“…for they were old men and they were wise men…”

Below is the story I shared during Christmas Day worship. Here’s how I stumbled upon it. December 25, 1977 was a Sunday. On our third Christmas together, Lynda and I led worship at the church we co-pastored in Switzerland County Indiana. Then we climbed into the car for a 16 hour drive to her home in Texas. When we stopped for gas in Nashville we bought a newspaper, which had reprinted this story. The author also wrote The Mouse that Roared and other children’s books.

By Leonard Wibberley

A long time ago, I used to visit a sanitarium regularly. My mother was a patient there and she had very little mind, if that is the right way to put it, and knew nothing of anything but God and roses. I kept her plentifully supplied with roses and she had been plentifully supplied with God all her life and so she was happy. Sometimes she would sing Irish songs to me in a thin little child’s voice and I’d have to get up and go out of the room, for there’s nothing sillier in all the busy world than a grown man crying.

Well, visiting my mother, I got to visiting other old people around the place and that’s how I got to meet the three men I want to tell you about.

They were very old. all three of them, and they shared the same room. One was very fat but in a watery kind of way. It looked as though it was liquid rather than flesh that made his skin droop around him in bulges.

Another was thin and sallow and had eyes of so pale and blue that at first I though he was blind until I found him reading a newspaper without glasses. He said he’d been a professional baseball player— a catcher with the Chicago Black Socks if that’s the team that got into all that trouble years and years ago. The fat one said he’d been an actor and he would recite Shakespeare, being particularly fond of Wolsey’s parting speech to Cromwell.

“…Oh Cromwell, Cromwell

Had I but served my God with half the zeal

I served my King, life would not in mine age

Have left me naked to mine enemies.”

He gave a fine turn to the whole thing. The third was a skinny little black man who said he had once been Owner of a bank in Nashville, I think, and the thought itself may be libelous, that he had owned the bank for half an hour during a holdup.

Anyway, these three roomed together and were the best of companions and told me many a story.

They had no other visitors except a young girl who always came to see them the first week of January with her baby. I thought maybe she was a granddaughter or great-granddaughter of one of them, but, regarding the matter as somewhat delicate, I did not inquire.

It was one of the nurses who told me the story. It appeared that one time, the one who could read without glasses had been looking over the paper and discovered an item saying the first child to arrive on Christmas Day at the local hospital had been born a few seconds after midnight and was a boy weighing seven pounds eight ounces and everything was fine. The father’s name was not given.

“You know what?” he said. “We ought to go visit her.”

“Hell, we don’t even know her, they’d never let us in,” said another.

“You underestimate my talents,” said the one who recited Shakespeare. “I have played before the crowned heads of Europe. A busy nurse in a maternity ward would be a pushover.”

So they decided on the adventure, but first, they had some preparations to make.

They had to get their best suits cleaned and ironed and they had to persuade the sanitarium people that they wanted to go for an evening stroll together, and they had to think of some birthday presents to buy for the baby.

But they managed everything, and the Shakespearean actor persuaded the nurse that he was the child’s great-grandfather, and the thin man with the blue eyes was the child’s great granduncle. There was some trouble over the black man who couldn’t possibly be a blood relative, but it was explained that he was a close friend of the family and a prominent citizen of Tennessee having once owned a bank in Nashville.

“Well, you can’t go in anyway,” said the nurse driven to her last defense. “She’s nursing the baby right now.”

“Madam,” said the actor. “Will you look at me think how long it is since I have seen a mother nursing her child — and how much time there yet remains to me? That did it. She let them in but stood by the door to watch what happened.

They gathered around the end of the bed and the mother looked up at them.

“We’ve come a long way,” said the actor. ‘”Two thousand years. My name is Melchior. I bring gold for the child.” He took the ring off his finger and put it on hers. She wasn’t wearing one. “My wife is 50 years dead,’ he said. “You should have this.”

“My name is Balthazar,” said the black man. “I bring frankincense,” and he put a scented candle beside the bed.

“My name is Kaspar,” said the third. “I bring myrrh.” And he produced a small bottle of perfume he picked up at Woolworth’s.

“My name is Mary,” said the mother simply. “My son comes from God.”

The Magi, Henry Siddons Mowbray, 1915

They nodded for they were old men and they were wise men, and they knew that that was true of every child.

Well, that’s the story as I got it from the nurse at the sanitarium, and there’s only one detail she left out. There was a very bright light in the sky over the hospital when the three of them arrived, but it may have been a police helicopter looking for someone.

I don’t know.

The older I get, the less I know for sure.

But if you happen to be a nurse on duty in a maternity ward at this time of the year and three old men turn up asking to visit a fatherless child, let them in. God knows there’s enough sorrow in the world and we could all do with a little comfort.

Christmas Music

For your holiday listening pleasure, here is some music of the season.

First up is a flash mob rendition of “Deck the Halls.” This is what happens at the end of the semester when a business school is invaded by almost 300 students from the music school:

Our second musical selection is from Northminster’s worship service a week ago. Logan Jones was joined by Rashad Lowery for a new rendition of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.” Rashad is a member of East End Fellowship, a sister congregation and together he and Logan celebrated the diversity that we experience at Northminster.

Here’s the audio of Rashad and Alex Mejias from their CD High Street Hymns.  I especially love the line“bid our sad divisions cease.”

Christmas Spirit

It’s the time of year when people begin to look for Christmas. Not the day on the December calendar but the spirit, the essence, the heart of Christmas. And more often than not, Christmas has a way of finding us.

Out of the blue someone you would least expect is especially generous and you think to yourself, “Now that’s the spirit of Christmas.” Or you’re flipping through the channels and you discover some people singing about “the most wonderful time of the year.” Your mind wanders to childhood and family and those rare times when everything seemed to be good, and for a moment you are at peace. Even the hardest of hearts thaw in the presence of Christmas.

I ran into Christmas in a checkout line a few years ago.

It was a Wednesday night the week before the Big Day. I left the church for home around 10:30 p.m. and on the dashboard was the note I had stuck there that morning. COFFEE!!! it read. If I wanted a tasty, hot beverage for breakfast, I would have to make a stop.

The night was cold and damp, typical for December in Richmond. The grocery store sparkled as I picked up a pound of coffee and headed for the express lane. The line was eleven people long―do you ever wonder why they call it “express?”

After a few minutes of waiting, I said to the person in front of me, “I can’t believe so many people shop late at night.” “I know,” a young woman’s voice replied, “and everyone seems to be in such a hurry.”

My guess was she couldn’t have been older than sixteen. She was balancing a baby on her hip. Her eyes were bright. His nose was runny.

“What’s his name?” I asked her. “Jerome. He’s fourteen months.” I smiled at him. He smiled back and reached out a hand, grabbing hold of my index finger. When I introduced myself, the teenage mother responded, “Nice to meet you. I’m Mary.”

I watched Mary mother her son as the line inched toward the cash register. She unzipped his jumper; she wiped his nose; she shifted him this way and that, humming a song in his ear. “We’ll be home soon. Yes we will!” she told him cheerfully. I got the feeling she wasn’t so much comforting him as reassuring herself.

*

“How can a teenager raise a child these days?” I wondered. Or any day?

There was a Christmas tree with blinking lights by the entrance. The baggers had on Santa hats. I paid for the coffee and headed for the door.

Outside, I looked around for Mary and her son. On the far side of the parking lot she was walking toward a cluster of apartments, balancing her baby in one arm, the groceries in the other.

That’s when it hit me. The Maker of heaven and earth wanted to get my attention so badly that God became human―not some superhero, swooping down from the sky, but a helpless infant entrusted to a teenage mother. My eyes filled with tears.

As we inch toward Christmas, this same God is trying to get your attention to say, “I care about you. I want the best for you. I’m on your side.”

So keep your eyes open for the spirit of Christmas. It will find you in the next few days, and when it stops you in your tracks, remember: It’s God who is tapping you on the shoulder and saying, “I care about you. I want the best for you. I’m on your side.”

Merry Christmas!

*The Nativity Scene is from the Holy Land, hand carved out of olive wood. It sits on our family room bookshelf year round.

Thanks & Giving

Today’s guest post is by Jo Lord. Jo recently completed C.L.A.S.S. 301 and is using her writing gift to serve Northminster.

The Idea that Started it All
It started with one very new idea in 2008. By 2011, it had grown to 150 volunteers, 250 guests, 23 turkeys, 12 cases of cranberry sauce, 200 pounds of green beans, 320 pounds of sweet potatoes and over 40 pies.

I’m talking about Northminster’s annual Thanks&Giving, of course. For the fourth consecutive year, the event brought together church members and community members for a traditional Thanksgiving meal.

When I asked Sammy how it all began, he told me that for years Northminster members had eaten Thanksgiving dinner together on the eve of the holiday. “But I was tired of us feeding ourselves,” he told me. “I suggested that we feed some people who are hungry.” And so they did.

The Details
In a slight departure, this year’s dinner was served family style with serving dishes passed from guest to guest seated at 38 tables.

Thanks & Giving 2011

The idea was to create a feeling of connection and community. We were intentional about sharing rather than just serving.

For the second year, Rhonda Wells coordinated the event. She gathered and directed a diversity of volunteers from around the area. They came from Armstrong High School and Virginia Commonwealth University. They came from SunTrust Mortgage and Hands Up Ministries. They came from our church, other churches, and even other communities.

They set up tables. They decorated. They transported families without transportation. They greeted, mingled, served, entertained, provided childcare and cleaned up when it was over.

One of the most ambitious efforts was, naturally, the cooking. Sonya Wright took on that job. Last year she volunteered for Thanks & Giving by cooking a turkey at home. This year she took her participation to an entirely new level by spearheading the shopping and cooking.

“I love the ‘community’ idea of it, with so many people of different colors and from different walks of life,” she told me. “I really wanted to get behind it and support it.”

When it was time to eat, Worship Arts Director Logan Jones didn’t offer a blessing for the gathering as a whole. Instead, he asked our guests to say grace at their tables – again, with the intent of creating community. After dinner, Sammy spoke about Psalm 100 and its message of giving grateful praise. Next came hip-hop dancing led by Youth Coordinator Tiont Williams. The night ended with a raffle drawing for GRTC bus tickets as well as gift cards from Walmart and Kroger.

The Meaning Behind it 

When I spoke to Sammy about Thanks & Giving, I had a second question.

If I could communicate just one idea about it at the expense of all others, what would it be? He said this: “Jesus told a story about a banquet. A man invited all of his friends who were equals and nobody would come. He told his servants to go out and bring in whomever they could find. The big idea is that with Thanks&Giving, we get a chance to relive that, and that what we discover is the richness in relationships that are diverse.”

People have told me that a good time was had by all at our banquet. I’ll have to take their word for it because although I was there, I saw none of it. Instead, I volunteered in the kitchen for the very first time. For three hours, we never once stopped talking, moving, pointing, plating, directing and thinking. It was intense, exhausting and delightful, all at the same time.

I was surrounded by food but never ate a bite. I left the church that evening absolutely starving. And yet wonderfully full.

Sign me up for the kitchen again next year, Rhonda.

What Really Matters?

We are in the second week of Advent—the oddly named four-week season when the church prepares for the coming of Christ at Christmas.

I gave Northminster’s staff and leaders a booklet of daily Advent meditations by Richard Rohr. It’s called Preparing for Christmas and you can find it here.

I’m still mulling over a paragraph we read last week.

Basically, you can translate “the kingdom” as “the Big Picture….” The kingdom of God, or reign of God is how things objectively, truly and finally are. Jesus is always inviting us to live in the final and full picture, and not to get lost in momentary dramas, hurts or agendas.

And then Richard asks the question that has been nagging at me, prodding me, encouraging me for a week now. No matter what we are facing, he suggests we should always ask:

“In the light of eternity will this really matter?”

It’s a question I don’t ask nearly enough, and I’m guessing neither do you.

In the light of eternity will this activity, this concern, this worry, this decision, this frustration, this plan, this thing that I am spending time and energy fretting about really matter?

It strikes me as one of those questions that has the power to open our eyes and help us catch a glimpse of Jesus’ Big Picture.

Reflecting on this, I remembered a story Anne Lamott tells. In her amazing book Traveling Mercies she writes about how she caught sight of the Big Picture.

Anne Lamott

The context was her hair. She was trying to decide whether to get dreads; she had determined that dreads meant she was “no longer going to play by the rules of mainstream white beauty.” While she was trying to decide what to do about her hair, she remembered something her best friend said right before she died:

She was in a wheelchair, wearing a wig to cover her baldness. We were at Macy’s. I was modeling a short dress for her that I thought my boyfriend would like. But then I asked whether it made me look big in the hips, and Pammy said, as clear and kind as a woman can be, “Annie? You really don’t have that kind of time.” And—slide trombone, bells, rim shot—I got it, deep in my being…. How much longer am I going to think about my hair more often than about things in the world that matter.

For me it’s not a change of hairstyle that is causing the chatter in my mind, and my guess is it’s not for you either. But for all of us, something is hogging bandwidth; something  trivial is jamming our circuits, slowing us down, and making our world really narrow.

Richard and Anne are saying that an alarm should go off deep inside when we start fretting about things that don’t really matter and warn us, “You really don’t have that kind of time!”

What a gift to be reminded us as we prepare for Christmas that we should always be asking ourselves, “In the light of eternity will this really matter?”

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

A couple of friends have said they would like to have an ongoing discussion about the Advent devotionals. Please feel free to leave comments to get a discussion going.

Bless Richmond

Today’s guest post is by Beth McMahon. Beth is a deeply active member of the Northminster community. On November 20th about twenty Northminster members participated in an event called “Bless Richmond.” 

It was the cheering teenagers by the front door who set the tone for the evening.

Every time a vehicle pulled up, whether an individual car or a shuttle bus from the remote parking, the group of about 20 youth from the ROC (Richmond Outreach Center) let out a whoop at the top of their lungs and came running to take the bags of canned goods that guests were carrying, donations for the Central Virginia Food Bank.

And that was how the first-ever Bless Richmond event greeted attendees from dozens of churches across the city on Sunday evening, November 20, bringing us together at the U-Turn Sports Performance Academy for an evening of worship and prayer.

Bless Richmond Worship Nov. 20, 2011

Hundreds of Christians of all ages and races streamed into the former Circuit City facility, filing into rows and rows of folding chairs set up across multiple basketball courts. A buzz of anticipation filled the room, folks greeting friends from other churches, waving and hugging, as the worship band cranked up on stage.

With Northminster’s own Logan Jones and Rachel Shultz leading us, along with David and Lori Bailey and other band members, we soon were immersed in worship. Voices and hands raised to God, four thousand voices joined in song: “Lord, you are good and your mercy endureth forever…”

Surrounded on every side by brothers and sisters, a wall of joyful song washing over me, all I could think was, “This is what heaven is going to be like.” The music ebbed and flowed, opened wide to draw in the whole world with a lyric in Spanish and another in Swahili, and swelled our hearts with the image of Jesus’ love: “The mystery of the cross I cannot comprehend, the agonies of Calvary…Your blood has washed away my sin, Jesus, thank you…”

And we prayed. Pairs of pastors from diverse congregations led us in guided prayer times of praise, thanks, confession, and intercession. Grouping in threes and fours throughout the huge room, we thanked God for bringing this event together and lifted up the needs of the metro area. There were no sermons, no individual who was in the spotlight; the focus was on God and on our city. With the sense of unity across the room, it only seemed obvious when one of the pastors encouraged us, “I want every church here to be every other church’s biggest cheerleader. We’re not here to compete with each other; let’s rejoice in what God is doing in this city through us.”

Then, as we sang, “The blood that Jesus shed for me…will never lose its power,” pastor Shawn Franco of Cornerstone Church knelt in front of layman Emmett Bailey, one of the leaders of Victory Life Church, and gently bathed his feet in a basin of water. White hands and dark feet were washed together in the healing waters of Jesus’ servant love.

After nearly three years of meeting for prayer and friendship-building, the vision of a group of some 30 Richmond pastors came to fruition in this Bless Richmond service. But the foundations of the gathering went back even further, to 1866. In a city emerging broken from the Civil War, Bishop John McGill founded a convent in Church Hill, where prayers were faithfully offered for the city. In the 1980′s, the convent outgrew its property, and another group of believers purchased the site, founding the Richmond Hill Christian community. One of their primary ministries ever since has been bringing together Christians across denominations to pray for Richmond.

This moment in our worship at U-Turn Academy seemed to condense all of that history down into one kairos moment. Seeing the humility of pastor Franco, the glory on Mr. Bailey’s face, the tears on his cheeks and the joy in his outstretched arms, it felt as if we were witnessing a glimpse straight into the heart of God, who has been working for generation upon generation to heal the wounds of this city, divided by race, war and class. This night was one more opening where the Spirit could slip in and bring God’s kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven.”

As the band prepared to lead us in a final song, further evidence of God’s kingdom breaking in through us: one of the leaders announced how much food we had brought to hand off to those cheering teenagers. It totaled some 14,000 pounds, which would provide more than 11,000 meals for hungry neighbors. We cheered, we shouted, we whistled to hear the tangible way God had used us to bless others.

Saying good night to the 15 other Northminster folks I had traveled here with, my heart was full. I thought about the events, beginning last spring, that had led our little group to be part of this service. Our church community has been going through a process of listening for God’s word to us about “what’s next.” It began with our Leadership Council and purpose team leaders months ago, and has grown to include a larger group who attended a series of three “y’all come” discussions in November. Many clear themes have emerged from the talking, listening and praying, but perhaps the clearest has been that Northminster is called to be a church focused on building relationships with its community and helping meet the needs that surround us. Attending the conversations in November, I sensed a rising level of excitement and purpose in our midst. God is on the move among us.

Bless Richmond “happened” to fall at the end of those three Sunday sessions – a fitting close to an exciting process. But it wasn’t coincidence. Instead, I think it was God’s reminder to us that God is on the move among dozens of the churches of Richmond, as well as at Northminster. The opportunities God has for us in our own little neighborhood are just one piece of what God is up to throughout our city – and even our country and our world. God’s kingdom is seeking to break in through us, with economic, racial, physical, emotional and spiritual healing. Bless Richmond shouted to me how blessed Northminster is to be part of that picture.

No wonder those ROC kids were cheering.

******

See Logan, Rachel and the band (and a few Northminster folks in the crowd!) leading the song “Jalali Yesu” at Bless Richmond:

More about Bless Richmond at this website.

Kingdom Stuff

Thanks and Giving at Northminster 2011 (Photo by Ronnie Schneider with his new super duper Sony camera that shoots panoramas)

I first heard the phrase “Kingdom stuff” half my life ago.

I was at a Baptist Peace Fellowship summer camp sitting beside my friend Darrell Adams. We were listening to someone explain how their church had opened it’s fellowship hall to the homeless of their city. Darrell turned to me and said, “Man, that’s Kingdom stuff.” I had never heard anyone use the phrase before.

Jesus taught his followers to pray, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Those occasional glimpses of God’s will obviously being done right here, right now, are what I call “Kingdom stuff.”

Last night as I stood on the stage of our worship center (which had been transformed into the biggest family-style restaurant in town), looking out at over 200 of Northminster’s neighbors enjoying a Thanksgiving meal, I thought to myself, “This is Kingdom stuff!”

We call it Thanks and Giving. Four years ago Northminster stopped fixing another big meal for ourselves, and began to feed some of our neighbors who can’t afford a proper Thanksgiving meal.

Counting the children who ate down the hall, we fed about 250 neighbors. When I complimented our Missions Team leader, Rhonda Wells, on how smoothly the evening had gone, she smiled and said, “All it takes is 150 volunteers.”

It’s a community effort. The Northminster family was joined by students from the Armstrong Leadership Project and VCU, representatives from Hands Up Ministries, Thrive! Moms and Embrace Richmond, and lots of individuals who wanted to do something for someone else at Thanksgiving.

Church members cooked turkeys and all the fixings, set up tables and chairs, decorated the room, served the meal, provided entertainment and cleaned up after the party.

I told our guests and volunteers that we were practicing for what is going to happen one day. When God’s Kingdom does finally and fully come—when heaven crashes into earth and creation becomes all that God intends—Jesus says, “People will come from East and West, from North and South and sit at table in the Kingdom of God.” Last night we practiced for that day, and in the process caught a glimpse of what it’s going to look like.

I could hear my friend Darrell saying, “Man, this is Kingdom Stuff!”

The Way to There

Northminster’s leaders have been praying, planning, and dreaming about what the church will be like in 2020. (You can see video explaining some of those plans here.) Last Sunday I spoke to our senior adults (a group that includes me, according to the good folks at McDonald’s and Bow Tie Cinemas) about Northminster’s future. Here is a condensed version of my message.

The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: “Come, go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.” So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him. Then the word of the LORD came to me: Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the LORD. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.” Jeremiah 18:1-6

Jeremiah lived 600 years before Jesus was born. He experienced the utter destruction of Jerusalem in 587 BCE, and witnessed the children of Israel forced into slavery by their Babylonian neighbors. When Cyrus the Great of Persia defeated Babylon in 537, Ezra the priest received permission to return to Jerusalem with a group of people to rebuild the city, its wall and its temple.

I want to tell you about two couples who lived during during the Babylonian Exile. They were about 25 with young children when the Babylonians marched them off into slavery. They raised their children in a foreign land and watched their grandchildren come into the world and grow to be adults while in exile.

The children and grandchildren of both couples were chosen to return to Jerusalem with Ezra’s initial group. Neither couple, now in their 70s, was able to go, and this saddened them greatly. But as you will see, the couples responded to their disappointment in opposite ways.

Eli and Elizabeth

The best word to describe Eli and Elizabeth as they watched their family prepare for the journey to Jerusalem would be resentful. And you can’t blame them, can you? Three children, nine grandchildren, all of their immediate family would soon be leaving. Ever since the decision was made, Eli and Elizabeth had been preoccupied with one question:What will become of us?

“Who will care for us in our old age?” they wondered. “Who is going to visit us? Every holiday for the rest of our lives, we will be alone. We took care of our children and their children, and it is somehow unfair that they will not be here to take care of us. And how will they ever afford to travel to Jerusalem? It will take everything they have to make this dangerous journey, which has such slim possibility of success. They should all just stay here with us and make the most of the life we have together.” This is how conversations went between Eli and Elizabeth, and with their family. Eli and Elizabeth’s bitterness grew as they became more and more preoccupied with their personal situation. While their family packed and prepared, Eli and Elizabeth sat in their home complaining, “When are they coming over? We never see them anymore.” Their grandchildren could have used their help purchasing supplies for the journey, but Eli and Elizabeth offered nothing because they were consumed with worries about their own survival. They were full of resentment that Ezra’s plan to rebuild the temple was forcing them to wonder, “Will we have enough? What will become of us?”

Joshua and Miriam

Eli and Elizabeth had been friends with Joshua and Miriam since long before the Exile. They had grown up together near Jerusalem, and for decades they had lived near each other in Babylon. Joshua and Miriam’s family would be leaving them behind to travel with Ezra back to Jerusalem, but the best word to describe them would be hopeful. Their focus was how can we help our children and grandchildren prepare for their journey? They would go everyday to the homes where their family was getting ready to move. If the work was too strenuous, and it often was, they would sit and watch. One afternoon a granddaughter wandered over with a request, “Tell me again about your grandparents.” Their children and grandchildren were adamant that they didn’t want to take Joshua and Miriam’s money. But Joshua bought goats and sheep, Miriam found grape vines and olive shoots for planting. “We want to see a fine orchard and vineyard when we come to visit!” she told them. Of course, deep down everyone knew she would never make the trip. Joshua and Miriam were not concerned about their future. After all, God had always taken care of them, why would they expect anything different now? And their family, these children and grandchildren, this was their hope. They would do great things with Ezra. They would resettle Jerusalem. They would rebuild the temple. They would reestablish the nation. They would become God’s best and brightest hope. “We are hopeful,” said Joshua and Miriam, “because we are helping them.”

Which brings us to today. This church is moving forward into God’s bright future. Your children and grandchildren in this faith community are thrilled about Northminster becoming a neighborhood church again. They are excited about worshiping in a renovated sanctuary and these facilities serving the neighborhood with ministries around the clock, 7 days a week. Your children and grandchildren in faith are moving forward into Northminster’s future.

Every grandparent here gets to choose how we will respond. Will we be like Eli and Elizabeth—resentful and focused on What about me? Or will we be like Joshua and Miriam—hopeful about God’s future, doing everything we can to help our grandchildren in the faith move into that future.

The bird is in your hands.

The Bird in Your Hand

You can watch a video of last Sunday’s message here. In it, three of our leaders talk about what we are calling “Our 2020 Vision”—what Northminster will look like in the year 2020. Then I give a message about how God entrusts the future of the church to us.

If you’d rather read than watch, here’s the CliffsNotes version of what I told the congregation on Sunday:

In John 15:1-2 Jesus says,

“I am the real vine and my Abba is the gardner. God cuts off any of my branches that do not bear fruit, but any that bear fruit God cuts back to make it bear more fruit” (my translation).

In the Greek of the New Testament, the words for “cut off” (airein) and “cut back” (kathairein) are very close. Jesus tells us that God cuts off—removes and throws away—every branch that bears no fruit. Every branch with potential for bearing fruit God cuts back—prunes—so that it can produce more fruit.

The fact is, each of us gets cut in life; the problem is, how do you know if God is cutting you off or cutting you back?

Say you go into work one day to the job you’ve held for 8 years, and they tell you some changes are being made at the company and that you no longer have a position. Are you being cut off or cut back?

Or you apply to the two colleges you would really like to attend, and your counselor insists that you also apply to a safety school that you’re not excited about. When the letters come, all three read, “Rejected.” Are you being cut off and thrown away or cut back so that you can blossom more fully?

A young woman sat in my office almost 20 years ago, and I have rarely seen such deep sadness. She and her husband so wanted to have a child, but they had experienced miscarriage after miscarriage. She felt that God had cut her off from her dreams. “What if you are being pruned?” I asked her. “Could God be using the adversity you are enduring to shape you into a better mother?” I think of that conversation almost every time I see her and her teenage son.

Churches get cut, too, and it’s hard for churches to know whether they are being cut off or cut back.

They estimated that 915 attended the first service in Northminster’s sanctuary back in May 1964. Two years before a committee had been formed to investigate new educational space because Sunday School attendance had climbed to 1400. By 1985, Sunday School attendance was 300, a 79% reduction.

How do you know if a church is being cut off—as in removed, thrown away—or cut back—as in pruned to foster even greater growth.

The truth is you, the members, get to choose. You are God’s hands and feet, God’s eyes and ears and heart. And Jesus’ Abba, the gardner, gives you the ability to determine whether the cutting a church experiences is a cutting off to be thrown away or a cutting back to foster greater fruitfulness. You, the members, get to choose.

A boy had grown up in a Buddhist monastery. By the time he was a young man, he resented that the Zen Master was always right. So he devised a plan to trick his master. He found a small bird and held it between his hands. He would ask his master, “Is the bird alive of dead?” If the Zen Master replied that the bird was dead, he would release it and let it fly away. If the Master said the bird was alive, he would crush it between his palms.

“Master, tell me, is the bird alive or dead?”

The Zen Master replied, “The bird, my child, is in your hands.”

This is what God is saying to you who make up the Northminster community. The future of this church—Jesus’ beloved bride, God’s hope for the world—is in your hands.

Six Churches in One

The Naval Signal Flags spell "25 Years." Invitation design by Jamie Wiltshire Jamison.

Photograph by Ashley Glasco

We celebrated my 25th anniversary as pastor of Northminster on 10/2 with what church folks call a “homecoming.” You can view Ashley Glasco’s wonderful pictures here. What a treat to see so many people who have made Northminster what it is. Some of the things I heard were, “You performed our wedding 22 years ago,” “You baptized my husband and me 20 years ago,” “I was the first baby you presented to the church 25 years ago.” It was a great day filled with so many amazing memories.

Photograph by Ashley Glasco

Northminster is 120 years old and has had 13 pastors. They have served for 1, 5, 3, 1, 5, 5, 3, 11, 14, 21, 18 and 25+ years. I guess that officially makes me “the old guy.”

The average pastor’s tenure is about 4 years. So when I am asked, “What’s the secret to staying in one church for twenty-five years?” my stock answer is, “Mental illness!” (a joke that may only work with other pastors.)

Then, in all seriousness, I go on to explain that Northminster has actually been 6 different churches during my time here, and I have enjoyed each one more than the ones that came before.

When Lynda and I came to Northminster in 1986, the congregation was 80% retired, so it was obvious to us that God was going to do something new with this old church. It turns out that transitioning a congregation is a multi-step process.

Here are the churches:

1. 1986-90      Traditional Southern Baptist

Formal worship. Traditional liturgy. Strong Sunday School (for people over 60). Empty nursery. Very few children. Church sociologists labeled  us an “ex-neighborhood church.”

2. 1991-96       Blended Worship/Former Southern Baptist

Barry Green, our music minister, introduced guitars into worship. An ensemble led praise choruses at the beginning of services. A “blue ribbon committee” recommended that we align with the Alliance of Baptists and Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond began to hold classes in our facilities.

3. 1997-2001   Contemporary Launch

After months of congregational discussions, a Future Planning Task Force recommended that we start a new church in the present location. Our target would be 25-35 year-olds who are unchurched. “Contemporary worship” began. We were learning how to be an externally focused church.

4. 2002-05      Purpose Driven

A 40 Days of Purpose Campaign energized the congregation and launched small groups as the discipleship model of the future. On the last Sunday of the campaign, long-time member Alma Fore handwrote her will, leaving her church over a million dollars. She passed from this life to the next less than a month later. Per her wishes half of her bequest went to Northminster’s Endowment Fund; half was used to pay off debt, finance major HVAC repairs, and renovate the Contemporary Worship Center. A portion of her bequest enabled us to hire additional staff for 18 months.

5. 2006-08      Downsized

A larger staff resulted in larger attendance, but when the salary grant was depleted, congregational giving was not sufficient to support the additional staff members. We reduced the size of our staff and asked members to take more responsibility. At the end of the first year of this experiment, I had a heart attack.

6. 2009-now        A Neighborhood  Church (again)

Over the years, our Food Ministry had been growing. A Free Market increased our ministry to many of our neighbors. At the end of 2008, we fed over 300 hungry neighbors on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. This event moved us to see ourselves as a neighborhood church. Our leaders redefined who we are called to reach: people who are served by or who desire to serve in our relationship-based social ministries.

Churches 1-3 were ministering “in” a neighborhood. Churches 4-5 actively ministered “to” the neighborhood. Church 6 is learning to minister “with” the neighborhood. Ministering with the neighborhood is, in my opinion, the way we are supposed to function.