How Do We Know?

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

January 29, 2012

How Do We Know?

Deuteronomy 18:15-20

Faded grandeur.

That was the setting.

Woodwork, construction, design…

that all suggested a wonderful past,

but cracks, chips, tears, and scuffs

that told of age

and suggested an uncertain future.

This was the setting in which

the officers of the church met last week,

the Elders and the Deacons

gathered together for our Annual Retreat.

In years past we had gone away for a full weekend –

for many years down to Harrisonburg

to the Synod’s facility at Massanetta Springs.

The past couple of years we’ve gone out to Meadowkirk,

our Presbytery’s bucolic facility

just out in Middleburg.

But rising costs caused us to scale back

from two nights to one last year,

and then this year, we decided to forgo

the overnight trip entirely.

That left us with the challenge of finding a place offsite

where we could meet for the day

to talk about the future of Manassas Presbyterian Church,

to talk about the responsibilities our Elders and Deacons have

for leading us through the present into the future,

all of us following our Lord Jesus Christ.

We found the ideal setting in Old Town Manassas,

in the building that had been our church

for the better part of a century,

until we moved up here in the 1970s,

after another group of leaders

decided that the best setting for our growing congregation

was a place a couple of miles outside of Old Town,

a windswept prominence called Whisky Hill.

Our old church is now a restaurant, La Capilla,

and it made for wonderful gathering place for us

a week ago Saturday.

The restaurant owners and staff

could not have been more hospitable,

looking after us, feeding us delicious food,

as we concentrated on our work.

Meeting in the building that represented

our historic, wonderful past

helped us to think about the exciting future we have.

Our 150^th anniversary is just five short years away

and we want to celebrate that anniversary

with confidence and joy.

But these are turbulent times for churches.

More and more people are turning away from churches,

from organized religion,

even as they readily acknowledge their faith,

their hunger to grow spiritually.

Certainly, church scandals of all kinds

have affected every denomination;

polarizing battles over theological differences

have driven people away;

as have church leaders more concerned with their own power,

with empire building, politics, and money –

all these things and more would discourage

even the most faithful.

In the Presbyterian Church,

the news has been drearily the same

for longer than I care to remember:

every single year, membership in the PCUSA drops.

It is an unfortunate statistic,

and one that isn’t really all that helpful.

The Presbyterian Church is an old church

and we’ve been around for centuries.

Many of our churches are in old parts of cities that have declined;

Membership hasn’t left because of unhappiness

as much as they just moved away.

My old church in Buffalo is a case in point:

Back in the 1950s, when Buffalo was thriving,

the church I grew up in had more than 2500 members.

Current membership is less than a third that now,

reflective of Buffalo’s declining population as a rustbelt city.

Still, new churches spring up almost every day,

including churches in our own denomination.

so there is good news,

even in the midst of bleakness.

But things are changing rapidly, even radically.

To read some scholars, we may well be on the verge

of a new era of Reformation in how we worship.

how we form and run churches,

how we gather and “do” church.

If we hope to mark our 150^th anniversary

as a strong and vibrant     congregation –

then we need to take a step back

and look afresh at everything we do,

look with fresh eyes at all we do:

how we worship,

the ministries we support,

our outreach,

our Sunday School,

education,

youth programs,

staffing –

everything.

And that is what we will be doing,

with the help of the Rev. Dr. Ed White,

a consultant with the Alban Institute.          

Ed led our Retreat last Saturday

and will be working with us

throughout the year to help us with our planning.

His job is not to say to us,

“In my expert opinion,

this is what you should do.”

He could do that –

he certainly has the expertise after having served

God and the church for more than 50 years.

But what we are asking him to do is help us

to ask the questions we need to ask,

so that we can discern ourselves what we are called to do,

remembering that our first job as officers

is to discern God’s will,

discern the will of Christ.

In our lesson, we heard the question asked,

How can we recognize a word

that the Lord has not spoken?

There is of course a bookend question to that:

how can we recognize a word

that the Lord has spoken?

How do we recognize God’s word to us?

How do we discern what God wills for us as a church this year,

two years from now,

five years from now?

Certainly at the top of the priority list of things we believe

God is calling us to do is call an Associate Pastor.

We have been talking about calling an Associate Pastor

for the past four years.

 We began our process by going through the budget

asking every Ministry Team

to look to see if there were places

where we might cut back and free up funds

for the Associate Pastor position.

Then we turned to the revenue side of the ledger

as we encouraged increased pledges

during our Stewardship campaigns.     

Two years ago, we were so tantalizingly close

to having the position fully funded.

In fact, we were confident enough to go to Presbytery

and ask them to formally restore the position for us,

a necessary first step we had to take

before we could ask that we be allowed to form

an Associate Pastor Nominating Committee

and begin a search.

But then came the Great Recession,

which caused everyone to hold back;

And over the past two years

we’ve lost some long time members.

Some moved away from the area;

others retired,

and of course, others passed away.  

As a result, Stewardship has been down two years running,

leaving us farther away

from a having a fully-funded position.

It might seem then,

that the plan our officers need to come up with is simple:

we just need to sit down

and bang out an action plan and timeline

for all those steps we think we need to take

to get us to a place where we can call an Associate Pastor.

But –

and I am glad you are all sitting as you hear me say this –

that may not be what God is calling us to do.

                 

Now, I know that sounds like heresy!

But don’t you see:

the job our officers have is not to hire an Associate Pastor.

Our officers’ job is to discern God’s will,

God’s will for our church.

If it is God’s will that we are to have an Associate Pastor

in place for our 150^th anniversary,

no one will be more delighted than I.

But, if God’s will is that we are to respond to our concerns

for our young people,

if we are to create a more responsive ministry

for our young people by taking a different path,

then we must be open to that possibility.

In our lesson the children of Israel were understandably concerned:

they’d been listening to God speak to them through Moses

for the past 40 years.

But Moses was about to leave them

as they entered the Promised Land

and Moses remained behind to die.

They wanted to know to whom they should listen,

who would speak God’s word to them,

whose voice they should listen to

so they would know God’s will.

Moses gave them advice that on its face,

doesn’t sound terribly helpful:

“If a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord

but the thing does not take place or prove true,

it is a word the Lord has not spoken.”

In other words, listen to all voices,

watch and wait

and see whose words come true –

that’s the voice you should listen to.

Over the past few years, many voices,

including my own,

have argued that it was time for us to restore

the Associate Pastor’s position,

that we felt this was where we were being called,

to make this happen.

Of course, it has not happened.

It could be that it will happen,

that it is God’s will,

but God’s timing is not the same as ours

and we just need to be patient.

Or, it could be that we haven’t discerned the will of God

faithfully and accurately

that the words we thought were God’s

reflected in fact more our own desire

than God’s will.

I am not arguing either side right now –

that’s what we have to do as part of our planning

over the coming year:

discern what God’s will is for us,

and of course, discern that will

not just for an Associate Pastor

but for all we do in the  name of Jesus Christ.

It will not be easy work.

It will take time, patience,

a willingness to listen carefully to one another;

to approach our work with open minds,

open hearts,

open eyes and ears.

                          

We cannot come to the table with action plans:

“This is what we need to do

so we’ll have an Associate Pastor in three years.”

No, we need to step back and work to discern

what is God’s will for our Church

across the Board.

We can still hold our hope that it is God’s will

that we are to have an Associate Pastor;

we can even pray for that.

But what we have to take on faith

is that God will guide us to the best answers,

so that when we do mark our 150^th

it will be with joy,

even if the path God leads us down

turns out to be different from what we envisioned.

Two weeks ago when ordained and installed our officers,

do you remember what I said

was the most important thing

you could do to help our Elders and our Deacons alike? 

Pray for them.

Pray for them that they can in the months ahead

faithfully discern God’s will for this church.

Pray for them to have open minds, hearts,

eyes and ears.

                 

Pray for them to have patience.

Pray that they’ll feel God’s steady hand guiding them.

Pray that we all of us will work over the next year

guided by the words of the psalmist who said,,

“Let me hear what God the Lord will speak…

for the Lord will give what is good.”

                                   

AMEN