In many ways this project will be continuation of the work that we are doing in helping people discover and live out their spiritual gifts. In the last two years we have focused on encouraging involvement within our congregation. However, Deacon Diane and I both feel that we also need to help people understand their daily work as a spiritual vocation. It will also help us to grow in our Christian Formation program in our ability to support and nurture the spiritual lives of children, youth, and young families.
The New England Synod recommends that the sabbatical accompany a congregational vision plan, so that the pastor can disengage, pray, study, rest, reflect and prepare to lead it. Our vision centers on the four goals and accompanying plans we are developing:
1. communication
2. increasing involvement and leadership
3. creating an exciting environment
4. nurturing spirituality
My participation in this program most directly supports our goal of nurturing spirituality, which is always at the heart of the church’s mission. I will be deepening and nurturing my spirituality and relationship with God, and growing in my ability to help our congregation do the same. All of these program elements will allow me to teach a variety of prayer practices, share readings, offer retreats, lead small groups, and help shape us into spiritual and praying community. Prior to sabbatical, I will be working with the Council small group for this goal to explore ways that we can nurture spirituality.
I also believe that focusing in this way on spiritual deepening and spiritual practice will help us to grow our congregation in the long term. For the last three decades the mainline Protestant churches, Lutheran included, have been declining in membership. We have struggled mightily to make the transition from the church of the 1950’s to the church that address the needs and speak the Gospel to people today. Some people describe this transition as moving from modern to post-modern church. The Church, and our congregation along with it, is in the midst of a critical time of transition. The futures of many congregations hang in the balance, including ours. There is no doubt that many churches will continue to struggle, experience decline, and close. However, many have the opportunity to seize this historical moment in the life of the church and reach for a new, vibrant future.
In her recent book, The Practicing Congregation: Imagining an Old New Church. Diana Butler Bass looks at the state of mainline churches and sees much cause for hope. She proposes a way forward for the future survival and growth of mainline congregations. She calls it being a “practicing congregation.” Bass writes:
“Practicing congregations experience new vibrancy through a reappropriation of historic Christian practices and a sustained communal engagement with Christian narrative. These congregations may be described as: Communities that choose to rework denominational tradition in light of local experience to create a web of practices that transmit identity, nurture community, cultivate mature spirituality, and advance mission. These practices – as varied as classical spiritual disciplines such as lectio divina (sacred reading) and centering prayer, or moral and theological practices like householding, Sabbath keeping, forgiveness, doing justice, and hospitality – are drawn from, recover, or reclaim individual and corporate patterns of historic Christian living that provide meaning and enliven a sense of spiritual connection to God and others. In these congregationgs, transmission of identity and vocation does not occur primarily through familial religious tradition, civic structures, or the larger culture. Christian identity is neither assumed nor received. Rather, transmission occurs through choice, negotiation, and reflexive theological engagement, in community, by adopting a particular way of life as expressed and sustained through historically grounded Christian practices.”
I believe my spiritual work during this sabbatical period and throughout this year, will allow me to lead us in this time of transition and to help us to be a practicing congregation.
