RAISING THE ROOF
Dear Friends in Christ:
At the its June meeting the Vestry reaffirmed the Parish Mission Statement that was first adopted in April 1991.
We, the family of Saint Matthias', provide a place and an opportunity for all Christians to come together in worship within the Anglican tradition, to exercise the privileges and responsibilities of our Baptismal covenant, to serve God by offering our resources and our talents to others, to strengthen our faith, and to bring others to Christ.
Parish mission statements are expressions of the parish’s identity and goals, and, as mission statements go, this was and is a pretty good one, but I am convinced that it is not good enough. There is nothing in it with which I would disagree, but it hardly captures the wonderful spirit of this parish.
Within the first month of my work here, I had a coffee hour conversation with Don Damon, a conversation about the size of the parish. Since that late fall Sunday in 2001, I have thought about our size, have read about the challenges of congregations with average Sunday attendance between 150 and 200 people, and have talked with members of the Vestry and others about my hope that we could meet those challenges and become a larger congregation than we are today by sharing the Good News with others and inviting them to share in the life of this parish.
Knowing that there are peculiar challenges for a congregation our size that wants to grow, I took advantage of a conference called Raising the Roof in early June. The conference was sponsored by The Alban Institute and led by the Revd Alice Mann, a copy of whose book with the same title I have read several times over the past few years. The premise of both the book and the conference, a premise that has been tested in many congregations, is that as a parish grows its leaders need to develop new structures and programs that support that growth. In a congregation our size, significant growth depends upon the development of ways for new members to become involved and to grow spiritually, and the raising up and equipping of lay leaders who can oversee some of the congregation’s programs. It also involves accepting some of the costs of growth, e.g., not knowing everyone at the Eucharist on Sundays or not having as close a relationship with the clergy as was true when the congregation was smaller.
I came away from the conference convinced that we need to engage in a serious discussion of whether or not we want to grow, or, to put it in theological terms, whether or not we have a vocation for growth. I also came away knowing that we might not have a vocation for growth. Whether we do or not will be something for us to discern. To begin, I have asked the members of the Vestry to read Raising the Roof this summer and to consider approving the forming of a learning team to guide us through a process of discernment during the next year. (Parishioners who would like to join in this summer reading project, can ask me for a copy of the book.)
In the discernment process – whether the formal one that the Vestry will consider in September or a less formal one – we will be challenged to think about what it is that we have to offer to new members. Or, to put it another way, what special thing has God been doing here at St. Matthias Church. We have talked about this before, especially at the Annual Meeting in 2006 when I posed the following questions:
1. What are three wonderful things about St. Matthias Church that you would want to share with a visitor/newcomer?
2. What have been your best experiences at St. Matthias Church?
3. What excites you about being a member of St. Matthias Church?
4. What do we do very well as a congregation?
I believe that the answers to those questions will help us to see more clearly what we have to share with others and may help us to craft a Parish Mission Statement that captures the spirit of our life together, a mission statement with a bit more sizzle.
Your brother and priest,
Daniel
