What's below is my August newsletter article to my congregation.  I'm really curious to see how the conversation goes since I've only been here a couple of months.  What do you think?  Is this a message your congregation needs to hear?  I'm sharing in case others have need of another person far away saying the hard things and asking the hard questions.  

Hey, ya’ll.  Pastor Jess here.  First, let me say how happy I am to be here and to be your pastor.  I love it here, and I so appreciate the honest conversations people are having with me.  I’d like to share some of those things now, and then invite you to reflect with me.  Also, this is  a huge invitation to make time to stay for fellowship hour after church on Sundays.  Lots of important conversations about the future of the church are being had, sometimes in response to the sermons, so please make time to stay and chat with us.  The community best discerns (prays, thinks, talks, seeks the will of God) when every voice is heard.  I want your voice and input on our renewal efforts. 
I’ll be honest, since we’re trying to create a culture of honesty.  Part of why we have our covenant is because I have experienced, as have many of my friends, churches who say they want to change and grow, but are unwilling to actually do it.  What they mean is that they want people to come because we invited them with flyers or parties, and to be just like us.  To worship like us, to think about the Bible like us, to be with us doing it our way.  In this congregation, we seem to be comfortable facing the reality, as hard as it is, and as much as it might hurt us, that the old way of being church just doesn’t work.  It seems that Calvary is at a point of knowing that we must do something in a radically different way than we’ve ever done it before.  We will do it together, and with God as our guide.  If our model for discipleship is Jesus, then we have all we need to radically change things, because that is what Jesus did, for the whole world.
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It seems that we are willing to focus on the mission of proclaiming God’s love and blessings to the world through our congregation, even if it means things won’t be our way anymore.  If this seems wrong to you, please let me know.  I’m writing to you today to test what I think I’m hearing and understanding.  You’ll have to let me know if I got it right, kind of close, or wrong. 

I’m wondering if we might like to try adding a mission community to our congregation.  This mission community would be supported by everyone who is already here, and everyone would have a role in supporting it.  Your role might be to make food for it.  It might be to carry around flyers and invite everyone you meet – at the gas station, grocery store, library.  Giving them out wherever you are.  It might be simply not complaining about things being different, the church being fuller and therefore messier, and the ways that forming honest and mutual relationships with new people change us.  Are you willing to invite those from the mission community to share meals with you?  Are you willing to get to know any children who come, and spend time with them outside of church?  Even if you don’t like, understand, or get the ways the mission community does things, are you willing to financially, emotionally, and spiritually support it as the mission of Calvary?  Will you come sometimes to events the mission community holds, and invite them to come to your events, too?  Would you rather the church be the way you like it, understand it, and it has always been, but maybe close in a few years, or open, but different?  Different congregations make different choices. 

If we really believe in our Christian story of death and resurrection, then closing is a faithful choice.  Because we’re able to trust that Jesus, through the church, can use the resources to bring New Life somewhere else.  It is better to let things go than to hold onto them until we hurt ourselves and others. It is a radical choice to close and trust that Jesus will find a way to bring each person and the resources of the congregation New Life. 

We can also decide that our faithful choice is to be radical in our proclamation of the Gospel while open. If we want to do this, as I believe we have the desire and attitude to do, here is what I don’t know: Do we have the energy?  Do we have the capacity?  Is each person here willing to find their role in forming and supporting the addition of a new community?  Is there room for adding something new, and focusing our energy there, while staying grounded in our traditions, our Lutheran heritage, and Sunday Morning worship?   With the formation of a new community attached to our congregation, Sunday morning worship would change very little.  There would be a solid base from which to live out your faith and the proclamation of the Gospel.  Are you ready?  How will you help?

Please let me know.  Like I said, I’m testing the ideas to see what works and what people think.  Also, many of the things I’ve written here I’ve been saying to people at fellowship hour, and I don’t want anyone to feel left out of the conversation.  Your voice matters.  Your support matters.  If most of the people here are willing to name one or two ways they would be willing to support a new mission community, we may have the energy to make it happen.  It might be too soon for this conversation for some of us, but some of us are already having it, and every voice matters.  Share your thoughts with me and let me know! 
Love,  Pr. Jess