T.O.W.S.
T.O.W.S.
Luke 14:15-24
A few years ago, one of our trustees led us through what was called a S.W.O.T. exercise. The acronym stood for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The instrument wasn’t specifically developed for churches. However, it made for a lively discussion. What are the forces that are shaping our identity as a church—external and internal—and what might we need to face as we move forward?
This morning, I’m going to jumble that acronym from S.W.O.T. to T.O.W.S.—threats, opportunities, weaknesses, and strengths. I’m going to work this through in two sections: the threats and opportunities inherent in our situation and the weaknesses and strengths that we bring to meet those challenges. I’m doing this not because my thoughts should be the defining thoughts but because I am happy to be the one to get our thinking started.
Threat One: The Institutional Church is Becoming Irrelevant
If you want to see concrete evidence that the institutional church is less relevant, just look at Sunday mornings. For a long time, less and less people have affiliated with religious institutions. As a child, the question wasn’t whether you went to church. The question was which church you attend. Now, particularly if you are younger, the question is, “Why bother?” The church refused to speak in meaningful ways to a world that was changing. The most visible presence of the church in the world was when the televangelist said that Katrina was God’s punishment on gay people or when the clergy sexual abuse scandals broke and the church’s response was to hide the truth or attack the accuser or in the never-ending, sordid story of the latest pastor who slept with some member’s spouse.
What’s the threat? The threat is that every church depends upon new members. We can try to comfort ourselves and think, “Well, we’re not that kind of church!” However, that’s who people assume we are. What would it take for us to convince them otherwise?
Threat Two: The Institutional Church is Being Marginalized
As the church moves out of the center of a community’s life, other things move in. Even for those for whom the church wasn’t ever important, Sundays were still family days. For the families who were a part of a church, attending church was something they did together on that family day. Now, Sundays are full of travel sports events and practices and school activities each of which is the top priority. Young people who want to go on work trip sometimes have to stare down a coach of their winter sport who doesn’t want them to miss the summer practices: “You can go on that trip but you should ask yourself, ‘How much do you want to be a part of this team?’” Even if “Sundays off” wasn’t just so people could go to church, isn’t it a better world when there is a day off?
Threat Three: The Pandemic
If less people were going to church prior to the pandemic, things certainly accelerated when the pandemic arrived! For significant periods of time, no one attended church. If you had told me that we would go as long as we did without having in person worship and without passing an offering plate, I would have told you we were doomed. Amazingly we we are still here! However, all sorts of people who never would have dreamed of suddenly not going to church suddenly didn’t go to church. Some people really missed it. (I know that I did.) Other people grew fond of coffee at home and Mark on their computer screen and discovered a new way to worship. All of us, though, broke the habit. Some people came back right away. Some people haven’t. Everyone is wondering, “When will this feel normal again?” At the same time, it is hard not to wonder, “What if we have to shut down again?” (Get your boosters! Get your flu shots, my friends!)
Opportunities:
There are a host of opportunities before us. Consider the pandemic… We have had more people than ever who have joined us for worship in the last two and a half years. We have made our budgets without passing offering plates all that many times. For a long time, people who have moved from our community have lamented how hard it was to find a church like this. Now, they have found us again—on line. How can we fully include those people in our extended church family?
The second opportunity that we have is to honestly confront the glaring failures of the larger church to be the church by choosing to do our best to quietly be the church at its best, ourselves. We have practiced being a servant church for a long time, with members of all ages coming together to help those in need. We did this more than ever during the pandemic. When we see people passing any number of lesser things off as “God’s work in the world,” we need to not give into despair. Rather, we need to double down on actually doing God’s work: helping those who would otherwise be overlooked and ignored. Faithful people have a long history of seeing what passes for faith, shaking their heads, and then doing something faithful. Let’s be a part of that tradition.
Finally, we have the opportunity to say to a world that feels very little “brand loyalty” to a denomination that since 1866 we’ve kind of been over all that, too. We were raised Protestant and Catholic and nothing at all. We don’t think we have a corner on truth. We don’t think we’re holier than anyone. We just think that we’re going to do a better job of keeping our eye on God and living what we believe if we practice such things with other people, especially if those people happen to be different enough from me that they might help me see the things that I miss.
Part 3: Weaknesses
I rarely talk about this but, today, I will. Our church is full of people with much more financial savvy than me. (Thank God!). They will be talking to you soon as budget season arises. Here is our vulnerability. Like most churches, we have lots of people who support the church and a small group of people who give extra generously. Although I never know who gives what, I do know that most often those heavy donors tend to be older members. This makes us vulnerable when those donors are no longer with us. How much anyone chooses to give is up to them and no business of mine. We would be a stronger church, though, if we broaden the number of pledges that come in—this means new members; this means members who have been marginally active; this means members of our extended church family who are worshiping on line.
Second, what is generally in shorter supply in our church than money is time. People are busy around here. The things we need to do—for example, to have strong boards and committees that make wise decisions for the church and that increase people’s commitment to and “ownership” of the church—those things take time. It takes time to learn how to run tech so that we can include our extended church family members. It takes time to come to worship. It takes time to care for one another.
Finally, I think we have to increase the sense of ownership among all of us that this church—the Union Church of Lake Bluff—is not Mark and Tracy’s church or the church of those people who are constantly taking leadership roles. Rather, this church is our church. This church is my church home. In lots of other places in life, we know that what we invest our time and money and sweat into is what matters to us. The church needs to matter like that—not because someone guilted us or made us afraid, but because we’ve come to believe in what this community aspires to be.
Part 4: Strengths
Back when I first came, life was one crisis after another. Borge Smidt, the moderator at the time, would grab me after the latest anguished trustees meeting and say, “You know, Mark, we’ve got such good people here!” Today, I have to say, “Borge, we still do!” The line up may have changed across 27 years but the story is the same: our strength is our people. I am convinced that there is nothing that we can’t do—with God’s help. Having been in churches where it seemed like the reason for gathering was to fight with one another, I have been so grateful for years to be in a place where the people are nice, where they are looking for ways to help, and where they seem to like one another. Don’t ever underestimate that strength!
The second strength is that we are resilient. Having been in real crises, we don’t go looking to create them for fun. Having been in real crises, we don’t look at every challenge as the end of the world. I think we demonstrated during the pandemic that we are a “nimble” church—the rarest of all “animals!” We didn’t have to meet for six months to decide that we had to stop worshiping in person. We made the decision to follow the advice of the doctors and nurses and scientists who are a part of our congregation. We didn’t have to have the technology all figured out to get started. Like any number of other moments in our life together, we realized that something was better than nothing and we knew that once we were started someone would feel sorry enough for us that they would say, “Oh fine…let me help!”
Last, consider this: a lot of churches have to ask who we would need to become in order to be inviting to a visitor. “How can we be a warm and welcoming church?” Well, the Union Church welcomed me when I arrived. I bet they welcomed you, too. “How can we act like we like each other so those visitors will like us?” Again, I think we’ve already checked that box. “You know…people are more spiritual than religious these days.” Well, look at how little time we spend getting stuck on rituals or the details of our shared life. “You know…people want a church where they can ask questions.” Honestly, I’ve never met a more thoughtful church. Our only task is to be who we are and find the ways that we can to invite others to come and be who they are with us.
If you are online in Switzerland or Italy or France, if you are online in Florida or New York or Texas or California, if you are online right here in Lake Bluff—because you’re immunocompromised or because it just sounded nice to have your coffee at home today, you are invited to be a part of the Union Church as we move forward. If you are in this sanctuary and you’ve been here for a while or you are, in fact, in this sanctuary for the first time in a while, you are invited to be a part of the Union Church as we move forward. So, will you accept that invitation? Are you in?
There was this man who threw a great dinner party. The first round of invitations went out. Mostly, what came back were excuses. So, the list expanded, wider and wider, until not just “everyone who was anyone” made the list but, in fact, everyone was included. The mind blowing truth is that God is just like that man.
We’re all invited. Come on…let’s make our way to the table together.