Ten Signposts of Renewal - What This Means at St. Luke’s by Rev. Gary Coffey
(From the book jacket) “For Decades the accepted wisdom has been that America’s mainline Protestant churches are in decline, eclipsed by evangelical mega-churches. Church and religion expert Diana Butler Bass wondered if this was true, and this book is the result of her extensive 3 year study of centrist and progressive churches across the country. Her surprising findings revealed just the opposite-- that many of the churches are flourishing, and that they are doing so without resorting to mimicking the mega church evangelical style.
Christianity for the Rest of Us describes this phenomenon and offers a how-to approach for Protestants eager to maintain faithful to their tradition while becoming a vital spiritual community. As Butler-Bass delved into the rich spiritual life of various Episcopal, United Methodist, Disciples of Christ, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, and Lutheran churches, certain consistent practices--such as hospitality, contemplation, diversity, justice, discernment, and worship emerged as core expressions of congregations seeking to rediscover authentic Christian faith and witness today.
This hopeful book, which includes a study guide for groups and individuals, reveals the practical steps that leaders and lay people alike are taking to proclaim an alternative message about an emerging Christianity that strives for greater spiritual depth and proactively engages the needs of the world.”
Butler-Bass describes these consistent practices found in vibrant congregations as 10 Signposts of Renewal. Each month, one of us from the Vestry, over the next 10 months, is going to summarize each of these 10 Signposts of Renewal. They are also going to keep them in mind as a Vestry as helpful guides in planning our ongoing ministry at St. Luke’s.
For this first month, we are considering the Signpost of Hospitality from Chapter 5 in the book. Perhaps, the easiest way to do this is to cite an example of the churches Butler Bass featured to get a sense of what vibrant hospitality looks like. She writes about Cornerstone Methodist Church in Naples, Florida. It is on the edge of Naples, which is on the Gulf Coast and is itself a hospitality town offering restaurants, lodging and the natural beauty and weather of Southwest Florida on the Gulf of Mexico. If you can afford it, Naples offers a type of hospitality that is basically a getaway from one’s everyday life.
Cornerstone offers what might be called “spiritual hospitality” for free for all who find their way to the church, many of which are travelers from other places. The most common ice breaker of welcome is the question, “Where are you from?” which shows an interest in wayfaring strangers and offers atopic of conversation. On Sunday morning, one is welcomed into a pretty relaxed atmosphere with a praise band providing sort of a spiritual warm up before the traditional worship liturgy. One of the prayers in The Book of Common Prayer speaks of “all sorts and conditions of people.” I was reminded of this when the author described the eclectic mix of people visiting and welcoming others before the service. Older parishioners mingled and visited with people with young children. Several girls decked out in goth clothing and makeup had stopped to visit with an elderly woman in a wheelchair, and each girl took a turn giving the woman a kiss on the cheek as they greeted her. I could go on, but suffice it to say, as Butler Bass put it, “it looks like a church where wayfarers and strangers have become friends.”
She goes on to say that the churches of today are very different from the one in which she was raised. Back then, say in the 50’s and early 60’s,going to church was the cultural thing to do.
“With the old patterns of the village broken down, however, the Christian practice of hospitality has reemerged as foundational to the spiritual life. Contemporary Americans are nomads, what Catholic writer Henry Nouwen once called “a world of strangers, estranged from their own past, culture, and country, from their neighbors, friends and family, from their deepest self and their God.” In such a “world strangers” where fear, anger, and hostility build walls between people and chip away at communal soulfulness, Nouwen proposed that “if there is any concept worth restoring to its original depth and evocative potential, it is the concept of hospitality.” For Nouwen, hospitality is the “creation of a free space” where strangers become friends. “Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where change can take place”. (Christianity for the Rest of Us, Copyright 2006 by Diana Butler Bass)