Intention Deficit Disorder. Clever title (not mine, by the
way - it was coined by a Southern Baptist church consultant by
the name of Robert Dale(1)) which draws on A-ttention Deficit
Disorder, that mysterious malady that causes people's minds to
wander and prevents learning. Truth be told, it is a malady that
afflicts us all in one degree or another whether during dry
classroom lectures or the occasional boring Sunday sermon.
Now, IN-tention Deficit Disorder is a malady that afflicts
most all churches from time to time as well. It describes that
period in a congregation's life when we get our priorities mixed
up, when we major on minors, when molehills become mountains,
when we forget what we are all about. The only real "intention"
becomes continuing to meet Sunday after Sunday, balancing the
budget, keeping the building in good repair, and putting on a
good Christmas pageant. That is Intention Deficit Disorder.
Suddenly, the saints called Presbyterians in Warren, PA come
into the hallowed halls at 3rd and Market and see display after
display after display of opportunities for service. There are
ministries with youth and with the aged, there are ministries to
the hungry and homeless, there are ministries both at home and
abroad. Some need our hands and feet, some need our pocketbooks
and our prayers. Mission Month! It is an antidote to Intention
Deficit Disorder, a reminder of what we are all about.
Several years ago, on the occasion of this congregation's
175th anniversary, you were blessed with a visit from a former
Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church
(USA), the always delightful Marj Carpenter. For many years
prior to her election as Moderator, Marj was mission interpreter
for the Worldwide Ministries Division of our denomination and,
before that, she had served for 15 years as manager of the
Presbyterian News Service. Both positions gave her a unique
perspective on the life and ministry of our great church. At the
Assembly meeting in June, 1995, when Marj was nominated as
Moderator, she gave three words as focus for her campaign, three
words that, after her election, became her rallying cry for the
church during the following year: "Mission, mission, mission!"
In fact, during her visit here in Warren, she signed our
library's copy of her book of mission stories from around the
world,(2) "To my Presbyterian friends at Warren - think MISSION!
Love, Marj Carpenter."
Well, Marj we ARE thinking Mission. And what better time to
do it than during Lent, this time of intentional self-examination
and introspection? Most often we think of that as an individual
task, but it surely can be a corporate task as well.
Of course, this is not the first time that has been done
around here. No doubt it has happened often during the course of
179 years. Most recently, you spent time during the period
between pastors to look in the ecclesiastical mirror. The result
was the Mission Statement that is found prominently displayed
around these premises:
First Presbyterian Church exists to ~
- Worship God,
- Do God's Work,
- Teach The Word,
- Nurture All People, and
- Prepare for God's Kingdom
We will ~
- Celebrate God and the blessings given us, our congregation,
and our church,
- Focus on Christian Education,
- Encourage all people to reach their full potential as
children of God,
- Value every member's contribution,
- Create an atmosphere of growth, and
- Serve and support our church family, our community, and our
world.
A good statement. Of course, the only problem with Mission
Statements is that they often hang on walls or are printed in
promotional literature and then are promptly forgotten. Mission
Statements need hands and feet on them. Otherwise... dum, da,
dum, dum...Intention Deficit Disorder!
Speaking of Marj Carpenter, she wrote an article on her
favorite subject recently for The Presbyterian Outlook.(3) She
says,
Most television ads do not catch my attention, but
recently I saw one that did. It featured a little boy
being told something "wouldn't work." Then the ad
showed Lindbergh's plane, the Spirit of St. Louis,
which wasn't supposed to be able to fly across the
Atlantic. The ad's theme seemed to be for children
with daring ideas "to go for it."
And I thought, "What about churches with daring ideas
about mission?" To them I say, "Go for it."
I thought back to when a pastor at Spring Valley church
in Columbia, S.C., wrote and asked me, as news and
information director of the PC(USA), if I could mention
a project they were starting. It involved collecting
cans of soup on Super Bowl Sunday and they were calling
it "Souper Bowl." They asked rather humbly if it could
be mentioned in The Presbyterian Survey magazine. It
was, but just in a small item in the news section.
It was amazing. The project spread, first through the
Carolinas, then the South and throughout the country.
And it spread to other denominations and became an
ecumenical project that now raises more than $3 million
annually.
Another project started years ago when a church in San
Antonio decided to take children's shoes to a part of
Mexico. It had come to the congregation's attention
that children in this area were getting hookworm
because they had no shoes and went around barefoot. To
help collect new and used children's shoes for the
project, the church submitted a brief item to a simple
publication then known as "This Week." They ended up
with a truckload of shoes. As was reported then, "All
God's children ain't got shoes," but a few more had
them than before.
Marj did not mention it, but a project begun here at First
Presbyterian Church, Warren, has received national attention -
our Farmer's Market mission. Last year, at the inspired
suggestion of Dr. Brian Ripley, we began collecting home-grown
produce and home-made baked goods from the congregation, selling
it at the downtown Farmers' Market, then donating the proceeds to
the Presbyterian Hunger Program. If you recall, this past
November, the Rev. Gary Cook, director of the PC(USA) Hunger
office, joined us for worship and received the more than $1400
raised during our first summer's effort. By the grace of God,
this year we will do even better.
Marj continues,
As I receive and write up the "Presbyterians in Action"
items for THE OUTLOOK, I often see original and good
ideas. My hope is that other churches see them as
well, and venture to use some of them.
Somehow we get the idea that if it can't care for all
the ills in the world, a project is not worth trying.
We feel especially like that in regard to areas of the
world that seem to have endless troubles, such as the
Middle East, Ireland and Central America. What we fail
to realize is how much a little bit can help. I'm
thinking of a suburban church in Belfast where Gordon
Gray is taking a small step by bringing Catholics and
Protestants together to do community work. It's far
more important than we realize, but it's difficult to
fund because we want to see instant results. We want
it to be like an hour-long television show with a happy
ending...
Marj concludes,
Presbyterian friends, if you have an idea for mission,
don't let dour church members talk you out of it.
"Souper Bowl" was one Presbyterian's idea, as was the
shoe project for Mexican children [and the Farmers'
Market here in Warren]. Presbytery partnerships
overseas started as the idea of a Florida Presbyterian.
We can be thankful that Presbyterians respond so well
to disaster relief, hunger projects and self-development ideas. So keep the ideas flowing, friends,
and "Go for it."
Mission, mission, mission. "To my Presbyterian friends at
Warren - think MISSION! Love, Marj Carpenter." We recall the
words of our gospel lesson: Jesus said, "Peace be with you! As
the Father has sent me, I am sending you." Those words have been
called the Charter of the Church. "'The church exists by mission
as fire exists by burning.' The church was called into being to
serve the world, and when she repudiates her mission the church
ceases to be the church."(4) Intention Deficit Disorder.
On a dangerous seacoast where shipwrecks often occur, there
was once a crude little lifesaving station. The building was
just a hut, and there was only one boat, but the few devoted
members kept a constant watch over the sea, and with no thought
for themselves went out day and night tirelessly searching for
the lost. Many lives were saved by this wonderful little
station, so that it became famous. Some of those who were saved,
and various others in the surrounding area, wanted to become
associated with the station and give of their time and money and
effort for the support of its work. New boats were bought and
new crews were trained. The little lifesaving station grew.
Some of the members of the lifesaving station were unhappy
that the building was so crude and poorly equipped. They felt
that a more comfortable place should be provided as the first
refuge of those saved from the sea. So they replaced the
emergency cots with beds and put better furniture in the enlarged
building. Now the lifesaving station became a popular gathering
place for its members, and they decorated it beautifully and
furnished it exquisitely, because they used it as a sort of club.
Fewer members were now interested in going to sea on lifesaving
missions, so they hired lifeboat crews to do this work. The
lifesaving motif still prevailed in this club's decoration, and
there was a liturgical lifeboat in the room where the club's
initiations were held.
About this time a large ship was wrecked off the coast, and
the hired crews brought in boatloads of cold, wet and half-drowned people. They were dirty and sick, and some of them had
black skin and some had yellow skin. The beautiful new club was
in chaos. So the property committee immediately had a shower
house built outside the club where victims of shipwreck could be
cleaned up before coming inside.
At the next meeting, there was a split in the club
membership. Most of the members wanted to stop the club's
lifesaving activities as being unpleasant and a hindrance to the
normal social life of the club. Some members insisted upon life
saving as their primary purpose and pointed out that they were
still called a lifesaving station. But they were finally voted
down and told that if they wanted to save the lives of all the
various kinds of people who were shipwrecked in those waters,
they could begin their own lifesaving station down the coast.
They did.
As the years went by, the new station experienced the same
changes that had occurred in the old. It evolved into a club,
and yet another lifesaving station was founded. History
continued to repeat itself, and if you visit that seacoast today,
you will find a number of exclusive clubs along that shore.
Shipwrecks are still frequent in those waters, but now most of
the people drown.(5)
Intention Deficit Disorder, writ large, eh?
Intention Deficit Disorder. By the grace of God, not here,
not now, not ever!
Amen!
1. Quoted in Homiletics, March-April, 1998
2. Marj Carpenter, To the Ends of the Earth: Mission Stories from Around the World,
(Louisville, KY: Presbyterian Publishing Corp., 1995
3. "Go for It," The Presbyterian Outlook, March 5, 2001, p. 8
4. Donald G. Miller, The Nature and Mission of the Church, (Atlanta : John Knox Press,
1957), p. 69
5. Quoted in Howard Clinebell's, Basic Types of Pastoral Counseling, citing the source as
Theodore O. Wendel in "The Ecumenical Review," Oct 1953
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