IV: Reflecting on Our First Two Years
2002 was a year of new challenges for us in at least two related areas--expenses and vision. Our internal giving was up appreciably (30%) over 2001, but it was still not enough to meet our costs. With the downturn of the economy and the prospect of the external "seed" money decreasing to nothing by the end of 2003, we had to look hard at our expenses. In preparing the 2003 budget we cut salaries and operational costs, and agreed to look for more outside money to carry us through 2004. At the same time our vision compelled us to take two faith steps. One was to agree to "tithe" our inside giving in 2003 to benevolences (local mercy ministry, church planting, and missions). The other was to take Scott Strickman on for another year--this time as an ordained minister--to round out his training as a church planter.
When we formally organized, and with two years of actual experience under our belt, we began to ask a number of important questions about our vision. How did our actual way of "doing church" correspond to the stated vision when we began? Who was actually coming to worship, and who was not coming? Why was this so? Given our actual constituency, could we afford to "do church" in the way we hade been doing it? How were we to cope with the inevitable fact of high-level congregational turnover, given our young and mobile constituency and the consumer mentality that is so much a part of our culture? Given our actual constituency, how much of a neighborhood church were we? What sort of impact were we having on the local community, given our aim to be a parish church? Was it enough? If not, why not, and what could we do about it? Was the strong family feeling which drew many of us at the outset beginning to fade? If so, why? What should, or could, be done about it? Were we becoming too professionalized? How were we different from our mother church's west side church, and from other churches in our neighborhood? Did we need to be different? Was public worship what we had hoped it would be? If not, what could or should be done about it? Should we move to multiple services with different styles? If we do, what impact would this have on our sense of family?
Good Questions and Certain Hope
These were all good questions, and we saw that they were inevitable. We remembered that when we first began to meet just two years earlier, all we had was a vision. Now we had two things: the vision and our actual experience, with the inevitable gaps between the two. We reminded ourselves that this sort of thing happens with every church plant in its first few years of existence. And in our case, the timing for serious self-reflection could not have been more appropriate, since (with organization as a particular church) we finally had our own officers, chosen by us, to help us find our way. We agreed to be patient and we began the important process of rethinking our vision and our practice.
When we organized in February 2003, Charlie Drew made the following statement:
“Someone has wisely said, "If you aim at nothing, you are bound to hit it." We must, and will, keeping grappling with our calling as a church. But as we do, we must never forget Jesus’ words about the mustard seed:
What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it? It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed you plant in the ground. Yet when planted, it grows and becomes the largest of all garden plants, with such big branches that the birds of the air can perch in its shade. (Mark 4:30-32)
Perhaps, over the next five years we will grow to 600, have a huge impact on our neighborhood, and plant three daughter churches. Perhaps we will remain relatively small, plugging away at loving our neighborhood and building community among ourselves in the face of our constant turn over. Or perhaps we won't be here. We can make educated guesses (and we have reason to be optimistic), but there is so much that we do not know. There is one thing, however, of which we can be certain: Our faithfulness today, in whatever form, will not be wasted. The smallest seed, faithfully planted, brings the plant of our Lord's choosing in our Lord's timing. And that plant will be great and good--a shelter of Emmanuel's design.”
V) Fast Forward to Fall 2005
During the two and a half years since we organized we continued to revise our vision so as to make more clear where we seek to focus our local ministry efforts and to make more prominent what we are passionate about (see our vision statement elsewhere on the website).
We also continued to grow in every way. Our vision for music developed so much so that we took on a part-time music coordinator to oversee it. Our children’s ministry grew, requiring more staff time and additional space. Our budget in 2005, including the benevolence tithe, was close to $450,000. And our attendance, which at times exceeded 250 during the ’04-’05 academic year, convinced us that we needed to move to multiple services on Sunday mornings—a change we implemented August 28, 2005. Our Benevolence Tithe enabled us to give substantially to missions, and we rejoiced to see steady involvement of our own missionaries, both short-term and long-term, all over the world. We also continued to influence people world-wide—evidenced by the internationality of the forty-one new members who joined the church in November 2005. They were from Malaysia, Singapore, Nigeria, Northern Ireland, New Zealand, Japan, Taiwan, Korea, the Philippines, and all over the United States. One of them, a Taiwanese graduate student from a Buddhist home, prayed the following just before she was baptized:
Before knowing you, I found myself looking for approval from others for the things that I do.
While knowing you, I still found myself looking for approval from others to confirm my faith.
After knowing you, I look inside my heart, and I find your love and grace...
Gracious God, thank you for loving me with everything you have. Most of all, thank you for sending your Son Jesus to suffer death and hell in my place. Thank you for the price you paid for my redemption.
Our commitment to church planting continued through this period and took on a particularly strategic expression. Two church-planting interns trained with us in ‘04-’05—one of them leaving to start a church in Berlin and the other to church plant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. In August 2005 we took on two new church planting interns—one of whom will return to Philadelphia where he hopes to start a church in 2007. Plans are afoot to have the other launch our first New York daughter church in the fall of 2007.
During our fifth anniversary celebration in early November 2005 we rejoiced to consider all that the Lord has done through us, despite our small size, the costliness of the city, and the high-level turnover that we have experienced. We determined to press on, not because it is easy but because it is right.
|
