This time of year, in the church, and our lives, we are getting ready for Jesus.  We are getting ready to celebrate a tiny baby in a manger, God coming into the world in unexpected ways. 
It is in the vulnerability of the infant that we see God open Herself up to humanity in brand new ways.  Jesus changes everything. 
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Often, congregations work like families.  A group of us have gotten together three times now to think about our family at Calvary.  How do we interact with one another?  How do we define ourselves, while staying part of a community?  What happens when things are not going well between two groups, two people, or leadership?  How do we resolve differences in healthy ways?  For those of you who have been coming, I’ll rely on you to share what you’ve learned with others.  If you haven’t had a chance to come, the first two are posted.  You can read all about what we’re learning and how we’re growing as a congregation by clicking on the two buttons below. ​

​At the end of Workshop Three, we talked about how Bibles that sit on coffee tables and look pretty, but are never opened and read, can’t really change our lives or help us follow Jesus.  Similarly, allowing these workshops to help us grow as a congregation only works as much as we follow through on new behaviors. Those at the workshop asked me to communicate our four goals for the congregation to you.  The plan is that the congregation will work hard on these goals, and we’ll meet again on February 18 after fellowship time.  At that time, we’ll do chapters 11-13 of the book and evaluate how we’re doing with our goals.  I also encourage people to write about their progress --– how things are going; what’s hard about it; how prayer matters in the process; where things went well; where conversations did not go well.  Also, I invited people to share reflections with me on the process. 

​Are you ready?  The goals requested by the workshop participants are on the next page.  They are also posted by the kitchen pass-through so that we can keep them in mind. Don’t worry about getting this all at once.  It’ll take a long time, and this is just a brief overview to get us started and it will let you know that workshop participants (along with others) might be speaking to you differently from now on.  Also, if this is all new and totally overwhelming for you, be sure to read the book if you have it, and ask questions of those who've come to the workshops.  It is ok to just pick one of these goals for you to read and concentrate on for the next month or two.  

In places where people have been worried for a long time it is called chronic anxiety.  In most groups, when the worry is high, like worrying for years about the survival of the congregation, we start to want to blame other people.  Often we think “If that person just would/would not do this/that . . our church would grow fine.”  However, what we have learned is that “I statements” make a world of difference.  They are hard in the moment when we’re not used to them, so just imagine Jesus arguing with his parents, and then try again the next time.  The point is to try to use them and see if they work.

​“I statements” are formatted like this: “I think/feel __________________ when you ___________________________.”  For example, someone reading this might be saying, “I feel uncomfortable when Pastor Jess talks about these goals because I do not want to do them.”  That’s an I statement, and a good and honest one.  

We accomplish this goal in two primary ways.  If someone at church comes to you to complain about someone else, or talk about how someone else needs to change, then the first step is to offer to help them think about how they can go directly to the person they have the problem with.  Saying things like, “If you have a problem with Pr. Jess, you need to go talk directly to Pr. Jess” will really help.  Also, you can ask clarifying questions.  What is she doing you don’t like?  How do you want things to be different?  Let me help you think of how to tell her how you’re feeling about this.  What’s really going on?  How might you need to change the ways you talk to Pastor?  How might you need to hold your boundaries better?  What tools can you use?  It is the job of the person listening to not become part of the relationship triangle, and to help the person talking understand themselves better, and go directly to the person they are struggling with.

The workshop participants have noticed a pattern that often people at church relate to one another through complaining.  While this can be a good way for two people to feel close to one another and on the same page, it can also drag an organization down.  There is a difference between complaining and these preferable things:

• Thinking about how to change the situation
• Defining yourself in the situation, What is your role?
• Thinking about what you have control over
• Venting emotions for a short time so you can move onto more                                      constructive ideas

The workshop participants have many tools for responding when they hear complaining.  Those tools include asking more questions to help people define themselves, putting time limits on how long they are willing to listen, helping people to use “I statements” and other things of this nature.  While it is important to take feelings and stress seriously, it is also important that we do not pass it around so that it gets bigger without any problem solving, processing, or solutions. 

​The group decided that this would be a helpful thing for our congregation to know.  How do we define an argument, verses a discussion?  Is it the emotional intensity?  The use of “I statements”? The ways blame and anxiety get passed around?  The amount of constructive problem solving?  When these two things are confused, often people try to avoid difference all together.  They do not talk about things in open and honest ways, and avoid solving problems all together to avoid an argument breaking out.  This is most likely when an emotional system has low tolerance for people having different needs.  It is possible in some places to say “I don’t like that, that doesn’t work for me, and I am in favor of it because I understand this might be a good way that our community can show Jesus to the world.”  When we know how to have a discussion, and when people have space to define themselves, it actually becomes much easier to move forward as a group toward a common goal.  Although it might look nice on the surface, when people do not define themselves and their position, it is much harder to move forward together.  

​That’s it!  And that’s enough.  This stuff is hard work.  I find much hope in knowing that Jesus was human.  He lived on earth among humans.  There are times he gets into triangles, especially when he offloads his anxiety to God about the disciples not getting that the Good News is about Life for All.  Of course, as we celebrate our very human Baby Jesus this winter, we look forward to knowing that Jesus was also Divine, that God has become human and can redeem humanity.  Jesus will forgive us as many times as it take to work on these goals, with love, compassion, understanding, and guidance.  May we know that the human Jesus is with us in this, and that the Divine Jesus will always forgive us and offer us New Life and the chance to try again.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.  

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