Tonight I took two new-ish church members, Cheryl and Joe, down to Salt Lake Seminary with me for the third of four classes on the Book of Amos. Cheryl and Joe did not come to faith easily or out of childhood habituation. Their journeys have been hard and dangerous, yet here they are, full-fledged members of St. Paul's Episcopal Church and now summer students at a seminary!
We had a great time on the drive to and from tonight. First we stopped in Park City on the way down, where I picked up my first week's worth of fresh produce from an organic farm called Zoe's Garden. We have a subscription to receive a portion of their organic produce throughout the summer. It is gorgeous! Haven't eaten any of it yet, but it looks fantastic.
On the way back, we talked about our dreams for St. Paul's. Cheryl and Joe want to see us reach out to unchurched people. This is an idea I've floated from time to time in the congregation. It has been met with a stupendous "ho hum." But here are these two new members who really want to make it happen and have great ideas about how to focus the effort (reaching out to single parents and their children, specifically) and how to make it attractive (free home-cooked meal for the whole families then child-care afterwards so the single parents can talk to fellow adults for an hour or so).
We were laughing about ways to sneak this idea over on the more change-phobic members of the congregation. Joe is on the vestry, and so is my husband Guy, so there are two infiltrators right there. We got a bit irreverent in our discussions of how to "sell" the idea and wound up doing imitations of the old Phil Hartman routine from "Saturday Night Live" -- "I've just stepped in a steaming pile of SASSY!" Also, when we got a little too irreverent, we started singing: "They'll Know We Are Christians by Our Love" and somehow segued to "My Boyfriend's Back" and "The Leader of the Pack." Don't know exactly how that happened!
I personally just feel grateful for (a) fresh organic produce and (b) sassy, spirited, smart, and dedicated new church members. Fresh and sassy -- sounds good to me!
Sounds like a great time! I find myself so inspired when I talk with people who are excited about the things that we could be doing here. Ever since hearing that there area great deal of high school aged women who drop out of high school to have babies, I've wanted to develop an outreach to them. So far it's in the "yes, that would be nice" stage (I'm thinking similar to your "ho-hum" stage). I'm reading Diana Butler Bass's book "Christianity for the Rest of Us", and she talks about how with the "vital" congregations she studied (and vitality had nothing to do with numbers), hospitality was an important part of their ministry. And not just welcoming newcomers at the door hospitality, but deep-down, welcoming the stranger hospitality. Some of the people in the congregations talked about how scary and risky that was and still is for them, yet how much their faith has grown because of it. Guess these are things we can be praying for!
Posted by: Rev Kim | June 21, 2007 at 12:35 PM