You Only Have to Die: Leading Your Congregation to New LIfe

James A. Harnish (who may be coming to speak to us during our Beeson year) writes about his ministry with Hyde Park United Methodist Church in the Tampa area. This is a downtown church with a proud past, but that was decline when he was called to serve there.

Using the language of Congregational Cardiomyopathy (he has had two bouts with cardiomyopathy) he leads us through the process of this church finding renewal. Toggling back and forth between his own physical health and the health of the church (it gets a little annoying at times), he calls the church to be willing to change. I appreciate that the change for which he calls is to be rooted in the mission of the church and the gifts and traditions of the church. He isn't the kind who wants to throw out the baby with the font water and start a mini-mega-church.

He correctly states that, "As long as a congregation's mission is vague or undefined, people can get along pretty well by pretending the church is what they believe it to be."

He states that the process of defining the vision of the church "had to emerge through the existing sturctures of the congregation. It could not be something I imposed from without; it had to be the congregation's thing, emerging from our life together, growing out of the long history and spiritual tradition of the congregation."

The vision statement they wrote has many similarities to our own at Grandview, though I won't reproduce it here. The more impressive document was the one that followed the vision statement. It was specific in nature, labeling actions the church planned to take. It helped to keep them focused as they learned to say "no" to some good ministries.

Harnish also shared the story of the French military in the days leading up to WWI. The French Minister of War recommended that they change their uniforms from bright red caps and red trousers to gray-blue or gray-green. The nation protested. One retired military leader declared in a hearing, "Eliminate the red trousers? Never! Le pantalon rouge c'est la France!" One newspaper declared that trading "all that is colorful, all that gives the soldier his vivid aspect" for some muddy, inglorious color, was "contrary both to French taste and military function."

The change was voted down and French soldiers wound up being slaughtered on the Western front by the field-grey wearing Germans who were able to hide in the mud and spot the red-clad French. All this because the government had lost sight of the true mission of the army . . . the army that was never meant to be on a Paris runway.

Harnish goes on to ask: "What are the 'red trousers' in your congregation? What might be the consequences of your loyalty to them? Where do you experience tension between tradition and change, taste and function, mission and method; between something old and something new?"

This is an excellent book. It takes a little while to get going, but once you get past the first couple of chapters, it's worth the read.