Reflecting on Chartering Sunday

A Sermon by Reverend Debra McKnight
Preached at Urban Abbey on February 17, 2019

Today we charter as a church. This is a milestone to celebrate our growth and it is part of a journey. If churches were formed simply by signing a charter, well this occasion would not be so rare in the modern mainline experience. Rather, chartering is much more like a wedding celebration after the years of dating, connecting, planning, disagreeing and dreaming. Weddings are moments of covenant that celebrate a beginning. They aren’t really a start as much as it is a declaration of intentions. Weddings are spaces where people make a commitment to how they will behave rather than how they will always feel; feeling one way forever is nearly impossible but setting an intention towards how you will journey together is the work of this public moment. It is a beginning only in the sense that there have been hundreds of other firsts and beginnings that have brought you this far, and on this day you celebrate a new beginning built on the wisdom of a hundred other firsts. Chartering feels similar, at least to me.

Today we charter and a charter is in its essence an intention toward how we will work together as a church. It is like a constitution or an agreement and, at its heart, is really a just a piece of paper. The United Nations has a charter. Recently, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln celebrated the 150th anniversary its charter. It is a piece of paper that only matters if we live into it. In some sense what makes a charter matter is how it creates something of an institution.

Of course, the word institution does not invite most of us to dream vast sweeping dreams. The word institution typically rings with red tape and resistance to change - even change that would save it. But if we can pause and look deeply, an institution has essential work, it is the work that preserves learning. We see this in science and medicine. Institutions perform this essential function of preserving the learning of one generation so the next can pull us all farther forward. The past is a launch pad for the future, at its best. This is a part of our chartering, preserving our learning.

We have learned by failing and failing and failing and failing. We have burnt milk, spilt milk and wasted milk. We have failed at the coffee bar and book orders, we have failed in small groups - most notably when I tried to lead all of them myself or when I tried to make them eight weeks long. We have even hosted a worship service where it would have been better to not have any music at all than the music we did have (it was along time ago). We have tried to host events and be open at the same time, which really just failed everyone in our space. We have learned so much and the best part of growing into the fullness of the church is that as we grow. We can harness these learnings, our boards and launch teams can structure with intention; our staff and leaders can do better thanks to the past. This is the gift of an institution, even a little one like ours.

Of course, we know how institutions can drift from their vision and essential task of preserving learning in service of the future. How they can become focused instead on the preservation of the institution. They become brittle, rigid, inflexible, filled with red tape and bureaucracy. It can be seen in reluctance to change or struggles with accountability. We charter today and we will be one of a few churches that charter this year in the Methodist Church. Churches were chartering all the time 150 years ago and some of them continue to be hubs of life in their communities, while many are quietly dying. That is not how they started. No one sets out to die. It starts in small ways, when people say, “Oh no that’s not very convenient for our staff, we would have to move schedules around.” It happens in church council meetings when someone says, “We can’t host that group, they smoke so much and we have to clean-up the cigarette butts on the ground.” Or “The preschool parents don’t care about us, they’re always on their phones, while their kids run around and make a mess; they spill juice and they break the books that are for our kids.” It happens when churches start to say, “no” to everything and growth is stifled before it starts. It happens when churches start to say, “yes” to everything, because they don’t want to hurt someone’s feelings. Suddenly their yes means nothing because they have 30 ministries, partners, and programs they marginally support, rather than making a huge impact and staying the course with one or two key missions. It happens when churches start to store things, “Oh this was so special, we have to keep this, oh we can store it in this classroom.” And then they keep adding to it, storing more and more stuff until suddenly you have a wing of classrooms filled with the ghost of the past, or at least all the slide proctors, nativity costumes that were a hit in the 50’s and libraries of VHS tapes. I know pastors who spend their entire first year (or three) at a church cleaning out the past to make space for the future and being fought at every step of the way.

Churches don’t charter to die but they do die. They become focused on the service of their members; the comfort or convenience of their staff, their leaders, and their own groups, over the work of being present for others. They see a hallway full of running kids as a problem and forget to get out the coloring books, read stories, bring some treats and offer the kind of hospitality that Jesus would have to this group of tired parents and energetic kids. They forget that Sunday school is more than a class on Sunday. They forget that their space was built on the dream of it being hub for the community and that their work was for the transformation of the world. That is the risk of chartering. The risk of forgetting our call.

Chartering might involve a document but it is more than a piece of paper. There is another definition, one that is more verb or adverb than noun. You can charter a plane. You can charter a ship. You can move people and goods anywhere you want to around the world. Chartering begs us to set a course, it can keep us stretching and moving, growing and failing, learning and loving our way into deeper relationships. But only if we are intentional, thoughtful, and always willing to ask the hard questions of why are we doing this? Is it in keeping with our mission and vision and values? We don’t have to become inflexible and reluctant to change. Our learning can launch us deeper into new learnings and greater depth. Our willingness to stay focused on others, means our growth has a greater purpose and it will determine how we use our space, our time and our gifts. Chartering gives us this root of intentions to share together and a dream to journey on in love.

New churches are often called plants and their pastors are called church planters. I don’t know if they are more like farmers or gardeners but I love the metaphor, particularly as so much of the new church start culture is a little hyper masculine. I love the metaphor of tending and nurturing and even pruning. I love the metaphor of planting a seed and realizing like the farmer that the harvest is not your work alone, it is a vibrant combination of discipline, care, work and good fortune. You must have more faith than control in this work of planting. And the truth is I am terrible with plants. I would never make it as an actual farmer and I have failed as a gardener. And it is not for lack of trying. I have watered too much and too little. I have purchased sprays and food. I have failed so many times that I became well acquainted with the herb specialist at Mulhall's nursery and on one final visit she gave me mint and said, “This is an aggressive herb. You will be fine with mint.” She was wrong. That plant seemed dead and I put it outside for a week in July while I went to a training and when it came back it looked the best it ever had in my care. If I have planted anything that has survived, it is this.

We arrive at this day because I have not been alone. Eight years ago, folks listened and dreamed and brought their gifts to make this seed of an idea into a real place. Throughout every year and through every challenge, we have been gifted with teams have been filled with the people who knew about spreadsheets and historic permits, paint colors and plumbing, human resources and partnerships. When we started I didn’t even drink coffee. There were moments of hard decisions and missteps. We have worked hard, kept learning, and had some good fortune along the way. That is why we are here this day to celebrate. That is why we are here to dream.

Our charter says we are duly constituted and organized for the glory of God, the proclamation of the gospel and the service of humanity. I pray that if we do face a day of hard choices or hard finances, we give ourselves away to the very end, rather than die out in fearful self-preservation. I pray that we stay moored to our vision, rooted in our mission and work out of our deepest values. I pray that we ask ourselves hard questions, stay fluid and expansive all while preserving the learnings that can launch us into the most powerful expression of this work. I pray that we never shy away from this work in favor of our own comfort. I pray that we stay organized for the glory of God, the proclamation of the gospel and the service of humanity. I pray that in all we do we work to give life. And I ask you to pray this with me.

Amen.