June 22, 2003 - Membership Sunday
Reception of New Members by Transfer & Reaffirmation of Faith
Alice Brehmer: (Chair of Visitation and Membership) We now welcome into this congregation persons who are already members of the United Church of Canada and have served within another congregation or who rejoin us through reaffirmation of faith.
I present to you: Bob Herring, Judy Herring, Doris Kornelson, Ed Kornelson, Kim White, Sandra White so that they may be received into membership within this congregation.
I
guess any conversation about membership in the church would have to begin with
why bother? After all, isn’t the experience of worship the same for someone who
is not a member as for someone who is a member? And aren’t we primarily about
worship? Besides, don’t we live in a time that membership to anything seems to
fly in the face of celebrated freedoms? So why join anything? All
of these things may certainly be true. Still there are some classic reasons
offered from the church’s vast experience about why one might wish to be a
member. For
example there are some privileges that only members are entitled to: and no,
this isn’t an American Express ad. For
example, congregational votes on particularly dicey issues are often only the
privilege of members. Or, serving as part of the session or worship committee in
congregations that operate on a Session and Stewards model. Or putting ones name
forward for the process of inquiry or candidacy in the church…the stream that
may well lead to ordination, requires one to be a member in The United Church of
Canada. >At
this point in church history I believe membership for most people really has
more to do with declaring one’s chosen place in the family or community of
faith. And each person needs to value what aspects of membership are the
compelling ones for them and be faithful to their particular connection. Today
we celebrate with folks who come into membership by transfer and reaffirmation
of faith. I think transfer is pretty clear to folks…the idea of transferring
one’s membership from one United Church to another…
Reaffirmation may be less clear…life often takes us in different directions and
our faith journey is exactly that, “a journey” and so we can find ourselves in
various places along that journey. So when folks make a choice that takes a
break from church life, reaffirmation is the avenue that allows someone to bring
themselves back into connection with the church.
Someone may ask, well, if you become a member, aren’t you a member for life. And
the answer is that your participation in the life of the church and your ongoing
connection with the church family is your assurance of membership. When
participation is no longer part of your experience, then after a period you
cease to be “a member.” In
The United Church of Canada, each church congregation is assessed a levy on its
membership to help finance the work of presbytery and conference. Our presbytery
is made up of 22 different congregations and the meetings and work that the
presbytery engages is made possible through the assessments of each
congregation. Similar situations are part of the work of conference and a
similar assessment is paid to fund that work and ministry. These
two figures make up about 4% of our annual budget and these figures are printed
in the annual report and of course, you are encouraged as friends of Westminster
to review them. Because membership and assessment go hand in hand and because
the major decisions of the church require thoughtful connection with the life of
the church, each church is encouraged to continually be updating it membership
roll by removing names that are absent for 3 years or more and by adding the
names of folks who are welcomed through transfer, reaffirmation and by
confirmation or baptism. So
that is a little of the logistics of membership in The United church of Canada
from the standpoint of our polity…the nuts and bolts of who we are, but what
about the spiritual reasons for belonging to a local congregation or to The
United Church of Canada in general? Well
glad you asked. The answer to that question, however is a bit more involved. To
some of our neighboring denominations there may seem no good reason to belong to
The United Church of Canada, of course we beg to differ on that topic. The
reasons they might ‘say that’ are the same reasons that those of us who are
committed to The United Church are proud to be so connected. The
Biblical notes I shared with you regarding the calming of the waters would be
upsetting for some who see the account as a strict factual measure of faith. Of
course the diversity in our church that I so appreciate is that folks may well
feel that way about today’s passage and they may be sitting right beside someone
who believes that Jesus’ ability to understand weather systems is what is really
being spoken about in the story. It is
precisely our diversity and our willingness to allow people to wrestle with the
elements of their faith that is, I believe, our strength. Being
part of The United Church of Canada does not mean we live without good healthy
discussion… rarely are two people on the same part of a faith journey at the
same time and so conversation and study and sharing are the elements that help
folks find common ground and receive the compassion that encourages learning and
the dialogue that makes one feel apart of something larger than themselves. And
that brings us to another place in the exploration about membership.
Membership is about people following their heart and choosing to be a part of a
community of questors, people on a journey…seekers in this life…sometimes with
similar vision but not exclusively so. When
we join our lives, our hearts, our minds and our resources to a willingness to
grow and learn and make a difference in our families, our local community and
beyond, we are participating in an action that goes back to the great commission
of Jesus shared in the choir anthem today. We
are, as we understand our invitation, making disciples and sharing good news and
allowing ourselves to be challenged to be the kind of people that Jesus invites
and encourages us to be. Yes, It is a big responsibility! It is also a wonderful
gift we give of ourselves and that we receive. A
gift in which we can share with others and be blessed by the stories and the
heart that others feel warmed to share with us. In
faith community we move forward without disrespecting the past stories and works
of those who have gone before and we are also free not to worship the past as if
the past itself is divine, but yet to be respectful of it. That’s a tricky
balance to uphold sometimes. If we
move too quickly, too forthrightly we run the risk of disrespecting the past and
the sacred journey of those who have engaged it…if we move too slowly or are too
fixated on the past we run the risk of making a sacred cow out of our past
experiences or the past experiences of our faith ancestors. The
wonder of our relationship with God is that it does not happen with a God who is
static as if frozen in time but it is an ongoing and dynamic relationship that
is quite literally “new every morning”.
That’s why it is a faith journey…it is an ongoing trek that produces new
experiences, guideposts along the way where we can share with others …where
highlights and pitfalls of our journey form our connections…the times when we
have like the psalmist, felt alone and removed from God and the times also like
psalmist accounts of knowing, without a doubt, that we have stood in the
presence of God and been blessed in and by that presence.
Indeed faith life is a dynamic thing. Time to reflect on the past and time to
engage the present and vision for the future. At
this point in our journey as a congregation, the board is reviewing our now more
than 15 year old constitution to be sure it actually reflects who we are at this
point in our collective journey. The constitution is the document that sets out
our committees, their structures and membership and the focus of their work.
When
the board is satisfied that an updated document represents appropriately the
ethos and current life of the congregation it will be presented it to the
congregation for approval. Expect to see it at the Annual General Meeting at the
end of January, 2004. Just
as our congregational life goes through periods of review, so does our national
life. Some of you may be aware that we in The United Church have, across the
country, been participating in the development of a Statement of Faith through
the work of the National Committee on Theology and Faith. All
churches were invited to share in this process and some responded to the
invitation. Westminster shared through the process of our Spring Lenten study
and those who gathered over a number of Wednesday evenings were drawn together
in the experience of wrestling with what is important in our faith. It
was a wonderful time of inquiry and sharing. From that shared experience our
voice has been blended with the voices of 600 other congregations and in the
next couple of years we will see the fruit of our labour. We
don’t share in such studies to hear ourselves speak but to ask ourselves if the
things that our church held onto 50 or 80 years ago are the same things that we
hold tightly to today. And so we ask ourselves again, what are definitive
aspects of our faith? It doesn’t end. We ask…we journey…we ask again, we journey
some more it’s what being alive and part of a living faith is all about. Now
this is the last Sunday before we begin our summer schedule…next week we gather
at 10 a.m. at Fifth Avenue Memorial.
Throughout the next couple of months many of you will be gathering with family
and enjoying some time of recreation. So I want to leave the subject of
membership and church family for a moment and offer you a smile from one
mother’s observation of her own children. If
you have grown children, for you this may be funny. If
you have young children this may not be funny. >For
those who have not yet had children, … this may be birth control.
Things I've learned from my Children (honest & no kidding): 1. A
king size waterbed holds enough water to fill a 2000 sq. ft. house 4 inches
deep. 2. If
you spray hair spray on dust bunnies and run over them with roller blades, they
can ignite. 3. A
3-year-old's voice is louder than 200 adults in a crowded restaurant. 4. If
you hook a dog leash over a ceiling fan, the motor is not strong enough to
rotate a 42 pound boy wearing Batman underwear and a Superman cape. It is,
however, strong enough if tied to a paint can, to spread paint on all four walls
of a 20x20 ft. room. 5.
You should not throw baseballs up when the ceiling fan is on. When using a
ceiling fan as a bat, you have to throw the ball up a few times before you get a
hit. A ceiling fan can hit a baseball a long way. 6.
The glass in windows (even double-pane) doesn't stop a baseball hit by a ceiling
fan. 7.
When you hear the toilet flush and the words "uh oh," it's already too late. 9. A
six-year old can start a fire with a flint rock even though a 36-year old man
says they can only do it in the movies. 10.
Certain Lego's will pass through the digestive tract of a 4-year old. 15.
VCR's do not eject PB&J sandwiches even though TV commercials show they do. 16.
Garbage bags do not make good parachutes. 17.
Marbles in gas tanks make lots of noise when driving. 19.
Always look in the oven before you turn it on. Plastic toys do not like ovens. 21.
The spin cycle on the washing machine does not make earthworms dizzy. 22.
It will, however, make cats dizzy. 23.
Cats, throw up twice their body weight when they are really dizzy. Have
a wonderful and safe summer!