Our Shared Ministry
Given by James Covington on September 17th, 2006
Introduction of Members
of the
Committee on Ministry
Phyllis Tortora: As the first members of this new committee we ask you to remember that our initial task has been to develop a structure and procedures for all aspects of how this committee will function. And in our initial work we have developed a list of tasks assigned to this committee. My fellow committee members are each speaking about one or more of these tasks. The one I will speak of, briefly, is in my view, the very heart of the reasons for forming this committee. We’ve stated it as:
To coordinate periodic assessments of the effectiveness of every facet of the congregation’s ministry.
That is an enormous job. If we think about the many areas that are part of the ministry of this fellowship, you can see what a major undertaking this will be. The Sunday morning services may be the most visible element of our ministry, but they are just the icing on the cake. There is so much more. If we started naming everything ranging from religious education, community outreach, sharing and caring activities to caring for the building in which we meet, - the list would go on and on. Just think about what the Fellowship means to you, then try to parcel it up into elements of our ministry.
During the coming year the COM will be grappling with the “how to” part of assessing our ministry. To begin, we will need standards against which to measure ourselves. Those standards cannot be arbitrarily established by the committee. They must come from this Fellowship. We do have such a statement of what we expect of ourselves. It is the stated mission of the Fellowship. Is it enough? You will tell us.
Let me quote statements about this annual review from the document we have been working on “This annual review may include surveys, focus groups, café conversations, phone calling, or other forms of assessment, depending on the needs of the congregation. The annual review will include a review of the minister’s work on behalf of the Fellowship in the prior year. The annual review of ministry (both whole congregation and individual minister) will be reported to the board at the end of each church year.”
As you can see from the foregoing, you will all be involved in this process. It won’t all happen at once. We will share our ideas with you as they develop. We ask that you continually raise questions, make suggestions, and share any and all recommendations, suggestions, and ideas for improving the congregation’s ministry with the committee.
Sally Simon: Another task the COM has been charged with is to serve as one conduit for communication within the Fellowship. We recognize that effective communication is vital to any organization, and especially to one with ministry as its goal. To that end, the COM’s first priority is to set up a procedure whereby the Fellowship members and friends can communicate their suggestions, issues, and praises regarding the ministry of the Fellowship, as well as guidelines regarding what kinds of communication should go through the COM channels.
In our early discussions, we have already determined that all communications to the COM should 1) be in a written form using a form we will be creating at our October meeting and making available to the Fellowship in a variety of ways, 2) be sent to the chairperson, which for this year is me (Sally Simon), and 3) that communications will be confidential unless otherwise stated by the parties involved.
As Phyllis already stated, there will also be venues for communication such as forums, informal cafes, etc. These may spring from issues that arise from the Fellowship’s communication with us, so we take this aspect of the COM’s directive very seriously.
As members of the COM, we are looking forward to being an integral part of the continued and expanding quality ministry of our Fellowship. One thing that can hamper that growth is when a conflict arises, as sometimes happens in any group of people. To address that issue of COM’s work, is Bob Hudson.
Bob Hudson: Thank you. And thank you to Jim and the Board for recommending me for the COM. My family has been active in this fellowship since 1989 when the membership was small, Sunday attendance was 30-40 people and our daughter, Lauren was the RE program. We have seen much growth since and “growing pains” along the way. Perhaps if there was a COM at those times, growth may have had an easier transition.
I see the COM, as was stated previously, as a means of communication between all facets of the congregation. If there are things that may be improved – suggestions, we would like to know about it. If there are problems-complaints, we would like to know that also.
Issues that can be handled easily we will respond to quickly. Some items we may direct to a person or group that can respond and implement a solution. There may however, be times when we will mediate and give positive suggestions for the good of the ministry of the entire congregation: Remember, COM,s focus is the whole congregation and not any one program.
We will be available for questions - comments during the coffee hour.
Thank you.
Our Shared Ministry
I once heard a story told by a Rabbi Robert Alper who is also a comic. He tells of a synagogue that has a particularly interesting telephone answering message. He phoned and heard the following message: Welcome to Temple Beth Shalom. If you’re calling from a touch-tone phone and would like membership information, press one. For our service schedule, press two. To complain to the rabbi, press three. To complain about the rabbi, press four, five, six or seven. This message does not indicate a healthy rabbinic partnership,–or in our terms, a strong shared ministry.
For obvious reasons, I want to talk about our ministry today. We have just introduced the members of our newly formed Committee on Ministry. They have given you some idea of what the committee’s role is in the life of the Fellowship. But just what do we mean by that word, ministry? Does anybody know? Does anybody know the meaning of the word?
I looked up the meaning in my Webster dictionary. Here was its first definition: An act of serving. Not bad. I like that. As you know, at the end of the service each Sunday, I say just after I have extinguished the chalice: And now the service begins. I suppose I could just as well say: And now the ministry begins. But what ministry? Our shared ministry. And what is that?
Let me answer by asking a question: What is the grounding of the partnership that sustains me and that sustains you in community? It is a common understanding that we are together in doing the work of the Spirit, that I can’t do it alone, that you can’t do it alone, that we need one another as we do the hard work of redeeming this broken world and our own broken lives. Our goal is not perfection—reaching for perfection is really a narcissistic endeavor in service of the ego. No, rather we strive to be of use. It’s really that simple. Each day my prayer is the same: Let me do my small part in making this a better world. Let me lose myself in something larger than myself.
For me, that losing of self takes place in relationship—chiefly in my relationship with you. It is what I call a covenantal relationship. The religious roots of that word go way, way back. In the Hebrew scripture, God makes a covenant with the people of Israel and promises to be with them always, and they must promise fidelity to their God, in return. A marriage is a covenantal relationship, too, in which holy vows are exchanged, promises made. Yes, some couples have contracts, too, but you do not make a marriage of the heart with a contract. A contract springs from fear, a marriage vow from faith.
And the same with ministry. Yes, I have a contract on file somewhere. But you know what? We will never look at that contract unless our relationship is in trouble. Then the Board says, Well, Jim, let’s take a look at the contract. You see, what we have here between us is a love affair, not a business arrangement—our work around here is mostly a labor of love. Now of course, we do have plenty of business to take care of around here, but if it ever does just become a business arrangement, we might as well hang it up. It must be rooted in mutual love and in mutual purpose. We are part of a body of faith, committed to the same values and committed to caring for one another and working for the common good, in spite of our imperfections. It’s not about being perfect—it’s about being given over.
Again, our mutual commitment comes from the fact that we are a religious institution. But what does that mean? We are not a social club. We are not group therapy. We are not a new age movement. We are not a political organization or simply an ethical society. We are a religious institution. There is something else that hopefully goes on here that taps into our soul’s deepest yearnings. Someone approached me one Sunday after we had sung “Imagine.” He repeated one of the song’s phrases which sings, “imagine there were no heaven, no religion too,” and humorously pointed out to me if that were to ever come true, I would be out of a job! Point well taken! But I believe the religion referred to in the song is the kind of institutional religion that has become more of a business and a power base than a reflection of the soul’s deepest yearnings. That kind of religion has become irrational, oppressive and hierarchical. It’s been made that way by human beings.
But I believe there are deeper reasons for religious faith. What really brings us here to this place? A. Powell Davies, minister of All Souls Church in Washington. D.C. in the mid-twentieth century wrote: I come to this place because I fall below my own standards and need to be constantly brought back to them. . . I must have my conscience sharpened—sharpened until it goads me to the most thorough and responsible thinking and action of which I am capable. Because I must feel again the love I owe my fellow men and women. I must not only hear about it but feel it. In church I do. . We meet each other as friends and neighbors anywhere and everywhere, but we seldom do so in the consciousness of our soul’s deepest yearnings. In church we do—in a way that. . . leaves us knowing that we all have the same yearning, the same spiritual need of assurance of faith and hope. WE are brought together at the highest level possible. We are not merely an audience. We are a congregation.
We come here to learn how to live better lives, individually and collectively. We come here to learn how to become better partners, parents, citizens—better people.
And I would add that a congregation is one that worships—that celebrates life, savors life, serves life and serves God—not an anthropomorphic being in the clouds, heavens no! Forrest Church, minister of All Souls Church in Manhattan writes that God is not God’s name, but our name for that which is greater than all yet present in each. God is that which ultimately concerns you. God is a reality that works through us to achieve truth, beauty and goodness. You don’t have to call it God. That doesn’t matter to me. God is that to which you are ultimately accountable, or whatever you serve that is greater than yourself.
Kenneth Callahan in his book Effective Church Leadership, reminds us that people come to a church longing for, yearning for, hoping for a sense of roots, place, belonging, sharing and connection. People come to a church in our time with a search first of all for community. But I believe people seek other qualities as well. I think people also yearn for a sense of their own individuality, their worth, their uniqueness, their preciousness, and their personal power—as unrepeatable, one-time only creatures set here in being for a time.
I also believe people look to religious community as a stimulus for a sense of meaning—to know that their lives matter, that they have something to do, to be to become.
And finally I believe people come here looking for hope—a sense that we can make a difference, that it is worthwhile to care, try, question, reach out and work for the common good. People come here, you come here—looking for a sense of individuality, a sense of community, a sense of meaning, and a sense of hope. We come here to find help with the life of the spirit—to deepen and live it. But if I am right, if these are the experiences we really yearn for when we come here, we will never have those experiences unless we all participate and help one another. Achieving those qualities of community, individuality, meaning and hope is in fact our shared ministry.
I believe that what we have here in this congregation is very special, very rare. People often comment to me that they felt near to tears during worship. So do I. What’s going on? I can’t be sure, but hopefully, people are beginning to feel safe here to bring all of themselves to the experience. To laugh, to wonder, to question, to cry. Oh, we need to weep, don’t we! All of us! Is there a single person here who is not carrying some burden with no place to put it down? Some act of forgiveness that needs to come from an inside that feels like stone? Some dream that has vanished as we reached for it? Some loss that is too deep to speak of? If nothing else, reading the morning new makes us grieve for the slaughter of people the world over—people like you an me with children and parents and grandparents—in Darfur and Palestine and Lebanon and Israel and Iraq—people who are victims of power, victims of violence and hatred, victims of tyrants—all fleeing and fighting for their lives! Yes, we need to weep and we need to have a place to weep—wanting wholeness, we are in the midst of so much brokenness. And we need as well a place that affirms that healing can happen, that peace can be won, that change is possible and that we can all be a part of that change. Again, together we can do what we cannot do alone.
So let’s think for a moment about being partners in ministry, in doing the ministry of the congregation together.
I do not mean that we all need to go to seminary and become professional ministers. A professional minister has certain roles and responsibilities which remain distinct. As the paid minister it is my job to carry the vision of the congregation, to see the “big picture,” to keep us on tract, to be sure that our resources, both human and otherwise are used wisely. But what is the ministry we all share? What, in fact, is ministry all about?
Ministry is not about power, it is about service. The power of the minister is the power of the servant. I get calls from some of you from time to time who are struggling, in crisis, or angry and upset about something. Sometimes I get calls from people I’ve never met before. A woman calls me in tears one day. She got my number off the answering machine there at the Fellowship. She tries to spell out to me her problem; she expresses her anxiety and fear. She asks me to pray for her—that she will be able to give up the drugs she’s on, that she’ll be able to care for her little girls, that he life will take on meaning again. I listen, I reassure her, I give her suggestions. I tell her to come to the service that Sunday and introduce herself to me. We hang up and I never hear from her again. She doesn’t come to the service that Sunday. But she has become a part of me. You see, I’m still telling her story.
Ministry is not about power. It is about being there. It’s about being with when things can’t be fixed, when no solution can be found. It’s about going to the hospital to visit a man who is having tests, and he says when you come through the door that he has a terminal cancer, that he’s going to die and through his tears, asks you to spend time with him and help his wife cope with the bad news. I try to reassure him. “We will be with you through this,” I say. Ministry is about being human, in as open and raw and undisguised way as you can be.
Ministry is also about institution—about building and maintaining a strong, vital institution. I become a little concerned when I hear someone say “Well, I just don’t believe in institutional religion.” I understand that sentiment. I sometimes feel like saying that myself! But how in the world do human traditions get carried on, how are values upheld, except through institutions? Institutions will always need reform, but humans will always need them. If our Fellowship were not here, we would not have an RE program for our children, a women’s choral group, a worship time to inspire us to carry on in becoming the best self we can become; or a place to celebrate weddings, or memorialize those we have loved and lost or a place to galvanize our efforts to feed the hungry or save the environment. We will be celebrating our 50th anniversary in the coming year. Where would we be today without those founders of our own institution? You can say, “well, we’d find some other place.” True, perhaps, but that’s beside the point. Where would we be without institutions that carry on great human traditions?
And ministry is witnessing to our faith. Witnessing—it’s a word that we don’t use often as UU’s. Sounds too much like the Baptists or the Jehovah’s Witnesses. But witnessing is just telling others about the joy we have found in our faith. We’re not trying to save anybody’s souls—we wouldn’t be so presumptuous—but we can invite them to experience a free church, where all are welcome at the welcome table, where the theology arises out of your own experience and knowledge, where justice is done in this world, not in the next. If this Fellowship has changed you or nurtured you or helped you make deeper connections with people or brought some greater meaning to your life, then tell someone else who might be looking for this kind of place. That, also is ministry.
In fact, I would hope that you would begin to see every activity, every volunteer job, in this Fellowship as a ministry. Everything that we do here should deepen the life of the soul in some way. For example, suppose you are on the Finance Committee. Try not to see this chiefly as a place to look at financial reports. Suppose every session of every committee in the Fellowship started with some kind of sharing that lifted up our values and deepened us spiritually.
In the shared ministry model, we work together as minister and people. As I said, Yes, we ministers have certain professional roles, but the ministry of the church is carried out by all of you. This is not my congregation; this is your congregation and I am here to serve you. Sometimes I hear people say “I think the Fellowship should __________.” But who is the Fellowship? You are the Fellowship. Hopefully I will say to you, “How can I help you accomplish what you want to accomplish?” Find your ministry, my friend, and offer it as a gift.
You know I often talk about when I leave my house on Sunday mornings to come here I am often anxious about forgetting something. My coat, my pen, my cell phone, oh yes, my sermon! Did I forget my sermon! When I arrive here, I am still worried about stuff, half present to those I meet. I wonder, is everything in order, ok, did I forget something? Then the service starts. We sing and make announcements and share milestones and then I begin to understand something. Oh, they were missing! The people who I describe to my friends as “the salt of the earth” people. I look at your faces, as I look at your faces in my mind when I write a sermon. And I remember your stories and later I will hear your responses and the love affair is renewed. You will fill in the missing parts of the sermon, that’s for sure. You will hear what you need to hear. You will take my offering and bless it and make it into a sacrament for your own lives—and then you will go out into the community, into your everyday world, into your families, into your places of work and you will bless those around you. And I hear myself say, “This is the ministry that we do together. This is the ministry that we share.” And this is the ministry that the Committee on Ministry will be nurturing and guiding and blessing.
So let it be.