Our Future

We have much to be thankful for here at Manassas Presbyterian Church. We are a vibrant, active, faithful, and healthy congregation, with a proud 148-year history. We’ve been celebrating that history these past few months as the foundation for the future we are preparing for through our Capital Campaign.

This month we will all be asked to make a commitment to the Campaign, which means we will all be asked to make a commitment to the future of our church. Our campaign is nothing less than that. The excitement should be universal and unanimous, and our commitments to our future should also be universal and unanimous.

As I shared in my sermon on October 25^th, I’ve already returned my pledge card. I’d spent a great deal of time in prayer the past few months listening for how God was calling me to respond to the campaign. I have the same financial concerns we all have: a mortgage, utility bills, car expenses, expenses for food and clothing, and at my age, concern that I am setting enough aside for my retirement. 

Still, God was clear in what God wanted me to do: make a leadership commitment to our campaign. I did not hesitate in my response to God’s call - I filled out my pledge card joyfully. I made my commitment with profound gratitude for the many blessings God has graced me with in my life, including being part of this community.

In my sermon, I spoke of the whirlwind around me the past month or so, God’s still small voice in that whirlwind speaking to me of “sacrificial giving” and “cheerful giving”. The whirlwind of God’s words also reminded of the text from the Gospel of Luke in which our Lord Jesus tells us: “From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded.” 

Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase from The Message captures our Lord’s words so concisely: “Great gifts mean great responsibilities; greater gifts, greater responsibilities!” We have been blessed with many gifts in this family of faith we call Manassas Presbyterian Church, and that means we have great responsibilities to be faithful stewards of our gifts for ourselves and for those who will in time stand on our shoulders.

This Campaign is about our future. It is a bright future, an exciting future - as long as you and I make it so. I pray that when you fill out your pledge card, you too will do so joyfully and with gratitude, saying, “To God be the glory!”

With joy and thanksgiving,

Pastor Skip

Will You Join Me?

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Some months ago Mary Ann Brown sent this letter to me in response to a conversation she and I had had about the planning then taking place for a Capital Campaign. I asked Mary Ann if she would let me share her letter with the congregation and she very graciously agreed. Her letter follows:

“I am like many of the members of our congregation—a retired senior, living on a fixed income.  We don’t have lot of discretionary cash and what we do have many of us already give in the regular offering or through our time, talents, and enthusiasm.  But I have been reflecting on a few of the gifts I’ve received from MPC in the four plus years here.

• A worshipful space to grow closer to God
• A weekly message to spiritually recharge me
• A community that challenges my faith and helps me grow
• Opportunities to lead and serve in roles that bring me satisfaction and fulfillment
• Beautiful music
• Some of my best friendships
• Bible study, and circle, prayer shawl group
• Laughter and joy
• Watching the youth and children grow in their faith is an inspiration to my soul ….and that’s just a beginning.

Wish though I might, all the time and talent I give won’t provide a suitable roof, new and adequate heating and cooling systems, much needed technology additions and improvements, improved access to the building, furniture replacements, and other needs too numerous to mention. And my yearly pledge, which helps support church operations, mission, and outreach, isn’t enough to address these deferred and continuing maintenance needs.

With visible issues like the homeless, the hungry, and the injustice all around us, I sometimes wonder where my offering would make the most impact.  Giving to MPC may not be as direct as giving to a homeless shelter, or justice organizations, but then I think about the ways our facility is a beacon for hope and provision in this community… Our Early Learning Center, housing the English As A Second Language Program, providing meeting space for social service organizations, the music organizations from schools and community programs, our sanctuary, which welcome all for worship, warmth and spiritual uplifting, friendship, and a caring loving congregation.

So to me, “church” is not a monolithic institution, and building of stone and steel.  It’s a dynamic group of people giving one another gifts of the spirit. My pledge (no matter what amount) to the MPC Capital Campaign will help preserve a facility that welcomes others in to experience what we’ve found here. At the same time, our gifts will help sustain a space for us to renew and transform ourselves for the work God calls us to do.  In that context, giving is far from an obligation.  It is a joy!

Will you join me?   Mary Ann Brown.” 

To Mary Ann’s words I would add just these: thank you and amen!

Grace & peace,

Pastor Skip

Getting Out of the Silo

Come to the church in the evening on the second Tuesday of each month and you’ll find our Ministry Teams hard at work. We’ve set the second Tuesday as Ministry Team meeting night so we can gather in community as we go about our work. 

Churches are famous, perhaps even notorious, for being places where nothing can be done without going through a committee. We laugh at the very idea, but we work that way because we work in community. Each committee, group, or team is a smaller version of the body of Christ, and as Paul reminds us in his first letter to the Corinthians, we need one another, and we need one another’s gifts.

And this is true across committees and teams. Our Property Team needs to work with our Finance Team, and our Finance Team needs to work with our Early Learning Center Team, and our Early Learning Center Team needs to work with our Christian Education Team, and our Christian Education Team needs to work with our Property Team, and on it goes.

This is why we have a common meeting night so we can gather together, talk together, and work together. It may well be more convenient for this Team or that to pick another day and time to meet, but we are called to be the Body of Christ, and work together in community, and so we have our common Ministry Team night – a practice that most churches have had in place for years. 

You’ve heard me say before that it is easy for each group to work in its own silo, easy for each group to work diligently and faithfully, but ultimately on their own. This “silo mentality” has become a growing concern for businesses and organizations of all kinds. Gillian Tett, a prominent writer on business and financial matters, has authored a new book entitled, “The Silo Effect”, in which she examines how easy it is for organizations of every kind to fall into the silo trap.  

We work together, all of us, because that is what the Holy Spirit calls us to do. As Paul reminds us, “there are many members, but one body” and it is the body that we serve as we follow the head of the body, our Lord Jesus Christ.  

If you’d like to be part of Team, then come join us on Tuesday September 8 in the Sanctuary at 7:15 pm, or any second Tuesday, and find your place – every Team is always happy to welcome new members. 

“Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received…so that God may be glorified in all things through Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 4:10)

Grace & peace,

Pastor Skip

Reminder to Myself: Pray!

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Prayer is defined by the dictionary as “a devotion, a plea, an appeal, a petition, an invocation”. A prayer is each of those words and so much more, for prayer links us to God. It is in prayer that we lift up to God what is on our minds and in our hearts: our joy, our fear, our gratitude, our sorrow, our confusion, our anger, our trust, our hope.

It is easy, too easy, to turn prayer into a wish list, to ask God for this or that. It is also easy, too easy, to bargain with God. Jacob’s first prayer was not a prayer of trust, it was an offer to bargain: “If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then the Lord shall be my God.”

Listening is as important as what we say when we pray. Kierkegaard wrote, “the true relation in prayer is not when God hears what is prayed for, but when the person praying continues to pray until he or she is the one who hears, who hears what God wills.” When we listen, we align our wills with God’s will, following Jesus’ lead when he prayed, “not my will, but your will be done.”

I have many prayer books in my library and I find they help me focus, center, and shape what I might be struggling with as I try to stitch together words in prayer. The Reverend Peter Marshall was known not only for the power of his sermons, but also for the simple eloquence of his prayers: “In the name of Jesus Christ, who was never in a hurry, we pray, O God, that you will slow us down, for we know that we live too fast. With all eternity before us, make us take time to live - time to get acquainted with you, time to enjoy your blessings, and time to know each other.”

Here’s another from Marshall: “Father, forgive us all that we talk too much and think too little. Forgive us all that we worry so often and pray so seldom. Most of all, O Lord, forgive us that, so helpless without you, we are yet so unwilling to seek your help. Give us grace to seek you with our whole heart, that seeking you, we may find you, and finding you may love you, and loving you, may keep your commandments and do your will.”

William Barclay is another favorite, with this Sunday prayer: “O God, tomorrow we go back to the world and to all its work and its activities. We remember that Jesus prayed, not that his friends should be taken out of the world, but that they should be kept from the evil of the world. Help us to live in this world as we ought to live.  Help us: To do the world’s work faithfully and well; To enjoy the world’s pleasures wisely and temperately; To value the world’s goods without becoming enslaved by them and without despising them; To resist the world’s temptations bravely and resolutely; Help us to live in the world, not as those whose interests never look beyond the horizons of the world, but as those who always remember that in you we live and move and have our being, and that we are pledged to follow in the footsteps of our Lord, Jesus Christ.”

The slower pace of summer is the ideal time to work on your prayer life. Make time each day to lift up your words to God. Make time to listen. Make time for prayer. 

Grace & peace,

Pastor Skip

I'm Proud of You!

“I love you”, “I’m sorry”, “I forgive you”, and “Thank-you”. The author of a book I read a while back argued that those are the four most important phrases we should use in our lives. I agree: we should say them regularly and frequently.

But after reading the book, I wanted to add one more phrase: “I’m proud of you”. Growing up, as I did, in the 1950s and 60s, it was a phrase I rarely heard spoken, not only within my own family, but in most of my friends’ families, even in school and in church.

There always seemed to be a Protestant hesitancy to using those words, as though speaking them might lead to conceit and arrogance. It was as though the Proverb hung over our heads like the sword of Damocles: “Pride goeth before the fall”, or, as Eugene Peterson puts it in The Message, “First pride, then the crash – the bigger the ego, the harder the fall.” (Proverbs 16:18)

But we all hunger to hear those words. We should not hesitate to say we are proud of family members and friends. We should joyfully say, “I am proud of you”, especially this month as we celebrate all of our graduates: high school, college, graduate school; this year we even celebrate a Ph.D.

We are proud of all our graduates: of all their hard work, all their accomplishments, all their determination and dedication. Congratulations and well-done! And we will continue to be proud of you as you move on to the next chapter in your lives, following the call of the Spirit wherever the Spirit leads you.

June also marks the end of our program year and we’ll celebrate and thank all those many wonderful folks who sang in the choir, played an instrument, or helped our Music Ministry in others ways. To all of you, we say “Thank You” and we also say, “We are proud of you” for having served and shared your talents, your gifts, your time and your faith enhancing our worship and our lives. 

We will also thank all of our teachers this month as we conclude a year of Sunday School. To all those who helped out in Sunday School classrooms, including the ETC and Nursery; all those who helped with Youth Group activities; and all those who led Adult Education classes, including Circles and Bible Study groups:  We thank you and we are proud of you!

Make those five phrases a regular part of your lexicon. Say, “I love you”, “I am sorry”, “I forgive you”, “Thank you”, and “I am proud of you” regularly and frequently. Do that, and I’m sure our Lord would say, “I am proud of you!” 

Grace & peace,

Pastor Skip

It's Time

It’s time. Our officers and our ministry teams have spent more than a year identifying needs, discussing priorities, planning, discerning, and, of course praying. What things must we do, what things should we do, and what things would we like to do as we look to the future, our bright future, leading to the celebration of our 150th anniversary in 2017?

Those things we must do are so readily apparent, starting with the roof, where the leaks probably exceed the years since MPC was established back in 1867. Once we replace the roof, we’ll need to replace all of the ceiling tiles throughout the building. That’s where we start. Estimated cost: $200,000.

From there, we move on. We then must replace the air-conditioning units in our Sunday School/Pre-school wing. They are old and very inefficient. Estimated cost: $30,000.

We should replace all the chairs in the Sanctuary. The fabric dates from the Sanctuary renovation 15 years ago, but the chair frames are almost 40 years old. Estimated cost: $20,000. The new plastic chairs we’ve added to the Fellowship Hall have proven popular, so we’d like to replace all the old metal folding chairs as well. Estimated cost: $4,000.

The sound system and electronics in the Sanctuary must be replaced. What we have dates from the days of cassette tapes. Speakers, microphones, wiring, DVD burners, video camera, computer controllers – they all need replacing. Estimated cost: $40,000.

Other needs we’ve identified include building out a vestibule for the office wing, with double doors to keep out the cold winter winds and the blasts of summer’s heat. Automatic door openers for the Narthex entry will make the building so much easier to enter for those who use walkers, wheelchairs, and even for parents pushing strollers. It will bring our building into compliance, as well.

We’ve talked about building a Columbarium – a burial site for ashes. While that is not a “must-have”, it has proven to be a compelling idea, leading to other wonderfully creative ideas, such as a prayer garden and outdoor labyrinth.

We are ready to launch a Capital Campaign to raise the funds we’ll need to do all the projects we’ve identified. Tom Norwood, a consultant with Horizons Stewardship, will advise us and guide us through the process.

And yes, everyone will be invited to participate in the discussion and planning – we’ll be arranging those opportunities later this month and next. We want everyone involved and everyone excited as we plan for our future, building on our strengths.

The next few months promise to be very exciting as together we make our plans to strengthen our foundation and build on all the faithful work of those saints who’ve gone before us. It’s time – for our future!

Grace & Peace,

Pastor Skip

“The Earth Is The Lord’s and All That Is In It”

I’ve had quite a few dogs over the years, all special and much-loved, but none as special to me as Cole, the Scottish Terrier I adopted as a rescue in December 2007.

 

He’d been badly abused the first six years of his life and was very defensive and protective when I brought him home. But over time he learned that his new home was a safe place, a place of love, patience and acceptance. It was almost a year before he let me pet him. In time, his true nature blossomed as a curious, intelligent, energetic, squirrel-obsessed (of course!) and very loving dog.

When Cole died in early February after a brief illness, I was filled with grief – and I still am. But I am so grateful that he and I found each other. The bumper sticker that asks, “Who rescued who?” is so true – he took care of me as much as I took care of him.

What a wonderful gift God has given us in gracing us with all creatures great and small. Dogs, cats, birds, horses – the many animals we have as pets – as well as the many animals that fill God’s creation, from the eagles soaring through the sky, to the whales that ply the oceans, to the elephants that roam the savannas of Africa: they are all God’s creatures and, as the Bible teaches us, they are all good. As the psalmist wrote so long ago, “O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.” (Psalm 104:24)

The cherry trees will soon blossom, heralding the arrival of spring and drawing our every sense to marvel at the beauty of God’s creation. Spring is the season of renewal and rebirth, and it is the ideal time for us to recommit ourselves anew to our calling to care not only for all God’s creatures, but for all God’s creation. Spring is the ideal time for us to remember that when God created the Garden of Eden, God “took the man and put him in the garden to till it and keep it.” Our first calling was to be the caretaker of God’s creation, stewards of all that had come came from the hand of God.

And it is our calling still. I agree with Pope Francis, who said recently, “nurturing and cherishing creation is a command God gave us at the beginning of history”, for “the earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it.” (Psalm  24:1)

So as you welcome spring, rejoice in all God’s creatures and sing with the psalmist of the glory of God’s creation: “Let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that fills it; let the field exult, and everything in it. Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy.” (Psalm 96)

Grace & peace,

Pastor Skip