The Rt. Rev. Susan Brown Snook currently serves as the Bishop of the diocese of San Diego. Before she was elected bishop, she was a church planter in the Diocese of Arizona. In 2006, she planted the Church of the Nativity in Scottsdale, and she describes its beginnings this way:
We began with a group of fourteen people meeting in a living room. Over the next few months, we continued to meet for prayer, Bible study, and visioning about the church we dreamed of planting. The committed core invited others to join our adventure, and our group of fourteen quickly grew to sixty-five enthusiastic members. We spent this visioning period laughing, dreaming, praying, and asking ourselves the three basic questions of ministry: Who are we? Who are our neighbors? Who is God calling us to become?
We began Sunday morning worship services in September 2006 in an elementary school, making music on an electronic keyboard, teaching Godly Play in a portable classroom, taking all our furniture and equipment home with us each Sunday and bringing it back the following week. The work was hard, but we joyously devoted ourselves to the mission of helping God plant a church.
The Church of the Nativity is now worshiping in its own building, with an average Sunday attendance of more than 200.
I’m telling you this story for two reasons. The first is that I think it’s a wonderful example of vitality and new life in the Episcopal Church. And it started with three questions: Who are we? Who are our neighbors? Who is God calling us to become? At Trinity Church, we are reflecting on similar questions this summer, as we discern who God is calling us to become in the years ahead. We can discern this as a congregation, but we can also ask ourselves the same questions as individuals. Who am I - both the best of me and the worst of me? Who are my neighbors and how is God calling me to love them? Who is God calling me to be and how is God calling me to grow? What do I need to leave behind? What do I need to move towards? How do I need to be changed?
The second reason I’m telling you this story is that Bishop Snook is very clear on who is responsible for Nativity’s success. She is the author of a marvelous book on church planting entitled God Gave the Growth, and the title gives the thesis away. There are things that we can do, both as a parish and as individuals, to create fertile soil for seeds to be planted. But ultimately, God is the one who sows the seeds of faith, and God is the one who gives the growth.
This is the crux of our Gospel passage on Sunday. The fruits of the Kingdom grow in accordance with God’s grace, not as the sole result of our efforts. And rather than take credit for ourselves, we can only stand in wonder at what God as done, and respond in love and praise.
Want to know more? Join me this Sunday!
In Christ,
Kara