August 20, 2000
As we open the service today, we open with that collect which we pass over so often. That's not the meat of the story, but today it serves us exceptionally well. In that collect, we pray that God will give us grace to accept thankfully the fruits of his redeeming work, and to follow daily in the blessed steps of his most holy life. The practice, if you will, of life at St. Margaret's, is to accept thankfully the gifts of God that he has given us on the one hand; and secondly, to walk daily following in the steps of his most holy life. In light of what happened yesterday, this is the most appropriate petition for us to make in our prayers today.
Yesterday at 7 AM, the officers and Vestry of the parish met in the parking lot, climbed into two vehicles, and drove to Idyllwild to spend the day at St. Hugh of Lincoln. This retreat was planned to have a day apart so that we could get some distance and perspective on our life together, and to think through what God has been doing, is doing, and is continuing to do to call us as a congregation of his disciples.
One of the early things we tackled was how to state the "mission" of the parish. Over the last twenty years or so, mission statements of congregations have gone from short phrases, mottos, if you will, to dissertations, paragraphs that are hard to follow, and points on the compass that can't be followed. Ours had become something that all of you have seen — but no one of us on the Vestry, or Dan or I could remember a single point of the mission statement of St. Margaret's parish. This is not good.
We talked about a couple of others, and as we talked a little longer, we felt like somethings were missing, and as soon as one thing was added, it necessarily excluded something else. They were added and we were right back to something that would take forever to write, would never be remembered and probably never read. In passing, I mentioned an old mission statement that has been around the church, floating around from parish to parish, diocese to diocese for years and seems to work well. I said, "It seems to me what we are all thinking about is this statement that was a diocesan mission statement when I was ordained, and that is: To know Christ and to make him known." Everything we talked about fit somewhere into one of those clauses — either as seeking to know Christ as Lord and Savior, to know him more thoroughly as he is revealed to us in scripture, as he is revealed to us in the breaking of bread, and as he fills the God-shaped hole in our hearts. To make him known includes everything that we do as disciples, not just in this building or on our property, but everywhere we work and in the communities in which we live.
Very quickly, we, as disciples of our Lord, all felt like that was actually a good thing to say about what we're up to at St. Margaret's. It has now been adopted by the Vestry for all of us and it will serve as a standard by which we measure everything we do as a congregation of Christians. It will cover everything from Christian education to outreach; from budgeting to proclamation of the gospel; from things we do as a church to the things we do as a community. We can always ask, "Is this helping me to know the Lord, and/or is it helping me to make Christ known in the world around us?"
If the answer is "no," we don't do it. We have to make choices in our lives, and the choices for doing good in the world are too many for any one person or any one congregation. But we can each make our individual choices this way, and we can make our congregational choices by asking these same two questions. From there we went back and looked at where we are as a congregation today. It's kind of scary because God doesn't bring people together without some purpose, and the purpose is the scary part.
It's good to be in the fellowship of this parish with people who call this their spiritual home for all or part of the year. But going out — now that might be a little different. So what do we do with it? We looked at our future possibilities. We looked at this wonderful property that was chosen decades ago for us to build on, and in the last 15 years, we have gone from 200 people to 2000 people who call it home. We have moved from a little church to a big church. We have added a school. We are adding more. We're out of space!
The communities around us, however, are continuing to grow. Projections are that within 15 years there will be 500,000 people here year-round, plus all of our influx in the more comfortable times (October through Easter). Where are we going to put all these people? There is going to be a day when St. Margaret's simply will no longer be able to take another person — our parking lot will not accommodate another car; this building will not accommodate the numbers of people who want to know the Lord through the witness of this parish.
And so, what do we do to move forward? What do we do next to help the diocese find a place where a future church can be built somewhere close by in the neighborhood — taking a third of the people who will be here in 10 or 15 years and starting another ministry in a new place? That is an exciting possibility down the road. We look at ourselves today and say we like it the way we are, but apparently God has more in store. Considering real estate prices, the diocese has to do something earlier rather than later to find that land, and we are helping them to find it now. The money is there to buy it. We just have to find a good place where things are likely to develop. It is exciting to be a part of that.
We dreamed dreams about our future and what we want to do and what we will look like in five to ten years. We discussed our place in the community, including our impact as a congregation as well as what impact our individual members are making in the community. That community covers for us 36 states of the Union, 3 Canadian provinces, 3 countries in Europe, Asia and South America from which people come and go throughout the year. The impact of this congregation is much broader than most Episcopal churches in the country because of our unique setting and our unique congregation.
We talked a bit about our place in the Diocese of San Diego, and how on earth we can solve the geographical problem. Sometimes, this mountain separates us not only in distance, but also psychologically and spiritually from our fellow Episcopalians in the rest of the diocese. What can we do, as the largest parish in that diocese, to keep reducing the height of that mountain so that we and our sisters and brothers can come to know each other and the Lord more thoroughly? It is a tough task. This parish has been at it since its inception in the Diocese of Los Angeles, and we are still struggling with it. It is not easy to overcome the distance caused by an 11,000 foot mountain, but it can be done.
The Vestry came away from that six hours in Idyllwild, enthusiastic and joyful, ready to move ahead. That first phrase I read from the collect of the day just seemed to stick: that we would "give thanks;" that we would "pray that God would give us the grace to receive thankfully the fruits of his redeeming work." He is calling upon us as a congregation, and as individuals, to make his name known where we walk, where we work, and with whom we speak (not only in our own family of faith, but also in the communities in which we live), the communities in which we visit, the communities we turn to from time to time, and the communities of our extended families living all across the world.
The second phrase seems to strike home too — that part about our mission in the future, "following daily in the blessed steps of his most holy life, to make Christ known." We on the Vestry and the officers of your parish, call for you to pledge yourselves and invite you to join us as we ask in everything we contemplate — how does this work help us to know and love the Lord? We call for you to join us, in your personal lives and your parish life, to ask this question — how does what we are proposing to do, what we are doing, help us to make Christ known in the world around us? As we do so, we will find the way in which he leads us both individually and in our lives together.
It is an easy mission statement to remember, "To know Christ and to make him known." It might not be so easy to follow once we get into the streets where the rubber really meets the road, in our homes and in our communities, with our neighbors, our friends and with our families. But, as we follow the way Christ leads, the way that he has set for us, we shall surely eat of that bread which leads to eternal life. We encourage you all to always ask, "How is that you are knowing Christ, and how is it that you are making him known — that he may be worshipped, adored and obeyed to the ends of the earth." AMEN
The Rev. Dr. Robert Certain
rgcertain@stmargarets.org
20 August 2000