A Sermon by the Reverend Ellen Rowse Spero
First Parish Unitarian Universalist Church,
Chelmsford, Massachusetts
September 14, 2003
Ancient Reading: (#600 in Singing the Living Tradition): "The Space Within" by Lao-Tse
Modern Reading: Kathleen Norris, Waiting for Dakota
Hymn #113: "Where is Our Holy Church?"
Copyright 2003, Ellen Rowse Spero. All rights reserved.
You and I are beginning our second year together. Last year, everything was new, for me anyway, and my focus was on getting to know all of you and getting to know the ways of this congregation. It has been great to return this year and not be new. I am excited to see what this new church year holds for us. There are already changes: new faces and new members, the missing faces of those who have moved on. We have a new Director of Religious Education: Sadie Kahn-Greene, and a new energy in the Religious Education Program. And yet, some important things have stayed the same. When I look out into the congregation, I see what you see: the familiar faces of dear friends and fellow seekers. I see our beautiful sanctuary and hear the familiar creaking of the pews. Cyndi Bliss is back as our music director, and Cindy Gist, in the office. I am back, but with a major change in my life: young Henry. I appreciate your patience with me as I learn to balance being a minister and a mom to a new baby.
All in all, it is natural to reflect on the year past and the new year before us. Yesterday, I spent yesterday morning with the Standing Committee, the Committee on Ministry, and our District Executive, Lynn Thomas, to repeat the exercise we did last year, to help me prioritize the tasks of ministry to meet the needs of this community for this year. You will be hearing more about this at another time. This particular exercise, as well as the new year, raised the basic questions of being in a religious community: Who are we and who do we want to be? What do we need from this community, and what can we offer?
The answers to these questions are found by looking at how we gather as a religious community. What draws us together? What is at the center? The most frequent answer I hear when I ask "why are you here" is "the community." I can see that. This is a wonderful community: we care about one other, we help each other, we teach each other’s children, we celebrate together, and sometimes we mourn together.
I can see why many of you say, "I’m here for the community." In a lot of ways, I am too. But I want to challenge us to think beyond this answer. What does it mean to say, "I’m here for the community"? What are you seeking that this particular community is providing? How does it gather you in?
Last year, I attended a seminar entitled: "Leading from a Different Place: A Clergy Community of Practice" led by the Rev. Dr. Larry Peers. Larry is an expert on the ministry and congregational life and a long-time consultant to our UU congregations. A group of five clergy, we met seven times over the year for a full day. We represented the range of experience: from me as the new minister in her first solo settlement, to those in their fifteenth year at their particular congregation. We explored personal, professional, and congregational issues in ministry. Over time, you will hear more about my adventures and what I learned from Larry and my colleagues. It was one of the most helpful seminars I have attended.
One of the first questions we dealt with was "how is your congregation gathered?" To help us answer this, Larry presented an alternative way to thinking and talking about congregations to the "pastoral" and "program" church model that has been the buzzword in our denomination for the last decade. My ears pricked up because I knew this particular congregation has really struggled with the whole "pastoral" to "program" church issue. For those of you who are new, and as a refresher to those you who may have repressed it, pastoral and program churches refer to a model of how congregations function by size. According to this model, churches with 50 to 150 members function in a pastoral mode. Everyone knows the minister and the minister knows everyone, and the minister is at the center of the congregation’s ministries: worship, pastoral care and visiting, adult religious education, membership recruitment and retention, etc. In a program size church, 150-250 members, the minister can no longer know each and every parishioner, so the idea is that the minister trains, empowers and supervises lay leaders in programs that carry out the ministries of the congregation. This model has had some unintended consequences as it has made its way through UU minister gatherings, district and denominational workshops, and governing board meetings. I think the authors made important and useful points about how congregations function, why they grow and why they get stuck. They also did not cast judgment on which kind or size of congregation was better. However, no one can foresee or manage how one’s theory is interpreted and used.
The main consequence of this model is the belief that moving from a pastoral to program size church is a sign of congregational health while "getting stuck" at a certain size is a sign of failure and congregational dysfunction. For a few years there, all our UU congregations were supposed to get out of the pastoral size rut and into program size glory. In addition, this model has resulted in a corporatized understanding of congregational life: that the success of a minister or a congregation is measured in the numbers of members and programs that the congregation can boast. Moving from a pastoral to a program sized church is the hardest transition to make anyway, and combined with the pressure to "succeed", many congregations and ministers feel confused, frustrated, if not downright rebellious, whenever the word "program church" is mentioned. I certainly heard this congregation’s ambivalence and confusion, and even rebelliousness, about the pastoral to program church transition loud and clear when I interviewed and candidated here.
Larry offered a model that looked at how congregations gathered, or how they might wish to gather, and how the way of gathering had an impact on how the congregation lived out its vision and mission. The first way congregations can gather is around a club or clan. The goal of this community is to be a congenial and comfortable place to be. It is stable and safe. Similarities are emphasized and differences are not surfaced. As a result, it is a relatively closed community since only those who "fit in" can join. The authority rests with certain lay leaders and the minister functions as a hired priest: taking care of the worship services, weddings, funerals, etc.
In the second model, in contrast, the congregation is gathered around a charismatic leader. Here, the minister usually embodies the vision and mission of the congregation and those who disagree with the minister’s vision do not stay. This works so long as the minister is there and if the minister actually embodies the vision and the mission.
The third model is the company or corporate model. Here, the congregation gathers around a plan with goals and objectives. It uses quantitative measures and focuses on results. In this model, the product (i.e., the worship service, the Sunday school) becomes the mission.
The fourth model is the transformational or embodied community. Here, the community strives to embody the vision of who its members say they are or wish to be. There is a belief that transformation, or healing and wholeness for this world, is possible. The embodied community focuses on individual and community growth. Larry described this model as an Aspen Grove, where from a single root, many trees grow. The minister’s role, as well as that of the lay leaders, is to teach, mentor, empower, and let go. I think this model is the most exhilarating, the most faithful, and the most dangerous and difficult to live out.
Now, these models are just that, models. I think that in reality, congregations fall on a continuum. When I think about this congregation, I would say that we reflect aspects of a couple of these. When we gather, we gather around a little of the club or clan model, some of the corporate or company model and some of the embodied community model. I think there have been times in the past when this congregation gathered around a charismatic leader. Now my hope, as the minister, is that we will strive to gather more deeply around the embodied community, that we will try to live out who we say we are, as Unitarian Universalists. I believe this is vital. It has been two years since those four hijacked planes crashed in New York, Arlington, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Since that day, we have seen different communities embody very different visions of how the world should be, some of which threaten the planet’s very existence. How do we, as Unitarian Universalists, believe that human beings should gather and live together on this planet? How do we model that? Do we believe that healing and wholeness for this world are possible? How do we respond to those who think that things are hopeless for this world and are working for the next?
I am glad that you are here for the community. I am here for the community. When I decided to come here as the minister, I had three congregations from which choose. At the time, one of them seemed the better theological match. I could have used the word "God" all the time in my sermons and prayers. I could have preached on biblical texts without having to worry or explain. However, as I have learned, this was just a surface issue. I was drawn here by how you are gathered, how you embody a community of caring and joy and commitment and intentionality in a way that I did not experience in the other congregations. For me, there is no point in being able to talk about God all the time if my gay and lesbian friends are not welcome, or if my Jewish mother and husband’s faith is given second fiddle, or if the understanding of God is tied only to the Bible. For me, this community embodies my understanding and experience of God as the presence or spirit of love that is larger than all of us more faithfully, even if we believe or name things differently. There is something at the center that points to and pulls us toward a larger hope.
In the reading by Lao-Tse, the center is something infinite, invisible, unnamable, yet present and expansive. In the reading by Kathleen Norris, the center is something that allows us to be who we are, in all our failings and limitations, which blesses us for just showing up. At the same time, it calls us to our best selves, to be part of something larger and life giving. It is strong enough to pull us out of bed on Sunday mornings and away from our families for meetings. It is strong enough that we are willing to offer our time, our energy, our talent, and our money to support this community. I conceive of this center as the divine, the holy. I know that many of you have other concepts and names for it, and others of you are reluctant to give it any name. However we name it though, I believe that it is important to have that kind of center. For it is not community itself we should worship, for that means we are worshipping ourselves. Rather, we worship the hope and wholeness.