SPMC AGM
14 February 2010
Knowing You, Knowing Me: We Are the People
Reading: Luke 9:28-43
Introduction
Peter was confused. One minute he was with his friends Jesus, James and John on a normal day climbing a mountain, and suddenly Jesus wasn’t like Jesus any more. He was Jesus, but he was … more. He shone with a glorious light it was hard to describe, and suddenly people who couldn’t possibly be there were there: people long dead: Elijah, Moses. And these men told Jesus very clearly what he had to do next. It was not easy. He had to die. Because it was the only way he and we would ever find real life.
In his book Finding God in Unexpected Places, Philip Yancey tells the story of meeting Bill Leslie in a grungy pizza place. Bill was overweight and dressed carelessly. He talked too loudly, and laughed too loudly at is own jokes. He’d only every worked in one church, on La Salle Street, two blocks from the poorest community in Chicago, with an average income of $3 000, and two blocks from the Cabrini Green housing project where the average income was over $50 000.
It was 1968, when racial tension was at its height. Only his church stood among the rubbleof burned buildings on that street – the church preserved because of its good reputation in the community.No-one would insure Bill’s home in the community, because it was just too much of a risk to live there at all. You would have thought that when thugs beat him up, took the Sunday’s collection and left Bill tied up and stripped naked, he would have left that community– but he didn’t, even if he had to die for it.
Instead his church began giving extra English tuition to Sunday School kids who were obviously battling to read. Bussing in students from a near-by University, lessons began in earnest and a legal aid clinic was established and a counseling centre and eventually they even established a housing project. That church reversed their neighbourhood’s urban decay.
He was not a good organisor, but because of his faithfulness, because he knew who he was, and because he knew who his people were called to be, Bill’s area in Chicago is a very different place today than it was when he began his ministry there 28 years earlier.
The people of La SalleStreetChurch made a huge difference.
We are those people for Sea Point.
And so I welcome you today to this ‘first-of-four’ combined worship services of the SeaPointMethodistChurch. The dates and times of the others in the year are on your song sheet.Our English service and our Xhosa service are about as different as two groups of people can be, except for one thing. We both love Jesus. And so, while we do not seek to be uniform, we do seek to be united through these services, and through a series of combined leader’s meetings in the year too.
Thank You
And so I want to thank you all today for many things. Thank you for being the SeaPointMethodistChurch, and making a difference here. Thank you to our Women’s Manyano and Women’s Auxiliary leaders and members. (Will you please stand if you belong to any of the organistions or groups that I mention now?) Thanks to our Sunday School Teachers, Local Preachers, choir members, and members of the YMG, Wesley Guild, Bible Studies, as well as to our stewards, whether they be Society, Communion or Door Stewards. Thank you for giving to the ‘loaves and fishes’ project, for helping with the garden and garage sale, or helping out at the fete. I especially want to thank our Circuit Steward Jacques, for doing a sterling job: representing us at all the Synod and District and Circuit meetings. Thank you’s also must go to Amanda and her team who have transformed these buildings – especially the manse and La Bonne, and these gardens. Thank you to those who are stepping down – Amanda and Chris, and thank you to those of you who aren’t stepping down – Jacques and Gaynor and Vicki and Verna, Michael and Xolani. Our surveys show that you have created for this congregation a place that is a multi-cultural home, where they are proud of your leadership, and that is no small feat.
Mission Imperatives
You have done incredibly well without a minister. But now that I am here, you have given me three imperatives. You have told me that, not only for the sake of our congregation, but also for the sake of the wider Sea Point Community, we have to work better and smarter in just three main areas.
- Care for the elderly and sick
You have told me that we have to reach these members of our family better:intheir own homes, in helping them to get to services, and in meeting their needs in the services themselves. In order to address these issues, I need helpers.
If you can help with meals for the sick, or visitation of those who are house-bound, or with offering lifts to those who can no longer drive, please tick the appropriate box on your survey form.Because we have to make it easier for those whose mobility is failing, if you can help with making Sunday-only ‘disabled parking’’ signs and help with protecting those parking bays for use only by those using the disabled entrance, please write that in under ‘other’. Because we have to make it easier for those whose sight or hearing is failing, I am grateful for the groundswell of support you have all shown me for the installation of a multi-media system. This will mean that we will no longer have to battle to read the too-small print of our red hymn books, or battle to hear the minister, because the sound-system in inadequate. Dave will describe later how we will finance this project. But I will also need helpers to work that system.
- Care for the Youth
Your second imperative to me regards the youth. The 4 pm congregation is doingvery well in this regard, with the Wesley guild meeting for a lot of laughter and worship each Friday afternoon. However, our 9:30 congregation is dangerously under-represented by youth and children. Unless we redress this situation urgently, that congregation will die.
Firstly we need to make some changes in our services. It is my dream to have four services on a Sunday: a traditional service (hymn and organ only), a vibrant family-oriented service with contemporary worship, a four o’clock Xhosa service (which is currently thriving) and an evening youth service. To split our tiny congregation at this point would probably, however, kill what we already have.This means I need to ask our 9:30 congregants to endure a period of transition, where our 9:30 service becomes ‘blended’: a mix of traditional and family worship. With time and numerical growth, we will then be able to reach the goal of having two separated worship times and styles.In the mean-time, the Sunday School will run all year round (except for December), but once a month we will hold a family service in which we can enjoy being with the children for the first section of the service. In order to facilitate this potentially difficult transition, John will be running a course early in March entitled ‘Bridging the Generation Gap’. Please don’t miss out on this fascinating exploration of the differences that history creates within different generations, as well as what we need to do to bridge those divides. This will be held both in the evening and in the morning for interested parties.
After Easter I will begin rehearsals for Godspell, a musical. This musical, first performed in 1970’s, takes its name from the archaic spelling of the word gospel. The structure of the musical is based on the Gospel of Matthew interspersed with a variety of modern music set primarily to lyrics from traditional hymns, culminating in the passion and resurrection of Christ. Not only have the Wesley Guild committed to it, but I have advertised it to be a circuit-wide event, and it is my fervent hope that this musical will launch an evening youth service towards the end of August.
Secondly we need to make some changes to our building. Until we have an effective baby room, we will not attract young families into the life of the church. If this is in one of the vestry rooms, it would be easier and a better worship experience for the parents to watch a church service on TV at home. To make the effort of coming to church worthwhile, they need to feel a part of the congregation, and worship with us. Later in the year, when I have lived into this building a little longer, and have received as much input as I can, I will bring to you a proposal on the matter.
- Care of the Poor
The third and last imperative you gave me is regarding the poor. As a congregation, we are far too inward-looking. While we support St Anne’s Children’s Home and the WA, among other things, ensures care of an orphan they have adopted, and Jacques invites us to share in his incredibly exciting Kairos ministry in the prisons, we are not reaching anything like our capacity for service.
But I am waiting for the right need to be revealed. I suspect this work is likely to be done in partnership with our congregants who live in Langa. I am on the hunt for a long-term poverty-alleviation project in which we can become involved in‘hands-on’ ways, and in terms of financial provision. I am not going to run with the first project that crosses my path. But if God has wrapped a project around your heart, please come and share that with me - it might just be part of his plan for us. Once again, David will share the way in which this ministry will be funded in his address.
Conclusion
Being transformed is not easy –it is hard. Sometimes, as it was with Christ, we have to die for it. But as I share this transforming vision with you, I become so excited! It is something that I can really buy into - becoming a truly diverse community who passionately worship Christ together, no matter whether we are old or young, rich or poor, sick or well, black or white, gay or straight? And when we live out this community, then it is not only us that are transfigured, changed from glory into glory. It is also our community that gets changed, because we have become the answer to our own prayer. Then God’s ‘Kingdom comes here on earth as it is in heaven’.
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