March 7, 2018

Bit by bit

This past weekend I drove down to the Kanuga Camp and Conference Center just outside of Hendersonville, NC, for a church leadership conference. It was a good conference and I was able to reconnect with a person from Oregon, got to know another person from Bozeman, MT, and came away with a variety of ideas.

The keynote speaker was the Rev. Bonnie Perry, from All Saints in the Ravenswood neighborhood of Chicago. Theirs is a story of a complete turnaround and revitalization. Shortly before her arrival about 25 years ago, the bishop met with the parish for the specific purpose of closing it. But the Spirit was working that day and they decided to call a part-time priest and see what would happen. That priest was Bonnie and the turnaround has been miraculous.

A building that was literally falling down around them has been repaired and refurbished. A congregation that self-identified as “dead,” has been resurrected. A congregation that once only looked inward now raises well over fifty thousand dollars for outreach annually. They feed over 100 people a week. Their youth group holds a bake auction in which the prime cake went for $1075. They collect so many boxes of paper to donate to local schools that, for a Sunday, they construct their altar and lectern out of those collected boxes. And this is just some of what happens at All Saints.

In some respects this is all overwhelming and it may cause someone to think, “We can't do all that.”

But here's the thing – they didn't wake up one day with a refurbished building, a budget of $50,000 for outreach, and hundreds of pounds of paper for the local school. What they suddenly realized was that they could do something, and that something was focused on what their surrounding community needed. In other words, their resurrection story is based not on focusing on themselves, but on focusing on those around them. Resurrection, it seems, isn't about us; it's about others.

In her keynote address, Bonnie made a statement that was meant to both comfort and challenge the rest of us in the room, and that was this:

We didn't wake up one day feeding hundreds, donating paper, organizing a fun run, and auctioning cakes that sell for $1000. But this is where we are now. And we got here bit by bit.

We have it in us to do great things. We have it within us for St. John's to do great things. But whatever we do, however great we will become, it will be accomplished bit by bit. We just need to be willing to take an initial risk, an initial step, be not afraid of either failure or financial restraints.

What little bit can you do or give that will show St. John's to be a place of resurrection?

Blessings