After an unusually wet August and early September our
part of Maine is experiencing some very pleasant autumn weather. There’s been a hint of frost on a
couple of nights, but no damage to late-season veggies and flowers. Above all, the ground is beginning to
dry out, which means we’ll be able to till it and prepare for winter. Part of this process is cutting grass,
which is growing thick and green, thanks to the extra rain and humidity.
This is all part of a seasonal cycle, much more
familiar to our forebears than it ordinarily is to us. Having grown up in the country I have a
sense of the cycle, but that sense became dulled through years of living and
working in suburban and urban communities. Now in partial retirement, living on the farm where my wife
grew up, and helping her bring its gardens back to life, I find the sense of
the old rhythms returning. I also
find that reading on gardening and related subjects yields some surprising
insights.
One of these reads is Michael Pollan’s book Second Nature: A Gardener’s Education. In Second
Nature Pollan, whose overall knowledge of gardening is encyclopedic,
focuses on the placement of gardens on any given property. Rather than creating a single garden
for everything, and then mowing everything else, Pollan suggests looking
carefully at the totality of the land available, be it a quarter-acre or
extensive fields and woods. Once
you know what you want to grow, he suggests finding the best place to put each
planting, with lawn, trees and bushes placed to tie the whole together. Describing all this, Pollan draws on
the ideas of the eighteenth century English landscape architect Lancelot
“Capability” Brown.
Brown’s designs created the grounds of such estates as
Blenheim Palace, Warwick Castle, Kew Gardens and Highclere Castle, the latter better
known to PBS fans as Downton Abbey.
Brown earned the nickname “Capability” not for his personal talent,
which was enormous, but for his approach to each property he designed. “What,” he would ask, “is the
capability of this place?” Should
this little hill be cleared or magnified?
Should that little brook lead into a pond, or its course be widened to
create a small river? Should the
flower gardens be set off by a narrow lawn that draws the eye past the flowers
to the valley beyond? Can the
kitchen garden enhance the house, or would a line of shrubs between them do a
better job of showing the house to advantage? Each property is unique, and what works for one will not do
for its neighbor. Brown’s ideas
were controversial at the time, and they certainly do not fit with the
uniformity demanded in some of our neighborhoods today. However, a walk about the properties in
which he had a hand is never a dull experience; you come away with a strong
sense of place. I find myself
drawing on his ideas as we work to create new gardens here in Maine.
Lately Capability Brown’s approach has been in my
thinking about church planning. At
first glance this may seem a wildly unrelated connection, but please bear with
me.
Drawing on many years of planning and assessment
exercises in a number of different churches I’m familiar with the usual
approaches. We seek God’s guidance
to discover what we ought to do in order to better flourish as a
congregation. We often delegate
this task to an ad hoc committee convened for the purpose, and then have the
committee report back to the congregation, which may or may not vote on
proposals. Is our committee
structure right? Do we have
activities for everyone? Is the
worship vital, and do people “relate” to it? Are the pastor’s sermons the kind we need (or want)? Are we getting enough pledges, and are
people giving enough? How can we
increase giving? Does the building
need work, and how can we pay for that?
Are new people coming to church, and how can we attract more? How about outreach? Will that bring in new members? What missions do we support? And why?
These are all perfectly valid questions, though many of
them betray deep anxiety over money.
We answer them, define ways to implement recommendations and, depending
on how committed we are to seeing them through, they serve as a way of steering
our course for the next few years.
The approach can be helpful, though in truth it seldom issues in
passionate recommitment.
But suppose we took a page from Capability Brown? We would begin in prayer, seeking
direction, looking for ways to meet our needs as a gathered community, and
hopefully to articulate a vision.
The next step, however, would not be to survey the congregation to determine
their perspectives on what we’re doing right and what we need to change. Instead, we’d look at our total
picture, and ask the question, “What are the capabilities of this gathering of
God’s people in this time and place?”
Who are we?
What is our faith like? Are
we highly verbal people? Are we
doers? Are we prayers? What are our occupations, and what do
we do for recreation? How many of
us grew up here, and how many come from other places? How often do people move? What skills and talents do we know about? How can we encourage people to tell us
about those skill and talents we’re not aware of? How many of us are there? These and similar questions can help us create a portrait of
who we are.
Then there’s the matter of where we are. What is our town like? Are we a city
church, a suburban church, a small town church or a rural church? Are we an acknowledged part of the
local scene, and if so what’s our reputation?
If we have a building, what’s it like? Is it big, small or in between? How many rooms are there, and what use
do we make of them? Are we on a
postage stamp of land or do we have several acres, and in either case what do
we do with the land?
As we answer these and similar questions we’ll begin to
see a picture of who we are, where we are and what spiritual and physical
resources we have at our disposal.
From this picture we can begin to sense what our capabilities are, and
seeing those we can gain a vision of how our particular gathering of individuals,
in our town or city, with the resources we have available in the present time,
can serve God and our neighbors in ways that show forth the love of God and
neighbor with authenticity. Notice
that the thrust of this approach is fundamentally positive. Discovering the capabilities of people
and church we attest that God has brought together these very individuals in
this time and place for a purpose.
These capabilities, guided by the Holy Spirit of God can form the basis
for a unique witness to the love of Christ, and in the process members and congregation
can flourish in the light of that love.
Howard MacMullen
© October, 2013
No comments:
Post a Comment