Thursday, May 30, 2024

112 God Conversations

 

I bragged on my congregation in the above video; that in a 20-month period we had 112 God Conversations. Friends, colleagues and people on the internet wanted to know more, particularly what we did and how.

First off, I need to acknowledge this wasn’t my idea; when the ELCA announced our goal to “Share the story of Jesus and the ELCA by engaging with 1 million new people as we grow the church together” there was a webinar for pastors that offered this marble exercise as a way to do this.

 

Materials

112 MarblesWe used yellow marbles to mirror with our yellow “God’s Work, Our Hands” T-shirts. There were 112 marbles because, if every ELCA congregation had 112 God conversations, that would make an even million God Conversations!

Two clear pretty containers—Make sure the containers can hold all 112 marbles. Place them in a noticeable place in the sanctuary. During the week congregants tell the Pastor or worship leader when they have a God conversation. Then on a Sunday (in our case as part of the Children’s Message) the marbles are moved from one container to the other. Seeing that progress is really exciting! It points to the faith we practice in worship being lived out in the world.

 

The Challenge

I have to admit I was pretty open ended with how I challenged my congregation, perhaps even too much so.

At based, I encouraged my congregation to notice and have God conversations with their neighbors and tell me about them—or at least that they had them. Then as a part of the Children’s Sermon I reported any God conversations in the last week to my people by counting together the number of marbles moved into the second container.

My challenge included the word notice, because folk are often having God conversations with their neighbors, but they don’t realize it, and by not realizing it they miss out that the Holy Spirit was at work. So much of the God Conversation Challenge was really an exercise in noticing, seeing how we speak and listen in Christ for our neighbors. We regularly have conversations with people about their values and goals, their fears and hopes—those are God conversations!

On one hand, I did strongly encourage folk to talk about God, tell their stories, testifying to God’s work in Jesus Christ, confess their faith. After all, “Lutheran Laryngitis” the observation that the average Lutherans shares something about their faith once every 23 years, is a tragedy. We’re ceding the Gospel to folk who are more outspoken about their faith, and often times misrepresent Christianity in ways that are anti-evangelical; instead of Christ’s message being good news, they offer bad news! The Lutheran understanding of the Gospel is freeing, why wouldn’t we share it?

On the other hand, I took a cue from Bonhoeffer:

“Many people are looking for an ear that will listen. They do not find it among Christians, because these Christians are talking where they should be listening. But he who can no longer listen to his brother will soon be no longer listening to God either; he will be doing nothing but prattle in the presence of God too.”

We have two ears and one mouth for a reason. Part of this exercise was to listen, really listen, to what folk are saying about God’s work in the world, about, as I said above, their fears and goals, their hopes and what they value most.

Additionally, we were listening to language, learning to speak in the vernacular of our neighborhood. What does God talk look like in the 08826 zip code?

Finally, we listened because the Book of Acts continually attests to something amazing; the Spirit goes out ahead of the Church. God is already at work among our neighbors, and sometimes the best thing we can do as a congregation and a Church is pitch in, catch up to God’s actions. Perhaps, because of what we know about the God revealed in Jesus Christ’s life, death and resurrection, we can be helpful discerners and interpreters; we can point and say to folk already experiencing the Spirit, “Wow! Did you see it? God is doing something here!”

 

Results

It took 20 months.

Early on having God Conversations felt inauthentic, or at least uncomfortable.

There were worrying dry spells when marbles didn’t move for months at a time.

Several people were shocked by how prevalent neo-Paganism is in our area.

Folk had the opportunity to listen to what extended family members thought about forgiveness.

People helped friends wrestle questions about healing and hospice and what ought to be prayed for.

By the end, people were noticing these deeper conversations when they occurred; we began to come to worship anticipating that at least one person would report a God Conversation each week.

When the last marble moved, there was a sense of accomplishment, also some people worried that their God Conversations wouldn’t “count” going forward.

There are a lot of places to put your energy at in ministry, I would say having 112 God Conversations and marking them with marble movement is a worthwhile investment.


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