A Priest and a Rabbi walk into a bar...

Alright, I don't really have a good joke here. But maybe I should come up with one! That's the teaching from a workshop in England that focuses on training clergy to use the presentational skills of a stand up comic. Intriguing! Read on:

British clergy are seeking preaching tips from stand-up comedians. Not that
there's anything wrong with that. (rimshot)
In February, the annual Leicester
Comedy Festival introduced a new workshop to help clergy preach better. Leader
and comedian Andy Kind wants to make Christianity more accessible to average
people. The course focused on improving body language, voice modulation, and
overall performance skills. Kind wants to build the preachers' confidence and
self-awareness, while encouraging them to be engaging and
relevant.
"Christianity can be seen as something terribly serious, but Jesus
must have been a great laugh to have had such a following," Kind says. "He used
humor and so can we."

I agree with this, and think we could all use a little extra humor in our lives, and in our preaching and ministry. Of course, I've had many people tell me my ministry is nothing but a joke.... Not that we want to come across overly light-hearted, but I think too many pastors come across way too heavy-hearted and serious. We have a variety of tools at our disposal to communicate the Gospel. Humor is certainly one of them, and at the appropiate time, can be a very effective one.

Memory Almost Full

This is the title of Paul McCartney's latest album (Not that I like the Beatles! I just happened upon this press release), and it got me thinkin'

Paul McCartney says the inspiration for the title of his latest album, “Memory
Almost Full,” came from a phrase he saw on his cell phone. “It seemed
symbolic of our lives today,” the 65-year-old ex-Beatle said Monday. “Your
messages are always full. And your mind is always full. And it
doesn’t matter if you’re my age or 20, I think that we all need to delete stuff
every so often.”

For the first time, I’ve been inspired by the Beatles! Not from listening to their music, but from reading this article on McCartney’s latest release. It inspired my sermon for this week, which is from Philippians 3. I’m still doing a sermon series on Philippians (thanks Brett!) and this week’s teaching is focused on vs. 13: “But one thing I do, forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,…” I think this resonates with McCartney’s statement that we need to delete stuff. We need to let go of certain things from our past – baggage we’ve been carrying, negative attitudes, old grudges, sinful behaviors, etc. – and free up some room for the exciting new things that God wants to fill our lives with. Ready with the delete key, everyone!

The Numbers Game

What a great month it has been! We welcomed 6 new members into our fellowship last week, all but one by profession or reaffirmation of faith. 3 of them had been out of any church fellowship for the past 12 years, 1 of them is a recent convert, and 2 just moved to the area. We celebrate their commitment and welcome them to our congregation. As I updated our membership records, I started looking at the numbers, and what I saw surprised me. This year, we've added 10 new members. Last year, we added 23. That's very exciting! But, our average attendance is down from 127 to 117 over the last 2 years. We've had some deaths and some folks moved away, but not enough to account for 33 new people and 10 less in attendance! What gives? I looked at a listing of our regular attenders (those who are here at least twice a month). 180 people. And yet, our average attendance is 117. That means that 1/3 of our regular attenders miss on any given Sunday! Discouraging. However, I am encouraged that we have 180 people who are committed members and who attend regularly. This isn't a Christmas and Easter crowd, me and our PPR looked over our attendance and together came to the conclusion that we do have an active congregation of 180, yet our attendance is closer to 120. A few years ago, our regular attenders numbered closer to 150, so we do have 30 more than we did. Are people just less committed to attending worship than they were before? I'm really struggling to figure out this trend. Anyone else run into things like this?