Brian Till of Creators Syndicate, in an op-ed piece in the Florida Times-Union tries to shed a little light on what reaches through the generational divide, to speak to us, i.e. the youth of today, called Generation Y. He has two answers: be clever and adapt.

 He claims that the ways to speak to the young and the listless are comically, visually, ironically and lyrically. “Give us something real and insightful, something that’s humorous and memorable.”

 This changing demographic will reject commercials and sales pitches for any product, including sermons, unless they are new and brought to them in a creative manner.

 “Barack Obama broke through the wall of monotony – he wasn’t an old white man with grey hair that spoke like a grandfather. He effortlessly hit threes in dress shoes, spoke with the cadence of a king and showed us a family that made us all a bit jealous. We’re a generation with very little tolerance for violence, crime and disorder of any kind. We adore structure and ease; we’re in search of compromise and commonality and most importantly, ideas and politicians and law that make things work more efficiently.”

 “So you want to reach this generation? Two steps: First, make us laugh; then make our lives easy. Google, Macintosh, Obama – all three have succeeded with us, and all three make things simple – whether using our email, taking our music on the run or volunteering at a phone bank…..sorry, seniors, it’s time to adapt.”

 This is a wake up call for any of us seniors who resist change, and won’t experiment with new methods of communication. The reign of the ‘old white men with grey hair’ is over. The Sotomayer Senate Judiciary Committee hearings demonstrate that clearly. For career women and qualified minorities their time has come. And rightly so.

 Having said that, it is also necessary to be concerned about the arrogance of youth. The intolerance of youth for suffering, their adoration of structure and ease, their tendency to compromise when it gets difficult in order to avoid discomfort, speaks volumes about their failure to think things through and to weigh up the consequences of such listlessness. Life is not that easy or simple. We can be hoodwinked by attractive politicians and media stars who talk well but who don’t deliver with integrity. The impression given is that Generation Y is spoilt rotten by the affluent society in which they have been raised. They know how to text message, but do they know how to love deeply and honorably, by persevering through hardship, and by overcoming difficulties? I know many who do. There are lots of great Generation Yers like my children and their children who are keeping the faith and working hard at their jobs and their relationships.

 Jesus said, “He who stands firm to the end will be saved.” Matthew 10:22; 24:13 Perhaps Generation Y needs to be challenged with the call to service that will cost them something. Nathaniel Flick in his memoir of the war in Iraq, One Bullet Away: The Making of a Marine Officer, writes that he was drawn to the infantry “where courage still counts. Being a Marine was not about money for graduate school or learning a skill; it s was a rite of passage in a society becoming so soft and homogenized that the very concept was often sneered at.”

 If we can communicate the cost of commitment and courage that is necessary in order to follow Jesus we will be truly counter-cultural. Perhaps we need to adapt to Jesus and the realities of life.

Ted Schroder

What are our core values?  Those that deeply motivate me at the Chapel are:

 Intellectual Integrity.

• - Demonstrated by dealing with faith problems honestly and openly, and not sweeping them under the rug or denying their reality.
• - Providing a reliable response to the challenges of skepticism and unbelief.
• - Arguing the case for an intelligent and informed faith in Christ and the Biblical message.

Emotional Intelligence.

• Recognizing the need to grow into emotional maturity.
• Dealing with problems of addiction, anxiety, depression, fear, and anger as they arise.
• Identifying the underlying causes of problems in traumatic events, abuse and neglect.

Future Oriented.

• Identifying how and where progress can be made in our personal lives.
• Embracing the hope of the Gospel and the gift of eternal life.
• Seeing life as growth and opportunity.

 Outwardly Focused.

• Looking beyond our own problems to the needs of others.
• Seeking to grow in love and concern for others.
• Being generous in our support of ministries to those in need.

 God Glorifying

• Seeking first God’s kingdom in worship and service.
• Entering into worship in Spirit and in Truth.
• Acknowledging the sovereignty and worth of God, and our complete dependence.

  What is my strategy for fulfilling the mission of the Chapel? 

  If the mission of the Chapel is:To worship God in Christ in Spirit and Truth, and to love our neighbor as ourselves then there are five areas in which I will seek to fulfill the mission.

1. Worship God in Christ: come to experience the worth of the Gospel.
2. In Spirit: come to experience the indwelling of the Spirit.
3. In Truth: come to experience the whole counsel of God and Scriptures.
4. To love our neighbor: come to experience the needs of others and seek to meet them.
5. As ourselves: come to expericence our own needs to grow in Christ.

 What is our definition of spiritual maturity, our measure of success? What should a follower of Christ look like? How do we measure discipleship and our mission?

1. We know that we are experiencing the worth of the Gospel when we are enjoying a vibrant worship and prayer life in the grace of God.
2. We know that we are experiencing the indwelling of the Spirit when we are exercising the gifts and the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
3. We know that we are experiencing the whole counsel of God when we are daily studying the Scriptures for ourselves, and appreciating opportunities for further insight through classes and sermons.
4. We know that we are experiencing the needs of others and seeking to meet them when we see our giving, serving and relationships with others as priorities in our lives.
5. We know that we are experiencing our own needs when we are committing ourselves to follow Christ in every part of our lives, through the use of such strengths and skills as we have, and denying our self-centeredness.

How do you measure your spiritual maturity by these?

  What is the most important need at this time in the life of the Chapel?

It is to become Sowers of the Word to produce a fruitful crop for the Kingdom of God. It is to reproduce ourselves, to provide for the next generation of faithful followers of Jesus at the Chapel. If we don’t, then our community of faith will decrease over the next few years due to normal attrition due to death and departures.

Jesus said: “I will make you fishers of men.” (Mark 1:17) We are called to catch followers for the kingdom of God. Before he left his disciples Jesus said, “As the Father sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.’” (John 20:21-23) He commissioned us to continue his mission of proclaiming the Gospel of forgiveness. If we don’t then those who need it will be deprived of it. He gives us the power of his Spirit to do the job.

By fulfilling this mission we will:

1. Secure our legacy of faith for the next generation of believers.
2. We will make sure that the Chapel will continue in a healthy way and not face decline and extinction.
3. We will provide for spiritual regeneration, hope and renewal in our community which needs the Gospel to combat selfishness and despair.

 The question that faces each one of us is what are we doing to meet this need? Who have we shared our faith and fellowship at the Chapel with in the past year or so? What sowing are we doing? If we were held accountable by God for our witness, what would his verdict be on us? What do we have in our faith and fellowship that we hold dear, that we need to share with others? Let us not be selfish with God’s gifts, but scatter them abroad as the Sower does with the seed.

Ted Schroder

I have been reflecting on how I would express the mission of the Chapel. We know what the generic mission of every church is. I was raised on the Articles of Religion written by Thomas Cranmer at the time of the English Reformation in the sixteenth century. The 19^th Article, “Of the Church” describes what the Church is supposed to be: “The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments duly administered according to God’s ordinance.” However this statement doesn’t give you a sense of what makes up the Church’s life. Every organization today has a mission statement to give it direction. If you go into a hospital you will likely find its mission statement posted in prominent places such as the elevators.

 It is helpful to ask the questions, Why do we exist? What is our purpose? If we exist to glorify God and make disciples then we will be outwardly focused to God and others. There is a tendency in many churches for the focus to be turned inwardly – ‘the church is there to meet my needs.’ It may, and should meet our needs, but as a by-product of worship and service. We are here for God and others. Jesus commissioned the disciples to go into all the world and make disciples of all people. He criticized the religious establishment of his day for caring for their own prerogatives rather than producing the fruit of blessing others with the light of God’s Word.

 Mission statements tend to be too wordy. As I look at the mission statement of the Chapel, which I wrote nine years ago, after becoming the pastor, I think I tried to include too much. I doubt whether any of us could quote it, or remember it, despite it being on the front page of the Sunday Bulletin every week. Here it is:

 “We belong to a diverse congregation, united by our faith in Jesus Christ, committed to worship the living God, and to study the Word; so that we may witness and serve in our community.”

 This describes us, what we do, but doesn’t give us much direction. It is too long if it is twenty words or more. It is too generic. How would it look if I tightened it up and made it more purposeful? Here is an example:

 “We exist to worship God in Christ in Spirit and Truth through loving our neighbor as ourselves.”

 Perhaps you might have a suggestion as to what our mission statement ought to be. Remember, twenty words or less!

 Another exercise we need to do is to clarify our motives or our core values. What makes us unique? Why is the Chapel special? What is God doing through us? What are our strengths? We can’t be everything, but God can make us something important. What deeply motivates us? Speaking for myself, I wrote down five values that motivate me, and I see in those around me in the Chapel.

1.  Intellectual Integrity

2.  Emotional Authenticity

3.  Future Orientation

4.  Reality Grounded

5.  Outwardly Focused

 What do these values really mean? How do they make a difference? I will address these questions in future blogs.

 Ted Schroder

The loyalty of so many church people, where there is no vision, often gets placed upon the buildings, the personality of a beloved pastor or other staff member, particular programs in which they have invested, or an ingrown fellowship where they are known and respected. The church may be declining but as long as one of those substitutes for vision exist, it will continue.

 Will Mancini, in his book CHURCH UNIQUE, cites Jim Collins in his classic book, BUILT TO LAST. He said that enduring organizations have two dominant characteristics that are complementary opposites. The first is a strong conviction about core ideals that never changes: there are purpose and values. The second is a clear understanding that everything must change in order to preserve the core. Collins describes this as ‘a relentless drive to stimulate progress.’

 If you take a hundred-year time frame, for example, organizations would not exist if they did not stimulate progress by changing methods, processes, structures, leadership and technology. The fascinating observation is that by discerning the core ideology and distinguishing it from what is noncore, a leader can free people to embrace change by connecting their identity to the core ideology. This allows people to feel important despite the fact that the methods or technology or structure may be changing. In other words, if people are nourished by unchanging vision, they are more agreeable when the rules change with the tactics. Collins says it takes clarity and discipline to understand which things in the organization belong to what category.

The leader should help people embrace change by nurturing an emotional connection to the unchanging core vision. The leader should then preserve and champion the core vision by showing people how to constantly adapt. Make no mistake: our change management problems today are vision problems first and people problems second.

 What is our core vision? That is the important question. After a congregation has been in place for a while the vision gets blurred. Recently, I had cataract surgery. I was finding it hard to read. The print was getting fuzzy. After the surgery clarity was restored. My vision is now like High Definition television. Everything is clearer and brighter. The role of the leader is to clarify what is already there and help people perceive what has gone unnoticed.

 What is clarity really about? Will Mancini writes that it means being free from anything that obscures, blocks, pollutes, or darkens. Being clear as a leader means being simple, understandable, and exact. The leader helps others see and understand reality better. Leaders constantly bring the most important things to light: current reality and future possibility, what God says about it and what we need to do about it. Are we clear about the mission of Jesus in the world?

 Mancini writes, What is God uniquely doing? What is our mission? The passion for mission can more easily be spread when it is clearly understood by all. Clarity makes success definable. Henry Ford said that the great weakness of all human beings is trying to do too many things at once. What matters most? What good thing do we need to say no to so that we can do the best? Many opportunities are really distractions in disguise. There are lots of things we can do for God, but we must do the one thing God is calling us to do.

Ted Schroder