As you know, every year about
this time, the President delivers his annual “State of the Union” address to
Congress. Your pastor should do nothing less. This then is “The State of Your
Church.” It is an appropriate way to open the 50th year of ministry
at Highlands. For half a century, this church has sat on this hill, a part of
the neighborhood, a part of the community.
It was in 1967. Ronald Regan
became governor of California; the Doors released a record called’ Light My
Fire” and the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band;” the
Packers beat the Chiefs in the first ever Super Bowl; three astronauts died in
a fire on the Launchpad; LBJ made Thurgood Marshall the first African American
justice to serve on the US Supreme Court, Muhammed Ali refused to go to war in
Vietnam where thousands of young people were dying.
It was in the midst of all of
that that a group of dedicated Presbyterians laid the corner stone of this
church. They built the physical structure as well as a spiritual structure that
has endured for five decades. This church had pastors and lay leaders who left
a mark in the community. Highlands was one of the moving forces behind starting
Habitat for Humanity, working with the Cheyenne ministerial association to open
COMEA and start NEEDS.
The church is family and like
all families, this one went through some tough times in the 90s, losing members
which led to financial challenges. Like all churches, the children of those who
dedicated time and resources to building the church didn’t stay in the
community or the church. Attendance dwindled.
It was more than a decade ago
that I first preached here. The sanctuary faced the other way. I preached from
that old pulpit back there. I came once in a while, a part of a list of local
preachers Wendy rotated, spending her days trying to find one with an open
date. I recall there weren’t many folks in the pews very often, sometimes
12-15, but those who were had been here a long time and had dedicated a great
deal of their lives to making sure the doors stayed open.
One Sunday morning I preached
a sermon asking how they felt about the real possibility that they might be the
last people to ever worship here, that when the final one departed, the lights
would be turned off and the doors locked? One of the old timers said to me
afterward, “Well, pastor, “that may just be God’s will.”
Well, it wasn’t. God had
other ideas about that building on the hill at Pattison Avenue and Mountain
Road. God had other ideas about the people who sat in those pews. We have not
only remodeled our building, we have remade our community into a place that is
clear about what we believe and who we are…where people can come for
progressive theology, where questions and study are a part of faithfulmess, a
fellowship of those who care for one another, and an opportunity to live out
God’s call in your life as a part of Highlands’ commitment to the community.
Rev. Richard Crocker of New
Hampshire came to Wyoming a couple of years ago to study the impact of social
and cultural controversies on the Presbyterian communities throughout Wyoming.
He found that most avoid any dialogue about the tough social issues of our
time. He contrasted Highlands with them. His final report included this
statement:
Like many other mainline Protestant churches,
the PCUSA in Wyoming is trying to move forward, albeit slowly and deliberately,
against strong cultural headwinds. In such a storm, there is a tendency to
huddle together for protection. That is certainly one strategy for survival.
Another strategy, such as the one adopted by the Highlands Church, is to raise
a progressive flag and say “This is who we are.”
This is who we are! And who we are doesn’t just define this small group
but it’s the flag we fly as we go into the community with a voice and a message
that will be the catalyst for growing this church in 2017, doubling our
attendance and multiplying our missional impact in the community.
The next year will be a
challenge for anyone who cares about the poor, the elderly, immigrants, the
prisoner, those who are without health insurance or fear losing what they have,
others who rely on Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, food stamps or other
parts of what we have known as the “social safety net.”
There will be many challenges
for Christians who care about these things. BUT…these are the times for which God created the church.
I have never been one to
judge the vitality of a congregation by counting the numbers of people who show
up on Sunday mornings…but I have concluded that Highlands needs a strategy of
growth. Growth not simply to count more people on Sunday mornings but to have
more people with other gifts to share in the work we have to do. Whether this
church has an average attendance of 20, 30 or 50 or 100, God calls us to do the
same…the needs of the community are not set on a sliding needs scale that gives
any significance to the size of our church.
And I think God has special
need of a faith community that is willing to speak out, to be heard, to not
only feed the hungry and help to house the homeless, to help to heal the
addicts but to ask what there are so many hungry and homeless and hurting
people in this city. In that regard, Highlands has a unique and often lonely
voice. Growth means that voice will not only be louder but more influential.
I ask each of you to help one
another double the average attendance this year. That means each of us taking
personal responsibility to invite ONE other person to come and learn what it is
that makes Highlands your choice.
This year as we celebrate our
50th anniversary, we will launch the “Highlands has a future
Campaign.” You’ll hear more about this in the spring but it is an
acknowledgement that God won’t permit Duane and I to stay here forever. The
church needs to do some succession planning. Remember what Proverbs teaches,
“Where there is no vision, the people perish.” A church without as vision has
no future. This church has a vision for the future and will not perish but it
also needs a clear strategy for moving into that future.
Over the last year or so,
something happened seemingly by accident, something that if you sit back and
look at it, you’ll see God’s fingerprints all over it. Quietly and without any
specific plan, Highlands has become an incubator for significant developments
in this community. We have provided the space, the leadership and the seeds.
Compassionate Cheyenne and
RESULTS. I hope we can continue to be open to those and other similar
opportunities to plant these kinds of ideas and nurture them and help them
grow. It’s like Jesus’s parable about scattering seeds. Yes, some fall among
the thorns and rocks and never produce. Others fall into good soil and reap a
great harvest. In the coming months, let’s scatter more seeds.
Among them is the question of
Highlands’ response to the plight of refugees and immigrants. We cannot be
silent about this. It is sinful to call ourselves followers of Jesus and not
cry out about the fact that we live in the only state in the Union that refuses
to work with the federal government to resettle refugees. We can’t be silent as
we watch what is happening in Aleppo, as we witness people drown in boats they
hoped would deliver them from the violence in their homes.
Through scripture God
admonishes, “When strangers dwell among
you in your land, do not taunt him. The stranger who dwells with you shall be
like a native among you, and you shall love him like yourself, for you were
aliens in the land of Egypt—I am the Lord, your God” (Leviticus 19:33-34).
God created us and our fellow
human beings, not the borders that divide them and today determine who suffers
and who watches the suffering.
In the first few months of
2017, I will ask this church to consider our response. We will have a dialogue
about becoming a Sanctuary Church. You’d find resource material in the Clan and
hear it from the pulpit and during the Lenten suppers. I encourage you to do
your own Googling and learn more about this movement, a movement in which
hundreds of churches including many Presbyterians, have found to be a Christian
response to what is the major crisis of the day confronting the conscience of
the church of Jesus.
Finally, Highlands should
discern how we might model ways of caring for the environment. We’ll conduct an
energy study to determine what we can do to make this building more energy
efficient and look at emphasizing recycling.
Pound for pound, person for
person, our little church does as much or more than any faith community in the
city. But, isn’t that what we are called to do? I hope we will not become tired
by the work we do but inspired to do more and to enlist others to help. As Paul
said, “Let us not become
weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not
give up.”
Highlands is a
gift to the community and our greatest
gift to the community is to continue being who we are.
