NOTE TO THE READER: This Sunday launched a new “Caring Connection” program of small “care groups” for our congregation. This sermon incorporates many of our church leaders as a part of this beginning endeavor.

Script for Sunday, January 10, 2010

The Wheels on the Bus…

Acts 6:1-8

1. Tom (speaking with a microphone from the balcony, essentially out of view):  "What now seems like a very long time ago – it was, after all, back two years over our shoulders -- we initiated a fresh discernment process, prayerfully seeking God's direction.  It wasn’t a new kind of work for us. We had undertaken this kind of work before – back at the beginning of the decade when we sought to “Follow the Fire of God’s Leading into the New Century.” We knew even then, as we were hard at work in that process, that this kind of work is never finally accomplished, once and for all. While that phase of visioning work began us down an important path, in more recent years we had begun to recognize that it was time to once again be deliberate.  Circumstances change, after all. The world – and our neighborhood within it – don’t stay the same. Indeed, WE don’t stay the same. At the same time, we also began to comprehend something deeper: that though we had been "Following the Fire..." of God’s leading since that earlier visioning process, it was now time that we became "People of the Fire" – disciples of Christ actively embodying and living out who we are as instruments of God’s own peace in this place. And so we took a deep breath… and began...and studied...and prayed...and looked around...and moved forward." 

2. Jo Ann (standing up from her pew with a microphone and turning to see most of the people): 

"Eventually, and after a lot of smaller conversations and learning projects, this process led us through a series of congregational conferences – one on the past, for starters, which helped us to identify those elements of our history that we are proud of and would be important to hang on to, along with some of those patterns and characteristics it might be time to set aside and leave behind. Several months later, we gathered together once again for a Conference on the Present, which was designed to help us look with fresh eyes at what is going on in the community around us and how that might be beckoning our ministry. Finally, many months after that, we convened a Conference on the Future, during which we began to bring into focus those priorities and urgencies that need our attention and response."      Through the process, some “Guiding Principles” emerged:

We celebrate diversity.

We are curious—we engage in opportunities to learn from those different than us.

We embrace or practice creativity and innovation.

We practice active listening.

Eventually, all that work eventually helped us clarify and crystallize 4 key result areas. Together we became convinced that God was calling us to be:

A Stewarding Community, modeling and advocating for a faithful, responsible use of all God's gifts and resources;

A Welcoming Community, intentional about extending hospitality to all people;

A Reconciling Community, mending estrangements caused by conflict, injustice, or ignorance;

And finally, A Caring Community, building and nurturing active relationships that respond to human concerns, joys, and needs.

3. Steve (from the lectern): 

But still those sounded like very noble, very commendable, but very abstract goals. What would they look like? More to the point, what would we look like if we were actually accomplishing them? Gradually, as we worked together, those “big picture ideas” began to take on some particular shape and ideas. We brainstormed practical, desirable expressions; hypothetical and sometimes fanciful expressions, but also, in some cases, actual expressions since we are already doing many things really well. And then we took the measure of our passion. Do you remember all those sticky “dots” that stuck on butcher paper around the Fellowship Hall? Those highest “vote getters” would our first priority. And then the real work would begin: “fleshing out” those ideas still further into specific programs and projects that would appear on calendars and involve real people.  All of which brings us to today's launch of Care Groups – the first clear and major outgrowth of all this preparation. The need and desire to create something like these groups was the number one need revealed by those dots – the need for some reliable way to better share the joys and concerns, indeed the lives, of those we worship alongside week in and week out, along with those we who come into our midst. On the face of it, the Care Groups are a direct expression of that determination to be a “Caring Community that builds and nurtures active relationships that respond to human concerns, joys, and needs.” But in reality, the Care Groups connect in one way or another with all four of those goals.

4. Tim (from the pulpit): 

It’s pretty hard, after all, to welcome, reconcile or steward – let alone care about – those with whom you haven’t any acquaintance or worse yet haven’t even noticed. “Fine,” you might respond, “I get that. But why this whole system? Why can’t we just be reminded to pay attention to one another?”

That, I think, is an important question – and has been for a long time. And the answer is that we simply won’t. I don’t mean to be impolite or insulting. It isn’t that we are irresponsible or “caring hypocrites.” It isn’t that we don’t have the best and sincerest intentions. It’s just that…well…we get busy and involved in other things. Don’t take my saying so personally. It’s been that way forever.

Once upon a time, for example, the apostles – those faithful followers who had stayed with Jesus, learned from Jesus, been coached by Jesus and watched virtually everything he did -- were seriously and diligently going about their work. Their work, of course, was proclaiming the Gospel – telling anyone who would listen the good news of God’s reconciling love as made known in Jesus of Nazareth. They were out busy preaching and teaching and healing and baptizing and gathering converts into communities. In general, you could fairly say they were diligently trying to get it right. But as inevitably happens from time to time, despite their best intentions, they weren’t always getting it right. It wasn’t so much that what they were doing was wrong; it’s just that some other “right” things weren’t getting done at all. It was a little like a nutritionist getting so busy telling people about how to eat right that he forgets to cook his own family dinner.

In the case of the Apostles, they had gotten so busy talking about Jesus, and how important to Jesus it was that people look after one another…that they started neglecting to look after one another. They certainly intended no neglect. It’s just that…well, they too got busy with other things. There were kids to drive to music lessons and grandkids to babysit and emails to answer and errands to run and…well, you know.

And so, once they realized what was happening – or “NOT” happening, I should say – they developed…a system. What they had learned the hard way, in other words, is that without one, everything else would eventually just crowd out your good intentions. Good intentions, without some real intentionality, eventually accomplish nothing. So, they got everyone together one evening to figure out what to do. “Here’s a thought,” someone interjected. “What if we divide and conquer? What if some among us take care of the preaching, while others look after the distribution. Some can make sure communion is ready, while others can visit the hospitals.”

In other words, let’s develop a system. The system that they developed isn’t so much the point – some are better or more efficient or more sustainable than others, but there are all kinds of options. The point is that what they concluded was imperative they refused to leave as vague desire, and instead created a mechanism that stood some reasonable chance of accomplishing their goal.

Something, come to think of it, like Care Groups. Are they the only way to accomplish this goal? No. There are all kinds of systems. There is nothing magical or fool-proof about the way we have chosen to go about it. Care Groups simply represent a mechanism – an intentional system for doing what we are committed to doing. And no doubt this system will evolve as we live with it over time. One other thing is beyond any doubt: they will only be as effective as we make them. My guess is that some of the apostles’ care groups were more effective than others. Chances are that even after the seven deacons were appointed some of the hungry among them still got neglected.

The point is that the Care Groups we are launching today – like the diaconal system launched by the Apostles – are a specific and intentional response to a goal we feel passionately called to accomplish: connecting to each other and ultimately those we have yet to meet in caring, welcoming, reconciling, and stewarding ways. They are designed to be the “wheels on the bus” that enable it not simply to hold people, but to get somewhere important.

Because we – you and me, each other, and others – are too important to let stall or slip between the cracks. May it be so, then, that the words of the old children’s song be true among us: that “the wheels on the bus go ‘round and ‘round.”