Since Jerry Schmidt’s article about our study for the use of the chapel appeared I have been asked some very unusual questions.  No we’re not closing down the chapel.  No we’re not “defrocking” the chapel (I’m not even sure what that means).  Defrocking refers to a priest being dismissed (removed from his job) as a priest, usually because of bad behavior or breaking church law.  No we don’t have to have the Bishop here to “desanctify” the chapel.   We are, in fact, suggesting that we use the chapel in greater ways to accomplish the mission of the church to make disciples.

            I know questions about the use of the chapel have gone on here for many years, too many years.  I know the chapel has great historical significance to our beginnings as a congregation.  I know the chapel is a great place to worship and I have tried to use it as much as I could especially during our special seasons.  We still get requests for the chapel for small weddings and funeral services.  I greatly enjoy using the chapel for such services and I have promised to protect the integrity of the chapel.

            Now, why have we come to this point of wanting to study the use of the chapel?  Our Hospitality Team and Evangelism Team have found that very few of our Sunday morning visitors find their way downstairs to Hudspeth Hall following worship on Sunday morning.  This means most of our Sunday morning visitors are leaving without making any kind of connection to members of our congregation or received any kind of invitation to a Sunday school class.  This also means that our Hospitality Team who has committed “connecting” our visitors to our members (so the name Café Connect) feel that their work of evangelism is going undone.          

            It is our thought that we would more easily get our visitors to step into the chapel (an invitation at the end of the service to our visitors to come and share our roots and beginnings as they fellowship with the congregation would be something I would welcome).  We need to pay attention to the adjectives the Bishop uses in the Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations. It is RADICAL hospitality which means we need to be prepared to make radical changes to make it happen.  However, I see a simple change that can make a radical difference and it is this:  If we were to replace the screwed down immovable pews with nice upholstered chairs similar to the ones purchased for the contemporary service and the Contemporary Sunday school class.  This way we could open up the room for fellowship and evangelism (which is just as important part of our ministry as worship) and then we could easily reconfigure the room by moving the chairs for worship and services.

            We now have a Chapel Study Task Team who is looking beyond even these uses.  They are encouraging the congregation to get creative and help them do some brain-storming about other ways we may use the chapel area as a part of our ministry and mission.  It is too great a part of our church to sit there unused.  Please give it prayerful thought—is it about protecting what we have or is it about working at building relationships with each other and with the Lord?

I’m receiving Twitters from Whitney Pennington while the youth are on their mission trip to Mississippi & will relay them here:

The left the CLC on Saturday at 8:30 am in three vehicles.

They were in Arkansas by 12:16 pm

They had lunch in Memphis at the Rendezvous which some consider the best bar-b-que in Memphis so they’re off to a great start.

They arrived safely at the CUMC and apparently they were surprised with a impromtu dance party in a bowling ally parking lot & had a great time.

They left Jackson around 11 am.

I’m involved in several study and support groups that has led to a lot of reading this past year. I want to take this opportunity to share books that I have found helpful and would be helpful to members of the congregation to read. It would be helpful for you to add to this list as you read books that you feel are helpful to our congregation. I am glad to make my library available so if you would like to borrow rather than buy, I would be glad to loan. If you do buy, and if you buy from Amazon.com please go to our website first and hit the Amazon.com button and we will receive 4% of your purchase!

We should all be reading Bishop Robert Schnase’s Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations - Radical hospitality - Passionate worship - Intentional faith development - Risk-taking mission and service - Extravagant generosity. Sara has already used the book with two Sunday school classes and it is an ideal study for all classes and small groups.

If you are one of those many who hear Christ’s call to share your faith but are unsure has to how to just become comfortable and confident in doing it a couple of books are extremely helpful: Bill Hybels’ Just Walk Across the Room- Simple Steps Pointing People to Faith is excellent. The Joyners Class has used this as a study and it should be used by other classes, small groups and individuals.

Another great book for becoming comfortable with sharing your faith and inviting others to Christ is an older book by Paul Little called How to Give Away Your Faith-A Key to Witnessing Today. I just checked Amazon.com and find it is still in print and available though it is no longer the $2.50 I paid in 1978 it can be had for $10 now and well worth it.

Martha Grace Reese’s book Unbinding the Gospel-Real Life Evangelism is a must read. Reese openly examines the main line church, of which we are a part, and clearly understands how the main line church has lost its passion for evangelism. She seeks to bring us back on the path of being eager disciples of Christ.

Another book that looks at the mainline church is Recreating the Church-Leadership for the Postmodern Age by Richard Hamm. I truly wish and pray that each of our church officers and leaders would read this book. There have been many outside influences and changes in society the have affected the church. We have no control over these changes but we have refused or all too slow responded to those changes and so are no longer seen as a relevant force to many folks. Hamm challenges the church and the church leadership to see how the church must change if it is going to make a difference in lives today.

A neat little book - a one hour read - is John Kotter’s Our Iceberg Is Melting-Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions. (You might remember Kotter from Who Moved My Cheese. His books are written for business but they also reflect whats happening to our churches. Its a real wakeup call to us that we can’t keep doing things the way we have always done them and think we will survive. I have bought a dozen of these and am constantly loaning them out to folk, I’ll be glad to loan one to you–just ask.

I heard a very interesting statistic the other day from a former funeral home director.  He said that 80% of those families who come in to arrange a funeral have no connection to a church and need the funeral home’s help in finding a minister to do the funeral.

            This caused me to think about a couple of things:

1.      Even though these families have no church connection, they have a spiritual need which is reflected in their desire to have a minister do the funeral—even if they don’t even know the minister.

2.      This means that 80% of the families who are living around us have no connection to a church and will some day need the help of the funeral director.

3.      Now I’m thinking about what each of us need to be doing to help these families get connected to a church—perhaps Webster Hills?

4.      What do you think?

Accepting the importance of worship, education, and fellowship.  What should I Sunday mornings look like?

What would you suggest to strengthen our Contemporary Worship Service?