A slight disclaimer: What follows is the basic text (minus the occasional digressions) of a sermon that I preached at Comox United Church, Comox, B.C. on June 19, 2022. It is not an essay. It is written to be spoken and in a manner that reflects my preaching style, which I suspect might be described as “informal.” Nor does it have the full assortment of citations, acknowledgements, and footnotes normally (and quite reasonably) expected in a more formal work. Please forgive the grammatical peculiarities!
Blessings Phil Spencer
Cautions and Encouragements
In less than two weeks my appointment here at Comox United will conclude and I thought I’d take the opportunity here this week, on my penultimate Sunday with you, to offer just a few thoughts before I return to the comforts of retirement. As some of you already know, Tevis and I have a trip to Provence booked for the end of August, and there’s also some new stuff going on in our larger family life, not the least of which is that—God willing—Tev and I will be enjoying grandparenthood this Advent. There are some great things to look forward to. I’m also intrigued with the future happenings of this congregation, too, and I’ve even asked to be retained on the mailing list so as to keep in the know!
Now, let me preface what I’m offering today with a small disclaimer. I’ve been serving here part-time basis since the middle of September of last year, which is a good stretch, but also not an especially lengthy period. I’d say that I’ve got a sense of some things about Comox United. but some other elements are at best, “seen through a glass darkly,” to borrow from the Apostle. I won’t pretend for a second to have you figured out (if that’s ever possible in ministry, which I rather doubt). I know that my wife and I are working on our 41st year of marriage, but there are times when I look at her (and I suspect that she looks at me) with some degree of puzzlement. There’s regularly something new to me there—which can be delightful or baffling or even alarming—and sometimes it’s all three of those things. Churches, being made up of people—which means relationships, and shifting structures and goals, and all sorts of history (the knowledge of some of that history even being inaccessible to us, but still somehow still mysteriously influential. Generations can pass and somehow congregations can strangely retain certain spiritual traits and identities) … well, best to just say that churches are multifaceted institutions. Even the most competent and experienced church analyst or consultant will occasionally be left scratching their heads. Simply put, we church-folk are a complicated bunch in a complicated business, which can be delightful, baffling, and/or alarming.
Disclaimers made, I have a few impressions and thoughts I’d like to leave with you before I cycle off over the horizon. To begin, I should acknowledge this: the larger church landscape has shifted a great deal over the past couple of years. My sense is that the pandemic has largely potentiated a shift that’s been going on for some time. The former United—and now Presbyterian pastor and educator—Ross Lockhart, has in this last year assembled a range of essays and contributed to what I think is a really interesting and helpful book titled Christian Witness in Cascadian Soil, subtitled Coworkers with God in the Land of Hiking, Hipsters, and Hand-Crafted Lattes.[1] It’s a book about the context and real peculiarities in being the Christian Church here on the left coast, and it begins with the reality that this place we live in is, compared with most of the rest of the nation and North America, not an especially “churched” place. We’re religious but not particularly churched. Nor has it ever been, in reality. Furthermore, the larger culture is becoming more and more secularized, and churches have long been challenged in attempts to change culture and is now especially challenged in trying to even just adapt to, if not to a hostile environment, then certainly to one that’s becoming even less interested. While there’s value in exploring the causes of that disinterest, that would also require much more time than we have today, but from what I’ve seen and heard, as well as in reading the thoughts of other church leaders and those who attend with some regularity (or at least used to attend), I’d say that the pandemic has propelled us more deeply and more quickly into a different and what might seem like an even a more confusing world. Whatever it was that we were struggling with before the pandemic, it hasn’t lessened, but seems to have become even more pronounced. Hence, we’re not likely to be able to do the same things and get better results, which means we’re going to have to find a way to embrace the “C” word: change. At least some of what got us here won’t work like it once did, and we’re needing wisdom to know what to retain and what to discard, which way to go, and which way to let go.
On the other hand, I’d dare say we’re living in a time of opportunity, because we’ve already done some really significant work here in that discernment. A couple of weeks back on Pentecost Sunday you had a presentation of the report of your Visioning Team, and in a unique and powerful way, you were, I hope, given a glimpse into what might be a future God has in mind for you, the result of a good many months of prayerful conversation and consideration and reflection. Circumstances required that you be doing that critical work last year, even as I suspect many congregations understandably kept their heads down for a bit longer, but as we come out of the pandemic (and Lord, I do trust we’re coming out of the pandemic!), we do so with, what I believe, the wind at our backs, with the Spirit at our backs, and with the awareness that things are needing to be, and going to be, a touch different.
One of my prayers for you is that the Holy Spirit will be giving you some extra energy to be about this work. Again, my observation is that church mission in general—here and pretty much everywhere—was significantly impaired during the pandemic, in no small part because that important reservoir of congregational energy—volunteers, or as we’d traditionally call them, disciples—understandably withdrew, and have been fairly slow to return. While I’m confident that there’s going to be some bounce-back when God connects you with the new full-time minister you’re presently searching for and will call the energy and work of the membership is going to critical to the future.
And what’s that work to be? Again, your Visioning process has allowed you to discover and name a broad range of things that suggest your direction, a direction that is understood in light of the 4 congregational values that have been discerned: spirituality, openness, care for the common good, and radical love. And through the wonders of YouTube you can readily see and hear again the Pentecost service, and see and hear again the vision that’s been discerned. But you should know that the other night, the Visioning Committee named and highlighted some parts of their report for the Church Council and recommended some next steps. Included in that—and there was more on the list—but included were the following items: reconciliation, senior support, physical building renewal, and community engagement, and again, each of those items deserves some serious unpacking. But let me just stop on two of them for today, the first being reconciliation, which has been a concern bubbling in me since I arrived here and which strikes me, anyway, as deserving some level of priority … which I also say knowing that it’s not something that can be forced or rushed. One of the complications is that reconciliation between First Nations and non-Indigenous Canadians doesn’t seem to have a straight or obvious path. I know that I and others have been advised by First Nations folk that reconciliation might look a little different for each of us, which suggests that this is going to be a lengthy process. In classical liberal fashion I believe that—while not the total package—certainly education and dialogue are going to be very important. Returning to the recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission will need to be something we have to do again and again as we try to fulfil the educational component. It certainly is for me, and I have a hunch it will be for others as well. Likewise, dialogue: how and where to begin? My view is that personal relationships and working at being good neighbours will carry us some distance down the path to reconciliation. I find that it’s easier to address difficult things with a friend than with someone I don’t have a relationship with. If there’s one thing we know in the Church is the power being together, in things like being together around the dinner table (hint!), it also being one of our central rites. The small and seemingly ordinary things will, I suspect, be the most effective in relationship building.
As to community engagement, that’s also a pretty large task, but a necessary one. One of the things that stood out for me during our Theological Banquet study was how local churches benefit enormously from having each of the 5 different operative theological perspectives present and honoured within the congregation. Each bring a particular life and dynamism to the church, none are enough on their own, and the absence of any one of them creates a significant deficit. All operative theologies—Ecumenical, Missional, Spiritual, Evangelical, and Ecclesial—all are present here, praise be to God. But I were to name one that I would seek to lift up particularly in our common life today, I think I would attempt to seek out and encourage you Missionals, because your strength is your desire to be the hands and feet of Christ in your neighbourhood. It’s the eye-to-eye and over-the-back-fence stuff that you do that is so effective. My hunch is that our community—and our congregation—would benefit from you going and doing more of what you like to go and do. We need all five streams functioning here to be healthy, but my hunch is we just need a little more of you right now.
Two remaining thoughts. The first is a most gentle and qualified caution, and it’s about the challenges of hyphenation. For the record, I’d offer the exact same caution to any congregation that describes itself as evangelical-Christian, or missional-Christian, or Anglican-Christian, or Baptist-Christian, or conservative, or liberal-Christian, just as I offer it to those who might describe themselves as Progressive-Christians. What comes before the hyphen can be enlivening and can keep us on track, but it’s just wise to keep the emphasis on what comes after the hyphen. This is one of the reasons I’m a dog with a bone about the liturgical calendar and I rattle on about it being “The 2nd Sunday after Pentecost” and the like. That calendar church’s use is different than the rest of the world’s calendar, and it connects us with other churches, reminding me, anyway, that Christ’s church is a lot bigger and varied than my own congregation. I may have my disagreements with other churches (and I surely do with some!) as they no doubt have with me, but we’re family, and I do remember that Jesus’ final prayer for us was about finding unity.
My final thought concerns the important place occupied by our Bible reading for today from Acts 2:42-47. As noted earlier on, it’s a kind of a snapshot of the first Christian church. And know that I’m not a Christian primitivist. I don’t believe that the early church was perfect, or that we have to emulate everything we see in the New Testament, or that we can only align or organize ourselves in a 1st century way, or that kind of thing. The early church had all sorts of problems and the Book of Acts and the Letters of Paul reveal that consistently. But in this passage we do see a picture of the Church embracing its mission and interestingly, in a way that overlaps rather comfortably with the 5 operative theologies we looked at in the Theological Banquet study. My sense is that each of the 5 can point to at least a part of that description and say, “Yeah, that’s us.” We heard how they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers, that there were signs and wonders, how they were together and redefined all notions of family, that they shared what they had to help those in need, that they worshiped and ate together. And the community around them? They thought they were something else! So the church grew and grew and grew. This is the template for all churches since—it’s the standard by which we can measure ourselves. This church in Jerusalem ordered its life around selfless, unconditional love—which, by the way, I think that’s the clearest description of radical love, one of your values. These were a people who had relationships that weren’t understood as a series of transactions. No, they’d already received everything of importance in Jesus Christ and so they were now just trying to live lives of gratitude and thanksgiving, just trying to embody and celebrate the grace that they now knew. These people—this community—were caught up in this radical love that made them different, and so their friendships were deep and their joy was infectious, all of which made them very, very attractive. Onlookers and neighbours wanted to be a part of this movement—they wanted what they had—and so the Church grew. This was entirely the work of the Holy Spirit.
You’re going to be doing all sorts of things in the next months and years—some new things and probably returning to some old things—and success will surely be measured in some different ways. Those things we semi-jokingly call the ABC’S of church growth—Attendance, Buildings, and Cash—they actually have their place. But the final measure of our success, I suspect, will be our resemblance to Acts 2:42-47. And so Acts 2:42 to 47 is my hope and my prayer for Comox United Church. May God bless you in your mission and ministry. Amen.