Renewal Works

Psalm 86:11-17

11 Teach me your way, O Lord, and I will walk in your truth; knit my heart to you that I may fear your Name.
12 I will thank you, O Lord my God, with all my heart, and glorify your Name for evermore.
13 For great is your love toward me; you have delivered me from the nethermost Pit.
14 The arrogant rise up against me, O God, and a band of violent men seeks my life; they have not set you before their eyes.
15 But you, O Lord, are gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger, and full of kindness and truth.
16 Turn to me and have mercy upon me; give your strength to your servant; and save the child of your handmaid.
17 Show me a sign of your favor, so that those who hate me may see it and be ashamed; because you, O Lord, have helped me and comforted me.

This year, Monday Matters is focused on wisdom conveyed in the treasures of the book of Psalms. We'll look at the psalms read in church before Monday Matters comes to your screen.

There is more.

Jesus said: Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. (Matthew 11:29)

A pastor shared a story about an elderly parishioner who had faithfully attended worship her whole life. She was in church every Sunday, a pillar of the community. In her later years, by some mysterious movement of the Spirit, her faith was renewed. It came alive in a new way. This became apparent to this pastor, who pleaded with her to share her story with the congregation. She resisted. (One might have lovingly referred to her as one of the frozen chosen.) The pastor persisted, so she finally agreed to bear witness at an 11am service. She made her way to the lectern and began her talk: “Here’s what I want to tell you. There is more.” That was her testimony: There is more.

I’ve been told that there are three ways to view our lives, three ways to write our own stories. We can see ourselves as hero, star of the show with the hint that the universe revolves around us. We can see ourselves as victim, savoring our resentments, cherishing them like trophies. Or we can see ourselves as learners, ready for something new. The message here: the role of learner is the way to go.

Which brings me to the psalm you may have heard Sunday in church. It begins with a prayer that God would be our teacher. The psalmist is ready and eager to learn. There are any number of places in the psalms where God is identified as the one with something to teach us. So I’m wondering this morning: What would you like to learn? What would you want God to teach you? How might those lessons, those coaching sessions take place?

It all begins with an openness to learning, an openness to something new. The risk in being a committed religious person is the temptation to think we have arrived, that we know all we need to know. In our research with churches, we find that 25% of surveyed congregations fit an archetype called “complacent.” That led one of our congregations to suggest a change to the tagline for their church: St. Swithin’s (name changed to protect the innocent): We are spiritually shallow and fine with that.

If by chance we do wish to join the psalmist in asking God to be our teacher, we need to show up for class. We need to put ourselves in a place where we are ready to learn. In the spiritual realm, that happens through spiritual practice. We read and meditate on scripture as God’s lesson manual, in the confidence that scripture contains everything necessary for salvation. We commit to a regular rhythm of prayer, which includes time spent listening as well as talking. We dedicate ourselves to service, in the confidence that when we put faith into action, we learn what it means to be a Christ follower.

I have found in my own journey that I learned a lot when I had an opportunity to be a teacher, when I had to figure out how I would share my faith, share my story, share my confidence that there is more. The very first thing I volunteered to do as a young adult who had recently edged his way back into church was to agree to teach kindergarten Sunday School. I was terrified. I spent more time preparing for that half hour class than I have prepared for any class since. I’m not sure those kindergarteners learned a lot from me. I learned all kinds of things from that process.

The psalms speak about many ways we can relate to the Holy One. In this particular psalm, the role of God’s servant, the role as God’s child are also highlighted. These and other ways describe a relationship with God. But focus with me this morning on the idea that God is our teacher.

And if the idea of God as teacher is too mysterious, too nebulous, set your sights on Jesus, often referred to as teacher. I’m told that the meaning of discipleship is not fully captured in the idea of being a student. But that is a big part of what it means to follow Jesus. I often picture Jesus the teacher, making his way from town to town, followed by a gaggle of disciples, teaching them as they went. I compare that to doctors who move from room to room in a hospital, followed by a group of residents, learning as they move together. Teaching happens in word and action. To learn from him in order to become more like him. Think of it as an apprenticeship.

In that process, we will not fully realize that Christ-like character. But in that process, we will always have a next step. Think this week about what it means to be a learner. And remember, there is always more.

-Jay Sidebotham

The following reflection is offered by the Rev. David Sibley, Rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Walla Walla, Washington.

The best decision any person can make in this life is to be a disciple of Jesus Christ: to commit to the work of daily spiritual growth so that we may be formed, day by day, more into Jesus’ image and likeness by the grace of the Holy Spirit. The same is true for congregations– the best thing we can do is choose to commit to becoming communities that are visibly dedicated to the daily practices of following Jesus. 

When I was called to Saint Paul’s Church in Walla Walla, Washington, the congregation’s profile expressed a hunger for spiritual growth, and a willingness to commit to that project. Just before the pandemic broke in 2020, we committed to RenewalWorks to craft a plan to move forward. Just after finishing the spiritual life inventory, the pandemic put a kibosh on group workshops, but we worked to use the data we gathered to try and shape a path forward focused on discipleship. We found that, much like many Episcopal congregations, we had room to grow – the opportunity to embed the Bible into our congregation’s life; to change the attitude of leadership away from execution of tasks to the prioritization of individual and congregational spiritual growth. 

Emerging from COVID-19 offered a unique opportunity for congregational reinvention – and Saint Paul’s embraced what we learned with gusto. A new emphasis on participation in small groups for prayer, study, and fellowship became a key charism of the parish’s life. Parish-wide and small-group study of the Bible using The Path and the Book of Common Prayer accompanied by Walk in Love was integrated through our Sunday worship, children’s formation, and small groups. Those groups were then invited to extend their curiosity to the places the Spirit drove them – everything from studying Women in the Bible, to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together, to some studies by Methodist pastor Adam Hamilton. After six years of work, by the time my sabbatical came around in late 2025, it was naturally time to take stock of our work – where have we come? How have we grown? What might God be calling us to do next? 

I chose to raise the stakes even further – what if St. Paul’s revisited RenewalWorks again, but do so while I was on sabbatical? What if we surveyed the congregation without the 500-lb gorilla that is my presence as a parish priest, and trusted the Spirit and our community to Strategic Discernment that was truly and completely by the hand of the disciples within the congregation? The Vestry agreed to take on this momentous task during my time in rest. I returned to results that astounded me in all the best ways. 

In our intervening years between the two cycles of RenewalWorks, the parish has markedly improved at integrating the Bible into all aspects of our life. We’ve grown our appreciation for the unconditional love and grace of God for us and for all people by leaps and bounds over several years ago. People longed to serve, not sympathetically through a few select ministries – but as a building block of parish life. 

Perhaps best of all, it has been our lay leaders that are now hard at work turning RenewalWorks’ Strategic Discernment for Spiritual Growth into near immediate action – in large part because the vision for the next phase of the parish’s life is bigger than the priest, bigger than the Vestry, bigger than the Workshop Team – it belongs to the whole parish. New service projects have been organized by lay leaders in our Spiritual Growth and Outreach Guild to craft us into being “the church who serves” in ways that are accessible to the whole congregation, not merely those who have abundant free time. A new emphasis on connecting people and getting them moving on pathways to spiritual growth has become a key task for our Hospitality and Welcome Guild. Our Stewardship and Finance Guild has turned dedicated attention to promoting an understanding of stewardship as a discipline of the spiritual life – a perpetual act of thanksgiving for God’s grace and goodness. 

What will come next? It’s hard to say, as the Spirit always has surprises for us – and we know that what RenewalWorks has given us isn’t a Strategic Plan, but rather Strategic Discernment – a way of being led not by our ego, but by the Holy Spirit. I may not know what’s next, but I’m encouraged – for we know that where two or three are gathered, Jesus Christ will be present – and will show us the way. 

- The Rev. David Sibley, Rector of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Walla Walla, WA

Psalm 145

1 I will exalt you, O God my King, and bless your Name for ever and ever.
2 Every day will I bless you and praise your Name for ever and ever.
3 Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised; there is no end to his greatness.
4 One generation shall praise your works to another and shall declare your power.
5 I will ponder the glorious splendor of your majesty and all your marvelous works.
6 They shall speak of the might of your wondrous acts, and I will tell of your greatness.
7 They shall publish the remembrance of your great goodness; they shall sing of your righteous deeds.
8 The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and of great kindness.
9 The Lord is loving to everyone and his compassion is over all his works.
10 All your works praise you, O Lord, and your faithful servants bless you.
11 They make known the glory of your kingdom and speak of your power;
12 That the peoples may know of your power and the glorious splendor of your kingdom.
13 Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom; your dominion endures throughout all ages.
14 The Lord is faithful in all his words and merciful in all his deeds.
15 The Lord upholds all those who fall; he lifts up those who are bowed down.
16 The eyes of all wait upon you, O Lord, and you give them their food in due season.
17 You open wide your hand and satisfy the needs of every living creature.
18 The Lord is righteous in all his ways and loving in all his works.
19 The Lord is near to those who call upon him, to all who call upon him faithfully.
20 He fulfills the desire of those who fear him; he hears their cry and helps them.
21 The Lord preserves all those who love him, but he destroys all the wicked.
22 My mouth shall speak the praise of the Lord; let all flesh bless his holy Name for ever and ever.

This year, Monday Matters is focused on wisdom conveyed in the treasures of the book of Psalms. We'll look at the psalms read in church before Monday Matters comes to your screen.

Does God have favorites?

Some years ago, I received a gift from a sibling, a bumper sticker that read: "Jesus loves you, but I’m his favorite." Of course, my sibling was kidding. Of course. But it’s only funny because we all have moments when we think we have the inside track.

Which brings me to the psalm you may have heard yesterday in church. It’s a psalm appointed for the sixth Sunday after Pentecost. Coincidentally, it is also appointed for the observance of Independence Day. (Independence Day is one of three somewhat secular holidays that make their way into the liturgical calendar. Extra credit if you can name the other two.)

Here’s what struck me as I linked this psalm with the national holiday of a country that has been known to celebrate exceptionalism. Throughout the psalm there are references of a universal nature. Praise covers generations (v.4). The Lord is loving to everyone. His compassion is over all his works (v. 9). All God’s works praise him. (v.10) God satisfies the needs of every living creature. (v.17) All flesh are called to bless his holy name. (v.22)

There is nothing parochial here. No one is exceptional, except that maybe everyone is exceptional.

There’s a message here for us as individuals. What part of all do we not understand? Another bumper sticker from a friend’s bulletin board: "How much sinning can I do and still go to heaven." That message reminds me of the person who asked Jesus about the intertwined commandments: love of God and love of neighbor. The questioner asked Jesus to narrow the definition of neighbor. How far do you expect me to take this, Jesus? In response, Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan, an outsider who taught what it means to be a neighbor. That timeless parable speaks because we all face the temptation to regard some particular folks as outside our circle. Maybe outside the circle of God’s love. Our baptismal promises course corrects that, with a call to seek and serve Christ in all people, even when Christ comes very well disguised. Where do you need to work on that?

There’s a message here for those of us in worshipping communities. For those of us committed to a congregation, especially clergy, we may think our way of worship, our building, our programs, our staff are better than others. We may imagine that God regards us as favorite. What might you learn from communities of faith that differ from yours? There’s a message for those of us aligned with a denomination. I’m reading a book right now on Vermeer. He lived in the Netherlands during the 1600's, a time when Calvinists and Catholics and Mennonites and Arminians and people who believed in Christianity without churches were all at each other, sometimes killing each other. Nothing new under the sun.

There’s a message for those who celebrate love of country, as we did this past weekend.. The psalm not only calls us to see all of humanity, all of creation as object of God’s love. While scriptures suggests God’s special relationship with the people of Israel, that gift was meant so that Israel would be of service, would be a light to the nations. That's what it means, in my mind, to be chosen, to be elected. This message that God’s love extends to all people rebukes Christian nationalism, and the cruelty that often accompanies that heresy.

I’m struck by the readings chosen by the church for Independence Day. The church could have found passages that warm the hearts of Christian Nationalists. But in readings chosen for Independence Day, we find no hint of exceptionalism. Simply a call to see all people as related, a call to see independence as opportunity for service, as a mission. The Old Testament reading points to the character of the God of gods and Lord of lords…who executes justice for the orphan and the widow, and who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing. The scripture offers this mandate: You shall also love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. (Feel free to send these verses to your congressional representative.) In the Epistle, we read about Abraham, from whom descendants were born, “as many as the stars of heaven and as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.” And we heard Jesus’ words from the Sermon on the Mount: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous."

As I reflected on all this, a favorite hymn came to mind, as it speaks of the wideness of God's mercy. Check out this final stanza:

For the love of God is broader than the measure of the mind. And the heart of the eternal is most wonderfully kind.
If our love were but more faithful, we should take him at his word, and our life would be thanksgiving for the goodness of the Lord.

In the wake of this national holiday, how can we celebrate the wideness of God's love as it extends to all God’s creation? How can we see our faith communities as bound to other faith communities, even those outside the Christian tradition? How can we examine our own lives, to see where we draw limits on neighborliness? That would be exceptional work, and cause for celebration.

-Jay Sidebotham

RenewalWorks recognizes that each church has unique needs and circumstances. There is often no one-size-fits-all curriculum, which is why RenewalWorks prides itself on the ability to tailor our offering to a church’s specific need and circumstance.

Churches report using RenewalWorks for many reasons, including spiritual strategic planning, leadership transitions, lay leadership development, ministry assessment, and community outreach focus. They also use the offerings in different ways, as you will read in the reflection below from the Rev. Jason Ingalls from Holy Spirit Episcopal Church in Waco, Texas. 

We would love to talk with you about your church and how RenewalWorks can support you. Please fill out an interest form if you have questions or want to begin a conversation around understanding your congregation and creating church cultures of discipleship. We look forward to hearing from you. 

Psalm 13

1 How long, O Lord? Will you forget me for ever? How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long shall I have perplexity in my mind, and grief in my heart, day after day? How long shall my enemy triumph over me?
3 Look upon me and answer me, O Lord my God; give light to my eyes, lest I sleep in death;
4 Lest my enemy say, "I have prevailed over him," and my foes rejoice that I have fallen.
5 But I put my trust in your mercy; my heart is joyful because of your saving help.
6 I will sing to the Lord, for he has dealt with me richly; I will praise the Name of the Lord Most High.

This year, Monday Matters is focused on wisdom conveyed in the treasures of the book of Psalms. We'll look at the psalms read in church before Monday Matters comes to your screen.

Suffering and Hope

The images coming out of Venezuela after two earthquakes break our hearts. Before you read any further, stop for a moment of silence, with a prayer for all who suffer there.

Selah

When something like this happens, we respond with our prayers and with expressions of support (Episcopal Relief and Development is a good place to donate for disaster relief). We may also reasonably respond with age-old questions of why things like this happen. Where is God in the midst of such suffering?

I recently listened to a podcast in which Ezra Klein interviewed Bart Ehrman, New Testament scholar and teacher at UNC-Chapel Hill. Mr. Ehrman’s roots were in evangelical Christianity. He left that faith, embracing atheism. When asked why he made that shift, he said it was because he could not understand how a good God could allow such suffering in the world. That’s an excellent question. It’s not a new question.

One of my teachers named J. Christiaan Beker was imprisoned in a forced labor camp, captured by Nazis. His first hand witness of the cruelty of that regime informed his thinking as later in life he wrote a book called Suffering and Hope: The Biblical Vision and the Human Predicament. He said that there are various ways to consider the suffering around us. Suffering sometimes comes because of what people do to each other, what oppressors do to other humans. Suffering sometimes comes because we do things to ourselves that are not life giving, indeed, things that harm us. And suffering sometimes happens with no simple explanation. A mystery.

That third point seems to be on the mind of the author of Psalm 13, which you might have heard yesterday in church. The psalmist asks “How long, O Lord? Will you forget me for ever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long shall I have perplexity in my mind, and grief in my heart, day after day? How long shall my enemy triumph over me?”

I’m wondering if those are ever questions that you have raised. Do you ever feel that God has hidden from you?

This is not the only place in scripture where these kinds of questions are asked. The book of Job is all about this mystery of why bad things happen to good people. The psalms are filled with questions about why the evil prosper and the innocent suffer. In the gospels, when Lazarus succumbs to fatal illness, his sisters say to Jesus: If you’d been here, my brother would not have died. Translation: Where were you? Jesus himself enters into this mystery as he hangs on the cross and prays: My God, why have you forsaken me? St. Paul simply says: We see through a glass darkly. No kidding.

I’m taken with Psalm 13 and how it admits that as we look at the suffering of the world and the suffering in our own lives (what one preacher called our personal tsunamis), we are faced with a mix of perplexity and grief. The great challenge of our faith is to move forward carrying that perplexity and grief, moving forward through it without necessarily getting neat answers, moving forward in trust.

We need community to do that. We need a life of prayer to do that, even and especially if our prayer is one of outrage. If the challenges are so great that we can’t even figure out how to pray, we let the community pray for us. We let the community carry us. We need the stories of our faith, how folks in the Bible and folks in the history of the church have weathered these storms. Those stories exist to encourage us.

And while we wait to figure out why God is hidden, we might as well spend our time doing something, even if it’s a small thing, to help alleviate suffering. We can counter what seem like random acts of suffering with random acts of kindness. I recently ran across a quote from Philo of Alexandria, who wrote around the time of Christ. He said: Be kind. For everyone you meet is fighting a great battle. As one priest put it: Suffering is the promise life always keeps.

We can indeed move forward in the midst of great battles. It requires the kind of trust we read about in Psalm 13. Ask for that trust this week. And as you wait in trust, be swift to love and make haste to be kind.

-Jay Sidebotham

Psalm 86:1-10, 16-17

1 Bow down your ear, O Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and in misery.
2 Keep watch over my life, for I am faithful; save your servant who puts his trust in you.
3 Be merciful to me, O Lord, for you are my God; I call upon you all the day long.
4 Gladden the soul of your servant, for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
5 For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, and great is your love toward all who call upon you.
6 Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer, and attend to the voice of my supplications.
7 In the time of my trouble I will call upon you, for you will answer me.
8 Among the gods there is none like you, O Lord, nor anything like your works.
9 All nations you have made will come and worship you, O Lord, and glorify your Name.
10 For you are great; you do wondrous things; and you alone are God.
16 Turn to me and have mercy upon me; give your strength to your servant; and save the child of your handmaid.
17 Show me a sign of your favor, so that those who hate me may see it and be ashamed; because you, O Lord, have helped me and comforted me.

This year, Monday Matters is focused on wisdom conveyed in the treasures of the book of Psalms. We'll look at the psalms read in church before Monday Matters comes to your screen.

You gotta serve somebody.

Scripture, that compilation of 66 books spanning centuries, has been compared to a symphony. Many different sounds. Many different instruments. Many different composers. All collected to tell a story of God’s relationship with us. The beauty of the music comes through, even if sometimes dissonant.

I’ve heard scripture compared to a museum, with many rooms set up to contemplate a rich and mysterious message, all brought together in one space, not all identical. For instance, in the genius of those who shaped the canon, we have four different gospels that tell a similar but not identical story. One would not suffice. While there are differences in the 66 books, they all shed light on God’s relationship with us.

In scripture, there are many ways to describe that relationship. One of those descriptions appears in the psalm you may have heard in church yesterday. In several places, the psalmist is described as God’s servant. That’s not the only way to describe our relationship with the Holy One (more about that later). But it is worth contemplating what it means to be God’s servant. St Paul described his role as being a servant of Christ and steward of mysteries. I’ve often thought that’s a good description for the role of clergy. The fact is, it’s a good job description for any of us who seek to be Jesus followers.

What does it mean these days to be a servant of God, a servant of Christ? It begins with listening. Henri Nouwen, in his book Following Jesus, says that the word obedience means listening with your whole body. He notes that obaudire in Latin means careful listening. Servanthood begins with open ears. In our relationship with God, that means doing what we can to listen with the ear of our heart, to swipe a phrase from the Benedictine Rule. If this idea of being servant of the Holy One resonates, it means we have concluded that it's worth spending time listening, through scripture, through silent contemplation, through the voice of community, through an awareness of the brokenness of our world.

When we listen, it is on some level a willingness to do God’s bidding. Again, looking for consistent theme in the scriptures. From earliest books to the end, love of God and love of neighbor is what God wants. Micah said it this way: He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6.8). If you want to know what God’s servant is meant to do, Micah offers a pretty good summation.

I can imagine folks saying I’d rather not think of myself as any kind of servant, thank you very much. We can all buy into that independent spirit reflective of our times. To folks who feel that way (and I include myself in that company at times), consider the possibility that free agency is simply not an option.

I commend the wisdom of Bob Dylan, who in a phase of his life when he embraced evangelical Christianity, wrote a Grammy award winning song. Here’s just one of the stanzas:

You might like to wear cotton, you might like to wear silk
You might like to drink whiskey, you might like to drink milk
You might like to eat caviar, you might like to eat bread
You may be sleeping on the floor, sleeping in a king-size bed
But you're gonna have to serve somebody
Well, it may be the Devil or it may be the Lord
But you're gonna have to serve somebody

Consider this week what it means for you to see yourself as servant of God, servant of Christ. If that’s something you can embrace, what will that look like? And as you explore that question, consider servanthood as just one way to speak of our relationship with the God of scripture. I think of the talk Jesus gave to his disciples on the night before his execution. He said to them: I no longer call you servants, but friends. (John 15:15).

St. Paul speaks of our relationship with God as no longer slaves but adopted children of God. There’s an even more intimate relationship expressed in the idea that we are part of the body of Christ. As St. Teresa of Avila put it, we are Christ’s hands and feet in the world. St. Paul spoke of the reality of Christ in you, the hope of glory. Our baptismal covenant picks up that theme when it speaks of seeking and serving Christ in every person.

Maybe God is calling you this week to focus on what it means to be God’s servant. Take time to consider what kind of accountability that implies. And as you listen for that call, set it in the context of all the other ways we speak of our relationship with God, including the embrace of the amazing grace that says we are children of God, loved with a love from which we can never be separated.

-Jay Sidebotham

This week's column is a cross post from Cedar at Forward Movement.

Years ago I worshipped at a parish that attached the following sentence to the end of the annual statement of financial giving sent to everyone who pledged: “No goods or services were received for this donation except intangible spiritual benefits.”

So often in the Church, we are dealing with “intangible spiritual benefits.” We talk all the time about spiritual growth—but what does this actually look like in the life of an individual or a congregation, and can it be measured? We are told in the Scriptures that, though the workings of the Holy Spirit are invisible, we can see the “fruits of the Spirit,” the love, joy, peace, patience, self-control, and other qualities that become visible in the words and behaviors of persons who are mature or maturing disciples of Jesus.

Fifteen years ago, RenewalWorks was founded as an offering of Forward Movement. RenewalWorks exists to help congregations create cultures of discipleship focused on spiritual growth. It is one of few consulting offerings for congregations that exists primarily to measure a congregation’s spiritual vitality and then, in combination with church leadership, to design a spiritual strategic plan for deepening their commitment to growing in love of God and neighbor.

I interviewed Loren Dixon, Director of RenewalWorks and now a member of the Cedar team at Forward Movement, on how we think about spiritual growth, measure it, and talk about it in our congregations.

~Regina L. Walton, Editor and Content Developer for Discipleship Initiatives at Forward Movement

RLW: Loren, please describe to us how you talk about spiritual growth with congregations.

LD: We define spiritual growth as a growing in love of God and neighbor. Often, we begin RenewalWorks conversations by asking participants to think about spiritual growth in the context of their own faith journeys. Over your life, where are the moments or experiences that drew you closer to God? What has pulled you away? No individual story is the same–reflecting unique life experiences, beginnings, endings, moments of grace given or received, learning, and/or periods of questioning and study. Few people are in the same place where they started or where they were five years ago. Each journey also reflects a relational interdependence with others and God, and our community. Zooming out, we can apply those same conclusions to church communities. Spiritual growth calls us to be moving deeper and to be in relationship. The opportunity is for churches to create dynamic cultures focused on deepening relationships to God, each other, ourselves, and the world around us. That is the mission of RenewalWorks – to assist in that work.

RLW: What are the most important things that clergy and lay leaders can do to nurture spiritual growth in their congregation? 

LD:  RenewalWorks talks about “The Heart of the Leader” as a critical element for spiritually vital congregations. By “Leader” we don’t just mean the rector (if there is one), but all clergy, wardens, lay ministry leadership, vestry members, and staff. How is this leadership group modeling, committing and championing spiritual growth in their own lives and through their leadership within the church? How does leadership keep their focus on growing hearts rather than other evaluation metrics like fundraising or attendance numbers? 

RenewalWorks spends considerable time exploring the role of the Leader’s Heart, including offering practical ways to lead for spiritual growth. RenewalWorks founder Jay Sidebotham’s book, “Signs of Life” goes into much more detail on this. The new second edition is now available on Forward Movement’s website.

RLW: Tell us a bit about the data side of the RenewalWorks process, and why it’s useful.

LD:  Anchored in 15 years of research with 400 congregations, RenewalWorks has become a leader in understanding Episcopal churches in the United States, and we hold a unique perspective on key characteristics of vital congregations and what makes them grow. Our methodology provides summary data from your parishioners around what Episcopal beliefs congregants’ most value, how they currently utilize spiritual practices, and how they put their faith in action in the church and community.  

The process begins with an on-line survey – we call it the Spiritual Life Inventory. Next a small group of appointed lay and clergy leaders participate in four guided workshops exploring their own spiritual journeys while discerning the results from the compiled inventory data. RenewalWorks also shares best practices for spiritual vitality and growth discovered from Episcopal and non-Episcopal churches. Ultimately, each church creates a final report tailored to their unique goals and desires of the church community. 

RLW: Finally, Loren, tell us your favorite part of working with so many different Episcopal congregations over the last ten years! 

LD:  It is deeply meaningful to be invited to work with church groups and I am often affected, motivated and challenged by the conversations we have together. Most recently a parishioner asked how in prayer we discern the difference between the voice of God and our own. That question has really stayed with me. While RenewalWorks helps churches create cultures focused on spiritual growth, it is often a meaningful personal experience for the workshop team participants, too.

Psalm 116:1, 10-17

1 I love the Lord, because he has heard the voice of my supplication, because he has inclined his ear to me whenever I called upon him.
10 How shall I repay the Lord for all the good things he has done for me?
11 I will lift up the cup of salvation and call upon the Name of the Lord.
12 I will fulfill my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people.
13 Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his servants.
14 O Lord, I am your servant; I am your servant and the child of your handmaid; you have freed me from my bonds.
15 I will offer you the sacrifice of thanksgiving and call upon the Name of the Lord.
16 I will fulfill my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people,
17 In the courts of the Lord's house, in the midst of you, O Jerusalem. Hallelujah!

This year, Monday Matters is focused on wisdom conveyed in the treasures of the book of Psalms. We'll look at the psalms read in church before Monday Matters comes to your screen.

What does it mean to love the Lord?

As some denominations labor to limit the leadership role of women in their churches (I’m glad to be an Episcopalian), my thoughts turned to Teresa of Avila, a sixteenth century nun, a prominent mystic, a spiritual reformer and apparently a spitfire. I wish she was around today. I’d love to get her take on the church, because she didn’t mince her words. On one of her missionary trips, the wheel of her cart fell off and she landed in a mud puddle. This prompted her to raise her fist to heaven and say: “Lord, if this is how you treat your friends, it’s no wonder that you have so few of them.”

As I reflected on one of the psalms served up by our lectionary yesterday (reprinted above), a psalm which begins with the phrase “I love the Lord,” I remembered this bon mot from St. Teresa. She confessed: “Lord, I don’t love you. I don’t want to love you. But I want to want to love you.”

In my own spiritual journey, the question of what it means to love God has increasingly occupied my exploration. Loving God clearly suggests a relationship. But what does that relationship look like? As I scratch at the surface of the reality of a higher power, I can wrap my mind around aspects of that relationship. I have an idea what it means to fear the Lord, to praise or give thanks to the Lord, to ask the Lord for all kinds of stuff (God as valet), to obey the Lord as suggested by biblical commandments, to support the values of the Lord conveyed in scripture. But the idea of loving the Lord takes it to a whole new level, one that is as perplexing and mysterious as it is desirable.

The persistent message of scripture, from the laws outlined by Moses in the first five books, to the repeated refrain of the psalms, to the teachings of Jesus, to the writings of apostles: we are called to love the Lord. I suppose we approach that in a way that is similar to human relationships marked by love.

We grow in any loving relationship as we spend time together. In the spiritual life, that means practicing the presence of God in all of life, not sequestering God to an hour on Sunday morning. Through prayer and study, meditation and contemplation, worship and service we open our hearts to know God more deeply. We get to know each other, which is part of falling in love.

We grow in love of God as we give thanks for blessings. As the psalmist said: What can I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me? Take time this week to think of what those benefits might be in your life. You may end up loving God for it.

The New Testament seems to recognize that this love of God business has a mystical dimension. The letters attributed to John towards the end of the New Testament speak about love a lot. The phrase that stuck out for me: “Those who say, “I love God,” and hate a brother or sister are liars, for those who do not love a brother or sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.” (I John 4:20) The author is pointing out what Jesus taught and what our liturgy affirms: There can be no separation of love of God and love of neighbor, as annoying as that may be at times, since a lot of our neighbors are annoying.

All of this speculation about love of God suggests that we won’t always get it right. That’s why in our confession we admit that we have not loved God with our whole heart, soul and mind. Right after we say that we admit that we have not loved neighbor as self. The two go together. That shortfall is true of my life every day, even as I'm working on it.

A favorite collect recognizes that we need help in order to know what it is to love God. It’s the collect you will hear in church next Sunday (a coincidence?). How about this for a practice. Pray this prayer each morning until next Sunday and see if that brings any change or growth:

O Lord, make us have perpetual love and reverence for your holy Name, for you never fail to help and govern those whom you have set upon the sure foundation of your loving-kindness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

- Jay Sidebotham

Psalm 50:7-15

7 Hear, O my people, and I will speak: "O Israel, I will bear witness against you; for I am God, your God.
8 I do not accuse you because of your sacrifices; your offerings are always before me.
9 I will take no bull-calf from your stalls, nor he-goats out of your pens;
10 For all the beasts of the forest are mine, the herds in their thousands upon the hills.
11 I know every bird in the sky, and the creatures of the fields are in my sight.
12 If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the whole world is mine and all that is in it.
13 Do you think I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?
14 Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and make good your vows to the Most High.
15 Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall honor me."

This year, Monday Matters is focused on wisdom conveyed in the treasures of the book of Psalms. We'll look at the psalms read in church before Monday Matters comes to your screen.

A sacrifice of thanksgiving

I’m puzzling about this phrase “sacrifice of thanksgiving.” The phrase comes up in the psalm we may have heard yesterday in church, and in a bunch of other places in the Bible. What kind of sacrifice is that?

On the one hand, it strikes me the psalmist is talking about a sacrifice that is no sacrifice at all. In other contexts, a sacrifice is transactional. If I give up this, if I offer this, I will earn your approval. I will earn forgiveness. A sacrifice of thanksgiving abandons that transactional dimension, and simply admits that all is grace. It brings to mind the wisdom of Rob Bell who, along with others, said that there is nothing we can do to make God love us more and nothing we can do to make God love us less. That love from which we can never be separated comes without condition. Nothing can separate us from that love. See Romans 8. Thanks be to God.

Looked at another way, there may be some kind of sacrifice when we offer thanksgiving. When we do so, we are saying no to that ego driven conviction that by virtue of what we offer, God will be more pleased with us. For many people in our culture, that’s a hard pill to swallow. It hurts to let go of that mindsight. It’s built into our operating system. We want salvation the old-fashioned way: we want to earn it. (Think Javert in Les Mis.) The gospel of the Old Testament as well as the new points us in another direction.

Ask yourself the question I’m asking myself in light of this phrase: what do I need to give up, to let go, in order to live a life increasingly marked by thanksgiving? It may not simply be the need to prove ourselves, to prove our worth. It may be we need to give up resentments that block our ability to be thankful. It may be that we need to place our jealousy or covetousness on the altar. Maybe we need to extend forgiveness to others or perhaps to ourselves as a measure of our sacrifice.

From another point of view, we can return to the idea that the best kind of sacrifice we can offer is no sacrifice at all. Scripture tells us it’s not at the top of the list of what God wants. In several places we read that what God really desires is mercy not sacrifice. We heard that in the gospel yesterday, as Jesus calls out the Pharisees who are criticizing him for hanging out with the wrong crowd. We hear it in the prophets like Hosea (Hosea 6:6) or Samuel (I Samuel 15:22) who say that mercy is what is expected of us.

By now, it’s probably clear to readers that I’m not sure what a sacrifice of thanksgiving really means. Consult your local clergy for more clarity. But whatever it means, we can’t go wrong by focusing on thanksgiving, by increasing gratitude in the attitude. That’s a spiritual practice, which means that like any practice, the more we do it, the more proficient we become at it. Maybe that means establishing a list of things for which you are grateful, and reviewing it every day. Maybe that means setting aside 5 minutes in the morning and 5 minutes at the end of the day to attend to your gratitudes. Maybe it’s making a commitment to acts of mercy, wherever you see a need for mercy. Those needs surround us.

Offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving this week. Find out what that means for you.

- Jay Sidebotham

Psalm 8

1 O Lord our Governor, how exalted is your Name in all the world!
2 Out of the mouths of infants and children your majesty is praised above the heavens.
3 You have set up a stronghold against your adversaries, to quell the enemy and the avenger.
4 When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars you have set in their courses,
5 What is man that you should be mindful of him? the son of man that you should seek him out?
6 You have made him but little lower than the angels; you adorn him with glory and honor;
7 You give him mastery over the works of your hands; you put all things under his feet:
8 All sheep and oxen, even the wild beasts of the field,
9 The birds of the air, the fish of the sea, and whatsoever walks in the paths of the sea.
10 O Lord our Governor, how exalted is your Name in all the world!

This year, Monday Matters is focused on wisdom conveyed in the treasures of the book of Psalms. We'll look at the psalms read in church before Monday Matters comes to your screen.

Mindfulness: God's and ours

Mindfulness is apparently all the rage, for good reason. It’s an important spiritual practice, as many religious traditions indicate. As the priest, Nicolas Malebranche (1638-1715) noted: Attentiveness is the prayer of the soul. In a world marked by innumerable distractions as close as the smart phone, a mindfulness practice is increasingly difficult to practice. But it wasn’t until I thought about the psalm we heard in church yesterday that I realized that the God of scripture practices mindfulness too.

The psalmist says it plainly: What is man that you should be mindful of him? I imagine the author looking up at the star lit night, tracing the path of the moon across that vault, awestruck by that display. From our perspective, a few thousand years after the psalm was written, the biblical vision of the heavens seems small, that biblical vision imagining the sky as a kind of superdome holding back waters of chaos, the earth at the center of it all. One wonders what the psalmist would say now, as Hubble telescopes reveal an apparently unending universe, the earth shrinking in size, no longer the center but a fleck of dust. The psalmist’s question becomes all the more powerful.

It makes me wonder what we need to do to recover the meaning of the word “awesome.” We apply the word to a good meal, a great song, a fun party, a three-pointer, whatever. I suspect that a key element in our spiritual lives, in our relationship with the Holy One, is to spend time in amazed reflection on the wonder of it all. In many ways, we’ve lost that. We sometimes find ourselves boring people in church. In our own lives, we spend time as functional atheists, not recognizing that we live in the presence of God the creator. My own spiritual challenge is to recognize each day that my life unfolds in the presence of God, in relationship to God, a mindfulness that calls for both accountability on my part and gratitude for grace.

There’s yet another factor causing the psalmist to break into praise. The psalmist notes the amazing grace that the God of this vast and awesome creation is mindful of us. This psalmist, mindful of God’s mindfulness, anticipates the greatest example of God’s mindfulness of us, the mystery of the incarnation, God with us (Immanuel) in the person of Jesus. Like the mystery of the Trinity we heard about yesterday in church, I don’t know how it is possible that the God of creation took human form, indeed siding with those on the margins of human community. All of it we embrace in faith, allowing it to shape our lives, leading us to worship not only with our lips but with our lives.

I keep on the wall of my study this quote from Richard Rohr:

I do not want to belong to a religion that cannot kneel. I do not want to live in a world where there is no one to adore. It is a lonely and labored world if I am its only center.

We are meant to live our lives mindful of the miracle that the God of all creation is mindful of us, paying attention to us, meeting us with grace and love. It does not mean we understand it. I admit I find it in some respects unbelievable. At the same time, that kind of mindfulness provides a guiding principle for our spiritual journeys.

Giving thanks that God is mindful of us, how might we grow in our own mindfulness this week?

- Jay Sidebotham