Habits for a Healthy Heart

"Habits for a Healthy Heart" is the focus for the twelfth chapter in You Only Have to Die: Leading Your Congregation to New Life, written by Jim Harnish. Cardiac intervention--whether for an individual or a congregation--is not simply a one-time event. It is "an ongoing process of heart transformation that never ends"(p. 167).

In our spiritual lives, it is the "ongoing work of the Spirit of God in the deepest part of our being"(pp. 168-69). It is our participation in the process "dying and rising" with Christ by which we are shaped more and more into the likeness of Jesus Christ himself. It is the process of what John Wesley called "sanctification."

At Hyde Park United Methodist Church, the work of transformation continues. This initially obligated them to focus on who they were and what they were called to be. Once clarity was reached in this area, the question became how they can best fulfill their mission "in the constantly changing realities of the community and world" and how they "grow in obedience to the way and will of Christ"(p. 170).

In response to the question of how a congregation maintains "a healthy heart for the long haul," Harnish invites us "to go back to the model of vibrant, healthy, Spirit-energized congregational life recorded in the book of Acts"(p. 170). Passages of particularly importance are Acts 2:43-47 and Acts 4:32-33.

Common Mission. The early church had a clear sense of purpose and direction. To be sure, there were disagreements, misunderstandings, and differences of opinion along the way. At the center of their life, however, was a common mission, "a clear sense of why the church was there: to give testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus"(p. 171).

At Hyde Park, their common mission is summarized in the phrase, "Making God's Love Real." For us at First United Methodist Church, it might well be a line from our Litany of Hospitality, "You are welcome here." However the mission may be stated, there needs to be "clarity of conviction and respect for differences"(p. 172).

Common Discipline. The early church's life together was a "day by day" experience, taking shape through shared disciplines. As Harnish reminds us, "there is simply no way for new life in Christ to take tangible form in our experience without shared common discipline"(p. 173). These include:

• The discipline of worship. They discovered at Hyde Park that this discipline has two interwoven dimensions. One is "corporate discipline for gathered worship," and the other is "the personal discipline of spiritual formation and prayer"(p. 173). Each is vital and necessary.
  

• The discipline of education. The biblical core of shared life at Hyde Park Church is the intensive study of scripture, primarily through DISCIPLE Bible study but also in a variety of other ways. Their discovery was that "when people are united around the Scripture, God transforms their lives"(p. 174).
  

• The discipline of caring. Caring for other people in "tangible and practical ways" is critical for a church that wants to be healthy. And this is more than pastoral visitation. It is also the ministry of the laity expressing the love of God for one another.

• The discipline of witness and service. Faith isn't really faith until we give it away, or "until it takes form in giving ourselves to others through practical forms of witness and service"(pp. 174-175).

These four elements define, for Hyde Park Church, the "common discipline" that sustains them in a "healthy spiritual life." It would be hard to argue otherwise!

Common Generosity. The final dimension of the life of the early church is their remarkable generosity. It is common only in the sense that it is shared among all members of the community. Otherwise, it is entirely an "uncommon" generosity.

There was in the early church a form of "communal economics" that did not last very long and which has never been realized on a large scale. However, as Harnish points out, there was underneath this economy "a common level of generosity, a profound awareness that nothing we own belongs to us"(p. 175).

A congregation that is sustained in ministry for the long term is one that is committed to disciplined giving, including the biblical discipline of tithing, and to "warmhearted generosity that is something like the extravagant generosity of God"(p. 176).

Uncommon Power of God. Harnish concludes his chapter on "Habits for a Healthy Heart" by pointing beyond common mission, discipline, and generosity to the "uncommon power of the Spirit of God." There should be in every congregation, he points out, something that "cannot be explained by anything other than the power of the Spirit of God"(p. 176). It is that spirit which takes "all of our human efforts and does something with them that goes beyond our human ability to predict, plan, or control"(p. 176).

At First United Methodist Church, we are still discovering, discerning, and deciding God's purpose and direction for us. I believe that we have begun to settle on "You Are Welcome Here" as a bedrock principle. We have not yet begun to explore all that this means, but it is certainly an excellent starting point.

As we begin to explore and understand what "welcome" truly means, the disciplines outlined in this chapter will serve us well. Whatever decision we make about our "core purpose," we need to be engaged in worship, education, caring, witness and service. Each of these disciplines needs to be oriented to the "core purpose" of our life together, and each needs to be coordinated with and supportive of others. Along with this, we need to move toward shared leadership in each of these areas rather than letting things fall primarily if not exclusively on the staff.

We are blessed, I believe, with a generous congregation--not a wealthy one but a generous one. One of our challenges is to extend, increase, and expand that circle of generosity so that more and more people come to experience the genuine joy of giving and the work we do together is sustained more dependably.

Worship That Goes to the Heart

"Worship that goes to the heart" is the eleventh chapter in Jim Harnish's book, You Only Have to Die: Leading Your Congregation to New Life. Harnish begins the chapter with a statement of truth about every one of us, namely that "we have an innate and inescapable need to worship." The question, as he clearly points out, "is not whether we will worship, but what, whom, and how we will worship"(p. 143).

We are sometimes tempted to put our ultimate trust in something other than God, perhaps "economic power" or "military might." On a personal level, we may choose to give highest priority to our careers, our families, our possessions, or our desires. However, there is a "soul-hunger" that can be met only by "a living, loving, growing relationship with God"(p. 145).

That is--or at least should be--the focus of worship, regardless of our viewpoints about methods or styles. What really matters is "not whether our services are traditional or contemporary but why we do what we do and what we hope God will do in the lives of people through our worship"(p. 146).

Harnish uses the experience of Moses with God at the burning bush (Exodus 3:1-15) as the focus for "the kind of worship that goes to the heart"(p. 146). There are four key challenges:

1. Open Your Eyes: Worship Cultivates Awareness. The beginning point in the story was when Moses "turn[ed] aside" to look at the sight of a bush that was burning yet not burned up. In worship, we are called to "turn aside from the distractions of our lives and open our eyes to see what God is doing around us"(p. 147).
   
2. Take Off Your Shoes: Worship Ignites Awe. Moses was instructed to "take off his shoes," since he was standing on holy ground. There needs to be something about how we do worship that "ought to warm our hearts and make us tingle in our bones"(p. 149).
   
3. Listen for the Cry: Worship Energizes Compassion. The voice out of the burning bush recounted God's compassion toward his people in Egypt, God's knowledge of their suffering and God's desire to deliver them. Worship centered in the love of God in Christ "will break our hearts with the things that break the heart of God"(pp. 149-50).
4. Get Up and Go: Worship Motivates Ministry. Moses' experience at the burning bush ended with God's direction for him to "get up and go," something he was initially unwilling to do for reasons that made perfect sense to him. As we share in authentic worship, we are also called to "get up and go" in order to engage in genuine ministry.

Having identified these four challenges, Harnish goes on to share some of the ways they are fulfilling their mission of "Making God's Love Real" at Hyde Park United Methodist Church.

• First, we make God's love real through worship that glorifies God. "Glory," as exemplified in the transfiguration of Jesus, is critical. Worship needs to embody, express, and exemplify a measure of mystery and wonder and not rely just on the rational and intellectual.
  
• Second, we make God's love real through worship that celebrates our faith. Here the critical concepts are "celebrate" and "faith." In worship, we are called genuinely to celebrate the gift of God in Jesus Christ, which is expressed in "the note of celebration, the shout of praise, the thrill of laughter, the rhythm of joy"(p. 157). We celebrate the faith, not as something amorphous, vague, or indistinct but as "the faith that has been handed down to across the generations, the faith that is expressed in the historic creeds of the church"(. 157).
  
• Third, we make God's love real through worship that invites others to faith in Christ. Worship needs to "invite and involve" persons into a relationship with Jesus Christ--either for the first time or more deeply. These needs to be purposeful rather than accidental, intentional rather than inadvertent, regular rather than sporadic.
  

The remainder of the chapter presents the "new worship planning model" in place at Hyde Park United Methodist Church. The chapter closes with the statement that,

"It's not really about us; it's about God's great love made real among us in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and about finding the most effective way to draw people into an experience of that love. It's about getting ourselves out of the way so that God can do something in and through us that will transform and heal our hearts"(p. 166).

There is much in this particular chapter that resonates with me in our setting here at First United Methodist Church. I like to think that worship is something that we do reasonably well, perhaps even approaching excellent now and again. But we do not have a clear sense of what we seek to accomplish in worship, and we currently do not have a coherent process for planning, implementing, or assessing our worship.

Our Worship and Music Ministry Team has not met for nearly a year because there is no lay person willing to provide leadership. Those who have been part of this team continue to carry on their particular functions, but we do not have a coherent sense of where we are going or what we are doing. Perhaps ironically, our average worship attendance for the current year is up from where it was a year ago! However, it is undoubtedly misleading to read too much into that statistical comparison.

There have been some significant transitions in how we do worship in the last year, including a greater use of praise choruses and songs and the singing of praise music at the beginning of our second service. However, we have not (yet) moved to what some have called a "full blown" praise service. I am encouraged by the energy associated with the "Third Service" that is planned to begin on May 31, the Day of Pentecost, as a primarily lay led worship experience every Sunday evening.

I continue to wrestle privately with the number of persons, including elected church leaders, who do not routinely or regularly participate in the worship of the congregation. It continues to be my conviction that public, corporate worship is an essential factor in our growth in faith.

I particularly like Harnish's description of worship as grounded in Moses' experience with God at the burning bush. I pray that our worship experience here at First United Methodist Church may help all of us

• Open our eyes, as worship cultivates awareness of God's presence;
• Take off our shoes (figuratively speaking!), as worship ignites awe;
• Listen for the cry of those in need, as worship energizes compassion; and
• Get up and go--in the name of Jesus, as worship motivates ministry.