Peter’s Dream
Fifth Sunday of Easter – Year C
May 6, 2007
Fifth Sunday of Easter – Year C
May 6, 2007
Let us pray: O God, we gather here in the presence of your spirit, celebrating who we are as your people. It is not your spirit that is emerging, but our awareness of the spirit and our sense of what you are calling us to be about. Help us to understand how best to do that and may these words guide us in that. Amen.
It was a bit closer this time, the second of two Sunday morning trips home from Edmonton in the space of three weeks. You may recall the last time when Lloyd Henderson and I flew back from a Northern Regional Event in Leduc, Alberta. This time Nancy Trotter and I were attending a meeting of Northern Lights Presbytery in Grande Prairie, followed by an event titled “Living the Welcome”, a part of the Emerging Spirit programme of The United Church of Canada.
When I arrived at the check-in counter in Edmonton on a clear morning, my heartbeat quickly rose when I heard the words “Yellowknife” and “weather” in the same sentence as a passenger ahead of me was checking in. Sure enough, the word was that low clouds might prevent a landing in Yellowknife and I might have a wish to visit Norman Wells unexpectedly fulfilled!
Well, as you can see, there are low clouds, but land we did, and here I am. I don’t plan to make this a regular habit - travelling home on Sunday morning, if for no other reason than to ease the strain on Barb Paquin’s heart rate.
There’s a certain advantage in sharing a name with a biblical character. For example, this morning you can’t be sure whether it is the Peter of the Christian Scriptures or me that has a dream. Given that you just heard the reading from Acts which tells of the other Peter’s dream – you might be tempted to think it’s his dream, not mine. I doubt however, that any of you would be surprised to hear that it’s both..
Let me recall the story of Acts for you. The fledgling church – the group of followers of the Way is growing. However, some of the original members are concerned that it is growing in ways they did not imagine. The circle is growing wider than they’ve been expecting and the concerns are starting to get named. The concerns revolve around who is “in” and who is not. Peter finds himself in the midst of this discussion and it takes a dream for him to work it out. It’s a dream that gives him a vision of radical inclusion. He sees a blanket that stretches out in a way that was previously beyond his imagining. The dream inspires him to share this message of inclusion with the people around him.
That’s Peter’s Dream #1.
Based in part on the message that Lloyd and I heard two weeks ago in Leduc, augmented by the insights from this weekend’s event and bolstered by the comments and positive sense that was shared during the Pastoral Oversight visit, I want to share my own dream. This is not a night time dream, but it’s not unlike the dreams of that other Peter.
At the end of the congregational meeting part of the Pastoral Oversight visit I was invited along with Sharon to come in to join the discussion. At that time I stated amidst all the other comments that I felt something big was about to happen for the Yellowknife United Church congregation. I couldn’t say what that something was right then, it was just a sense, but it seems to be getting clearer, considered in the light of two different weekends of continuing education, a congregation that has many gifts to celebrate and the conversations I have had with people in and around the three events I just named - Leduc, Grande Prairie and a visit here by members of Presbytery for a Pastoral Oversight visit.
The initial reports, as you saw in last week’s announcements have been very good, and there is obviously a sense that things are going well for us. You might that this is a strange time to be thinking about something else, something big, something more. I don’t think there is any better time.
In Leduc, Dan Hotchkiss showed us a graph that describes the congregational life cycle – an upward arcing curve depicting a time when a congregation is motivated and active, culminating in a peak of involvement and purpose. This is followed by a period of decline. Most congregations start doing some strategic planning in the middle of the decline. That’s the wrong time for it to happen – the energy is already starting to abate and negative feelings are taking precedence over positive ones. The best time to start strategic planning for the next upward cycle is during the first one! It’s an opportunity to convert some of the current energy into future energy – this good time is being used to generate the next good time. In other words, the graph does not have to follow the normal pattern – a decline does not have to follow a time of energy and involvement. A congregation that knows its mission and purpose can keep creating new opportunities from the energy and excitement of the old ones.
So, let me tell you about my dream - it might be the something “big” - when I said that on that Tuesday evening at the end of April there were some other heads nodding around the table. Or perhaps it is just my dream and the something “big” is something else. That’s okay. I’m happy to join in on someone else’s project, in fact I think one of my strengths is supporting the ideas of others, but just in case my idea is “it”, I should tell you about it.
My dream is like that other Peter’s dream. It too, is a dream of radical inclusion. That doesn’t mean we are doing a bad job right now, in fact I think we are doing pretty well. I remember a church consultant who has visited Alberta and Northwest conference a couple of times who once said, churches must become better at doing what they already do well. That’s what I am getting at - do better we are already doing well.
The Emerging Spirit campaign is directed at 30-45 years old, and in particular the segment of that demographic that does not have a church connection. The independent surveys have already been done and the number is 77%. That’s the percentage of that segment of the Canadian population that might be attracted to a church community if the church has the right attributes. And guess what, those attributes are known.
There are eighteen of them. Five of them in particular seem to set The United Church of Canada apart. They are:
1. Encourages questioning
2. Respect for personal freedom and choice
3. Builds relationships with other traditions
4. Is open to change
5. Welcomes gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people
That’s the statement. That’s who we say we are, but the challenge is to live it out - as the event title suggests: “Living the Welcome”.
For me it’s even more clearly defined. In two ways 1) by asserting that we are an affirming church by taking the steps necessary so that we can call ourselves an affirming church. If you don’t know what an affirming church is - it’s a church that takes seriously the fifth attribute I named above - namely a clear statement that it welcomes people of all sexual orientations as leaders as worshippers as members. There’s an article about it in the April issue of the United Church Observer, if you want to read more. The second way is to assert that we are a church that welcomes the inclusion of children and youth in every part of our life together as a worshipping community.
Please let me say it again - we are not doing badly, but we can be even better. That’s what I’ve learned form those two weekends and it’s because I feel good about what we have here and who we are here that I believe we can do it. Of course it’s going to change some of the ways we do things, including our meeting schedules, so that people have time to do the things needed to bring about the changes that need to be made. But you know what, I know we can handle it. We are Yellowknife United Church and the very fact that we are worshipping in this space today proves that we’ve done it before.
That’s my dream. I hope it’s big enough. Amen.