Time to renew

It has been over a year since I published anything on this blog site, so I'm going to think more about posting some writings I recently produced. This is a new beginning. I was to encourage a renewal in our efforts to communicate the good news of the coming of God's reign in our midst.

What's Your Congregation's "EOQ?" Part 1

When people come to visit your church for the very first time, your congregation makes an impression on them. Sometimes you are able to personally help them to bridge the gap between "visitor" and "member" of the congregation, but quite often you can't, especially if you are "busy" on Sunday morning getting ready for worship.

What that means is that the impression a newcomer gets on their very first visit will be influenced by many other factors.

Is your church a "newcomer friendly" place? What influences people when they visit your church for the very first time, especially if they are not attending with someone else who is already a member of the church?

What they see when they visit our churches may be quite different from what we see as active members of the church. In time they may come to really love coming to your church, but in the short run the impression they start out with may help or hinder them in deciding what they will do in the future. As advertisers like to say, "First impressions are lasting impressions."

Check out this survey found at archive.elca.org/evangelizingchurch/assessments/hospitality.html . If possible, gather a handful of friends from your church around a computer and do the survey together. Then discuss the implications of the survey. Print out the results and bring any discussion notes with you.

God's Gift Collection

I heard one day about a man who came to visit a Lutheran church with his wife so they could "check out" the church for themselves. After the service he received a customary, "Hi, how are you?" greeting from the pastor on the "hand-shaking line," but no one else said a word to them. In fact, no one even asked them their names.

Nevertheless, in spite of this rather "under-whelming" welcome, the couple came back to the church and worshipped there several times, eventually becoming members of the congregation after they had informed the pastor that they were new in town and were bona-fide Lutherans from somewhere else.

Some time went on until one day, the man received a phone call from the Head Usher who had noticed that he and his wife always came to church well-groomed and well-dressed. They were asked if they would consider joining the ushers team and make themselves available to serve on a rotation basis every month or two.

They graciously accepted the invitation and came for training, and finally they began "serving" in the church.

One day, almost by accident, the Head Usher asked the man about his daily occupation. He shared that he was the Head of Surgery at the prestigious University Hospital in their city. The Head Usher was shocked to hear that this man had such enormous responsibility and was known internationally as a great surgeon. He was also a bit embarassed that he had asked this gifted person to serve as an usher. "Why didn't you say something about who you were?" he asked this doctor.

The man replied, "because nobody asked me."

There are probably very few churches in our synod that have such prestigious members who go unnoticed, yet this story reminds us that one of the reasons are churches are not growing is that we often fail to take seriously the enormous gifts that people bring with them when they take part in the life of our Christian communities.

Why is that? I suggest that it's because we simply don't take the time to find out or to help people discover the gifts God has given them.

What gifts do you have from God? What "biblically-based" gifts do you have? Check out the survey found at http://archive.elca.org/evangelizingchurch/assessments/spiritgifts.html. When you have a few minutes, fill it out and then print out the results so you can share them with your class. How well does the survey describe you?

An Evangelizing Church

Greetings class,

I chose the book The Evangelizing Church by Dr. Rick Bliese for our textbook for two reasons. First, because it is the first evangelism-oriented book published by our church publishing house in over a decade, and second, because it frames many of the issues that we need to struggle with as Lutheran Christians if we are going to ever see an increase in passion and energy for the basic mission our Lord gave to us: to go and make disciples of all nations.

Historically, Lutherans in this country have not had much energy for reaching out to non-Lutherans, much less to non-Christians, to help them become followers of Jesus Christ. Many Lutherans still owe their Lutheran identity to their family's ethnic heritage, and often do not even see the need to reach out to non-Lutherans with the gospel. If others lack Lutheran heredity, perhaps they should go elsewhere.

Now I realize that many Lutherans, especially in the Metro New York Synod and the LCMS Atlantic District, might point to their own personal history in response. Many of our folks are "first-generation" Lutherans, and some have never even been Christians before they became Lutherans.

But I suggest that this is by far more than the exception than the rule. It is more of a regional pheneomenon than we sometimes realize. In spite of the fact that the East Coast has the longest history of Lutheran population, and even to this day there are more Lutherans living in Pennsylvania than in any other state in the U.S., there are simply a lot more new Americans and there has been a lot more inter-religious marriage in this part of the country than elsewhere, especially since Vatican II in 1964.

As an assignment, please read the first chapter of the book and be ready to discuss the questions found on pages 138-139.

Also, write a one page description of your own life in the Lutheran Church. Reflect on questions like how did you become a Lutheran? Who had an impact on your spiritual development? What is it about being a Lutheran Christian that you especially value?

We will talk about posting comments on this blog when we meet on Thursday. I'm looking forward to meeting you all.

If you need to contact me for any reason you can email me at rohill@optonline.net I can also be called on the phone (516) 848-5386.

See you Thursday! Pastor Hill

Where Do We Begin?

The idea of leading a diakonia classs by using a blog may seem a bit strange to some. Yet it makes a lot of sense if the theme or subject of the course is "Communicate the Gospel." I am starting this blog expressly for the benefit of the diakonia Practical Theology III course by that name.

I hope that every member of the class will have accress to this resource. It ill give me a chance to share ideas during the week and it will also open up the possibility of interaction between class members.

I am going to have an invitation sent to each class member so they can sign up and enter into the conversation via this medium.

Let's give it a try and see what happens.

Pastor Rich Hill