Choosing to Grow:
A Pastoral Letter to a Community in the Process of Discernment.

(While this letter is offered from one pastor to one congregation, it is also for the spirit and hope of the whole church)

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
Just under a year ago, the Temple United Methodist Church Council adopted the following missional theme for our Church. “Growing in Faith. Growing in Mission. Growing in Number.” Most of you have heard it before. It has a nice ring to it. Everyone wants the Church to grow. Right? And truth be told, we’ve done pretty well so far. As we have focused on the first two areas, we have seen growth. We have grown in faith as we condensed our business meetings to one morning a month and expanded the number of Bible Studies, Prayer Groups and Spiritual Life Small Groups and other faith development opportunities. We have also grown in Mission as we have reached out to the African Continent with our Goat Project and our full time Missionary to South Africa. Moreover, we have focused locally on the development of Community Partners as we have covenanted with eight different community groups through sponsorship, sharing and cooperative efforts. Our latest Community partner, thanks be to God, is Jose Ortega Elementary School, where we have taken on the project of providing uniforms, supplies, and perhaps even helping them develop a music program!
And now we are focusing on the numbers piece.
What does it mean to “grow in numbers?” Well obviously, it means more people “joining” the church. More succinctly, though, it means bringing more people to Jesus Christ through involvement with a worshipping, practicing Christian community. This is a pretty basic mandate of faith (Matthew 28:18), and one that could use more intentional focus on our community.
When we start talking about a church “growing in numbers,” the focus pretty quickly goes to the worship environment of the church. Why? We look to worship because this is the focal point of our lives of faith. And we go there because nearly 100% of the people who will be joining us will come first to a worship service. So it’s important, even critical, for us to be clear, focused, and intentional about how and when we worship together.
For us as United Methodist Christians, the worship of God centers on the experience of God as revealed in the teachings, life and rising of Jesus Christ. When we come to worship, the point is for us to surrender ourselves to the power of God’s Spirit. The point is to make ourselves vulnerable to being transformed in love. It isn’t about a time slot – though we need to consider that. It’s not about worship styles - though we need to be able to communicate with our culture. It’s not about taste in music - though the music - like the rest of the service – must also speak to the culture. It’s not about any of those things which take up a lot of our time and attention. It is, first and last, about God. Even when we try to speak to the society around us, it is about God that we speak. It is about God’s transforming love in Jesus Christ. Nothing more, nothing less.
When it comes to worship, we must resist the urge to be consumers. The object of worship, again, is God….not you or me or the satisfying of our tastes. And so, as we pause to consider what it means to “grow in numbers,” it is also time to consider what it is that we are doing in worship as a Christian Church.
Looking at Temple’s worship life as it has been for more than a decade, some basic questions occur.
1) What is it we are doing in worship?
2) Why are we doing it?
3) Who is it we are trying to please?
4) In our worship is God’s love in Jesus Christ lifted up? Or are we lifting up ourselves?
5) In our worship, are we striving through praise, prayer, music and the preached word, to give ourselves over completely to God?
6) In worship are we offering Christ to the world, or trying to keep him a well kept secret among friends?
7) Does our worship reach out to others? Or is it designed to please only us?
8) Do the times of our services make it easy for others to join us? Or is it habit and convenience that determine our schedule?
9) We are only a few blocks from thousands of university students. How are we inviting and welcoming them into worship?
10) Our neighborhood is changing radically. Are we responding to the changes in terms of what we offer the community in worship opportunities?
11) As we practice “invitational evangelism,” who is it we wish to invite?
12) What new and creative things might we do to worship God in a way that
invites and welcomes?

As your Pastor, I call the entire faith community at Temple to seriously engage in prayerful discernment around these questions. I am calling us to go deeply into this. I am also calling everyone to think and pray “outside the box.” Let us use this opportunity to discover together how we can better offer Christ to the world through our worship life.
In the coming weeks I want to encourage each person to make an appointment to sit and talk with me about this. Let’s pray together. Let’s share deeply our prayerful consideration of the above questions. Let’s sit together and think outside the box about how our worship life might move forward in new and exciting ways as we reach out to offer Christ and to “grow in numbers.”
I am also setting up several “Listening Posts” in November where you may come and share in gentle, prayerful discussion about our worship life as a Christian community. Watch for announcements about these “Listening Posts” in the Church Newsletter, and on the Church Website.
As we move through this discernment time, I will be continually sitting and working with our Ministry Team, the Worship Committee and our Lay Leaders to gain a sense of where it is that God is calling us to go in this critical time in the life of our church.
I want to offer a personal thanks to those who have already taken the time and the careful focus to meet with me. I look forward to sitting with as many of you as possible in the coming weeks. Keeping each one of you always in my prayers, I am

Yours in the Peace of Christ,


Pastor Schuyler Rhodes