Covenant

THE FOLLOWING IS EXCERPTED FROM BRUCE’S SERMON, “LET’S GET ENGAGED!” THE COMPLETE MANUSCRIPT CAN BE FOUND AT OUR WEB SITE: [ http://www.standrewsomaha.net/ ]WWW.STANDREWSOMAHA.NET. CLICK ON SERMONS.
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I had a Josiah-type experience earlier this summer, reading Al Winseman’s new book, “Growing An Engaged Church.” Al was the founding pastor of St. Andrew’s. He’s been gone nine years now, and currently works with the Gallup Organization as their Global Practice Leader For Faith-Based Organizations.

I’ve received his book as nothing short of revelation. Al’s St. Andrew’s experience is all over the pages. It’s as if I’ve stumbled upon the congregation’s original ideological blueprint. For a context guy, it’s extremely exciting, looking at ideas and practices that were once part of the congregational life, but maybe got a little lost along the way. In chapter eight, Al writes:

We put together a Covenant of membership which laid out what was expected from members—and what they could expect from the church….

The covenant was printed on a single sheet of paper with two columns. On one side of the covenant were the expectations of membership, which were basically an expansion of the traditional United Methodist membership vows to support the church with our prayers, presence, gifts and service:

As a member of St. Andrew’s, I will:
* support and further the mission of St. Andrew’s: to share the gospel of Jesus Christ.
* pray for my church and fellow members regularly
*be present in worship and other church events on a regular basis.
* support my church with my spiritual and financial gifts.
* find an area of ministry through which I can serve Christ and others.

We then left a space for them to sign and date this side of the covenant.

In the other column, we listed what the members could expect from us. This side of the covenant mirrored the vision statement that we created to support our mission:

As your church family, we will:
*provide opportunities for you to live out your faith in service to others.
*provide faith-based opportunities for you to grow as a Christian.
*provide opportunities for you to develop deep and lasting friendships in community with others.
*provide opportunities for lifelong learning as you deepen your understanding of the Bible and the Christian faith.
*be good stewards of your financial contributions to your church.

At the bottom of this column were two spaces for the lay leader’s and my signatures.

That’s all there was to it…. But it was interesting to see people’s reactions when we asked all our members to sign it—both existing members and new ones. We implemented the covenant four years into our existence, and so we had hundreds of members for whom a covenant was a new and puzzling thing, and they weren’t so sure they liked it….

We explained that we took church membership seriously, that people could make choices, and they could choose to join, or not join, a church. We wanted to honor that choice with a covenant, which we would renew every year on the anniversary of our church’s founding—Charter Sunday. We also explained that this would put everyone, new and current members, on the same page….

I personally found this doubly serendipitous. The possibility of putting together some kind of congregational covenant had been bouncing around in my head for months. The discovery that such an idea would not be something new, but rather a reconnection with past congregational experience had me doing a YES, YES, LORD!

And what’s this about a Charter Sunday? Come to find out, St. Andrew’s went on-line as a full-fledged congregation on September 26, 1992, meeting at Millard North High School. That was the congregation’s official birth date, and as Al tells it, in subsequent years, Charter Sunday was a day of celebration with balloons and special music and a covenant renewal service.

During the time of Covenant Renewal, we had members come forward and place their signed covenants in a basket on the Communion Table, where I then said a prayer of dedication over them. It was a symbolic and touching moment, and I think all of us knew how important that Covenant Renewal was. Each year on Charter Sunday from then on until I moved to another church, we all renewed our Covenant of Membership. And there were no more negative comments or questions—we all understood the importance of the covenant.
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AT THE CONCLUSION OF SUNDAY’S WORSHIP EXPERIENCES, HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE SIGNED COVENANTS AND BROUGHT THEM FORWARD FOR DEDICATION. IT WAS INDEED A TOUCHING AND SYMBOLIC MOMENT. IF YOU’RE AMONG THOSE WHO SPENT SUNDAY MORNING UNDER THE COVERS IN GRIEF ABOUT THE U.S.C. DEBACLE, THERE IS STILL OPPORTUNITY TO PARTICIPATE IN COVENANT RENEWAL. CARDS WILL BE FOUND AT THE HOSPITALITY DESK.