. Amen.” One is supposed to feel remorse and vow never to do the repented-of thing ever again. But much of the time I did. There were always more sibling conflicts to work through, sexual thoughts to arise, or sweets to sneak from the cupboard. Repentance was a repetitive, guilt-inducing grind that once again only reinforced my ego-centric consciousness. The Kingdom of Heaven was not near. As far as I could tell, I was far, far from it.
What are we turning from and what we are turning toward in repentence? Christian teaching focuses on turning away from “sin” and turning toward God and toward our fellow human beings. Sin is often defined as anything that separates us from God or from our neighbor. When asked about the “greatest commandment,” Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself.” In other words, there are sins that harm our relationship to God (this is called “idolatry” in Christian theology) and sins that harm our neighbors, or put us out of right relationship with them. The root of all of these sins is the tendancy of human beings to prioritize the wants and needs of the individual ego above all else. This is how repentance in the Christian context can be understood as self-emptying. Turning away from the focus on self and turning toward a focus on God and neighbor.
Zen repentance can also be understood as self-emptying, but it is rooted in the understanding that there is no such thing as a separate self. The individual “I” is a construct of habitual thinking that if observed very closely in the process of meditation slowly begins to deconstruct itself. The turning in Zen involves noticing how we get caught up in our thinking processes and then returning attention to the breath over and over again without judgment. Over time this creates an expansiveness of spirit born of an experiential knowledge that in the view of absolute reality, we are one.
Repentance in Zen involves acknowledging our mistakes for the simple purpose of seeing clearly how we get carried away again and again by our thoughts: our thoughts of separation, our thoughts of oneness, our thoughts of good, our thoughts of evil, our thoughts of God, our thoughts of no God. The power of awareness is that it gives us the opportunity to get ‘street-smart’ (as my teacher puts it) in the ways of the mind. The point is not to eliminate thought. That is a common mistake. Our brains are thought producing organs. It’s just what they do. The point is simply not to mistake our thoughts for reality. Christian mystic Meister Eckhart famously said, “Let us pray to God that we may be free of God.” His point being that the word “God” itself can become an idol if we attach an idea of reality to it. God, in this mystical convergence, is simply the bare present manifesting moment after moment. Just this. Repentance is seeing with compassion how we continually “miss the mark” and returning to just this.
The practice of zazen has taught me in profound ways that the Kingdom of Heaven is indeed very near, in fact, right here, right now, just this. Repentance is nothing more and nothing less than reconnecting with right now. I have found that repentance practiced in this way leads to exactly the kind of spiritual development St. Paul was writing about when he warned Christians, “Do not be conformed to this world,” and exhorted them to instead “be transformed by the renewing of your minds.”
Renunciation and repentance tend to have negative associations in modern, Western cultures. This is understandable. For centuries Christian institutions have used the practices of renunciation and repentance as tools for social control. I don’t think my parents or the Christian Reformed Church had any bad intent in raising me to practice their particular forms of repentance and renunciation. They truly believed that they were loving me by saving me from hell. Unfortunately, the practices themselves plunged me into my own personal hell realms of anxiety and depression that to this day I visit from time to time. The difference for me now is that a new understanding of repentance and renunciation gained through meditation practice means that whether I find myself in the hell of suffering or the heaven of bliss, I have the tools to engage the present moment whole-heartedly. This whole-hearted engagement with reality is the fruit of renunciation and repentance. Whole-hearted engagement produces salvation for me and perhaps even for the entire world.
What’s Up with Pastor Todd 7-30-19
What’s Up with Pastor Todd 7-30-19
I had a nice meeting with the youth group Sunday evening. Rebecca, our Associate Pastor for Children and Youth Ministry, was away, so my daughter, Olivia, and I led the meeting. We met in Cook Hall instead of the normal basement meeting space. This was so we could set out cushions for meditation.
The focus of the FCC Youth Group–and one of the reasons for its success–is practical tools for everyday young adult living. Teenagers face pressures that the adults in their lives sometimes seem to have a difficult time understanding. So the FCC Youth Group is a safe space for listening, learning together, and offering support as a navigate the choices and challenges of growing up.
I began my meditation practice over twenty years ago. At that time I was newly married, newly a father, and starting my first “real” pastor job at a small, dying church in a rapidly changing town. The pressure was enormous. My old ways of solving problems was not working. Up until that point in my life, I had succeeded by memorizing the correct answers and spitting them back out on a test. But in my new situation being the smartest kid in class just wasn’t going to cut it. I needed to learn to see clearly, respond calmly, and connect emotionally with people. I didn’t start meditating thinking that it would help me do these things. I just knew I needed to change my approach and some intuition told me that meditation might help.
These days I engage regularly in formal meditation training with an authorized teacher and I teach others the simple practice of sitting still and minding the breath. FCC Youth and I spent an hour-and-a-half sitting in silence, sharing our experiences, and planning for the future. It feels great to know that we can turn to our breath and turn to each other when anxiety runs high.
The favorite Scripture for this week comes to us from Peg Giles. John 3:8 reads, “The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” The Greek word for “wind” also means “breath” and “spirit.” The text could also read, “The breath respires where it will . . . So it is with everyone who is born of the breath.” Could minding the breath and being “born of the spirit” or “born again” be connected? We imagine that “spiritual experience” is rare and dramatic–a blinding light or a voice from heaven–but what if it’s as close and common as this very breath.
Spiritual Goal–Sermon for 7/28/19
Rev. Dr. Todd Grant Yonkman, Transitional Senior Minister
First Congregational Church of Granby
Sermon Series: Favorite Scripture
28 July 2019
Text: Rev. 22:16-20
Spiritual Goal
What’s our purpose as Christians? As a church? That’s the question behind today’s favorite Scripture. It comes to us from Nancy Dow. When Nancy told me that her favorite Scripture is Revelation 22:16-20, she said, “I think it’s important that we focus on the end.” What I understood her to be saying is that we as Christians should not lose focus our purpose. What is our goal? What are we working toward? It reminds me of the sacred conversation Ann and I had last week in which she explained that when you’re plowing a field, you can’t look back. You need to keep your eyes on the horizon. Revelation 22:16-20 is very much focused on the horizon. This text contains the last words of the last chapter of the last book of the Bible. Last words carry special power. When someone dies, we often give their last words special significance. When I write a sermon I put a lot of focus on the end, the last paragraph, the last sentence, the last word, because that’s what people are most likely to remember.
In today’s Scripture the most repeated word is “come.”
The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.”
And let everyone who hears say, “Come.”
And let everyone who is thirsty come.
Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.
The one who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming
soon.”
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!
The word that rings through this passage is “come.” It’s not a “come if you’d like to” invitation. It’s a “get over here. We want you. We need you” invitation. At the center is the water of life. The image I see is a gathering at a well or maybe at the beach. There’s an old folk song that goes, “I went down in the river to pray, studying about that good old day and who shall wear the robe and crown, dear Lord, show me the way. O brothers let’s go down. Let’s go down. Come on down. O brothers let’s go down, down in the river to pray.” When we look to the horizon, what do we see? An invitation. “Come.”
The whole of our purpose is invitation. It’s helping people, help each other connect to God. Martin Luther famously said that Christianity is one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread. And there are a lot of hungry people out there. Our own Rebecca Brown has proven that. She came here four years ago as a lay minister for children and youth. When she arrived there were eight people in the youth group. Now there are over forty. How did she do that? Invitation.
Some of you may think that means Rebecca did all the inviting. That’s not the case at all. She engaged step by step in a very methodical process. The first thing she did was tell the group that their job was to grow. This message was met with resistance. There were some in the group who did not want to grow. They didn’t want “outsiders” messing things up. This was their group made up of people they were comfortable with. What if they didn’t like the new people? Rebecca held her ground, and the people who didn’t want to grow left the group. Now she was down to four kids.
Rebecca took those four kids and poured everything she had into them. She went to every event, every game, every concert, every party. Every opportunity she had to embed herself in the lives of the youth of this town, she took. She didn’t sit in the church and wait for youth to come to her, she went to them. She met youth on their terms, in their space. She made herself the guest. Instead of setting herself up as someone with the answers, she made herself a student of youth culture. She invited them to teach her. She showed up for them. Then they started showing up for her.
According to Rebecca, it only took about a year of networking and showing up before word about the youth group at FCC Granby started to spread. In other words, the youth themselves became the inviters. There wasn’t any fancy advertising. There weren’t any splashy events. It was all word of mouth. The reason I mention this is that this is consistent with other stories I’ve heard about church growth. My office manager in Stamford was a member of Grace Church in New Canaan for many years. Today Grace Church has thousands of members in a multi-million dollar campus that was featured in the New York Times because of its award-winning architecture. She told me she remembered the church went it was a group of people meeting in the pastor’s back yard. I asked her what was the secret to their growth. She said, “It was all word of mouth.” In terms of our FCC youth group, the eight that then became four has increased 10-fold to a group of over 40 kids. What if our church membership increased 10-fold? We would have a whole new set of problems. Good problems. Let everyone who hears, say, “Come.” Let everyone who is thirsty come.
The other thing that’s significant about our youth group is that it focuses on the spiritual needs of youth. The numbers only tell part of the story. Rebecca calls it “breaking into the hearts of our kids.” She describes her program as “No fun. No games. No food.” It’s the real stuff: honest, spiritual conversations about things that have direct relevance to their lives as teenagers, conversations, friendships, experiences that they can get nowhere else. If they could have these conversations elsewhere, they probably would. Rebecca sees her task as creating a safe container where young people can let down their pretenses, open their hearts, and be vulnerable. In other words, youth group is about getting real. It’s about authenticity. And, yes, sometimes they have food, fun, and games. Granby youth have spiritual lives and spiritual needs that aren’t being met anywhere else. I wonder if this is also the case for Granby adults?
Every one of us is here because someone else brought us whether it was a parent, grandparent, neighbor, or friend. Maybe it wasn’t to this particular church. Maybe you were one of the increasingly rare types who will just show up at church because it’s something you already value. But how did you come to value it? Because at some point somehow somewhere down the line someone said, “Come.”
Jesus didn’t wait for us to come to him. Scripture says, “5 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
6 who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
7 but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
The world is hurting. How can we be satisfied huddling together inside these enjoying each other’s company when there are so many longing for a heart connection? The goal of the spiritual life is the joy of extending oneself to welcome the other. How do you expect to grow if you won’t stretch? And stepping out beyond our familiar and comfortable walls into the world to engage people where they are is an endless opportunity to stretch. The Spirit says, “Come.” And if we indeed are the spiritual people we imagine ourselves to be, we say with every fiber of our being, “Come. We want you here. Let’s learn together how to heal this world.”
What’s Up with Pastor Todd 7-23-19
What’s Up with Pastor Todd 7-22-19
This week’s favorite Scripture comes to us from Nancy Dow. Revelation 22 is the last chapter of the Bible, and the last chapter concludes with the refrain “Come”:
The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.”
And let everyone who hears say, “Come.”
And let everyone who is thirsty come.
Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift.
The one who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.”
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! (Revelation 22:17, 20).
Nancy chose this Scripture because, she says, “It’s important for us to focus on the goal,” which I take to mean the goal of the spiritual life.
When I hear the word “come” in this context I imagine a posture of welcome, accepting everything, facing everything, rejecting nothing. “Come” speaks to me of God’s posture toward the universe and our faithful response. The goal of the spiritual life is an ever deepening posture of welcome toward all that is.
There’s a receptive aspect to this divine welcome. I experience the receptive aspect in meditation. I sit in resolute silent stillness and receive whatever arises. The deep listening I try to practice in conversation with others is also an expression of this welcome. And there are other ways this welcome manifests. It’s the welcome articulated by the prophet Isaiah: “Those who wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength.” Or by Jesus: “I am the vine. You are the branches. Abide in me and you will bear much fruit.”
I began meditation practice over 20 years ago not only for myself but also for the congregations I serve. I noticed that churches in transition tend not to be particularly receptive. Passive, yes. Receptive, no. One can be passive while turning away from difficult truths, like, for example, “our church is dying.” The receptive welcome that is the goal of the spiritual life faces reality as it is without judgment so that we can engage reality as it is in effective and helpful ways.
We welcome reality as it is in order to meet reality as it is. Engagement is the second aspect of divine welcome–an aspect that declining churches tend to struggle with. We can feel the urgent joy of this welcome in the repeated call to “come.” The Revelation image is of the universe calling to itself. I imagine a parent bending down to embrace a child and lifting her up in his arms. “Come to me. I want you here!” It’s active, urgent, compelling.
Every church I’ve ever served has told me that it is “friendly.” And for the most part it’s true, but what they mean is, “We are friendly to each other.” How many times have I noticed worship guests sitting alone in a pew or keeping their own company at coffee hour? Too many. But even if we’re conscientious about guests, the welcome tends not to extend beyond our walls.
A parishioner has said this to me on more than one occasion in more than one church: “Here ‘friendly’ means, ‘You’re welcome if you come.” This is a far cry from Jesus’ parable of heaven in which the host for the wedding feast sends out his servants into the highways and byways. The host instructs his servants to approach everyone they meet and “compel them to come in.” In other words, the attitude of divine welcome is not “you’re welcome if you come,” but “we want you here! How can we change so this will be a safe and relevant space for you?”
Or better yet, flip roles. Instead of taking the role of host, be a guest. Learn the culture. Show up for others without any expectation. Just make yourself and instrument of divine love. God will do the rest.
I realize this is a scary challenge especially with all the obnoxious evangelists out there, but in my experience, while you may get some “no thank yous,” most people are just waiting to be invited. And–good news!–we will have an opportunity to be trained by an expert in reaching new people, Rev. Paul Nickerson, September 13-14 at First Church in Windsor.
The goal of the spiritual life is the joy of extending oneself to welcome the other. How do you expect to grow if you won’t stretch? And stepping out beyond our familiar and comfortable walls into the world to engage people where they are is an endless opportunity to stretch. This simple but profound spiritual practice unites spiritual growth, social justice, and church vitality. It’s what Jesus made us for. It’s what we’ve been waiting for. It’s past time we do it.
Todd Grant Yonkman 