YOU HAVE A GIFT TO GIVE

Too often we are concerned about the health of the church but wait for someone else to do something that will strengthen the church. If you are part of the church, either clergy or lay, you can initiate steps to build up the Body of Christ spiritually. It will be different depending on what position you occupy either in a local church or in the judicatory, but you have a gift you can offer that God can use to build up the church.

AT THE JUDICATORY LEVEL

I’ll first describe this step for clergy and those who work at the judicatory level. (However, a member of a church could take these same steps and experience the pleasure of being part of something larger than yourself.)

Let’s say you are a clergy member of your judicatory (In my case a presbytery). Take the directory and pick out ten diverse clergy members that are at least moderately active participants. Ask them if they would do you the favor of meeting with you for a couple of hours–probably for an afternoon. Tell them that you are interested in both exploring with colleagues the spiritual health of the judicatory and identifying a couple of positive steps to nurture its spiritual health.

Because you are asking them to do this as a favor, you will provide both the location and some light refreshments.

DESIGN OF THE MEETING

After the refreshments are served, provide each with a sheet of paper with the following instructions. First, three lists of five with space in which to write and ask them to spontaneously identify first for their church, second for the self, and third for the judicatory five spiritual hopes they can identify for each area.

Once they have their list, ask them to give a rating from 1, low, to 10 high in each of the three areas.

Once they have all shared their work and heard from the others, each returns to his or her own three lists. They choose one area from each of the three categories and try to identify one small step that could be taken to improve the ratings. It’s important to choose small steps that actually could be taken either by an individual or group.

SUPPORT AND EVALUATION

Covenant together to take three actions. First, each person chooses one action either from their own list or from what they have heard and covenants with the others to act on that suggestion. Two, someone agrees to prepare a composite report that will be forwarded to the proper governing body.  Three, they choose a date to meet in another month to evaluate what has happened and how they want to respond.

MEMBERS OF A CONGREGATION

Members of a congregation could take similar action within the congregation. They would choose ten diverse members to ask to assist them. Invite the pastor and make clear that this is a positive spiritual action to supplement and not challenge his spiritual leadership.

With the pastor’s concurrence, the results of the meeting might be shared in the church newsletter and people invited to choose from among the suggestions steps that they might take.

The purpose is to engage the Body in a spiritual conversation and to focus the body’s attention on what builds up the body.