Shameless Plug

I have composed a collection of songs for church use and have never plugged them before. So, why not.

The book and CD is called Psalms for the Church Year, Volume Ten, published by GIA. If you would like to hear a sample, go to the following link. My favorite is selection ten, Psalm 69: Lord in Your Great Love.

https://www.giamusic.com/store/resource/psalms-for-the-church-year-recording-cd429

GIA's venerable Psalms for the Church Year series has a fresh face with this new volume from Malcolm Kogut, who brings his gift for melody and his comfortable jazz-tinged style to this important new collection of psalms.

Malcolm fills some repertoire "holes" with these settings. He has set Psalm 47: "God Mounts His Throne to Shouts of Joy" for Ascension, and Psalm 45: "The Queen Stands at Your Right Hand" for Assumption, along with a mix of other common and lesser-known psalms. Using primarily ICEL refrains and several Grail translations, this volume is a worthy addition to the Psalms for the Church Year series. And, as with the other volumes, it includes reprint boxes of all refrains and a liturgical use index.

The Nativity Story in Candy

This is a wonderful children's homily but can be expensive, especially if you purchase jumbo sizes for visibility purposes.

As you reference each candy item, hold it up. As you write you own personal script for this, look for ways to repeat many of the candies so that anarchy ensues as you rifle through the once ordered pile to find what is next. Well, **I** think that chaos is fun.

Obviously your presentation requires the right inflection and pauses for the ultimate in campiness. Not only is this a wonderful children's homily but, the kids get to eat the homily after the service. So, in incomplete sentences, you can wax out the full story for yourself . . .

Angel appears to Mary, you are going to have a BABY Ruth.

He will be a LIFE SAVER

Joseph was a GOODbar about it.

They had to leave town because as an unwed pregnant mother, people in town would SNICKERS

The got on a donkey to SKITTLE out of town

They hit the TRAIL MIX

Exhausted from the trip, they decided to TAKE FIVE

When they arrived, they went from BAR to BAR to BAR (three Hershey's), there was no room anywhere.

Finally, at one inn, in a barn, they found room where Mary gave birth to her SUGAR BABY, our LIFE SAVER.

In the barn there were sheep, cows and maybe even a KIT KAT or a DOVE

Shepherds also TOOK FIVE and hit the TRAIL MIX

Mary and Joseph smothered Jesus with KISSES

(here, you can say "It get's worse.")

Herod was up to his old TWIX and sent three SMARTIES to find a babe in a stable.

They too hit the TRAIL MIX

These wise men astrologers were not DUM DUMs nor were they NERDS

They looked up into the MILKY WAY, assessing all the DOTS in the sky to find a specific STARBURST

Everyone thought they were MIXED NUTS to go on such a perilous journey to find a treasure (drops fistful of gold foil wrapped chocolate coins) in a stable.

When they found him, the gave him gifts of Gold (drops chocolate coins again), Frankincense and WHATCHAMACALLIT

They returned from their SNOW CAP'd journey to Herod and not wishing to reveal the location of Jesus, told him a WHOPPER.

Jesus, our LIFE SAVER is the RAISIN for the season.

When this homily was presented at my church, I don't think many of our kids got the puns but they oooh'd and ahhh'd at each delicious and yummy reveal.

Organ Concert; Flight of the Bumblebee

Free organ concert with Malcolm Kogut at Foothills Methodist in Gloversville.  June 3 at three. Free.  Here is a sample (Flight of the Bumblebee):

Lessons and Carols for Small Churches

Lessons and Carols for Small Churches

Someone asked for a hymn based lessons and carols format for churches with small or no choir.  Here is a template of one that I have used in the past. 

Welcome
Entrance Hymn "Oh Come, All Ye Faithful"
Opening Prayer
"O Little Town of Bethlehem"
First Lesson Genesis 3:8-5, 17-19
"Once In Royal David's City"
Second Lesson Isaiah 11:1-3a, 4a-9
"Away In A Manger"
Third Lesson Luke 1:26-38
"The Snow Lay On The Ground"
Fourth Lesson Luke 2:1-7
"Angels From the Realms of Glory"
Fifth Lesson Luke 2:8-16
"What Child Is This"
Sixth Lesson Matthew 2:1-12
"We Three Kings"
Seventh Lesson John 1:1-14
"Silent Night"
Blessing
Recessional "Angels We Have Heard On High"

Other carols to consider:  "Joy To The World," "I Heard the Bells On Christmas Day," "Lo, How A Rose E're Blooming," "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing," any Advent hymn or, you can substitute any solo or a choral anthem the choir is working on.

My Quora answer to What are hindrances and obstacles to church growth?

First and foremost is that society doesn’t beleive in the church institution anymore.  Churches are not called to grow but to serve.  When they serve, they begin to grow.  People are not dumb, they can recognize an insincere church right off the bat.  They can discern which ones are ice cold, lukewarm or red hot.  Most are lukewarm and that is their problem.  They won’t grow if they are lukewarm. 

Every church has it own challenges and obstacles.  Most of the time the hindrances are the people themselves. Growth comes from many avenues: good preaching, good music, a welcoming community, location, parking, energy level, comfortable space, social opportunities, service opportunity and consistency.

A church once asked me to give them ideas to help promote growth and I gave them a list of 18 activities that they could easily organize over the course of a year.  They said “I don’t like that one.”  “This one isn’t something that fits our community.” “We don’t want to attract those kind of people.” and “Who is going to do all this?”  I told them that energy begets energy, that they must incorporate people of all generational, cultural, economic and educational levels into a comprehensive program and, even if they start small they will grow.  They whittled the list down to three and then they didn’t even do those three.  Survival of the fittest.  Not to act is to act.

I think the church needs to be offering the community at least one activity or event each week.  Even if the unchurched community is not interested in every topic, at least they will see that this church is active and vibrant and may decide to give it a chance. 

I took a church with three services a weekend and after fifteen years we grew to five services and two of them were SRO.  There was no one thing that promoted the growth rather a sinuous network of everything.  Everything was comprehensive.  We got rid of youth, teen and adult choirs and evolved to a family choir.  The youth groups didn’t do their own youthy things but rather plugged into all the ministries of the community and church with the adults.  Our music too became comprehensive and we did away with the folk group, the traditional choir and the praise band.  We did all styles of music at every service and no group owned a particular service.

My suggestions for a church looking to grow are three things; Pastors, get out of your office.  Jesus didn’t keep office hours.  Get out and be with the people.  Establish a beat like the old timey police officer.  Regularly visit diners, bars, clubs, senior centers, nursing homes, jails, courts, be seen and heard.  Approach people and be approachable and wear your collar.  Don’t do it to drum up business, do it to comfort, heal, serve and welcome.  Go to the mall, sit on one of the sofas in the hallway and put out a sign, “I will talk to anyone about anything.”  Pass out your card for further ministering and don’t worry about your homily.  If these things you do, the homily will take care of itself.

Hire a music director who does not worship music, one where music is not his ministry but someone who loves people and music is the vehicle to ministering to them.  This person needs to spend time with the staff to come up with creative and diverse ideas and programs and know how to delegate lovingly and compassionately.  The children of Israel were taken as slaves of the Babylonians and the musicians were forced to entertain their captors but they refused and hid their instruments in the trees by the river.  The Babylonians said play or we will smash your babies against the rocks and they still refused.  Likewise, a true music minister needs to know when to put down their instrument and minister.  Their job isn’t an hour on Sunday morning.  It begins when the service is over and ends the following Sunday when they pick up their instruments to worship - not entertain.

Finally, as I said before, lots and lots and lots and lots of events and activities.  One activity can grow into something big.  I once played weekly organ recitals at noon on a weekday.  We started with about 20 people and after a year there were about 200 in attendance.  They didn’t come for the music, they came because it was the place to be.  My choir started bringing in refreshments.  The parolees in the shelter next door came for the refreshments.  A home for disabled adults started busing in residents to get them out of the facility.  Homeless people came in out of the cold.  The parolees began ushering at the door and cleaning up afterward.  The homeless began passing out flyers in the community.  Pastors, choir members and organists came to network.  Brides came to scope out the building.  A police officer came in regularly to chat with the parolees to see what he could do for them.  Eventually the parolees started to use the building during the day for their AA and NA meetings.  The place was a beehive of activity and people started visiting the church because - something was going on there.  As the psalmist foretells in Psalm 66:  Come and see what God has done: he is awesome in his deeds toward the children of man.

There is another thing, the church needs to give back to the community.  It needs to do something that makes a difference.  It needs to do several things that make a difference.  People want to be part of something that makes a difference, not just sit in a pew and be entertained.  When people visit or join the church, have ministries they can immediately plug into and I don’t mean things like altar guild, choir, usher or woman’s club.  Things like working the food pantry, prison ministry, mission trips, gun buyback programs, homeless shelter, or do something revolutionary like Canada’s safe injection center (drug users can go there to shoot up without fear of arrest but medical care and counseling is provided in case something goes wrong.  These centers have never had anyone die of an overdose while blocks away, people die from overdoses alone and unaided, hmmmph - do something revolutionary and save lives or not?), and, the church needs to tithe to some big program like California’s Housing Works program where they give houses to the homeless.  Yup, GIVE.  It gets them off the street and gives them stable shelter.  A homeless person can cost your county about $20,000 a year in medical care alone because they lack shelter.  With shelter and a place to secure a job from, they will be healthier.  Dollar for dollar, homeless shelters are not cost effective on the whole and are only a band-aid.    Check them out: housingworksca.org.  Start one in your community.

Too bad the church can’t focus on some of these problems rather than worrying about growth and paying the bills.  Pew people are not “customer acquisitions,” they are saints in the making.  Too bad we don’t have institutions that fostered that growth and marshaled those forces.  Oh, we do.  It is called the DSS.  They take care of the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the hopeless, the dying, the lonely, the abandoned, the imprisoned, the evicted, the illegal, the incurable, the different, the despised, the abused, the addicted, the forgotten, the neglected, the invisible, the battered and the frightened.  Right there in that sentence is an awful lot a church can set its sights on and grow - instead or arguing over whether to keep the kneelers or not, to put in pew cushions or not, or the new wall color, or renting space to the gay men’s community choir.  Not in my church!  Think of the children.

Halloween Organ Recital

Join the Foothills Methodist Church, 17 Fremont St. in Gloversville on Sunday, October 30, at 3:00 p.m. in the church sanctuary for an exciting Halloween organ recital featuring a smorgasbord of classics, favorites and surprises. Malcolm Kogut will perform pieces such as the vivid and bristling with energy Dubois Toccata and the ubiquitous Toccata in D Minor by J. S. Bach.  Other music will include Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody," Boellmann's famous suite Toccata, and  "In the Garden." The organ recital is free and open to the public.

I have been sober for 45 minutes

 Q:  What? 
A:  Two organ recitals. 

Q:  Boring! 
A:  I mean, no, not like that stuff you hear in church on Sunday. Sunday organ can be very boring but this recital, it's big, like, like really big, like OJ did it big.  You gotta come.

Q:  We have guitars and a band in my church. 
A:  The organ has a noble estate in church music.  It is a sustaining and strengthening instrument designed for congregational singing. Consider other instruments such as guitars, piano or percussion. Once you play a sound on any of these instruments the sound immediately begins to decay, necessitating more fills and chords.  But singing doesn’t work this way.  The organ’s sound lifts and sustains the voice of the congregation through each phrase, guiding each breath, and setting the character of the song through its wide range of voices.  The organ fills a room naturally making it possible to fill any space. An amplified band gives you a directional, electronic copy of the instruments while the pipe organ needs no amplification; Give it a chance.  You may go back to your guitars on Sunday.

Q:  Tell me about the two organs. 
A:  Trinity's organ is a relatively new three manual tracker which means it is very challenging to play for many organists who are trained but still don't know what they are doing ergonomically.  After the recital, feel free to go up and touch the keys.  Malcolm will be giving a talk about the ten ergonomic movements required to properly and effortlessly play a tracker and, how to avoid and cure tendonitis and carpal tunnel syndrome through natural movement.  The talk will begin around 2:30 but make a reservation so he can prepare materials.  The Foothill organ is an electronic four manual Rodgers with speakers placed around the room for the ultimate in surround sound.

Q:  Is there a Malcolm Kogut action figure? 
A:  We would think so.

Q:  Is Malcolm Kogut still alive? 
A:  Yes, as far as we know.  We don't have any current information about his health.  However, being older than 40, we hope that everything is okay.

Q:  Where was Malcolm Kogut born? 
A:  On a hill, far away in Troy, NY

Q:  What is Malcolm Kogut doing now? 
A:  Supposedly, 2016 has been a busy year for him.  However, we do not have any detailed information on what he is doing these days.  Maybe you know more.  Feel free to share the latest news, gossip and official contact information with the person next to you.

Q:  Are there any photos of Malcolm's current hairstyle or shirtless?
A:  There might be.  But unfortunately we currently cannot print them here.  We are working hard to fill that gap though.  Check back tomorrow or Google it.

Q:  Where are these recital things? 
A:  THERE ARE TWO; The first is on April 10, at Trinity Lutheran Church at 42 Guy Park Ave, Amsterdam, NY 12010. The theme here will be "Old Friends."  It will be somewhat selfish on Malcolm's part in that all the pieces will be pieces that he likes to play, has played many times and they fit like a glove.  Not like the OJ glove but, bigger.

The second is on May 22 at Foothills Methodist Church at 17 Fremont St, Gloversville, NY 12078. This recital will consist of patriotic music.  The final number is guaranteed elicit a standing ovation from the audience.  Both recitals are at three o'clock in the afternoon.

Q:  Cost? 
A:  They're freeeeeeee! (my Harvy Levin impersonation).

Bio:
A letter from Malcolm Paul to the internet; I am very pleased and excited to be performing these recitals on April 10 and May 22, at three, and I Tertius, who wrote this letter, am pleased to be going, also.  Malcolm has been playing the organ since he was 15 and by simple calculations, that makes him OLD which is often fatal and highly contagious; To be more precise (and nerdy), his current age as of right now is 19742 days or (even more geeky) 473804 hours. Malcolm was born on the 16th of January which was a Tuesday meaning he was conceived between April 21 - April 29.  His next birthday is only 245 days from today.  BTW, at both recitals, I hear there will be cake. 
   
Sample links of each organ (Stars and Stripes):
Foothills Organ: http://youtu.be/MGbI3gHmnKs
Trinity Organ: https://youtu.be/yJQRQaEeNLc

Re-Purposing Church - for Entropy

It is no secret that attendance at most churches has been significantly declining over the past three decades.  There are many and varied reasons for this exodus but those issues are not my focus for this blog.  In my travels visiting churches, I have witnessed that many church facilities which were built for larger congregations now have meeting, classroom and gathering spaces which are no longer being used because the congregational population is not there nor active anymore.

I have recently visited four churches who have embraced a gambit which they called the "re-purposing" of their space.  One church turned their entire facility into a daycare program.  It is run by a staff hired by the church and they have over 30 children, none of which are parishioners of the church.  The pastor said it was their bread and butter and panacea for the church's fiscal woes.  Since the church facilities are somewhat small, the daycare takes over the entire church complex including the sanctuary.  The downside of this wonderful program which serves the community is that it cripples the church of any day time use.  As a director of prayer and worship and organist, that would mean I wouldn't have access to the facility for practicing, rehearsals, meetings or recitals midweek.  For me that would be a tremendous handicap since I dedicate my full time to serving and growing the parish which would include and demand weekdays.  Many of the programs I would design would require use of the facilities at this time because most of the regular ministry programs with the laity would naturally take place in the evening.  Still, it is a wonderful service the church provides the community but doesn't do much to build the worshiping community since as I mentioned, the families of the children do not belong to the church.

Another church has a four story Sunday School complex, huge kitchen and gymnasium as part of their sprawling facility.  Now that the congregation size is down to about 50 members, they have no use for all that space.  In the spirit of re-purposing, they now rent out three floors to the Department of Social Services who operates a daycare center for underprivileged families.  This wonderful program provides free daycare to over 200 children each day but likewise, none of the families belong to the church.  Meanwhile, on the ground floor they rent out office space to whomever wants it.  They have an freelance writer, a volunteer organization that repairs books then sends them out to libraries, a supplemental food pantry for the city, an out of town attorney who comes in once a week to meet with clients, and the local police department even has a room for when the officers on foot need a place they can retire to to get warm or, whatever.  The gym is rented out to a Judo instructor who offers classes each evening.  The problem with that is that the choir room is adjacent to the gym and there is only a portable divider wall between the two rooms.  The judo students complain about the choir and the choir complains about the judo classes.  But, such is the level of respect many music programs have in churches.  Money trumps all.  The pastor told me that their small congregation has no further use for the large kitchen facility with two ten burner stoves, two ovens, a large walk in freezer and dinning service for up to 800 settings.  I suggested that they find someone looking to start up a bakery to rent the space or at least offer the space to one of the many organizations who provide meals to the poor.

The other two churches have likewise re-purposed their spaces in an effort to make money and at least gives the appearance that the church is alive and vibrant.  I asked one pastor what ministries his church provides for the community and the only answer he had was re-purposing.  What do they pay him for?

While it is a great value to businesses and individuals who are small, poor, or are community service organizations, to have access to a space they can call their own without exorbitant overhead costs, it doesn't appear that any of these business partnerships bring new people into the churches.  Many churches offer space to AA and NA groups but I suspect that the people who attend these valuable and life saving services ever even consider joining the host church.

I did serve a parish where the AA and NA people using our building began to participate because they regularly interacted with our church staff and were invited to take part in activities.  They started attending my weekly organ recitals, then volunteering to serve as ushers, then they began coming to our pot lucks, then in exchange for rent they volunteered to do work around the building complex, then some of them began attending Sunday services, a few became members and got married in the church and had children.  Growth does work but only if there is the initial and maintained energy to make it work.  Energy begets energy but it has to be sustained and re-worked for any program to sinuously network and bear fruit.  If pastors dedicated their time to doing this, the homily would take care of itself.

The downside of re-purposing dormant church space is that if the church ever hires the right person and the church begins to see growth again, they will no longer have the facility and resources that is required to accommodate that growth - unless they evict their tenants.  I know that many church people reading this will say that their church doesn't have anything going on during the weekday hours so renting out that space doesn't hurt the church in any way.  That may be true so, hire people who will develop programs to begin attracting people willing to serve and minister, thereby filling and requiring those spaces once again.  Start with the clergy.  Many pastors need to get real jobs instead of pretending to serve the community and hiding in their offices five days a week avoiding the people who really need them.  I know one pastor who did that for five years then blamed the congregation for the lack of growth in the parish.  If a pastor is bored, frustrated and depressed from his job, chances are they are not helping the parish or people either.  Churches are becoming irrelevant and they seem to be doing whatever they need to to survive, except actively live out the Gospel. I hate the direction these churches and pastors are going.  They are doing everything to survive except their jobs.  A disgruntled and fed up (now ex) Roman Catholic priest once told me that the place God calls a church to is the place where their deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet.  Wow, that is really simple and powerful.  Maybe the church should try that.  Don't say it is easier said than done.  Just do it.  As the great spiritual leader Yoda once said, "There is no try, only do."

Why Atheists should Go To Church

A friend of mine suddenly stopped going to church because his teenage son was arrested for selling pot.  Yes, he is a scary drug dealer and probably has connections to Mexican drug cartels and has been involved in murder, abduction and child slave labor.  Actually, he just sold pot to a friend who entrapped him in an effort to have his own charges dropped.  Back to my friend, he was embarrassed and ashamed that this happened to his family and nobody from his church reached out to him.  He admitted to me that he was an atheist and church had no value to him, he was only going out of a Catholic obligation to a nascent guilt.  I disagreed with him that he shouldn't attend because they needed him and he needed them, but he needs to work through this on his own.  However, here are some generic reasons and granted, I am grasping here but indulge me.

1)  Church gives you a place where you can breath.  Many people will say that they don't sing but in your everyday life, you sing.  If you yell, you are using the same body parts and emotion that goes into singing.  If you scream, the same.  Do you speak with inflection such as you would when you speak with surprise, tenderness, comfort, imitation, sarcasm or chiding?  All that is part of the singing apparatus too so, yes, you sing.  The difference between saying those things and singing them though, that is where the difference lies.  When you sing, you are sustaining tones which forces you to awaken muscles between your ribs, your diaphragm, your chest and head.  An added benefit to actual singing is that you are taking in oxygen more deeply and richly than you would only by speaking.  That increased oxygen gets in your blood where it goes straight to your brain and muscles which are nourished and repaired by the newly oxygenated blood.  Singing is healthy.  If you are a health nut, singing should be part of your weekly routine and church is a perfect place to exercise those muscles without the worry of someone hearing you. If your church has a pipe organ, there is even more acoustical space to hide in.  Pianos and guitars have a natural decay and less secure to hide your voice therein.  Once you play a sound on any of these instruments the sound immediately begins to decay, necessitating more fills and chords.  But singing doesn’t work this way, and the continuity of the sung line is often disrupted.  The organ’s sound lifts and sustains the voice of the congregation through each phrase and guiding each breath.  The organ thrives in an open room and it fills the room almost like sunlight through open windows, the organ warmly invites even hesitant and untrained singers to join in.  An amplified band gives you a directional, electronic copy of the instruments. The pipe organ needs no amplification; the natural sound of the instrument itself fills the space evenly and fully with its massive range.  The organ can breathe musical life into any part of the Gospel story and your body.

1a) When you hear music, there are fireworks going off in your brain.  FMRI scans have shown that when people listen to music, multiple areas of the brain light up and when participating, music engages practically every area of the brain at once, especially the motor, visual and auditory cortex.  Strengthening those areas of the brain allow us to apply those strengths to other activities.  This also bridges the activity in the corpus callosum which regulates the left and right hemisphere of the brain. This allows you to solve problems more effectively and creatively in both academic and social settings. Because crafting music also involves understanding emotional content and message, musicians often have higher levels of executive function; a category of interlinked tasks which include planning, strategizing and attention to detail and requires simultaneous analysis of both cognitive and emotional aspects. This ability also has an impact on how our memory systems work. Transubstantiation may become more physical for after singing an hour in church you will leave a different person, more energized, alert and cerebrally attentive.

2)  Along the lines of music, attending the right church is a great place to hear masterworks of choral, instrumental and organ literature from the 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st century, all in one place.  Sure, you can buy a CD or find classical stations on the radio but hearing it live in the space the music was designed and composed for is much better.  Even if you don't sing, sitting there gives you the opportunity to set aside some time to reflect on your life in a holy space with holy sounds among holy people.

3)  You will be supporting local musicians.  Many musicians in churches are volunteers but a few of them such as the director or accompanist are probably paid.  Many of these people also play in clubs, bands, bars, are involved in community theater, compose and teach.  By supporting them in the church, you are supporting the circle of music in the community.

4)  Going to church also helps you to find community.  My friend, whose son was arrested could have found support, comfort and community but unfortunately his church was also embarrassed about the situation and didn't realize that not to act is to act.  It takes a lot of courageous effort to cultivate that sense of courage to seek and heal.  However, after that courage is marshaled, it will be discovered that it takes no effort or courage at all to heal.  I know of another church whose pastor lives in his own house so the rectory was empty.  When one of the elderly members fell into financial instability, there was no question that she could stay at the rectory free of charge. That is what church communities do for one another.  So, you don't have to go to church to find out what they can do for you, you can go to find out what you can do for them.  It is in serving others that we are served.

5)  Many people, even atheists, have a nascent sense of spirituality within them.  That means it is present but not active.  A friend of mine was arrested (hmmmph, I know a lot of people who were arrested) and he stayed at my house for a week because he wanted to get away and hide from everyone and take time to figure out his future life while it was falling apart around him.  A staunch atheist, he decided to attend church with me on a Saturday evening because I had to play and he didn't want to sit home alone.  Something touched him in the service and he went up for Communion.  He said he felt close to the God he didn't beleive in and it was comforting for him to be there.  He made an appointment to meet with the priest during the week but unfortunately the Roman Catholic priest alluded that he was not welcome there but, God bless anyway.  What a missed opportunity for both.  Most often the biggest problem with the church are its clergy because they lack the courage to do the right thing for fear of being accused of doing the wrong thing.  Not to act is to act and everyone loses.  It is easy to do the wrong thing then blame the one you are ostracizing.   They protest too much.

6)  As I mentioned earlier, going to church may help you find purpose.  An active church can provide you with the opportunity to volunteer to help where it's needed, a way of intentionally focusing on something transcendent and on becoming a more loving person while helping others.  Church's can be a great place for social gathering, too.  People are usually warm, friendly and accepting, at least in a good church! They may have groups that interest you and even have some missions which for you, even as a non-believer, you can participate in toward helping others in need. That is what is most fulfilling in life; having purpose and helping others.   When two hurricanes hit my area I was volunteering to answer a suicide hotline and was moved up to handling a disaster relief hotline for FEMA.  I did that for about three weeks, seven days a week, about ten hours a day.  Albeit exhausting, it was a very rewarding time for me.

7)  The point of the sermon on Sunday of any church is to learn how to apply scripture to your life.  This is a simple concept but many clergy think they have to be creative, gimmicky and entertaining and often miss the mark of breaking open the Word.  Even if you don't beleive that scripture is true spiritually or historically, there is great philosophy in the teachings of both the old and new testaments.  Even if you don't believe in God, you can agree to a lot of the values found in scripture as great truths.  Many of the stories have great lessons and you can find answers to many of your concerns and problems therein.  Our lives become the stories that we listen to and re-tell.  If you don't want to take the time to read the bible, start with the Jefferson Bible which is comprised of only the words of Jesus (the red words).  That can be very inspiring for those without a lot of time to weed through the historical and cultural detritus of scripture.

As long as you are not attending church to cause a disturbance, I would encourage going. The social, psychological, and spiritual benefits of participating in the liturgy and a community can be inspiring. If nothing else, you will get free food and coffee after the service.  That brings up a couple of other more over the top reasons to go.

8) The bible is loaded with good horror stories.  In the Bible, you can find stories of unsurpassed cruelty: murder, rape, incest, torture, slavery, cruelty to women and children, witchcraft, angry gods, natural disasters, plagues, wars, duels, mutilations, crucifixions, more blood than you can shake a stick at, and of course, eternal torment! Much of Hollywood's success comes straight out of the Bible. If you like horror, lust and greed, the bible is a great read.

9) Church is a great place for stand-up comedy.  Practically every page of the bible has something funny, ironic, dry or revealing in it if you look for it.  Preachers are willing to say anything from their pulpits! Many of them start off their homily with a joke and the comedy doesn’t end there either. Seeing some fundamental clerics affirm with a straight face their literal belief in a Noah’s ark, that dinosaurs didn't exist (a distraction planted there by old Scratch himself) or that the sun was “stopped” until some Jews won a battle, is hilarious! Yes, churches can provide hours and hours of knee-slapping entertainment if you know what to look for!

In some churches, you absolutely cannot be a member or be welcome to participate in the liturgy if you are not baptized, a member, affirming or have jumped through some other corporate hoops.  The Roman Catholics have many restrictions, the Episcopalians are more welcoming and lax, some churches require background checks (they don't want sinners), women are second class citizens in some, some are just cold, some don't like gays, while the Unitarians will take anyone.  Do some research, that might be half of the fun.  Visit a different church each week, take pictures and review them on Google or Yelp and talk about the music, homily, people, art, food, windows, flowers, whatever.

In the end, you may discover that some of your hookah-smoking and beer-drinking buddies are church mice.  You can share many a night around a fire-pit with those people discussing the spirituality of STAR WARS, HARRY POTTER and THE LION or THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE or STARGATE.  It can become something you'll never want to give up because even if you still don't beleive, you're a family.  Whatever brings people together is worth exploring.

So, come, all are welcome.  Well, not everyone, everywhere but, try.  If they don't want you, shake the dust from your feet as you leave (That's from scripture.  It was Jesus' polite way of saying, well, I can't say it).

Social Media Won't Last Forever

A local priest was recently arrested for using his cell phone to take pictures of a woman changing in a Salvation Army thrift shop.  I guess he didn't know that porn was rampant on the internet and free for the taking.  His court appearance was adjourned until January 20th so we won't know what sex offender crime he will be charged with until then.  Immediately after posting bail though, he closed all his online accounts such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin.  He didn't have to do that since there was nothing immoral about what he had on those sites (and, they can still be seen in the Google Cache).  What is sad though is that he had pictures of his church, parishioners, his family, cars and everything good about himself and others posted therein.  All that is good about him is gone forever and what remains are the dark sided news articles detailing his deviant behavior.  One "oops" erased a lifetime of "attaboys" but, such is our holier than thou, unforgiving and vengeful society.  The Facebook comments about him from "good" people only wish for him to be shot, rot or burn. 

It got me thinking though about our zeal to digitize photographs, posting them online and expecting that they are going to last forever; That might turn out to be wrong.  If there are photos we wish to keep "forever," we should consider creating a physical instance of them and print them out, then store them in "ye old fashioned" photo album.  I still have my grandmother's album, my mother's and my own childhood albums stashed away in the attic for future generations to view.  A friend of mine has a 20 year old son and they don't have a single hard copy photo of him.  They have thousands of digital photos stored here and there, though.  Today's online, high tech and cloud data storage system will most likely become tomorrow's floppy disc. We are currently living in the digital dark ages and printing our photos is probably more secure over time than merely posting them.

Think about it.  If websites such as Megaupload can be taken down, or if a social media website can go out of business such as Zurker, iMee, Posterous, or they can just fade away into obscurity such as Myspace, what could the future hold for other online storage and social sites where we post everything about our lives to?  If terrorists wanted to hurt everyone in the world in one fell swoop, they'd take down Facebook.  That actually wouldn't be a bad thing . . .

What we know about generations before us we have gleamed from written records and old photographs.  If a disaster were to strike our civilization or time simply wanes on and what is popular now becomes banal and trite in the future, how will historians and archaeologist learn about us if our digital footprint dissolves, is deleted, becomes demagnetized or is simply taken offline by our own doing, our failure to log in anymore, care-less relatives or, our favorite social media site where we store our pics simply ceases to exist?

We can still read 5000 year old hieroglyphs carved in stone.  We can still decipher three thousand year old ink on papyrus.  We still have books written in 1,000 year old ink and paper.  Digital copies of our 100 year old celluloid recordings are quickly being duplicated because they are decaying at a rapid rate.  The earlier magnetic tape recordings less than fifty years old are almost unintelligible because they too are decaying at a rapid rate. It seems our new technology does not have a relatively long shelf life.

Even if the medium still exists, the technology to read them will soon be obsolete and impossible to find.  Consider the following medium for data storage:  vinyl audio records, cassette tapes, 8 track tapes, card readers, punch cards, 5 and 1/4 inch floppy disks, 3 and 1/2 inch disks, zip drives, CD's, DVD's and now, the cloud.  Heck, I have data which I stored on thumb drives and they are unreadable today after the old age of ten years.

See the pattern?  Not only does the digital data decay rapidly but the hardware to read those formats is rapidly disappearing, too.  Don't expect the thousands of family photos you have stored on your phone, the cloud, your computer, on Facebook or on a disk will be there in 100, 50, 20 or even 5 years.  As the priest in my opening paragraph taught us, your digital footprint can be wiped out overnight, or your cloud company can go out of business or taken down such as Megaupload.  Social media websites or your working personal computer can be gone tomorrow taking your whole digital life with them.

There is a solution.  Get yourself to one of those struggling scrap booking stores dotted across the country and find out how you can get your precious memories stored in a slightly more secure photo album.  And don't use home laser or inkjet printers as they too fade over time.  Have your pictures printed from high quality printers using quality paper and ink.

Then, instead of just posting your picture to Facebook for your 800 closest friends to see, invite family and friends over for a meal, sit on the floor around the fireplace with a glass of wine and look through the photos together, sharing stories, making new memories and maybe taking more pictures.

Time weaves ribbons of memories to sweeten life when youth is through.  Like memories, our technology and online presence can fade and disappear.  How cool will it be for your great grandchildren to be rummaging through the attic and find a photo album of their ancestors - hopefully it won't be a book filled with selfies.  As I look through the old black and white photo album of my grandmother, I don't see many pictures of her but, I do see the pictures of the many people whom she loved.

-Malcolm Kogut.

Why the Church is Losing Membership

Running Hawk of the Lakota Nation once said that religion is for people who are afraid of Hell.  Spirituality is for people who have already been there.  Are our churches filled with the first or latter and how does that affect the growth of the church?

People are leaving the institutional church in droves.  Many of the peripatetic people are not taking the time to technically leave, they are just not going anymore.  Despite that, there are a few churches in my area who are boasting that their congregations are bursting at the seams but they are just cherry picking their data.  One church dropped from five Masses each weekend down to two.  The priest at that church reports that his two Masses are packed every Sunday; consolidating five Masses into two is not growth.  Another pastor was interviewed by a local paper where he said that his church has seen significant growth and every Mass is packed.  He failed to mention that the bishop of his diocese closed three other churches in his community and his church simply picked up the people who lost their buildings.  New people where not suddenly going to church, regular attendees just got displaced and had to find a new home.

I have heard all the excuses why people are leaving the church such as society is lost, or they are sexually deviant, they don't beleive in God, they think the church is full of hypocrites, the church worships money, that gays and atheists and politicians and Hollywood have destroyed morality and our society of lemmings is blindly following.  All that may be true to a certain extent but those people are still not the problem, the church is. Ultimately the church is terrible at choosing which battles to fight and how to reach out to those who see the church as irrelevant.

A church was hiring a new music director and the best candidate who had promising ideas and talent turned out to have a felony record.  Instead of hiring him they hired the next guy in line who lacked vision, worshiped music and consequently destroyed their existing music program.  That church chose to die rather than forgive.  They failed to walk the walk and realize that Jesus, a convicted felon himself, while on the cross didn't take an honest man to paradise with him but another convicted felon.  That church lost members who were not only frustrated by the diminished music program but some people left because an unforgiving church was not a church they wanted to be part of or thought they belonged to. Ultimately, churches would do well to replace their staff with people who only have the goals of serving God.

Each day our communities are beleaguered with violence, hunger, homelessness, drug abuse, racism and judgmentalism.  Meanwhile our churches are battling with issues such as, do we take out the kneelers or leave them in?   Should we have background checks to protect our children?  Should we put in pew cushions and carpet?  Do we buy a pipe organ or electric organ?   Should our music be more upbeat and contemporary?  Should we purchase a pool table for our youth group room?

Now to be fair, there are churches who address the big issues of violence, hunger, homelessness, drug abuse, racism and judgmentalism very well.  Most people would very much like to be part of those solutions but when the church bickers about something other, it can be a turn off.  The decision to put in a carpet may not be the reason someone leaves a church but it could be the proverbial straw that breaks the camel's back.  Usually there have been a series of disillusionment or a longing for something more.  The church should work on ministry and leave the building issues to the professionals they hire.

I once had a choir member who didn't like the fact that our church, the church she was raised in, was a liturgical church.  She longed for a more charismatic approach to worship.  She said that the church used an archaic and dusty language which didn't resonate with her.  It didn't give her comfort and she said that the message she heard each Sunday wasn't worth hearing.  When she came to me expressing this ache in her heart and that she was interested in the local Assembly of God congregation, I didn't try to talk her out of it.  She was no good to us if she was unhappy and guilt ridden.  I told her to try them out for a few months and if that style of worship made her feel closer to God and the community, then she had my blessing but, our door was always open for her if she ever wanted to come back.  We never saw her again but she became very active in her new worshiping community's food bank and soup kitchen.  She went on to organize a mission trip to South America.  For her and her spiritual needs, she chose right.  She is no longer at war with herself and the church and now her battleground is with poverty.  Who knew this Milquetoast of a person had it in her to become a General in the army.  That is what happens when you have faith and there is an opportunity to turn it loose.

Another reason people may choose another church is for their Sunday production value.  People may have joined their church because of the music but, I don't want people to come for the music.  Instead I want my music to inspire them to action, to be re-energized, to oxygenate their blood, to transform them, to remind them of a Kaddosh moment from their life, to be part of an awakening to a call for action, to feel joy.  Many church organists are just organists.  That is too bad. 

The music we sing should not simply be a song that fits into a time slot like most musical offerings in our worship services are.  It should speak to the needs of the community, not preach to nor entertain them.  Much like the words of an uninspired preacher, music can also speak in a foreign dusty tongue.  Some of our music holds onto dusty words that have no resonance in the ears of society, not realizing that just singing those words louder or faster isn't the answer.  Religious buzzwords and fancy octavos used to work 50 years ago but they don't anymore.  This spiritualized insider-language keeps regular people at a distance. People need the music to speak in a language that they can understand. They long to sing songs that pertain to what is happening in their lives this day.  People don’t need to be dazzled with big production numbers larded with churchy words that are about eschatological frameworks and theological systems or warm and fuzzy theology.

Too many organists don't see how pastoral and ministerial their work is.  I knew an organist who never played the same song twice in a church.  He would date each piece and never repeat it again.  People love to hear their favorite song over and over and if something an organist plays or the choir sings resonates with people, why not use it again?  The same holds true for hymns.  I fell in love with a new song called "You Are Mine" and I thought it would serve my parish well for funeral purposes and decided to use it every week for a month.  The confirmation class liked it and asked if I would play it for their confirmation Mass and the song became a comfort and favorite of the parish over time.  Another song I selected for a whole month was "All Are Welcome."  The city was planning to put up a parole shelter next door to the church and the church was protesting so I thought that the congregation needed to hear that message over and over again.  The church lost the battle and the parole shelter was put in.  Some members left.  All are not welcome.

A lot of churches have drastically changed their gimmicky worship styles to include lights, stages, elaborate sound systems, bands, videos screens, computer graphics, cameras and big production numbers from the praise band.  In reality this is just noise to those who are really seeking an encounter with God.  It is a distraction that has little importance, purpose and applicability to the rest of their week, or for people who are trying to grapple with the painful and confusing issues in the trenches of their real lives.

I have nothing against tech, I use it myself.  I own four cameras, mixing boards, a switch box and the ability to stream live but I don't use those tools other than for recitals.  If my church wanted to move in that direction for ministerial purposes then I'd gladly donate my expertise for that purpose but, the gimmick of a church "rock show" simply doesn't make a difference in peoples' lives.  People can find entertainment anywhere.  Church shouldn't be entertaining.  Church  should challenge us and inspire us to do something with our lives.  Yes, many people who don't know what they are looking for may choose a church that offers entertainment but, that is all those churches may have and it requires a lot of energy to maintain that illusion.  "Ignore the man behind the curtain."

There is a church near me who has a full time youth minister and a youth group budget of about $50,000 per year.  The youth have their own service, plan all the music and readings and no adults are permitted to attend that service.  The music by most standards would be  deemed liturgically inappropriate for they use pop songs in place of sacred music such as "Lean on Me" and "Don't Stop Believin'."  They average over 200 teens each week and despite that, they don't have a collection anymore because it would usually yield about ten bucks.   Their swanky teen lounge sports a pool table, ping pong table, Foosball table, several sofas, a small kitchen, a 54 inch flat screen TV, a game console and WiFi.  Post service activity include copious amounts of pizza and soda.  For a teen on Sunday night, it's the place to be.  When the teens graduate high school, they are not permitted to come back because they are now adults nor do they bother to join the church they don't know.  The whole program is a wash financially and only gives an outward appearance of being spiritually alive, active and having a reputation for success.  I'm sure many will disagree about the efficacy of the program but the numbers don't lie because on Sunday morning the youngest person in attendance at the normal Mass is 60 years old because the kids just don't ever come back.  I bet most youth programs are much the same.  Dollar for dollar, they are not a very good investment. Kids, like adults, yearn for a message worth sharing and an opportunity to act on it and make a difference, but it’s hard to hear that message above gimmicky pyrotechnics.

Some friends of mine heard that message and sent their daughter to Arizona one summer to help build housing for the poor.  She came back a different person, with vision, drive and the decision to dedicate her life in service of the poor.  She really wants to become a priest in the Roman Catholic Church but we know that isn't going to happen.  That's another issue which drives our contemporary society away.  Like many issues, the church is usually on the other side of popular opinion.

I knew a Methodist pastor who wanted to start a satellite church in a strip mall in a poor section of a nearby city.  They would move their food pantry there and offer counseling with meeting rooms and ancillary worship space.  His parish council shot down the idea citing that it would be expensive and they wouldn't have the volunteers to run it.  I applaud the pastor's vision - instead of trying to lure people to the church, to instead go out to where the people already are.  Just because the parish council didn't think anyone in the parish would volunteer didn't mean that once people found out about this ministry they wouldn't take part or join.  Especially people in the community where this vital ministry would have been offered.  The parish council couldn't see past its own building. Ironically this church has a large wooden sign above their front door which can only be seen as you leave the church to the parking lot.  It says "Enter." When you leave the church you are entering the mission field.  The best way to reach the people who don't come to church is to get out of the building and go to them.  Get out of the building!

Churches don't walk the walk.  My dear friend Maggie's husband was arrested for a consensual yet illegal sex crime with a teenager.  They were immediately ostracized from their church (as was the victim, strangely).  When they approached the pastors at several other churches about joining, the answer was always the same; they were not welcome.  Some churches are not very forgiving or loving or welcoming.  That was too bad for the many churches who turned their backs on them as Maggie and her husband are very well off financially and tithe over $100 weekly.  Unable to find a church who accepted sinners, they formed their own little living room church with several friends who were more forgiving and they all left their respective churches to create their own.

When two hurricanes struck my area, I went out with a small band of volunteers to help people with cleanup.  We encountered many people who lost their homes and were sleeping in their cars.  When they called FEMA for help, they were told to call Catholic Charities who told them to call United Way who told them to call Family and Children's Services who told them to call 211 who told them to call . . . FEMA!  Many of these people haven't had a good meal, a shower or clean clothes and were living day by day waiting for help to arrive.  I knew there was nothing I could do to fix their dilemma but I was telling Maggie that I wanted to help them in some small way that could at least give them hope.  That Sunday when Maggie's living room church of about ten people gathered, she raised $5,000.  I then went out with the cash and when I encountered people living in their car or in distress, I gave them $100 a piece and told them to go get a good meal, go get a good night sleep in a hotel, or go buy some necessities.  That little band of ostracized sinners did more for the homeless than a church full of "good" people.

So, if Jesus spent his time with prostitutes, murderers, thieves, lepers and outcasts, why can't the church?  Hate begets hate and when the church hates, they lose but, they don't know it.  They don't know what they don't know.  In reality, all are not welcome in our churches despite the pastors regurgitating it on Sunday.  That is part of the reason people are leaving the church because some of us are honest to admit that we are sinners and know that the "good" people in our churches would not accept us if they knew the truth. So you see, the people who don't go to church are not the problem, the church and its "good people" are the problem. If they would stop praying, preaching, judging, diagnosing, denying and just simply welcome, that would make all the difference.  This doesn't necessarily mean that people are walking away from faith, it just means faith is more attainable somewhere else. Maybe if the church pulled its praying hands apart, their arms would be open for embracing and welcoming rather than denying.

Occam’s razor (developed by Ockham) is the law of parsimony. It is a problem solving principle which posits that it is pointless to do something with more when it can be done with less.  In other words, simplicity is your best bet. When faced with a decision on which is the most likely strategy to be successful, generally, the most simple choice is the most efficient.

Here is an example of Occam's Razor in my life.  I volunteer for a cable access show each week and it took my predecessor an hour to set up the studio while it only takes me about half an hour.  The difference is when he put away microphone stands and camera tripods he would loosen them, fold them, tighten them then put them in their respective corner.  I would just leave them extended and put them in the corner, saving a significant amount of time setting up and taking down.  They weren't in the way and nobody else used them during the week.  Likewise, all the cables going to the cameras are about 50 feet long and he would unravel them then have to roll them up after the show.  We only need about fifteen feet of cable so I taped up about 35 feet and now I only need to uncoil and roll up fifteen feet.  He would always put out 25 chairs for the audience but if we only have six guests on the show, I only need to put out six chairs.  If they bring a friend, I can always go get another chair.  Simplicity is your best bet.

The church desperately needs to be aware of the law of parsimony.  Especially when it comes to forming committees.  The problem with a committee is that all it takes is for one person to not like an idea or say it can't be done and it probably won't be pursued.  Much worse is to assign a task to someone and they either don't get it done or do it poorly.  Committees usually have a religious agenda, an argument to win, a point to make or a cause to defend and while these may keep the church running, they are also the bane of many a church.  As a member of the staff, my preferred method of work is to meet with the pastor, toss around ideas then implement them. I spend the week talking to people about it, getting their input, researching it, then being a master of delegation, I either call people whom I trust or catch them at Sunday coffee hour and assign them a task.  Implementing deadlines and followup with each person is crucial.  I can get more accomplished in one day than a committee can get done in three months and it is the simplest route.

My pastor once charged me with the task of organizing a haunted house because our church youth group attended one and I commented that we could do better so he said "Then do it."  I researched haunted house ideas, mapped out a route for our three story rectory and spent the year casually gathering materials. Several months later I contacted people and groups in the parish asking them to be responsible for whatever haunting I planned for each room.  Nobody said no, I had over 80 volunteers and the program was a huge success.  Several hundred visitors filed through in a two hour period commenting that it was the best haunted house they've ever visited and we made several hundred dollars from donations.

Showcasing parish leadership was key.  One year the pastor was in an open coffin and the choir served as mourners. I saved flowers from funerals for the whole year and that funeral room was decked out with dead flowers, wailing choir members and creepy organ music.  Another year the pastor and associate pastor's heads were mounted on a fake wall and the secretary, wearing a pith helmet, stood proudly next to her trophy collection.  People came every year just to see what the pastor would be doing in his room.

After I left that parish a lay person took over the haunted house.  With no vision and waiting until the last minute to plan, she formed a committee where anarchy reigned, tempers flew and people who had no idea what they were doing shot down idea after idea.  The haunted house was a disaster, half the rooms didn't have anything in them.  It failed miserably and they never had one again.

Occam’s razor can serve an individual very well also and this is where I think Occam’s razor can come into play for the person who is disillusioned or disgruntled by their church, the institution, the politics or anything else that leaves them yearning for something more: Withdraw your membership. Leave the church, leave the apathy.  Form a small bible study group with family and friends.  You don't need much to run a home church, a bible and a place to sit is all.  Churches are failing across the country and they need to crumble more before we can begin to rebuild.  Many pastors need to get real jobs instead of pretending to serve the community and we need to let the money serving churches fail.  Church people are notorious for worshiping music, buildings, organs, groups, committees, activities and money.  One parish council I sat on discussed the need for attracting new members to the church - to help pay the bills.  That is totally the wrong reason for a church to exist but churches are businesses, institutions, corporations and are run by like minded lay people.  How does growth for the sake of having more money to pay the bills serve the poor, naked, hungry, dying and imprisoned?  So what do you need from a church that you can't find in your living room surrounded by like minded worshipers?  The church needs to be reminded of the commandment “Thou shall have no other Gods before me”.  This is Occam’s Razor at its best. When the church teaches love, joy, forgiveness, death, peace and God, the people will listen.  That is all they need.  Continue with worshiping other things and soon the church will be an empty room.

A big problem in our churches is poor leadership and people who lack vision.  Something I try to do with all my ministry projects is to network to organizations and people out in the community in addition to the diverse organizations within the church.  When I organized the aforementioned haunted house I made sure every organization in the church had a room to haunt, likewise, I invited local community theater organizations to haunt a room.  I asked a funeral home to donate a coffin and a local contractor to build me a working guillotine.  The people who were not part of the church were excited to see their labor being part of something bigger and they even visited the church on Sundays thereafter.  They also never said no to future requests.

I once went to a Christmas party at a home where the host hung foil stars from her ceiling and I thought that would be a good idea for the church.  I asked the pastor if we could decorate the church that way for Christmas and he said if I thought I could pull it off, do it.  I bought 300 various colored and sized stars and spent two days building a fishing line grid then hoisting it up to the ceiling from a ladder.  When I entered the church that Saturday for Mass, I was horrified to see that our forced air heat was causing the stars to wave and twinkle, thinking they would be a distraction.  When people began to arrive for the four o'clock Mass, you could hear the gasps, oo's and ah's as people entered.  The following week attendance grew by 25% at every Mass.  The stars became an annual attraction with many volunteers looking forward in taking part with the hanging them and, the pastor even purchased a lift for the project.  Now I don't know if people joined our church because of that new ministry program but, more fallen away members began attending again because something new was going on.  It also didn't hurt that the pastor used the stars in his homily for weeks to come.  The true success to that program was socializing and networking as I was able to use that program to make contacts for other programs.

At another church I offered a weekly organ recital every Tuesday at noon.  I dropped off a flyer at that new parole shelter and some of the men started attending (probably for the free coffee) and eventually began volunteering to set up, pass out programs and clean up.  They eventually asked the church to use a room for their daily AA and NA classes.  In return they provided electrical, plumbing, carpentry and painting services to the church.  A few of them joined the church, got married and had children.  People often find our churches in the most unexpected ways.  That is why we need to network and be willing to step outside of our comfort zones and areas of expertise and hire people with vision and courage.  Someone may not ever think of approaching an organist to talk to about their problems but if that organist also skis and they encounter them during a coffee hour and begin discussing the new parabolic technology, it opens a whole new dimension of relationship which can be tapped into later.  Like my disgruntled choir member, acorns can become oaks.

A woman found out that I answered a suicide hotline and she joined the choir.  It took her five years to approach and talk to me about her suicidal thoughts.  She said she never wanted to talk to me about her issues, she just wanted to be near someone who would understand and care. It was a "hem of the garment" encounter for her and for her it was all she needed to keep going.

I once inherited a church with a lot of problems. What church does not have problems?  There were three music groups; the traditional choir, the folk group and a youth choir.  There were three directors for each group and they all hated one another and worse, they planted the seeds of hate among their individual membership.  I met with each of the directors asking them what their vision for the parish was and I remember the folk group director said "Vision?  I just come in and play every Sunday.  What do I need vision for?"  So I created programs where no group had ownership but all three could participate in, together.  It took about five years before wounds began to heal and I'd say it took fifteen years before all hate was abolished. The secret wasn't in creating musical opportunities for them to participate in.  It was in the creation of non-musical activities for them to socialize in where they discovered one another outside of what they were competing with.  I organized a Living Stations of the Cross service and asked a few members from each group to participate by writing and reading personal meditations based upon an assigned station. When they heard testimony about each others fears, pains and struggles, they began to see each other for who they really were: broken and frail human beings.  When I saw them spending time together at the coffee hour, I knew healing had begun. Soon they began attending each other's concerts and Masses.

Judgmentalism, ostrcisation, fear, anger and separation slowly and insidiously breeds distance.  A woman in adultery, a doubting follower, a rebellious prodigal, a person with a record, a demon-riddled young man with substance abuse issues or mental health issues; they all need a Church which will love them, nothing more.  People who are hurt and confused feel God's love when they are cared for. They take shelter in God's love when they look with gratitude at all the beauty they see.  A church who offers all that, they will feel it too. So if their problems are growing like a bacteria, if their money problems are a concern, if they lack vision and membership is falling, they have nothing to lose by embracing grace, mercy and forgiveness and everything to gain.  Like someone caught in a rip tide, they need to stop flailing, take a deep breath and just float.  Like the boy in the story about Jesus feeding the 5,000, they must offer all they have.  Like the people in my church who left through the back door because a parole shelter moved next door, God provided and more people entered through the front door.

God works through people. The church moves forward rhythmically like a clock ticking. The key is to remember, it’s the Lord’s church. Churches should focus on this truth. When they do, time heals wounds. Conflict embraces resolution. Anger gives way to joy. Emptiness surrenders to fullness.  But first we need to forgive and not judge. Is the church willing to do that?

Society is becoming more enlightened and many good people recognize that they are sinners and are still searching for a place where they can be known and belong. A place where it feels like God lives, and the people of that church are the ones who can show it to them.  Maybe we do live in a sinful, deviant and disbelieving society but it is those people whom the church is supposed to be reaching out to.  So, for the love of God; reach.  Step out into the neighborhoods around you and partner with the amazing things already happening in the secular world and all the beautiful stuff God is already doing there.  As C. S. Lewis once said, "We're going to be really surprised who actually makes it to heaven."

Church Growth

I have had the privilege of speaking with several pastors recently about church growth or the lack of growth which many churches are experiencing across the country.  Some pastors are looking for gimmicks or programs to attract those who left and also looking for ways to welcome those who have never been.  Others are accepting of their size and diminishing membership and are desirous to settle for being in the service of those who remain.

A predominant reason people say they don't go to church is that they consider themselves spiritual and not religious and that the church is filled with hypocrites.  It is very easy to perceive the church as being filled with people who are "holier than thou."  It is also  very easy for the church to attract or foster people who "protest too much" in an effort to hide their own sinful nature.  It is easy for good people to be judgmental especially if they secretly recognize sinful desire in their own hearts.  On top of that, when some crime occurs in a church, we might discover that the perp was a pillar of the community, a lector, secretary, youth group leader, pastor or Eucharistic minister. 

It is not that the church attracts bad people.  The truth is everyone has the capacity to be a "bad" person.  There was a study by Wallerstein and Wylie where they asked 3,000 NY citizens who have never been arrested about all the things they had done in their lives.  100% of them have committed misdemeanors and were never caught and 97% had committed felonies but have never been caught.  So if you've never been caught, you must be a good person despite the bad things you've gotten away with.

About fifteen years ago I vacationed in Canada with a friend who illegally brought back Cuban cigars and prescription drugs which you couldn't buy in the US but they were available in Canada.  I thought it was very funny that I got flagged for a search and he, a Roman Catholic priest, waltzed right through. 

Today, churches often run background checks on its members in an effort to weed out the sinners.  It is good that they want to make safe sanctuaries but they need to keep in mind that most saints such as St. Paul and even Jesus, a convicted felon himself, would not be welcome in our churches for none of them would pass their background checks.  Part of the problem with organized religion is that it represents only a tiny part of the story and one that is often dangerously dysfunctional at that.

People of adversity find strength within themselves and they think that that has to do with finding meaning.  Instead of finding meaning we should call it forge for meaning for finding and searching are two different things.  Endurance is the entry way to forging meaning and, being accepted into a community is the only place that that can happen.  When we forge meaning we can incorporate that meaning into a new identity and that is what the church needs.  We need to take our faults and traumas and make them part of who we've come to be and we need to fold the worst events of our lives into a narrative of triumph as a response of things that hurt.  Instead the church tries hard to deny this.

I once encouraged a church to start a prison ministry and the response was that they didn't want to attract or associate with those kind of people.  What they failed to realize was that those people were already in the parish as convicted arsonists, drug users, DWI perps, a sex offender and burglar.  A few years later one of their 20 year old boys was arrested for dealing drugs and it still didn't dawn on them that they had the capacity to heal and the healing needed to happen in their own back yard.

When it was found out that I answered a suicide hotline, a woman grabbed me after a church service, broke down in tears and told me that her brother was arrested for committing a sex crime with a teenager, then completed suicide while in jail.  We spoke for quite some time and afterward I told the pastor what had happened so that he could be aware of the situation.  Instead of being compassionate, he became angry that the woman would confide in me and not him.  Of course, this was in a parish who abandoned a former pastor who was arrested on a DWI charge. She never trusted anyone in the parish with her pain and she carried it silently for many years. 

A woman who was raped as a teenager seemingly had her life destroyed.  She dropped out of school, gave birth to the child of the rapist and never went to college or forged a career of her own.  At the age of fifty she was asked if she ever thought of the rapist and she said she did and she felt sorry for him because, he has a beautiful daughter and two beautiful grandchildren and he doesn't know that and she does.  As it turns out, she considers herself the lucky one.  She credits the support and love of her community for the blessings in her life. 

Some things we are born to; our race, a disability, our sexuality, our gender and some are things that happen to us; being a rape victim, a prisoner, a Katrina survivor, a 9/11 survivor.  Religious identity means being able to enter into a church community to draw strength from that community and to give strength there too.  A church community is not for someone to enter in and say "I am here and I hurt," but rather "I hurt and I am here."  But we are ashamed, judgmental and can't tell our stories to the "good people" but our stories are the foundation of identity.

Just as the stories we tell come from our life experiences, our lives can grow from the stories that we tell.  The bible is filled with such stories of healing, joy, forgiveness and com-passion (suffering with one another).  That is the key; one another and, you won't find that on a Facebook page.  Instead, the church looks for ways to attract the wrong people because the church is interested in numbers and money.  If the church's goal is to promote healing and acceptance through pain and struggle, numbers and money will be the symptom thereof.  Currently, that calling is being lived out through social services and other organizations and they are doing a better job than the church is.   So, who needs the church . . .

It isn't solely about changing ourselves but about changing the world.  It doesn't make what is wrong right but makes what is wrong precious and you won't learn that from social services.  The road less traveled is what makes all the difference and the church is abandoning that road.  We can not be ourselves without the misfortune that drives our search for meaning.  "I take pleasure in infirmities," St. Paul wrote, "for when I am weak, then I am strong."  The church is trying to be strong while denying its weakness and driving out people it thinks will make them weak.

Oppression breeds the power to oppose it and that is the cornerstone of identity.  However, you can't change the church if you don't belong to it.  If a church is full of hypocrites, leaving it doesn't change that.  I know a church whose organist was arrested and half the church supported him and half wanted to abandon him.  The church chose to abandon him and eventually all the supporters left and the haters won.  That church's attendance dropped and is currently in danger of closing because - hate begets hate.  If the church chose love and forgiviness, who knows where it would be today. 

Today's church does not know what oppression is because they are doing the oppressing.  If you banish the dragons, you banish the heroes and we've always been attracted to the heroes in our society.  Satan doesn't have to fight the church because he has joined it.  When we shelter our children from adversity, we've failed as parents for it is adversity which trains and teaches children how to prepare and cope for what the real world may throw at them.  Someone once asked gay activist Harvey Milk what they could do to help the cause and Harvey told him to go out and tell someone.  There is always someone who wants to confiscate humanity and there are always stories to restore it but we need people to tell the story.  By banishing sinners the church is denying and forgetting its story and its calling.   Certainly every church will proclaim that it welcomes sinners but watch what happens if a registered sex offender or former murderer would like to join.  Ask Squeaky Fromme what church she is welcome in.

If the church lives out loud, we can trounce hatred and restore everyone's lives.  Then we can truly celebrate who we are and truly see ourselves in a healthy, life-giving, complimentary relationship with creation around us. Forge meaning and build identity then, invite the world to share your discovery and joy.  As the Hollywood axiom goes, "If you build it they will come."  Those who hear may even enter in for, they too have a story they'd like to share if they are brave enough and welcome to do it and then in the process, heal others too afraid to speak up.  The big question is though, does the church want to listen?

Church Growth Through Music?

I hope to discus this issue without reawakening the Inquisition but if I get you to think or maybe a little perturbed, I've done my job. That's what troublemakers do, they get you to think and if it is a worthy thought process, it might inspire you to try to change something.  It is usually the troublemakers of the world who get things started, done or changed.  Where would any of us be today if it wasn't for a troublemaker speaking their opinion, voicing a concern, sitting in the front of the bus or defying authority? Issues of sexuality, peace, gender and race equality have all been moved forward by troublemakers.  The world needs more troublemakers.  Jesus himself was a troublemaker and he was arrested and sentenced to death for his crime.  I find it funny that people don't realize that by today's standards he would be considered a convicted felon.  And don't whine to me about him being innocent.  We don't have innocent people locked up in our prisons? 

So, on topic, there are many clergy and traditional liturgical churches who have or are deliberating the issue of adding a contemporary music group as a worship resource in an effort to attract young people to their declining populations. One must consider that upbeat, hip or contemporary music will not necessarily attract young people back to church and you wouldn't want them there to be worshiping the music anyway.  Music worshipers can be deadly for a church.  Music worship is one of the many battlegrounds found within our churches.  While it is good to be fluent in the musical vernacular of our communities and try those of others, anyone in search of that type of music can easily find it on the radio, the internet or on TV. 

In addition, much of the contemporary Christian music is more user friendly for soloists or highly skilled performers.  Those sweeping melodies, out of range high or low notes and tricky rhythms are often difficult for a congregation let alone an amateur soloist to sing.  Hearing it performed anemically is not much of an attraction, either.  If the church has to fear something, it should fear mediocrity which is often present in many of our churches.  Whether the music is "performed" well or not, just visit a church that has contemporary music and look at the young people.  Are they participating?  Do they appear to want to be there?  Music should be a symptom of a vibrant and active congregation.  Pastors who have failed, musicians trying to justify their jobs or those who worship music, may disagree.  People of all ages should go to church to worship, pray, wonder, seek, find, to learn how to walk the walk comprehensively instead of in seeking divided assemblies and being lured in by yet another golden idol.  If the people are not singing, maybe they don't have a reason to sing. Give them something to sing about.  If a church is not the hub of our week, the space of our regrouping, a place where we have a transformative experience, a place where the Sabbath day is holy, then what is it?  A concert venue?  Music should not be the reason we go to church but it is important on the list of programs and activities which can help inspire a congregation to walk the walk.  As I said, it is good to be fluent in the musical vernacular of our communities, but as a symptom of our "with-unity."

Another flaw with much of our contemporary music is that it is based upon poor theology.  There is a difference between the inspired words of Scripture and "me and Jesus" songs which are at best suitable for private devotional exercises.  I recently accompanied a small choir who sang a song with the text - only if you beleive will you receive the blessings of God.  I know quite a few atheists who live blessed lives.  Like the sun, God's blessings shine upon everyone, not just believers. 

When you go to a birthday party, you don't go because there will be drums and guitars accompanying the song "Happy Birthday."  You don't go because there is going to be a choir or soloist singing "Happy Birthday."  You simply don't go to sing "Happy Birthday."  You go because you admire and love the person celebrating the date of their birth and because of that admiration, you sing "Happy Birthday."  The song accompanies the ritual action of blowing out the candles and making a wish and, is usually performed with full and active participation.  The participants are not concerned about being judged by others because everyone's focus is on the person they are there to admire, not one another.  The music is not the reason why people go to these types of celebrations but it is an important part because they have something to sing about.  People shouldn't be going to church because of the music or any other gimmick, they should go for another reason.

The fastest growing population of Christians are the disenfranchised.   People leave the church because it doesn't work for them.  Re-inventing what doesn't work won't bring them back.  Maybe the church needs to get the people out of the pews (apostle = apo [away] + stellein [send]) to simply share the wonderful things God is doing in their lives and nothing more.  If people who are seeking something greater than themselves return with those from our churches who have gone out and shared their love, great.  If not, the world is still a better place for their going out.

Churches shouldn't be focused on growth or the making of more money.  Churches need to stop worshiping their music but worship God whom those actions point to.  They only need to share the love of God through action, not tricks and lures of false gods and golden idols such as music, pizza, sewing clubs and the latest in multimedia technology.  Those are all great tools and we all want and may have them but in today's technologically accessible and socially active society, we don't need the church to fill those needs anymore.  In addition, if we want to serve the poor, there are organizations outside the church where we can do that and they are usually doing it much better than the church.  I know many people who volunteer and actively make a difference in their communities and they have chosen to opt out of organized worship life.  Lady Gaga has probably saved countless gay teen lives from suicide.  The church has probably lost many gay teen lives to suicide.  So, why church?

Christianity has survived 2,000 years and we don't need to fix it now unless we have wandered from the path.  The church is answering questions that young people are not even asking.  Go back to comforting the sick, visiting the imprisoned, healing, feeding and clothing.  As the song says, "They'll know we are Christians by our love," not our music.  I want to remind you that I previously said that music is a great tool and should be a symptom of a vibrant church which can also help inspire a congregation to walk the walk.  I personally harbor no musical prejudices.

For those churches who see this light, your challenge is to sleuth out the reasons people don't see church as relevant and address those issues.  According to some biblical scholars, most people have only a fourth grade knowledge or understanding of religion and biblical history.  Our Sunday School programs tend to teach bible stories as fundamental isolated facts and truth while failing to point to the bigger picture of the canon.  It is hard to admit that some stories are just stories aimed at conveying a message especially if it is engrained in our DNA since childhood that every word is unadulterated truth.  Personally I am not a fan of atonement theology and see the task of the Christian church is to no longer rescue you from your sin but to help you grow beyond the barriers of your insecurity into a new understanding of what it means to be human.  I know a priest who admitted that to me once but he said he would never tell the congregation because he would lose his job.  Education is the key to solving most of our societal concerns and it could build a thriving church unless we get mired down in the stories.

For instance, many of our fairy tales are about witches, big bad wolves and vampires.  Those stories were not designed to teach kids that those entities necessarily exist, they were designed to teach kids to not go alone into the woods and to be wary of strangers, to stay on the path and to know that nice is different than good.  They are not fundamental stories.  Here are a few more reasons that people see the church as irrelevant:

The bible focuses on a history and culture that most people don't know anything about so the readings are meaningless and boring to the average listener who knows nothing about first century Jewish culture and history.

The bible is male dominated.  There are no voices from women nor people of color.  It doesn't address nor give voice to our current demographic.  Did God stop speaking 2,000 years ago or does he still speak through people today such as Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Henri Nouwen or the Dali Lama? I beleive that the Unitarian church includes readings each Sunday from our contemporary mystics, prophets and assorted troublemakers.

Church demeans our humanity when it tells us we are terrible and sinful people from birth and that that process defiles our mothers. Instead of trying to make us fearful religious people, it should focus on making us the best people we can be.  God is love.  I don't know any parent who comes home and then tells their children that they are wretched sinners nor do I know anyone who enters a room and announces the same.  When we go to church, one of the first things we do is ask God for mercy and forgiveness.  What did we do over the past six days?  Christians don't need to be born again, they need to grow up.  In becoming human we enter the divine, we step beyond all limits beyond ourselves, and when we move beyond our sense of inadequacy and learn to give our lives away in love to others we experience life at a depth not previously known.   We all make mistakes but we don't define ourselves by those mistakes.  We grow from them and move on.   The church doesn't want that because it is in the forgiveness business and would go out of business if you started to grow up.

All denominations teach some degree of fundamentalism whether they realize it or not, or, they make no attempt to correct past errant beliefs.  We get our skewed theology and disbelief from bad childhood Sunday School programs, poor preaching and the greatest and most believed interpreter of the bible of all: Hollywood.  Most of what people think happened in the first century, for instance, is derived from movies.  For example, we think that when the curtain was torn in two, we envision what movie producers have taught us, that there was indeed an earthquake, rocks split, the sun disappeared and the walls of the temple cracked and people fell to the ground.  Did that happen literally as in the movies or was it really intended to be a deep and poignant poetic description?  Most people don't even know what the "curtain" truly was but Hollywood "showed" us in the movie.  While I stood at the bedside of my mother the moment she died, when she took her last breath, I could describe it as a quake and eclipse too, and the curtains which divided my family were torn in two, but it wasn't literal.  Oh Charlton Heston, you've done more damage to biblical scholarship than any devil ever could.

We can not nor will not twist our 21st century minds into first century culture and understanding of the world.  2,000 years ago, if someone fell to the ground and started shaking, they were thought to be possessed by demons.  Today we would say they were having a seizure and get them medical care.  Fundamentalists can consult a priest but I'm going to consult a doctor.  The church has a lot of damage to undo before it can reclaim credibility and it should not preach on first century beliefs.  As the Gershwin song states about Jonas living in the belly of the whale, "It ain't necessarily so." The people recognize this. It took the Roman Catholic Church over 300 years to admit that it was wrong for imprisoning Galileo about his belief that the Earth revolved around the Sun.  How weak was their faith if they couldn't handle a little speculation from a scientist that they had to arrest him?  Remember the advice given to the Sanhedrin by the high priest Gamaliel in the book of Acts when he was asked to solve the problem of this new Jesus movement.  He said if it's of God, there is nothing you can do to stop it and if it is not God, you don't need to oppose it because it will eventually die under it's own weight.  A biblical scholar once opined that most of what is written in the bible didn't actually happen and he later received 16 death threats and a bomb scare. I bet that none of those threats came from atheists.  Our faith is weak if we must protest too much.

The church tries to get us to see life through stained glass windows.  It teaches us that pain, suffering, death, hate, discrimination or persecution can be conquered and prayed away.  Many people only go to church when they are suffering or scared.  Pain and suffering are inevitable and can't be conquered.  The church can however teach us that those things, with the help from one another, can be endured.  Henri Nouwen said "Blessed are those who suffer, not because suffering is good, but because they shall be comforted."  Every condition of our lives, good or bad, wonderful or horrible, is merely the support system for the journey.  If I fall and break my leg, don't pray for me, call 911.  Then together we can pray and rejoice for the gift of friendship, caring, sacrifice and the healing process. I know a Christian Scientist who fell and broke his hip.  He went to the hospital and had surgery.  Several weeks later he came back to church and praised God for his healing. I don't know why Christian Scientists get a bad rap for believing that God heals them.

Religious institutions and denominations teach that theirs is the only one true religion or institution.  Many do not allow the cross pollination of Communion. A Hindu who rejects Christ hasn’t found it.  A Christian who rejects Buddha hasn’t found it. This is why more people are identifying with being "spiritual, not religious."  They don't know what they don't know but they recognize tunnel vision when they see it.  I am a Christian because I was raised in the Christian tradition but if I were born to different parents I could easily have been a Jew, a Muslim, a Hindu or a Buddhist.  People travel the pathway to God that is available to them, usually by birth.  Is the pathway holy or is the goal to which every path is pointed to holy?  If one walks their pathway deeply and with integrity they will walk beyond boundaries of their human and church created pathways.  They will then escape the limits of religion and be able to sit down and talk with their Jewish, Buddhist and Muslim friends.  That is the essence of the Christian faith, where we can share in the treasures of the of the faith journeys of other religions.  That is important, a Christian is one who walks the Christ path into a deeper and fuller expression of their own humanity.  The opposite is that I am right, you are wrong and you won't be right until I fix you.

Our society is more enlightened and knows more about issues such as the origin of the biblical canon, when the books were actually written, who actually wrote them, why they were written, the phenomenon of oral tradition, psychological warfare in scripture, scientific or logical explanations of supernatural events, etcetera. When a more enlightened person hears fundamentalist preaching they just walk away.  But, people need to realize that if they are not part of the church, they can't fix it.  Not to act is to act.

The church has been on the wrong side of public opinion for centuries; where is the center of the universe, sun/earth relationship, Inquisition, Crusades, witches, homosexuality, women, equality of women, Manifest Destiny, the Magna Carta, slavery, married priests, gay marriage, and so many other issues.  The church doesn't continue to believe or support many of those issues nor does it rehash them.  It doesn't have to.  But, it doesn't address issues of today.  If it does, it doesn't do much more about them. A homily should inspire action, then the church should act.  Mostly people just go home until next Sunday and that is the fault of the church.  If the church does inspire people to action, it should provide the opportunity and tools for them to act. A church shouldn't just tell people to visit those in prison, it should also tell them what time the bus leaves.

When the church cherry pics data and scripture to live by but then is judgmental, persecutes, abandons and hates, young people see, they hear, they listen - then they walk.  They may not know why but they sense something is wrong or hypocritical and that this hypocrisy doesn't feed their souls.  And yes, churches can hate; are the penitent actually welcomed joyfully back into the community, reconciled both to God and their fellow Christians?  Ask a drug dealer, murderer or sex offender if they feel welcome even though they paid their debt and reconciled.  Churches now run background checks on its membership.  Note: Jesus would not pass.

I once had a drummer join my contemporary music group.  He told me privately that he just got out of prison and I simply congratulated and welcomed him.  He was phenomenal and added much to our sound and energy.  The choir loved him.  He played with us for about five weeks when my pastor asked me who he was and I accidentally blurted out that he just got out of prison.  The pastor said he had to have a meeting with this wonderful musician and after the meeting, without a word he never returned.

Our actions and inaction's belie much of what is preached on any given Sunday.  It is interesting that the bible belt is screaming for the death penalty of Dylann Roof.  Does your church beleive in and demand the death penalty?  Not to act is to act.  Which church would you like to belong to, a blood thirsty vengeful one or one that forgives?  We don't need to set Dylann free but we do need to forgive him, love him, visit him and support him if he is sentenced to live out the rest of his natural life in prison.  How powerful a witness Dylann could be if love were to transform him - as it did that other murderer, Saul/Paul, and Dylann then traveled to speak out against hate and prejudice.  Eh, let's just kill him.  How quickly the church forgets that many of its saints and holy men were first murderers, rapists and thieves. 

As children grow up and break laws, we lock them up in places where kindness is rare and considered weak.  Most inmates leave prison and re-enter society hating society for turning its back on them.  Wouldn’t it seem more reasonable to put law breakers in a place which cherishes kindness, reminds them of how important it is and affords them opportunities to develop and express it? Which church would you like to belong to? With or without religion, good people do good things and evil people do evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. Not to act, is to act.  Does your church act?  Is it a troublemaker?  Does it condone state murder?

In the Babemba tribe of South Africa, when a person commits a crime, he is placed in the center of the village, alone and unfettered. All work ceases, and every man, woman, and child in the village gathers in a large circle around the accused individual. Then each person in the tribe speaks to the accused, one at a time, each recalling the good things the person in the center of the circle has done in his lifetime. Every incident, every experience that can be recalled with any detail and accuracy, is recounted. All his positive attributes, good deeds, strengths, and kindnesses are recited carefully and at length. This tribal ceremony often lasts for several days. At the end, the tribal circle is broken, a joyous celebration takes place, and the person is welcomed back into the tribe.

So if people don't come to church because they find its teachings, actions and inaction to be hypocritical, outdated, ineffective, meaningless and poorly executed, do you honestly think guitars and drums are the answer?  Have your tried fog machines and laser lights yet?