By The Rev. Lindsey Altvater Clifton
Neighborhood Church: Transforming your Congregation into a Powerhouse for Mission.
That’s the name of the text we’re engaging for the next four Sundays as a part of a church-wide book read. Between services during our Fellowship & Formation hour, we’re having conversations, creating art, and gathering around tables to explore its themes. We’re also drawing connections between the book and scripture during our worship services. So today we consider what it means to be a Neighborhood, Mustard Seed Church.
First, it means that we are serious about what the authors call “incarnational mission:” in other words, we are trying to personify God’s purposes in the world like Jesus did. We ask ourselves, “Personally, how can we enflesh values of love, grace, and justice? As faith communities, how can our collective embodiment of these values shine even brighter?”
Second, being a Neighborhood, Mustard Seed Church means that such an incarnational mission – living and loving and enacting justice like Jesus – THAT is the most central commitment and metric for the faithfulness of our communal living. That means we should be regularly asking ourselves, “What kind of neighbor is our church? For what are we known in the wider community? Would anyone outside of our membership miss us if we were gone?”
They are challenging questions because they call us to focus not solely on ourselves or our self-preservation – not on our membership or budget or programs – but to focus primarily on the needs that exist in our midst outside of these walls….and our gifts (spiritual and material) for meeting those needs and creating change for our neighbors, especially those with whom Jesus was most concerned – last and the least – those experiencing poverty, grief, isolation, oppression, injustice.
What kind of neighbor is the church? How can there be so many churches and so little transformation? So many adults around my age are asking this poignant question. We Millennials (folks born between 1981 and the mid 1990’s who are now between 26-40) are known for a healthy skepticism about the institutional church even when we have a deep love of and belief in Jesus.
The authors of Neighborhood Church point toward the findings of Rev. Mark Yaconelli, who Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary employed to hang out with and listen to Millennials, asking good questions and listening deeply to their responses. And here’s what the book describes about his findings:
“He discovered that Millennials seek a way to incarnate their passions: passion for a just world, passion for a less judgmental church, passion for service that actually makes a difference, passion for a sustainable lifestyle. These desires drive them to act, to incarnate, to take risks by becoming the change they seek for our world.”
This is another form of incarnational mission. It is a desire for ministries that fill the gaps economic, educational, and judicial systems have been unable to address. It is a different way to be the church; it is a different life of faith for congregations who want to be vital and relevant.
As the authors write, “Through [Jesus’ parables], a truth becomes clear. If we want to enter this kingdom – this new way of being in relationship with God and each other – it requires risk and radical realignment. To say ‘Thy kingdom come’ is a revolutionary confession of willingness.”
Being a Neighborhood, Mustard Seed Church is risky. It asks a lot of us: our posture must be one of forgiveness and mercy, authenticity and humility, peace and justice, servanthood and love. We are called to kinship and proximity to those most in need.
No longer strangers, instead we are neighbor to all. And that proximity changes us. We have no choice but to embrace a new kind of community, a new focus, a different way to gather, a different kind of faith – one that can let go, lean in, hold on, and reach out. You see, in a Neighborhood, Mustard Seed Church:
Faith begins by letting go; by letting a fistful of seeds fly, scattering them to the wind and trusting them to the soil and sun, the rains and God.
Even if we were to plant each one carefully and tenderly into the earth, though we can water, we cannot do what the sun and soil and seed do amongst themselves.
It is a risk.
We can only sleep and rise, night and day, watching with awe as the seeds sprout and grow; or watching with dismay as they don’t. Either way, we do not know how.
Faith begins by letting go; by letting a fistful of stories fly, scattering them to the wind and trusting them to the barista and the teacher and the unhoused person on the corner and God.
Even if we were to plant each story carefully and tenderly into the lives of those we meet, though we can share, we cannot do what the listener and Spirit and words do amongst themselves.
It is a risk.
We can only sleep and rise, night and day, watching with awe as the stories sprout and grow; or watching with dismay as they don’t.
Either way, we do not know how.
Faith begins by letting go; by letting a fistful of hopes fly, scattering them to the wind and trusting them to the elders and the deacons and the trustees and all you other ministry partners and God.
Even if we were to plant each missional dream carefully and tenderly into the world, though we can plan, we cannot do what the community and Spirit and vision do amongst themselves.
It is a risk.
We can only sleep and rise, night and day, watching with awe as God’s peace and love – shalom and hesed – grow; or watching with dismay as they don’t.
Either way, we do not know how.
Faith endures by holding on; by tiny roots from an even tinier seed sinking themselves into the rich earth.
Yet when it is sown, it grows up and becomes the shrubbiest shrub, the weediest weed, the herbiest herb, the most persistent, transformative vegetation the landscape has ever seen.
It takes little faith to see the sacred in the ordinary, but this is so ordinary that it’s absurd.
And yet rest and shade and home emerge.
Branches bear fruit.
It is enough.
Faith endures by holding on; by tiny connections from an even tinier story taking root in an open heart.
Yet when it is sown, it grows up and becomes authentic care, shared vulnerability, and the most persistent, transformative relationships that our communities have ever seen.
It takes little faith to see the sacred in the ordinary, but this is so ordinary that it’s absurd.
And yet rest and shade and home for those once lonely emerge.
Stories bear fruit.
It is enough.
Faith endures by holding on; by tiny changes from an even tinier hope taking root in a broken, hurting creation.
Yet when it is sown, it grows up and becomes the deepest peace, the truest love, the most persistent, transformative abundance the world has ever seen.
It takes little faith to see the sacred in the ordinary, but this is so ordinary that it’s absurd.
And yet rest and shade and home for all emerges.
The kingdom of God bears fruit.
It is enough.
Faith matures by reaching out; seeds have become roots have become branches have become fruit have become seeds again.
Faith matures by reaching out; stories have become connections have become relationships have become love have become stories again.
Faith matures by reaching out; hope has become vision has become mission has become outreach has become hope again.
With what can we compare the kingdom of God? It is like a mustard seed. It is like a mustard seed story. It is like a mustard seed faith. Faith begins by letting go. Faith endures by holding on. Faith matures by reaching out. From here to kingdom come, may we be a mustard seed, neighborhood church. This day and each day. Amen.