Bishop Hughes invites us to practice talking about our faith – not as a program to grow the church, but as a way to share God’s love with people who long to know that God cares for them. (Time: 5:59.)
Video Transcript
This is Bishop Hughes in the Diocese of Newark. Every Sunday, after worship is over, I head straight into coffee hour with everyone else, put the congregation into pairs and get them ready to do an exercise in which we practice talking about faith. Talking about faith is something that we don’t necessarily teach in the Episcopal Church, and it’s a necessary part of being a follower of Jesus Christ. It’s figuring out how to tell a little piece of our faith story. And I give them a narrow, narrow parameter to think of, and then they have two minutes to share that little, tiny piece with another person, and then they have two minutes to listen to another person talk about their faith. Then we talk about it afterwards.
And afterwards, everyone says it was touching, it was moving, it was interesting, it was inspiring, it was encouraging. And they all began to think, I could share this, these kinds of things, with other people. I know people that need to be touched and moved and inspired, and who would find it encouraging to hear a little part of the faith story.
And I encourage them to practice with each other first! Do six weeks of practicing with each other, and then trust that as you get better at doing this, God is going to just put someone in your path, the conversation will open up, and the next thing you know, you’ll be telling about how your grandmother taught you how to be a generous person, or you’ll be telling the story about how your best friend taught you how to pray out loud. You’ll be telling the story of being in a quiet room in a quiet space, and remembering a hymn that someone sang to you one time and just knowing, as you thought about those words, that God knew exactly where you were and was sending comfort just for you. That when we tell those kinds of stories, not only do we grow our own faith, but we grow faith in the listener.
Our tendency is to think the only way we can grow faith or grow the church, really – we don’t even think about growing faith, we think about growing the church – our tendency is to think, if we tell them what time services are and tell them what kind of church it is, if we tell them what the preaching is like and about the music and about the kind of ministry we do and what the children’s program is like. If we tell them all about church, or if we tell them doctrine, if we explain the baptismal covenant, or we tell them all the things that you must do or must not do to get in or out of heaven or hell, if we give them all the rules about being church, then that’s somehow answering their question.
And these aren’t the things that people are looking to hear right now. We are surrounded by people who feel like they are desperate to know that there is a God who knows them and loves them and cares for them, and we have those stories to tell, and those ways, the many different ways, so many different ways we’ve experienced God’s presence and God’s love And God’s mercy. So that is what telling our faith story does.
You know, immediately after I finish that, then I go into vestry, and guess what the first question I’m always asked in every vestry meeting, after we do all of that talking about faith: what do we need to do to grow the church, and how do we get more families with children? That’s the first question. I understand where it comes from.
I just want to encourage you, as I do every vestry: for a while, since everything you’re doing isn’t working to grow the church the way you want to grow the church, for a while, for now until Epiphany, let go of whatever program is in your head or you think can arrive that’s going to suddenly grow your church and fill it full of young families with children. Instead of that, focus on talking about faith. Focus on inviting people into Bible study or into prayer groups, or over to mission and ministry things that you’re doing. Focus on helping people who feel like they are at the very end of their rope, being that person who goes the way Jesus sent us.
Jesus tells us, go to the ends of the earth. We think that means we have to pack our bags and go somewhere. And I am telling you, we are surrounded by people who feel like they are at the ends of the earth. They feel hopeless, they feel confused, they feel afraid. They feel like, nobody cares about me in particular and especially no God cares about me in particular. But we’ve been sent by God. We’ve experienced God’s love and God’s presence, and we’ve been sent by God to go out there and share a piece of the faith.
This is the part that I think is the hardest of all, is that you’ve got to practice first. You’ve got to practice on a friend. You’ve got to get to that place where you’re so comfortable with talking about faith that when you’re standing in a line in a grocery store and you hear the person behind you saying how they just don’t feel like they can keep going, that you’re able to turn around and say, I know what that feels like. Can I say a prayer for you? Can I hold you in prayer? Can I add your name to my prayer list? Or you even say, I’ve had that feeling before, and I was surrounded by a bunch of people who really loved me and heard my whole story and were encouraging to me, and I am going to pray that you find a group like that. You don’t have to have all the answers. It’s just if you can tell a part of your faith story that so often that is just what people need to hear.
So I give you that homework the way I give it every single Sunday. Take a little piece of your faith story. Share it with a friend. Share it with somebody who knows you. Practice it until you get good at talking about faith. And trust me, God will send people to you as you are ready.
