Monthly Archives: May 2006

At the dump

Work has been keeping me a little too busy, but I finally have time to describe the trip to the Nantucket dump….

It was Alyzza’s idea to go to the dump on Nantucket Island. “It’s the best dump in the world,” she said.

On Friday, two members of our youth group, Danielle and Jarrod, met Emma and me at the church; Alyzza was going to meet us on Nantucket, where she was playing in a lacrosse game with her school. We left New Bedford at 3:18, leaving, we thought, plenty of time to drive out Cape Cod and get to the ferry terminal in Hyannis. But we got lost, and the wrong turns became nightmarish. Finally we were there with only minutes to spare; Emma dropped us off so I could buy the tickets; one last late couple came after us, delaying the ferry just long enough; Emma had to run the last hundred yards. The ferry left at 4:46, a minute late.

Dani and Jarrod had never taken the ferry over to Nantucket. Jarrod said, “I’m going to stay on deck the whole time, I’m not going to waste the trip sitting inside.” We followed his lead, and all stood out in the sun and the cold wind watching Cape Cod recede and Nantucket loom closer in the haze. At last we were in the harbor, rounding Brant Point. I pointed out the gold-topped steeple of the Unitarian Universalist church where we would be spending the night.

We met the Nantucket church’s youth group, and played some games including “Evolution,” one of our youth group’s favorite games. I said playing “Evolution” was a religious matter, because it proves that we can talk about evolution in our church. (If you want to know how to play the game, instructions are here.) We ate dinner together, we all got along, and found we had plenty to talk about.

Saturday morning was the big day: the trip to Nantucket’s dump. Most of the Nantucket youth had to leave, either to go to work or for other obligations. But Alex, Jessie, and Lynnie joined us in our trek to the dump, while Sally, one of the Nantucket adult advisors, kindly drove us all.

To get to the dump, you head down Madaket Road. You can see the mound of the landfill from a ways down the road; it’s now the highest point on the island, higher even than Altar Rock. You turn in, stopping where the bike path crosses the entry road, and then you can see a number of buildings. The recycling shed is first, with doors where you can throw in every conceivable recyclable item. Trash disposal is a serious problem on the island — it’s too expensive to ship garbage off island, and the landfill is getting bigger every day — so there are strict laws that everything possible must be recycled. A buzz of activity surrounded the recycling shed: cars and light trucks pulling up, people going back and forth with bags and boxes. Sally said she had just been to the dump with a bag of bottles and glass, and the bag had broken, and it had been quite something to clean up.

If you drive past the recycling shed to get to the landfill’s face, but we didn’t go there. Instead, we went to the left of the recycling to our true goal: the “Take It or Leave It” shack. It’s a building about thirty feet square, with some shelves around the edges and a big central table. Two rather disreputable hippy-types sat outside: scruffy facial hair and disreputable clothes that had once been expensive. Sally said, “You’re not supposed to linger but people do.” The two hippy-types waited for people to bring fresh new items into the shack, and pounced upon the good things and put them in a truck with Vermont plates. Sally said, “There’s a couple of good yard sales today. They’ll close at eleven so they can leave off whatever’s left over before the dump closes at noon.” The hippy-types were obviously waiting for something just like that.

We went in the shack. The central table was filled with clothes; true to gender stereotypes, some of the girls went for the table, while Jarrod, Emma, and I explored the shelves. The books were pretty good: along with the usual Reader’s Digest versions of everything, I saw Tolstoy, Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air,, and, strangely, Canadian author Thomas Raddall’s Roger Sudden. I grabbed the Raddall book.

The big items were left outside. Sally found a great folding screen, cloth stretched over a wood frame; and a hanging lamp; and one or two other things. She had to take it all home and come back, because we could not have fit all eight of us and her treasures in the minivan.

After a while, we had all picked everything over pretty well. We stood in a circle talking, waiting for Sally to return. Everyone showed what he or she had found. Alyzza had a pretty good sport coat and a shirt. Emma found a Nancy Drew book for Sally (who loves Nancy Drew). Jarrod had half a dozen Steven King books. He sat down in a wicker chair that someone had just dropped off and started to read. The rest of us stood around and watched a pair of Barn Swallows swoop in and out of the “Take It or Leave It” shack. The sun started to come out. You could smell the compost from the big windrows out behind the equipment shed. You could smell the ripe garbage from the open face of the landfill. Gulls circled overhead, content with life, for a gull loves nothing better than a good open dump.

At last Sally came back. The big part of our adventure was over. We spent the rest of the eating lunch (at the resturant where Janine, one of the Nantucket youth, works) and walking out to Brant Point to see the little lighthouse there. Jessie found a wing from a dead bird. “My mother works at the Maria Mitchell Association,” she said, “where she stuffs birds for scientific specimens. She’s going to teach me how this summer.” Which sounded to me like a great way to spend a summer. Jessie and I looked at the bird wing — only bones and skin and feathers were left — and Jessie pointed out the radius and humerus.

The four of them came down to the pier to see us off. We waved to them from high up on the ferry deck. “Come back soon!” they shouted up to us. Then we were out in the harbor, and rounding Brant Point. I threw a penny at the end of the jetty, because our mother said to us that that’s what you’re supposed to do when you leave Nantucket. Jarrod and I stood on the deck, taking turns looking at Common Loons and Harbor Seals through my binoculars. “This was a great trip,” said Jarrod, who is often vaguely cynical. Who would have thought a field trip to a dump could be so much fun?

The bad ol’ religious right and us

That did it. Mr. Crankypants just heard another religious liberal complain about the Religious Right: “Ooo, the bad ol’ Religious Right is running the country, the Religious Right is taking over.”

Mr. Crankypants snapped back, “And what about you, Mr./Ms. Religious Liberal? Do you go to church nearly every Sunday, year-round? Do you give ten percent of your income — your gross annual income — to your liberal faith? Do you actively invite people to your liberal church, people whom you know would benefit from liberal religion? Do you tell others how your religious faith calls you to make this a better world? ‘Cause that’s what the Religious Right does with their faith. And if you’re not willing to be as devoted to your liberal faith as they are to theirs, then you better not be complaining about the power and influence of the Religious Right.”…

Well, no, Mr. Crankypants didn’t say that out loud. To be honest, Mr. Crankpants is a bit of a chicken when it comes to saying things like that out loud. He just writes them on the blog of Dan, his stupid alter ego, hiding behind a screen of anonymity.

It’s so much easier to be a vocal religious liberal when no one knows your name….

The sharing church, part II

Sharing vs. caring

Where do liberal churches get our models for small group dynamics? In the first post in this series, I pointed out that the liberal churches I have known have two models for understanding small groups: the “sharing model,” and the “doing model.” [Link]

While I believe the “sharing model” is dominant in liberal churches today, a third model of small groups has been blossoming in more conservative Christian churches. In this model, cell groups or house churches gather together to respond to the word of God and to care for each other. Although this model seems to draw some inspiration from the experiments in group work that flourished in the 1960’s and 1970’s, the model emphasizes caring for others more than it emphasizes personal development. Call this the “caring model” of small groups: you’re called to care for others, and to bring others into the circle of caring (here I’m extracting the theology from the model of group dynamics).

Not surprisingly, as the cell group concept, based on a “caring model,” has been brought into liberal churches, the cell groups often become transmogrified by the existing dominant “sharing model” in those churches. In conservative Christian churches, it is assumed that small groups should incorporate new members, thus growing enough to split into two groups every four to twelve months. In liberal churches, however, cell groups become covenant groups or “small group ministry,” groups which are closed for a year to enable participants to build trust in order to allow deeper sharing. In liberal churches, rather than building the caring function into the cell groups, the minister(s) retain most of the caring function, though the minister(s) may develop a program of lay pastoral caregivers (not integrated into the covenant groups or small group ministries); who, not surprisingly, meet together in a small group, closed to outsiders, where they are often encouraged to share deeply with each other.

I now believe that the “sharing model” leads to an inward orientation; it emphasizes personal development and it closes out the outside world. It seems that the “caring model” leads to an outward orientation, where each person learns to care for other people, in an ever-widening circle (at least in theory). This may help explain why liberal churches, dominated by an inward-looking “sharing model,” are shrinking and dying; while the conservative Christian churches which use an outward-looking “caring model” seem to be ever-expanding.

OK, I had better admit my bias here: I would rather be a part of a church that had an outward-looking “caring model”; I’m getting tired of the endless “sharing” in liberal churches that seems to lead to nothing more than an inward orientation and membership decline. Having admitted that, I’m going to ask: Does this distinction make sense to you? Is your liberal church oriented more towards the “sharing model” than a “caring model”? And if so, which model do you prefer?

Guerilla marketing for churches, pt. 4

More from Jay Conrad Levinson’s Guerilla Marketing Excellence, as adapted for church marketing. Part 1 of the series has a general introduction to Guerilla Marketing [Link]; Part 2 talks about the “designated guerilla” [Link]; Part 3 talks about setting goals for marketing [Link].

*****

Customer reverence, Guerilla Marketing’s golden rule #6:

Consistently display your reverence for customers by trying to help them with consistent follow-up.

We don’t have customers in churches, so let’s call this one “Reverence for members and friends.” The best way to elucidate this golden rule is to give you some examples:

1) When a newcomer visits your church, you should send them a note of welcome within 48 hours. The Unitarian Universalist Society of Geneva has someone on their membership committee who sits down every Sunday after their third and final worship service, and hand-writes notes of welcome to everyone who signed the guest book. (This is one reason why this church now has three worship services.)

2) I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: send your newsletter to everyone who walks in your door, especially those who lives within an hour’s drive. It helps if your newsletter is actually fun to read, but even if it isn’t, send it.

3) Once you have your church database set up, why not send a birthday card to everyone in your list of members and friends (especially kids)? Part of reverence of members and friends is simply acknowledging that they exist!

4) Send the newsletter to everyone possible, including young adults in college and graduate school, anyone in the military, and anyone whose job has taken them out of town for a year or two. While you’re at it, send printed copies of sermons to everyone who can’t make it to church, no matter what the reason they can’t make it.

5) Once a year, mail a book of bedtime prayers to families with children, using copyright-free material. If you’re a real guerilla, you’ll point out in the introduction that the material in the book is meant to supplement what happens in Sunday school (that’s a way to build attendance). And mail a devotional book to all adults, pointing out that the minister(s) use these readings during worship services.

6) Send postcard reminders to people whenever it makes sense. Families with children have very little time to spare and I’ve found the especially appreciate postcards — they can read them without opening them, and then stick them on the refrigerator as a reminder. Church youth group event? –send a postcard. Special event after church? –send a postcard. Important committee meeting? –send a postcard.

7) Once a year, send out a CD of your organist or star musician performing on your organ, or your wonderful piano. Point out that this music comes from a recent worship service.

I can hear the cries now: “But we can’t afford to mail all that stuff.” Maybe, but maybe you can’t afford not to. Did you know that many newcomers to liberal churches fade away after a year or two? Sure, getting people into small groups is the best way to retain newcomers, but as Levinson points out:

If you don’t stay in contact with your customer, somebody else will woo that rare person away from you. On a constant basis, you must fan the flames of love and loyalty. This will prove beyond any words that you practice customer reverence, an automatic safeguard against apathy.

How do you already practice reverence of members and friends? How do you already keep in touch in ways that build loyalty, and build people’s spiritual lives? Share your ideas in the comments section!

Going to the dump

Yesterday was a brilliantly warm May day. Perhaps a little too warm, for in this ear of global climate change every bit of weather that seems out of the ordinary reminds me (rightly or wrongly) that we’re headed for very different weather patterns over the next few years.

Today, I’m headed off with the First Unitarian youth group on a retreat. We’re going to meet up with the youth group at the Unitarian Universalist church on Nantucket Island. Then we’re going to make a field trip to the dump. The Nantucket dump has some of the best “antiquing” (a.k.a. trash-picking) you’ll find at any dump anywhere. Since landfill space is at a permium on the island, they make a huge effort to recycle everything, and anything that’s remotely useable is set aside so it can be picked through.

So we’re taking a kind of an ecojustice field trip with the youth group. And maybe we’ll be taking a look at the future: already, our consumer society is so glutted with things that you can get just about whatever you want on the used market for free.

After thinking about these kinds of things, I’d be pretty gloomy if it wasn’t such a beautiful day outside.

The sharing church, part I

Sharing vs. doing

Where do liberal churches get our models for small group dynamics? In the liberal churches I have worked in (six, so far), I have seen two primary models for understanding small groups.

There’s the older model of the church as a constellation of committees, classes, social services groups, and other groups whose main goal is doing something, usually doing something practical. This older model dates from the late 19th C. and the first half of the 20th C., and is related to concepts of the church as a part of civic space, a subset of democracy, a voluntary association. Call this the “doing model” of small groups: you’re called to volunteer your time to do something to make the world better.

Then there’s a newer model of small groups as support groups, consciousness-raising groups, sharing groups, and other groups whose main goal is personal development, which is assumed to take place most effectively in a small group which has developed a high level of trust. This newer model dates from the 1960’s and 1970’s, and is related to group techniques developed by second wave feminism, the human potential movement, self-help groups, and the other experiments in group work that flourished in those two decades. Call this the “sharing model” of small groups: you’re called to share your personal growth and development with a small trusted group.

I’d have to say that the “sharing model” dominates each of the liberal churches I’ve served. Persons are often encouraged to share deeply, to “bare their souls,” in various small group settings. The “sharing model” has even affected large groups: a new liturgical element, “candles of joy and concern,” has been added to the worship service in many Unitarian Universalist churches, wherein members of the congregation are invited to stand and share something personal with the entire congregation; there may be a perfunctory request for prayers or “good thoughts,” but what really happens is sharing without comment or action from anyone else, which is typical of the “sharing model.”

Even in larger liberal churches, where there simply isn’t time for all the “candles of joy and concern,” you will often see a time in the worship service where anyone who wishes may come forward and light a candle in silence. Here again, the emphasis is on sharing: the person lighting the candle is simply sharing that something is on his or her mind. In the older “doing model,” there would have been a pastoral prayer in place of this candle-lighting ritual; the pastoral prayer was more oriented towards “doing,” though, because it would ask the congregation to pray for others, or it would ask for God’s assistance.

The difference between the “sharing model” and the “doing model” is primarily one of theological emphasis. In the “sharing model,” persons are assumed to be essentially self-sufficient, or if persons are dependent on God it is because they have a direct relationship with God neither mediated through others, nor taking place in a covenantal community. In the “doing model,” persons are assumed to be responsible for taking care of others, probably before they take care of themselves.

Obviously, this is all subject to debate. But so far, does what I’m saying ring true for you — or not?

In Part II — sharing vs. caring.

Nor’easter

Carol and I went for a walk on Monday. A stiff wind coming out of the northeast hit us in our faces as we crossed the bridge to Fairhaven: a nor’easter had moved in. That evening, coming out of a church meeting, the wind caught the Endowment Committee when we stepped outside the door; once we were out, it slammed the church door shut: bang! We all hunched our heads down a little. I walked next to Ned as we headed to the parking lot. “Boy, the wind’s pretty stiff,” I said. “On the radio they said it’s up to thirty-five knots,” he said.

Rain beating on the roof awakened me sometime in the middle of the night.

Rain off and on all morning yesterday. The mailman, not our regular mailman but a fill-in, came in to the church office looking soaked. Linda said something about the rain. He said, “Yeah, but from here on the route is pretty much indoors. After this I go to a couple of the big buildings downtown, and I’ll be inside most of the rest of the morning.”

By the time I left for lunch, it had stopped raining.

More rain after dark last night. It awakened me once again: a sudden hard rain, blown by the stiff wind against the skylights. I didn’t know it, but the barometer was still dropping, and it bottomed out around two in the morning. No rain, but this time I was awakened by aching joints: the dampness and the low pressure finally got to me. I took an ibuprofen.

Finally, I got to sleep.

The clouds spit rain off and on all day today. Gloomy and damp. The big glowing numbers of the bank thermometer down at Union and Purchase never seemed to stir from 45 degrees, cold enough to make your hands ache if you walked for more than fifteen minutes. At seven o’clock this evening, I was sick of being cooped up inside. I went for a walk down along the harborfront. The wind had shifted into the north. The gloom slowly increased as somewhere behind the clouds the sun went down.

A real spring nor’easter.

The National Weather Service radar shows the storm is slowly moving off shore, big long strands curling around behind it: bringing us more clouds, more drizzle, cool temperatures, slowly rising barometric pressure. They’re predicting the storm won’t be fully past until Sunday.

Spring walk

Walking into the cold northeasterly wind, bits of white blew into my face.

I still remember the May snowstorm twenty years ago; no electricity for a week.

But these bits of white were apple blossom petals, blown off the tree by the wind.

This was on one of the street corners where immigrants protested yesterday.

The apple blossom petals blow off to reveal green new leaves emerging.

Spring watch

This morning, as I was getting ready to head up to the church, I happened to look across the street at the maple tree there. Our apartment is on the second floor, so I was looking right into the middle of the tree, the outermost branches still mostly covered with its tiny crimson flowers, although some of the flowers are dropping and the seeds are starting to form.

Some small birds were flitting through the branches. They were flying among the maple blossoms, presumably cropping either insects insects in the flowers, or the nectar from the flowers. This kind of behavior is typical of warblers, so I walked over the the window hoping for a glimpse of some brightly-colored mirgratory warbler. But is was plain ordinary House Sparrows engaging in this warbler-like behavior. Perhaps this is an example of an invasive species which is adept at surviing in a relatively hostile urban environment, filling an ecological niche usually filled by another species.