By Rev. Abigail Vizcarra Perez | Pastor, Tacoma: The Bridge
We’ve all done it: we wake on Sunday morning and think of all the things we would like to do with a balmy PNW summer day and then stuffed all that desire down into a black hole where our love for worship used to reside. Honestly, I think it’s part of what is killing our churches in the region. We have about three months of sunshine and we spend too much of it sitting indoors, doing the exact same things we did when the rain forced us to come in out of the cold.
It’s tradition and it may even be holy but it’s not ideal. So like any good pastor I’ve been looking for options and then I found one in an article sent by a colleague. It was about a congregation in Minneapolis that chose to meet weekly but they only had Sunday morning liturgy every two weeks. They meet Sunday one week and Saturday the next week so they spend every other Sunday morning doing myriad things that bring them joy. That is the one rule: whatever you do on Sunday mornings make sure you do it out of a desire for joy-if it’s an obligation, it’s not Sabbath.
The congregation I lead is setting out on the next leg of a long journey. We’ve come through one heck of a year: a beloved pastor was removed without much explanation. Half the worshipping congregation left in frustration. The other half remained and has thoroughly exhausted themselves with all that it takes to jumpstart a stalling congregation. The same volunteer runs the soundboard every week. The same teacher prepares lessons for Sunday school hoping at least one child will arrive early enough for a lesson. The same volunteer plays the piano, prepares the bread and juice, sets the altar, counts the money and chairs the finance committee… you guessed it: every single week.
The church is growing in numbers, in financial stability, and in faith: we’ve added new members, managed to keep up with pledges and the scripture study group and vision team have grown. But the money and energy for the weekly and daily tasks are running out.
It’s only going to get worse as Summer vacations take people away and the warm weather makes it that much harder to sit in a stuffy sanctuary when we could be at the park or garden. What is more, we realized we do not know our neighborhood like we could. We do not know our city like we should. Ask a long time church member what is keeping young families away from church on Sundays and you’ll get a bunch of good guesses… but if you really want to know where people are and what they’re about on Sunday mornings you probably have to go out and see for yourself.
And what about those struggling with homelessness, addictions and poverty? Are we supposed to spend Sunday mornings waiting for them to come looking for a tank of gas or a voucher for a hotel? What kind of street ministry would we be able to do Saturday nights if we didn’t have to be up early on Sundays? We asked ourselves these very questions and decided it was time for a new plan I’m calling Radical Sabbatical. After an initial 2 months period of worshipping together every other Sunday we will spend July, August and September exploring the city, worshipping with other churches and resting on the Sabbath.
I know this congregation needs a break but I also know they have the spiritual foundation to really take a sabbatical.
I know this congregation needs a break but I also know they have the spiritual foundation to really take a sabbatical. They have been studying scripture and praying together with fervor. They go to pains to visit the homebound, hospitalized and show great respect for their elders and their saints. They care for one another well through a ministry of presence and service through a local foodbank… but I know they need rest because faith is formed in our working and in our resting. They’re a little nervous about this next leg of their journey together, and so am I. But more than nervous I am excited to see how this experience shakes them out of their habits and forces them to notice what brings them joy.
The last week before our Radical Sabbatical officially began we studied Psalm 103:7-12. I preached about the size of God’s love and the ways that God communicates that love for us. The Psalm sings over ways God makes The Way plain to people – it doesn’t say that can only happen in church or on Sunday mornings. It says that God spoke to Moses (a murdering, stuttering runaway) and God spoke to the people of Israel (a people who time and time again turned away from God’s promises). I take this to mean that God speaks to all people in all places… not just to those of us who show up at a brick and mortar outlet for praise songs and handshakes on Sunday mornings. If God is speaking to those who cannot or do not come to us on Sunday mornings then we are to go out and find these people
We talk about outreach as an outpouring of our love but in the poetry of this Psalm it becomes a source of goodness. Being with the lost and least is not just about loving but being loved. The Psalm encourages us to listen with our whole self and trust that they will testify to God’s love and show us God’s love the same way we see it and hear it when we are together on Sunday mornings.
I know that it is quite shocking for a pastor to tell her congregation to stop coming to worship on Sundays. I also know that we have to get out into the world to experience more of God. It might seem like I’m pushing an agenda that I pulled out of a hat or being negligent in my devotion to worship. But I’m not. The radical Sabbatical is part of a larger strategy to restart our church-not just our congregation but the Church in South Tacoma and maybe beyond. And I’m not the only one here who believes this. Many in our congregation are already beginning to see the value in this new way of doing church (not just coming to church but being a part of the larger community in faith) and it hasn’t even started yet as of the writing of this article!
One of the people who can only attend on Wednesday nights wrote to tell me:
“My thought this morning is about those in the congregation who might want to get together and research who the Homeless really are and how many and what kind of homeless people might hang out in the neighborhood. They won’t be able to find out by attending church on Sunday morning unless a person shows up asking for a handout. It may take hanging around the church and neighboring buildings late at night to see some of the homeless. It may also take some time just hanging around outside the church building or down the street at the park and talking with people to find out about other kinds of homelessness. It may require this group to meet over a meal to not only talk about the different reasons people come to be homeless but to also share what they have found when they actually meet and talk with people. Some of the talking may be with people in the neighborhood and discussing their views in homelessness in their neighborhood and finding out what resources that they might have or know to help in ways the group feels called to.
There is a lot in the news these days about homelessness and a church group with the heart to find a way to reach out and give hope could create quite a bit of relationship and community building as well as a feeling of doing church.”
The worship band leader wrote to me last week to tell me about a dream that he believes explains this perfectly:
I had a dream…I was in a neighborhood community. There were two men standing in front of a garage. One was a black gang member, the other was a white biker. They didn’t seem like they should be in the same neighborhood, but they both had a serenity about them. They clearly had a deep bond and friendship. I was talking with the black man in front of the garage. I marveled at how he and the biker, people from different worlds could have forged such a close bond. He told me “The most important thing for you to learn from this is to serve others. If you don’t remember anything else, remember that.”
But it wasn’t just the dream: he wrote on to tell me about something that really happened:
“Sometimes the best things happen in the oddest locations.
We went out for lunch after church yesterday. While in the bathroom washing my hands, I was standing next to a gentleman. We exchanged pleasantries.
He said he had a great day at church. He then asked about my church. I told him we were embarking on a new journey called Radical Sabbatical. I explained that every other Sunday we were not going to have a church service. Instead we were going to do outreach work in the community.
At this point he got really excited! He talked about how after Jesus died upon the cross that his followers went out by twos to spread the word. He said that he was really excited for us for going on this journey!”
I know that we’re not all like the two men in this story- some will think we’re killing our church if we’re brave enough to tell them what we’re up to. Some think I’m crazy or lazy but we are called to be like Christ-even if it calls us toward death and insult- even if it isn’t the popular thing to do. And if it looks like it will be the end of our church as we know it, then that may be a good thing because the church we see now is not going to survive anyway. The dead branches are not bearing fruit; they’re choking out the growth. We must find ways to prune her back and even rip out the stump if we have to in order to make room for what God is going to do in this place. Even Christ knew when to take time away for prayer and meditation. Being on a sabbatical means we study and learn, but we also take time to be still, to enjoy the things we are experiencing so that we can come back to our work with a renewed vitality.
Ministry in the None and Done Zone is not a contest to see which church can survive all the others. It’s not a lack of faith that calls us out into the wilderness of non-religious expression of faith; our trek into the wilderness of Radical Sabbatical is a response to the goodness we are pursuing in the orphans, widows and strangers who will reveal God’s love to us.
The woman who leads an outreach at the Gospel Mission wrote to me this week to share her “Radical Sabbatical Note to self:”
“When in the midst of kicking a four week bug that makes you crash once again, realize that when the body screams “No!” it is because the mind has not been saying “No!” when it should! Accept that I am only one person; that I have limits and need to always preserve the necessary energy that I need to be positive, healthy and thrive. No matter how negative and demanding or how positive and rewarding the task, I also need to rest my mind, spirit and body so that I can refocus, refresh and revitalize into a balanced space.”
I have urged the congregation to continue to attend Wednesday nights. These will be times for us to study the word and pray together and they will be vital especially during July, August and September when we are spread out all over the city on Sunday mornings. But they will not be much like our Sunday morning liturgy. We’ll have a potluck rather than bread and juice every week; we’ll have bible study rather than a sermon and we’ll choose to sing whichever hymns strike us as appropriate on any given night.
After the visioning session in which I shared the idea with stakeholders I received a letter written by a long time Methodist who has lived all over the world. She began worshipping with us around the same time our vision team formed. She writes, “We want everyone to participate in this Radical Sabbatical, as a community, to discover “how it is with our soul”; to allow God into our hearts to reveal anything that is not pleasing to Him. As each person works on their individual relationship with God during this time, it will create a place for Worship for us as a community, when we meet together.” This is why I’m writing this article: so that everyone can participate in Radical Sabbatical.
The forty people who are sent out from our congregation may come to visit your church for Holy Eucharist or we might find communion elsewhere. Some will attend your child’s soccer game and share in the common meal of granola bars and Gatorade or meet friends at “St. Arbucks” breaking croissant and coffee on a Sunday morning. You may see us watching a baseball game receiving the host of hotdogs and cokes on a Sunday afternoon, but we’re not skipping church to do it. We’re discovering who we are, who you are, who God is and how we might put all of this to use for the community we love… because that is our definition of what it means to be the church.
Don’t get me wrong: we’re not disrespecting Sunday morning worship and communion. We’re diligently searching it out. We are desperately seeking the means of grace in all places, all people and all manner of hosts. We are ever mindful of the myriad ways we break bread when we cannot do it at our usual altar in our traditional ways. And we do it always in remembrance of the new covenant and the risen Christ so that we will be in the presence of forgiveness for our trespasses.
There are many questions about how all this will feel, what we will do and how or if we will return to each other after our Radical Sabbatical ends. But we don’t wonder if it is the right thing or the wrong thing. We know God gives us all we have and if we are given a chance to seek God in new ways and new places then God will show up there. And when we feel the questions and doubts coming on we will embrace them and give them voice because faith is formed in the questions and doubts-
In the name of the Creator of our labor, rest and worship. Amen.
