Empty Nets Filled

Haggai 2:1-9

In the second year of King Darius, 1 in the seventh month, on the twenty-first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by the prophet Haggai, saying: 2 Speak now to Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and to the remnant of the people, and say, 3 Who is left among you that saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Is it not in your sight as nothing? 4 Yet now take courage, O Zerubbabel, says the Lord; take courage, O Joshua, son of Jehozadak, the high priest; take courage, all you people of the land, says the Lord; work, for I am with you, says the Lord of hosts, 5 according to the promise that I made you when you came out of Egypt. My spirit abides among you; do not fear. 6 For thus says the Lord of hosts: Once again, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land; 7 and I will shake all the nations, so that the treasure of all nations shall come, and I will fill this house with splendor, says the Lord of hosts. 8 The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, says the Lord of hosts. 9 The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts; and in this place I will give prosperity, says the Lord of hosts.

This is the Word of the LORD.

Thanks be to God.

It’s been nearly five years since Leah and I sat down with the DPNC to interview one another. Sitting around the table in the parlor I laid out my goal for our congregation: I wanted to lead our congregation toward being the best Presbyterian Church of Lowell we could be. I’ve spent nearly five years listening, watching, working, studying, and most importantly praying, to imagine what our best might be. What follows is my prayerful imagining of where our story will take us next. Our story is part of God’s ongoing story, and even though our ending is already written, it is up to us to spell it out.

Luke 5:1-11

1One day Jesus was standing beside Lake Gennesaret when the crowd pressed in around him to hear God's word. 2Jesus saw two boats sitting by the lake. The fishermen had gone ashore and were washing their nets. 3Jesus boarded one of the boats, the one that belonged to Simon, then asked him to row out a little distance from the shore. Jesus sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. 4When he finished speaking to the crowds, he said to Simon, "Row out farther, into the deep water, and drop your nets for a catch." 5Simon replied, "Master, we've worked hard all night and caught nothing. But because you say so, I'll drop the nets." 6So they dropped the nets and their catch was so huge that their nets were splitting. 7They signaled for their partners in the other boat to come and help them. They filled both boats so full that they were about to sink. 8When Simon Peter saw the catch, he fell at Jesus' knees and said, "Leave me, Lord, for I'm a sinner!"9Peter and those with him were overcome with amazement because of the number of fish they caught. 10James and John, Zebedee's sons, were Simon's partners and they were amazed too. Jesus said to Simon, "Don't be afraid. From now on, you will be fishing for people." 11As soon as they brought the boats to the shore, they left everything and followed Jesus.

This is the Word of the LORD.

Thanks be to God.

Our congregation was born in the late 19th century under a different name. When we were born, we were called the Lowell Presbyterian Church. The city of Lowell is barely older than we are, and the same ambition that built our city also supported our congregation. The owners of the Textile Mills wanted a community with all the amenities their workers, their managers, and they themselves would need. They built churches by the handful, and ensured that each congregation in their mill town had the finances it needed for stability.

God built our church with the tools of a manufacturing economy. We took our place in this city as the congregation where the teachers worshipped. Our educated clergy, and the thoughtfulness and emphasis on teaching in our tradition, attracted those who valued education. 

We had our mission: teaching God’s covenants to the saints in Lowell. We equipped young ministers, we memorized catechisms, we passed on values and traditions, we expanded our facilities, we became a pillar in the community. We could work hard all night and come ashore with our boats filled with fish. But there’s been a change in the seas, and our nets are not as full as they once were. Sometimes, we even come up empty.

One of our Session members, whom I dearly love and respect, once pointed out that I have a “non-traditional” approach to ministry. He said it as a way of supporting me and offering feedback, and as an explanation for possible resistance to new ideas. Here’s the thing that may surprise some of y’all. I wish I could be that traditional pastor. I wish I could study the Word of God, teach the people what it says, and have the church grow as easily as it used to. I wish I could walk to each church member’s house and drop in for coffee on a whim. I wish I could call up the wealthy members of the church and cover the gaps in our budget as the middle-class members gave what they could. I wish I could golf or fish with the elders, and play Bridge with the women’s circles so that everyone knows that I’m there for them, whether things are playful or serious. I wish I could lead mission trips with the youth group and bring them home forever changed by what they experienced. I long for the old easy seas of ministry, but I grew up watching them dissolve before my eyes. The world into which we were born no longer exists.

The textile industry used to dominate this county, and our congregation used it as a fishing net, bringing in members as the mills brought on new workers, and as schools brought in new educators. While a few notable textile mills remain, they haven’t been the economic underpinning of this area in a generation, and they’re not coming back. “Master, we've worked hard all night and caught nothing.” The mill owners who used to generously and reliably underwrite the ministry of the congregations they helped found have passed on, and have made their final contributions.

Instead of the reliability of the latter half of the 20th century, the seas we have to navigate show a culture that radically different than the ones we might expect.In the old easy seas, Blue Laws protected the Church’s dominance of Sundays. In the changing seas, however, brunch dominates Sunday mornings and Football rules the afternoons. It is socially acceptable for members of our community to go weeks without setting foot in a worship space.

The seas have changed, and our nets are coming up empty. The world into which we were born no longer exists, and the world we’re living in now is much harsher.

We know how that looks in our own congregation. We know when we see more pews that are empty than have people in them. We know when we post on facebook and former members comment with nostalgia. We know when our maintenance needs increase, even as contributions begin to dwindle. We know when we stay together for the sake of togetherness, rather than because we are growing faith together as taught through God’s Word.

We know things are harder now, and we know what that looks like. “Master, we've worked hard all night and caught nothing.” We come ashore to wash our nets, and perhaps tomorrow will be better, but trying harder will not conquer this sea change. We are not satisfied with the unending decline of these harsh seas. The church is which we are serving is not the church in which many of us grew up. That disconnect can be a source of grief, enough though it often means that new life is right around the corner.

I believe there is still fishing to be done. I believe that the God who created our congregation in the midst of a manufacturing world will continue to sustain us even though we no longer recognize the seas around us. I believe that we still have much more faithful ministry to do between now and whenever our congregation eventually dissolves. I believe we will see resurrection when we follow Jesus.

They tell me that mainline churches are dead, but I believe no, we are rising from the dead. For too many years we trusted our place at the heart of Post-war culture. Now the culture has changed, as it always does. The Church is no longer at the center of our society. This means that the nets with which we learned to fish are not up to the task of catching people in these changing seas. We are left only with the gospel and with the promise that Jesus is with us even to the end of the age. We’re not too old, too far gone, or too stuck to follow God, even though it means leaving some old things behind. “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and caught nothing, But because you say so, I'll drop the nets."

I have said from my pulpit many times that our congregation is a reconciled church split. We were born as the Lowell Presbyterian Church, but we are not that congregation. Neither are we Covenant Presbyterian Church, in whose building we still worship. We are the Presbyterian Church of Lowell. We are born out of reconciliation, but equally, and I believe more importantly, we are a congregation of Resurrection. The two split churches did not merge, they dissolved, and a new congregation was formed. The Presbytery dissolved both Lowell Presbyterian Church and Covenant Presbyterian Church in 1947. Here’s the cool thing: the old churches closed, and then three days later the Presbytery organized this new congregation. Our formation is the gospel: reconciliation and resurrection.

The world has gotten a lot more fearful. The only way to overcome pervasive, chronic fear is with faith: faith in yourself, faith in your friends, faith in a leader, faith in a worthy cause. For Christians, it’s our faith in Jesus Christ that releases us from fear and enables us to follow our Lord freely and fully.

In a frightened world, the church is a beacon of hope declaring that though we have much to fear, we faith that our Lord, Jesus Christ, is more powerful than fear. We were born in a different world than the one in which we now live, but we were born in resurrection, and I believe that God is still working through us to catch people.

Because we are people of faith, living in a community of faith, we can see God working in the world. Faith gives us eyes to see the Lord Jesus Christ in our midst. We will not stop at professing our faith, we will put it into practice in ways that embrace God’s relentlessly transformative love.

We will In worship, we reveal who we really are, and if we’re different outside worship, that’s where we’re pretending. Worship reminds us of our identity and empowers us to be doers of the Word. Therefore, over the next five years, we will see our average worship attendance increase from 50 to 65. We will reach into the homes of shut-ins by broadcasting our service live over the internet, allowing them to worship with their congregation, rather than tuning in to televised services at other churches. These same online resources will also reach out to new potential members who long for the close connection of a smaller congregation, but who also value the reverence and decorum of our traditional worship.

Over the next five years, adult engagement in Spiritual Formation will triple, challenging all of our members to deepen their faith and to practice what we believe, supported by their fellow believers. Equipped for their own ministry, our members will make profound impacts in the lives around them in ways we could not ask or even imagine.

Over the next five years, our members will move from seeing contributions as an obligation to seeing it as a joy. The collection of the offering will be more about faith than about finances, and in that light contributions will increase by 10%.

But our endowment and invested funds will see more income than that. Lump Sum gifts towards the ongoing ministry of the church will increase in frequency, adding to our ability to sustain long-term ministries, and continuing to do the work of faith in ways that honor God beyond our own efforts.

This will not happen magically. We’ve got to Work, for God is with us. If we’re going to do this thing, we’ve got to do it together. No more laying the burden on others, no more accusing one another, no more name calling. Our calling will require all of the people whom God has gathered into the church: from the very old to the very young, from the very left to the very right, from the lifelong members to the new converts.

We’re not going to do it by pretending to be something we’re not. We’re going to do it by actually being who we are,

That’s not who we can be, that’s who we are already. We will continue to reflect the light of Christ, we will continue to not hide who we are, by loving one another, no matter where we fall on a political issue, no matter how we disagree on a theological one. We may have disputes, but those disputes will not divide us. We are not divided, we are reconciled. We are not dying, we are witnessing to the resurrection.

It’s been nearly five years since Leah and I sat down with the DPNC in interview on another. I believe God called me to lead this congregation as we do meaningful ministry together. This congregation’s mission is Growing Faith together as taught through God’s Word. Do the mission, and we will see the vision of our empty nets filled.