One of the jobs of the Bishop's senior staff is to spend time with clergy and lay leaders across the diocese doing something called a "Mutual Ministry Review" or M.M.R. It's an opportunity to help congregations assess where they are and perhaps where God is calling them next. Over the years we have gone through this process in a variety of ways, and several times with the Venerable William Coyne, who has been of great help to St. Francis throughout his tenure as Bishop Scruton's Archdeacon.

This past fall, on the eve of St. Francis Day, Bill came out to meet with me and the vestry and staff of St. Francis to do an M.M.R.  In all of the news about my upcoming departure as your rector since that October night, I want to be sure the work of that night is not lost-as I believe it will be yet another piece of information that the Profile Committee can help to unpack as they begin to tell the story of St. Francis Church. For my own part, I want to offer a few reflections of my own as our journey through Lent continues. Bill asked us three questions, which deserve a wider audience than just vestry and staff:

1. What can we rejoice about?
2. What are our concerns?
3. What might be God's  preferred/promised future for St. Francis?

To the first question, we talked about the new organ, our financial health, our new associate rector and newer members. We talked about our commitment to Christ's mission in the world and to Christian formation. And we talked about our overall positive spirit/energy as a congregation. We are a congregation that seems to laugh easily together and even confront sensitive political issues without being polarizing or divisive.

I want to affirm all of these observations, and second them. What strikes me as I look back on this list four months later is that these strengths all focus on the life of the congregation as a whole; not on the specific gifts of the rector. Music, stewardship, newcomer ministry, mission committee, church school, youth group, adult education-these ministries cover a lot of ground. And while there are always a few "outliers" in any group, I think that if you expanded the circle from that night and had the whole congregation in a room together that there would be broad and deep consent about these areas of joy. There is much that is going well at St. Francis; much that needs to be celebrated.

It is easy, I think, in our own personal lives and in our corporate life to focus (and maybe even fixate) on what is wrong-on what needs to be fixed. But there is, I think, a deep wisdom in what is sometimes called "appreciative inquiry" - in focusing on what is right and what is working and celebrating that and deepening our commitment to that. There is energy in all of these areas and where there is energy, there we surely see God's Holy Spirit at work. So we might consider "doubling down" in these areas and cooperating even more with the good work God is already doing in our midst.

This does not, however, mean that we put our heads into the sand about what still needs work-our "growing edges." It is also the work of the Holy Spirit (especially in Lent) to help us to see where we might be able to grow or need to change. So these areas, too, are worth mentioning. The first one mentioned in this context (and indeed over and over again in the time I've been your rector) is without a doubt the hardest one to tackle: our lack of ethnic and socio-economic diversity. My own view here is that this could actually be seen in a different way, however. It is not like our parish is located in a diverse multi-cultural urban setting and we are not welcoming in our neighbors. Our context is Holden and a quick review of the last U.S. census reveals that we are not living in the most culturally diverse context in America.

As your rector, therefore, my measure of "success" in this area has been more about how we do about welcoming the diversity that God has given to us.  And here I see this as something to rejoice about. We look a lot like Holden. We may not be as racially or ethnically diverse as we would like, but we certainly remain politically diverse. (Just walk through the parking lot on a Sunday morning and check out the bumper stickers!) 

 Can we do more? Always. Can we help change the culture around us? Hard work, but again, yes. But I think the world is continuing to change and the world will continue to become more diverse and that St. Francis stands ready to embrace and celebrate that and eager to welcome all of God's children who want to come and be part of St. Francis. We can even become more intentional about seeking that out, and so it is good to name it as a concern. But I have never, not once, heard anyone at St. Francis longing for "less diversity." And so I believe that every time we identify the lack of diversity as a concern we are opening ourselves up the Holy Spirit to help us to embrace difference as a gift from God, and that will come.

The other concerns on the list included the observation that some ministry leaders risk "burn out" and therefore require transition plans. We noted that while we are a multi-generational parish, we are missing the twenty-somethings. We noted, and this is the one I want to focus on: that our suburban lives are busy.

Again, we are back to context. We do reflect our suburban culture in both positive and negative ways, don't we? We have people of all ages who are way over-committed. What would it look like to be a more intentionally counter-cultural community, to be a community committed to Sabbath-keeping, to being a community committed to finding more Benedictine balance in our lives?

This remains a concern for me as I prepare to say goodbye. I saw how busy my own kids were at Davis Hill, Mountview, and Wachusett over fifteen years. I have seen how busy your kids are-and how busy you all are. (Even our so-called retirees are busy!) On the one hand, I have tried as pastor to be flexible in my own expectations-not wanting to make church one more obligation. On the other hand, I do think church tends to get the short straw again and again and again. If conflicts emerge between dance and church, or sports and church, or theater and church, or academics and church-church always seems to come out last. Families are tired on the weekends. No one needs more guilt, but we do need mutual accountability. Over the years I have sometimes tried to remind families that tell me that they need a Sunday to "sleep in" that I celebrate that family time for them, but that we do have church on Wednesday and Saturday nights as an alternative. Sometimes they take advantage of that invitation, but I must say that usually they opt for the family time but not for the alternative worship time!

This is the world we live in, and I tend to be fairly impatient with clergy who harp on it. But make no mistake: it is a very real challenge. You cannot have Christian community that maintains all those things we rejoice about if people don't have the time or energy to "show up." I don't think the challenge is going away anytime soon. So it means continuing to find ways to do church in new ways and of helping people to make hard choices and also of maybe even bringing church to home. What might it look like if the family time on Sunday included "Morning Prayer" at the kitchen table and a conversation about the readings for the day? Or what might it look like to go to church together and out for breakfast, and letting something else go? I think we must continue to set the bar of expectation high because church does matter, even as we allow for plenty of grace to make up for our failings.

Finally, we spoke with Bill in October about "God's preferred future for St. Francis." What I want to say here is that this question should not be put on hold until a new rector is in place. Often when I was chairing the Bishop Search Committee for our diocese, I would say that we were becoming the kind of diocese along the way that we were looking for our next Bishop to help us to embrace even more. I think the same holds true for St. Francis (or any congregation) in a time of transition. Keep asking this question and living into it, and the rector who is called to share this work with you will find you.

In October we spoke about how St. Francis has a responsibility to the wider church, and in particular the diocese to take a leadership role. We spoke about reaching out to more of our lapsed Roman Catholic neighbors who have not yet heard about The Episcopal Church. I think we were all clear that we aren't looking to "steal sheep" from St. Mary's or St. George's or St. Patrick's. But there are many people out there who for various reasons are not going to accept the invitation of any ad campaign to "go home." They are looking for a new home, and The Episcopal Church remains a well-kept secret to many of them. How can we simply learn to extend an invitation to "come and see" to those spiritual seekers?

We spoke about our commitment to interfaith dialogue. This has been important to me personally, but I think it has become a congregational value as well. We are not people who share the good news by telling people Jesus is "the only way." We tend to see all human beings as created in the image of God, and recognize that God is at work in people of other faiths-and we have something to learn from them. We spoke about our commitment to "mature faith" and being more and more committed to forming spiritually mature Christians. For me these are not opposite futures but deeply connected: more mature Christians do not fear learning from Muslims or Buddhists, they embrace dialogue and the invitation to learn more, without fear.

I imagine that as I embrace my own new call to diocesan ministry, and as St. Francis continues to ask these kinds of questions through an interim period and into the time of a new rector arriving, that when it comes time for Mutual Ministry Reviews at least for the next couple of years, it will make sense for St. Francis to look to my new colleague, the other Canon to the Ordinary, the Rev. Pam Mott. But the day will come, I'm sure, when it feels right for me to come back and check in with the rector and vestry and staff and engage in this same process. It will be interesting to see what St. Francis is rejoicing about, concerned about, and feeling called to a few years down the road or a decade down the road. One thing we can say with great certainty: God will continue to be at work in the midst of all of that. My prayer for all of you is that you continue to see and embrace that truth with continuing clarity and abounding trust and love for one another as the journey continues.

Peace,

Rich

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