March 17, 2002
Fifth Sunday in Lent

Dry Bones and Dead Churches (a Reprise!)

If you noticed in the worship bulletin after the sermon title, it says “a reprise.” Much of what I would like to share with you today comes from a sermon that I preached on the 24th of March in 1996. Two cycles back in the lectionary year. I try very hard not to repeat pieces of sermons from times past, although there are illustrations that I share with you from time to time, because I like those illustrations so well. I share these stories in this sermon because they are powerful stories, but also because I think that sometimes there are people in the congregation that loose some perspective about what has gone on over the last number of years, and what God’s Spirit is able to accomplish with God’s people as they serve faithfully. We were having a Deacon meeting last month when a couple of the Deacons, who have been here a shorter amount of time, started indicating that some of the circumstances of the church suggested that the church might be on a downward process, that we might be dying. That was prompted by concerns that there are a couple of families who have decided that they are going to look some other place for a congregation to meet their spiritual needs. I shared with them that that happens with churches all the time, particularly when there are changes going on in the church. I encouraged them to look at all of the things that have changed over the last 7 1/2 years that we have shared together.

So, that is part of my intention in looking at churches and what it means to be a growing church or a dying church. In part encouragement for us as we continue to work and grow. But in part for us to look at ourselves realistically to see what has gone on. As an exercise, what I would like you to do is stand if you were a regular worshiper in this congregation 7½ years ago, just before I came here. OK, you may be seated. Now those of you who have begun worshiping with this congregation some time during that last 7½ years, could you stand up please. On this particular morning it looks to be about half the congregation was regularly worshiping before I came and half of you have either joined the church, or reactivated your participation during these past 7½ years. This is an indication of all of the changes that have gone on in this church during these years together. (Note~ this was after the children and Sunday school teachers left for class. Most of them have joined during the past 7 years.)

As you well know, we have had quite a few deaths in the congregation, which was not unexpected, because of the age of the congregation. It isn’t something that any of us look forward to, but it does happen in churches. In fact, it does give us an opportunity to talk about the strength of a congregation. I have shared with people on a number of occasions that the last church I served in Omaha, was made up primarily of young families. In almost seven years of serving as pastor of that church, we had one funeral service. For a seven year old boy who had a neurological disease. James deteriorated over a period of about five or six years. It was a difficult death for the congregation. But, one funeral during that whole time. We have had quite a few more here. As I said, we don’t look forward to those times. But memorial services give us an opportunity to give thanks to God for the lives of individuals who have been part of this worshiping community. When we gather together and think about all of the years of commitment that people have made to this church, all the many things that they have done, I think it is an exciting time for the congregation. Even thought we say good-bye to the physical presence of dear friends, we still give thanks for all of their gifts, for all they have contributed to our church. We understand how rich our life is together as a community.

If we look at physical things that have taken place over the last 7½years, we can start outside and say we have a new roof on the peaks portion of the sanctuary. We have new siding. We have new windows. We have an access ramp to the Fellowship Hall. All of those things have taken place during this period of time. Within the Sanctuary itself, we have a grand piano that was a dream 7½years ago. We have greatly enjoyed all the music that has come from this instrument. If we move out into the narthex, we find glass doors that now provide light for that area and a welcome to our church building. We find lightened up walls and new furniture in the lounge. New carpet through much of the building. Railings to help people get up and down. Quite a few changes have been made of the main floor. If we go down to the fellowship Hall, we not only have all of the light that the access ramp has brought in, but we have a new ceiling, new lights, new flooring, twice newly painted room, new curtains for the stage, doors for the fireplace. A tremendous number of physical things that we have accomplished together over the last 7½ years.

In addition to that, you have already noted some of the changes that are taking place in the congregation. While we are still not a huge congregation by the standards of some of the churches in the area, within the United Church of Christ we are very much a middle sized congregation. We continue to gradually increase our worship attendance. We have regular visitors that come and join us in the congregation. We have gotten younger as a congregation. The first couple of Sundays that I was here, a half dozen kids were all that we had in the congregation, for children’s sermons and Sunday school. Sometimes there is a crowd of 15 kids or better coming forward for the children’s sermons. We have some of the younger families who have been hard at work to continue to fill out the Sunday school program. We look forward to all of those kids joining the Sunday school classes along the way. During the last 7½ years we have been host to eleven different congregations. Eleven different congregations have worshiped here. That includes St. John’s Episcopal Church, who worshiped here on Wednesday mornings for 6 months or more while they were recovering from fire damage to their church building.

In addition to those worshiping congregations, we have dozens and dozens of twelve-step groups, fellowship groups, and city employees coming over here to use the building for meetings. So we have done a tremendous number of things there. We have added the new century hymnals. We have declared ourselves to be an “open and affirming” congregation, welcoming gay, lesbian, bi-sexual, and transgendered people as loved children of God. We are in the process of moving to a new Sunday school curriculum next Fall. Our committees have always had very dedicated people, but sometimes small groups of people. Often those small groups are folks that have been working for a long, long time in the church. I am pleased to say that at this point we have three committees in the church that are newly constituted within the last year and a half, that have not only continued participation from long time members, but also some new energies. Those would be the Christian Education committee, the Deacons, and the Music Committee. All these groups are adding new energy and enthusiasm to our life together as a congregation. I really look forward to all of the freshness and the moving of the Spirit that we will experience in the years ahead.

Even though we could talk about people who have died and people that we love that are no longer a part of this congregation, there are very many reasons to see ourselves as a growing church, moving into the future.

There seems to be a preoccupation with churches that are dying. One of my friends who was a conference minister in Nebraska said that in his travels throughout the state, all the churches, not some, but all of the churches, from the smallest to the largest, were afraid that they were going to have to close their doors at some point in the next ten years. A preoccupation with the death of the congregation.

Those who have that kind of a sense of preoccupation may feel an affinity to the people of Israel. Remember they had had the Golden Age of David as King. The powers of the Middle East that had constantly overrun the holy land were now in recession for a period of time. Egypt and Babylon were not as strong. The Assyrians, none of them had the power that they had before. So for this brief period of time the Hebrew people were able to move into the Promised Land, establish themselves. Move from Judges to Kings and experience a Golden Age of worshiping God, Yahweh, as they were called to worship. Then the other powers rose again. Israel went through a very extended period of oppression. The hope was always to get back to that Golden time. The time when David was King. What really needed to take place was for God to fill the people again. To come to dry bones that had no reason to hope. No realistic expectation that things would be different in the future. The prophet promised that God’s Spirit would bring life back to those bones. I do believe that is what we have been experiencing here in this congregation. When I came here, there were folks, who thought that we were this close to putting padlocks on the big wooden doors we had in the Narthex. That the congregatin had declined so far from what it had once been, that there wasn’t any reason to hope that things were going to be different in the future.

There are, from time to time, lists that come in newsletters. Lists about what it means to be part of an alive church or a dead church. Listen:

Live churches are constantly changing. Dead churches don’t have to.
Live churches have lots of noisy children. Dead churches are quiet.
Live churches expenses always exceed their incomes.
Dead churches take in more money than they could ever dream of spending.
Live churches are constantly improving and planning for the future.
Dead churches worship the past.
Live churches are intense and earnest about worship. Dead churches aren’t.
Live churches move out in faith. Dead churches operate totally by human sight.
Live churches support mission heavily. Dead churches focus on local programs.
Live churches are filled with generous contributors.
Dead churches are filled with cheap tippers.
Live churches dream great dreams of God. Dead churches relive nightmares.
Live church have fresh winds of love blowing. Dead churches are full of bickering.
Live churches don’t have “can’t in their dictionary.
Dead churches have nothing else but.
This is a bumper sticker here: Live churches evangelize. Dead churches fossilize.

Two stories to close, that I shared back in 1996. One of these is about a call that came in to the conference office in Nebraska, from a couple who said, “We’re calling you about the church that we have in Longbranch, Nebraska.” The Conference Minister said, “We don’t have a church in Longbranch, Nebraska.” They said, “Oh, yes we do. The building is here. You can take a look at it whenever you want to.” He checked the records and found out that indeed we had had a congregation in Longbranch a long time ago. This couple was calling up because there was a group in that community that wanted to buy the church building. They wanted to get permission from the Conference to go ahead and sell it. After the research was done, it confirmed that there was a church building; a few families had been taking care of the building, painting it every couple of years. But, there had not been any worship services there since 1948. So the building was painted, and the grass was mowed on a regular basis. The church even had a savings account. The CD’s now totaled some $6,000. Two families had taken care of the church building, but there had been no worship there. Nothing else going on. So everything that we see as signs of success in a church, a paid-for building, money in the bank, was true about this church, but there was no congregation there. There was nothing taking place at all. It was a dead church, with a paid-for building and money in the bank. The board of directors discussed it for a while and we finally decided to give the building to the new congregation. “They will fill it with some life. Let’s use the funds in the bank to pay off any debts that might exist, then put the rest of the funds into the general budget of the conference for continued work of the churches that we still have.” So, that’s what we did. We gave the church building to that congregation with our blessing and as far as I know there is a live congregation now worshiping in that building.

There is another story about a Disciples of Christ congregation. Our sister denomination. A congregation in downtown Phoenix. The congregation had existed for many years. They carried on an extensive ministry. Now they were to the point where the Golden Age was far away. They had a large building, but a very small elderly congregation. They also had a large endowment that could keep them going at that rate for a long, long time into the future. After much discussion, they decided that there wasn’t any point to keeping the congregation alive on life support of an endowment fund. At the same time, there was a young church, Disciples of Christ, out in the suburbs. A new and struggling congregation. Lots of people, but great difficulty in trying to pay off the building. A great need to attract more people to come and fill the offering plates to keep up with expenses. Finally, the downtown church decided to give its endowment money to the new congregation. Now, as you might expect, out from under all that building debt, the new congregation flourished. The debt was now lifted from their shoulders, they could continue on with all of the hopes and dreams that they had for serving Christ there in their community. But, the other part of the story is a surprise, too. The downtown congregation began to flourish. It began to attract new people, and figure out different ways to provide ministry to its community. Not unlike what we have done here as a congregation. There was a time when every one of these rooms, and then some, was filled up with Sunday school classes on a Sunday morning. Throughout the week there were committees and groups that were meeting that were part of the program life of this congregation. They filled the building with enthusiasm, with noise, with bodies in these rooms. But when I began ministry here, we were heating lots of empty spaces. The building would sit here throughout the week without being used except Sunday morning when we would come in and occasionally for other groups throughout the week. Now there are days when you can barely find an empty room in this building, once again. The time may come in the future where all of these rooms are filled with people from our congregation. If we face that difficulty, we will face it with great excitement, because it will mean that there are tremendous things happening for this church. Until then, it is a great thing to be sharing the building with all of these groups, who are making a difference in people’s lives. Who are helping to change the community. Who are helping to spread the love of Christ. I had a number of people come and talk to me. They said that after the fire at St. John’s that displaced a number of 12-step groups, many of those groups came over here to join the groups that were already meeting in this building. One of the presidents of a local group said, “You are now “Recovery East”. You are now the main focus point of recovery programs on the eastside of Lake Washington.” Now I’m not well enough versed in the AA community to know if that is really true, but we have a lot of groups that meet here. He told me, “You don’t know how much impact this congregation is making on the lives of people by making space available for all of these meetings.”

So next time you are feeling like dry bones, like dead bodies, next time you thing that the church is spiraling down to oblivion, think about Ezekiel and God’s promise. God will bring life out of death. Think about all of the things that have gone on as we have ministered together.

Give thanks to God for the life that we all experience. Amen.