What Does Membership Mean at Urban Abbey
Folks!
I am ever grateful you are exploring the Rhythm of Life inspired by the Christian Tradition and the justice-seeking ways of the people who seek to follow Jesus. Faith in our tradition is a team sport and just like any communal adventure, individual training and growth is a part of the work.
This means there may be times when you show up needing support, love, hugs, a meal, a tender word of encouragement, or perhaps even challenge and there are times when you show up to offer this to others.
Commitment is not required for attendance in the life of the Abbey, but commitment is essential to membership in this community. No one has to be a member. We will not check membership records if you call the Abbey and need a visit at the hospital or time with the Pastoral Care team.
Membership is a commitment, a vow. A willingness to take ownership in this work and a commitment to learn and love and grow together. A commitment to offering grace to others, a commitment to showing up for and with the community. A commitment to fueling this work with time, talent and treasure. (That’s right I said treasure…because things don’t happen without actual money and I get that that is hard work…but take a breath and hang in there with us to learn more.)
A Rhythm of Life
Early Abbeys had a Rule of Life. Perhaps that sounds a little tough…but I invite you to think of a Rhythm. What are the cycles of days and weeks and months and years that are life-giving, that bring balance and growth to you?
That’s what this is and it requires knowing ourselves and self-reflection that invites growth. It requires space for community in worship and learning just as it requires us to make space for personal prayer or meditation.
Maybe that sounds a little like modern self-help stuff or self care, and there may be overlap on strategies, but this isn’t done for you alone, it is done for the work of making the world a better place.
Read more of Rev. Debra’s writings on The Rule of Life in the Christian Tradition:
Rule of Life: Rhythms that Center
Mission of the Methodist Church and Membership
The mission of the United Methodist Church is the transformation of the world. And that is going to take all of us being and living as our best selves.
The commitment we make to each other in this community comes from the historic question, “Do you commit with your prayers, presence, gifts, service and witness in the life and ministry of this church?”
Prayers
Jesus takes time in the midst of everything to pray, to center in the storm, to be still, and so we too are invited as a part of this spiritual journey. Maybe this is easy for you or maybe every time you try centering prayer you wake up in a puddle of drool wondering where the time has gone.
The research is clear that meditation is a benefit to our wellbeing, and even with this encouragement, meditation, prayer and reflection can feel hard. We have a guide with a diversity of traditions; perhaps centering prayer is your thing, or perhaps you prefer a breath prayer, journaling or stretching your mind and body in yoga. The Celtic Tradition is full of prayers for milking cows or closing the door or churning the butter. The point of these prayers isn’t so much about cows or butter, but about the intention we place in our mind each moment of day everyday.
As you prepare for this discipline, consider what types of prayer practices work in your life and hold meaning? Below we have links to a variety of spiritual practices. Consider a few to try for two weeks at a time, give it five minutes a day. Link your practice to a ritual, part of waking up or walking to work or prayer before meals, to make it a little easier. Start small, you don’t have to sign up for a week long silent retreat to pray.
Sometimes we struggle with prayer because we learned about it as children and now it seems like magical thinking or petty requests or even deep asks that may or may not happen. Sometimes we learn a theology that makes it seem like God is Santa Claus, just lounging on a cloud waiting until you ask the right way to bring world peace or stop cancer or get you a new job.
I’m not sure that prayer is about changing the Divine as much as it is about changing us; training us to see as God sees and love as God loves. Rev. Susan Davies talks about praying for others like holding them in the sun, for warmth and nurture. Take that metaphor, speak the names or write the names of people you are holding in care, speak the hopes you are tending. What is a word of how you want to show up for the day, the week?
How does it shape your day to place others at the center of your mind for a moment? How does it shape your day to lean into your hopes, does it shape how you show up?
This commitment of Prayer is about preparing you to show up and space to reflect and grow into the most loving presence of yourself. It is a rhythm of life that seeks our wellbeing and wholeness. It is a discipline that grows us. Jesus prays and then he acts.
Questions to consider:
What helps me center?
What prayer practice am I doing now?
What might add to my life?
How can I make centering, meditation and prayer a part of my daily rituals and habits?
More resources here:
The Spiritual Practice of Sacred Reading
Swearing as a Spiritual Practice
Presence: The Spiritual Practice of Showing Up
Showing up is sacred. We all know the story of Thomas…who made one little mistake and became “Doubting Thomas'' for all of Christian history. And while some folks like to make his story about having faith even if it's blind, I’m not sure that’s the biggest take away. All the followers of Jesus have sensed him present in this mystical space after Friday’s crucifixion and Easter’s resurrection. Mary saw it first, and the guys didn’t believe her, not until they had their own experience. Thomas is asking for what everyone else seeks, an experience of presence. His problem isn’t doubt. His problem is he missed the meeting.
Showing up is what Jesus does over, and over, and over. He shares meals and moments on the hillside, he heals and teaches. Even as the Gospels come to a close he continues to show up and you know his presence, even if it is felt more than seen by the quality of peace. He brings peace into spaces of grief, uncertainty, and despair.
Showing up is sacred. It’s simple and impossibly hard for us at the same time. That’s why it’s a spiritual practice. Perhaps our calendars, just like our budgets, name our values. It’s easy for us to become over scheduled in some ways and under scheduled in others, if we do not center and reflect on where and how we want to be present.
Presence is a vow of membership in our tradition. It’s hard to grow relationships that matter when we are not present with each other. This discipline means showing up in worship for connection with God and community. It is hard to be in a relationship when we are not present for each other, and worship is the primary anchor of this practice. Small groups, learning nights, Zoom sessions, and potlucks are a second anchor that draws us into connection.
Presence seems simple…but it's not that easy because it requires us to organize our time with intention toward community. Our main job is paying attention to people around us, noticing and being present, really present. It means we come together, not just for our needs to receive in community, but with the possibility that we share. We gather and we all offer warmth, welcome, hospitality and connection. Membership means sometimes we receive and sometimes we give. And in our world, giving even ONE hour let alone maybe three or four a week to be present in our faith community is challenging.
Our western culture loves busyness, honors it really.
Kat Vellos writes “If busyness is the state of having a life choked off by an endlessly full calendar, then its dreamy opposite is spaciousness.” Space to be who you are, space to not have to prove yourself to anyone and space where you are generously present and actually curious about the folks around you. This is a space where you are real and not always posed for an instagram worthy moment. We want to be and make safe place for each other to ask “dumb questions” and learning means we all need to grow
Relationships mean mutual dedication, attention, engagement and nurture and in a world where loneliness and division are rampant this actually saves lives. In fact, British doctors prescribe social “wellbeing interventions such as art classes, gardening clubs and cooking classes'' (Vellos, p24). Our cities and our modern mobility makes relationships challenging which is why showing up is powerful.
Presence means getting a hold of your but’s
Like I would love to but I’m busy,
but I move too much,
but I really want to watch more Netflix,
but nobody knows me here,
but I spent four hours on social media,
but I have a side hustle,
but I’m flaky,
but they might be flaky….
What are the but’s that stop you, that hinder your intentions? Kat Vellos suggests getting in touch with your time and getting Un-Busy. Make a list of how you use your time…where does it go and then a list of what you might like to try that is life giving…what can you trade. Maybe 30 mins less of social media everyday can become your time for communion and community each Sunday. Maybe giving yourself one less hour of Netflix means you can give yourself a little more space for something even more life-giving.
This requires knowing yourself and exploring what you need to be well and whole; to be able to commit to presence as a practice.
So let’s start slow. Some folks join the Abbey on a Sunday and say, “Pastor, I am going to be here every week, and what else can I do? Do you need me on a committee or do you have a team?” Which is wonderful, but most of the time unrealistic, and then disappointing, they feel like they failed. Habits are more likely to become a part of us if we work them into patterns and rituals, weekly schedules. So just start with showing up for worship first. And start with a plan for once a month or twice a month, and move from there as you make space.
This isn’t about adding another thing, it's about adding meaning and value, so start slow and with intention, take charge of your calendar. Make a plan for your wellbeing.
When I think about presence as practice, I think of my grandparents, Cecil and Lila McKnight. They spent more time on bleachers and folding chairs than anyone I know. They made plans with old friends and new friends and made family time the center of everything. They planned their fitness to be with people they enjoyed because that was lifegiving. Their habits of presence have always been aspirational for me. Earlier in my career, I spent more time with work than I did with people and I have been working toward balance. Practice means we keep at it, we keep trying, we keep learning about ourselves and we keep growing.
What if we imagined a tithe of time, say 10% of the work week. How could four hours towards your spiritual life matter? If the first hour is worship, what would the meaning of the others be? Small groups or Grow Night? Prayer built into moments rescued from social media or binge watching? Reading? Service? Everything is folded into presence, even our communion table is defined as real presence. God is present in the juice of the grape and the grain of the bread and in each and everyone present near and far. It is a ritual of showing up, mystical and nourishing at once.
Consider:
Who has shown up for you? What did that feel like and mean?
Make an inventory of how you spend time.
Highlight what is lifegiving.
Circle what you might be able to reshape.
Who do you want to show up for?
What is your first step?
More journaling:
How can I show up for my whole health and wellbeing?
How can I shape my time with intention?
How can I prepare personally so I can show up ready to be present?
How can I practice paying attention to others in worship, at home, at work, in class…wherever?
Read more:
Peaceful Ninja Rabbits of Hospitality
The Spiritual Practice of Showing Up
The Spiritual Practice of Shutting Up
Gifts
The one time Jesus says, “Salvation has come to this house” was not when Zaccheus confessed him as his Lord and Savior, but rather when Zaccheus decided to give half of his wealth away and right all the financial wrongs he had committed as a tax collector. He was converted from the Emperor’s scarcity to God’s abundance. He left the commodification of people, places, and plants and joined the gift economy. An economy built on relationship, abundance and generosity; which is not the kind of economy anybody in power at any time in history seems to be a real fan of implementing or maintaining.
That’s why giving is weird and hard and an act of protest.
Giving as a spiritual practice isn’t about zeros and commas, but rather about intention and percentage. Historically the church has talked about tithing, giving 10% of your gifts to the community. This practice invites you to take a look at your budget and decide what your budget says about your values.
I find this to be a challenge, and when I began this practice, I had to take a hard look at what my spending said about my values. If I had died, people would have rightly said, “She really loved shoes.” I loved shoes more than my community. They could have said, “She spent more on brunch or lunch or dinner than her church.” I began working on giving. And giving taught me to give more, to take ownership in the work we share as a church, and not only that, my larger community. It taught me that if I care and value something I need my dollars to vote for it too. It also taught me to be more thoughtful in my consumption and where my dollars vote, and what kind of world I hope we will live in.
This is why we talk about giving as a practice, because it takes practice, and time, and trial and error. And the gift is - we don’t do it alone. So if you plan your giving and make a pledge, and your world changes, you may need to change your pledge. Somehow folks have taken this risk together, and even as some folks may struggle with a financial cut, we have others that may surprise us with a special gift.
The point of this practice is for our spiritual growth, so when you consider your pledge, consider your budget and what you want to say with your dollars. What is meaningful? John Wesley asked the early Methodists to give what might today be $2.00 a week (he of course asked folks with more to give more, but most of the community members had little). If you look at that amount and it sounds silly, then it's the wrong amount for you. What is enough that is a bit of a challenge to grow into? What value do you put on this community when you look at your whole budget and what would you like your budget to say about you? If you have questions about this practice, please let me know. Also, if you want to talk about the logistics we can do that too. We can give online and in person. Some practices work better for different folks, and some practices have fewer fees removed from the gift.
Consider:
What is my experience with giving?
Who is a generous person that I know? What did it feel like to receive?
What are my worries and fears about giving?
What does my budget say about my values?
Read more:
Earn. Save. Give. All you can.
Generosity of More Than Spirit
Service
Most churches have a service project or service day. We serve at Liberty Elementary, community clean-ups, and occasionally other efforts, but we will push our understanding of service beyond projects and into presence and partnership. We have worked to partner with intention, to listen to what our partners want and need, and then figure out how we support and stand alongside.
Listening invites a relationship, and the first thing I learned is our partners need actual cash and they need us to trust them to know how to deploy it in their organizational work. That is why we give 10% of our sales. It may be an unexpected service effort for a church, but we need you to serve at the coffee bar, learn the names of our guests, help make them feel at home, wash the dishes, clean the tables or just greet folks at the door with warmth.
Many of our partners need us to show up to advocate, be a voice and march with them. Often we are one of the only churches that will be present for advocacy and it means the world when we roll in with our Urban Abbey t-shirts and the Women’s Fund or Planned Parenthood or Heartland Pride or Moms Demand Action knows we are there to do whatever they need.
Non-profits often have a hard time asking for what they need because they don’t want to hurt your feelings when they ask you for what they actually need, which again, is money. I was working with one of our Methodist pantries and noticed there were shelves and shelves and shelves of canned corn and green beans. I thought OMG I have probably contributed some of this, we have just been collecting food with zero intention. So I started to ask the director what they really need. They need soup because it is a whole meal. They need canned protein, they need mac and cheese to go with the milk. Pasta and sauce for their families to make a meal, and peanut butter and jelly because PB&Js can be made by kids without anything sharp or anything hot. This is why we collect exactly what our partners ask us to, and this is why I tell you why we collect it. I believe knowing that kids are making their own PB&J should force us to ask why kids are living in such poverty and why hunger increases when school is out of session.
Listening to real needs is hard because we can’t always meet them, they don’t always fit with our needs, which should be a red flag to us and an invitation to think about what we are really doing. Every time we collect for MACCH (Metro Area Continuum of Care for the Homeless) we ask for hats, mittens, wool socks, scarves and sometimes coats (XL or larger) because that is what the Street Outreach Team needs. Every time we get folks who will bring like four trash bags of clothing and sometimes something even more random…like a computer. Which really doesn’t help and if we actually gave them to MACCH rather than finding a different home, it would cost them money and staff time to deal with and, frankly, disposing of a computer might have a cost.
Jesus is present radically and presence is hard. Programs are more comfortable. We can control our interaction and the time it takes and the people we meet and the places we engage. There are plenty of churches that set up ministries and programs and forget the presence. There are plenty of churches with lists and lists of service programs that turn people into projects. This is a toxic practice of charity. I know folks who drive from big West Omaha churches in their fancy cars to serve dinner for two hours and then drive home, feeling good about themselves. And the reason it is toxic is because the work is virtually meaningless; they go home without a thought to why their service was needed in the first place and without any drive for real change. These same churches lift up maps for missions to Africa, Latin America and South America, they depart to change those people and return to vote for the very people who will deny them welcome as an immigrant or refugee.
This, for me, is the definition of toxic charity because presence is limited to comfortable hours, people are projects, wisdom comes from outside the community and, worst of all, experience does not force anyone to think, wonder, advocate or change how they vote. This ministry is about feeling good and self-righteous in a world that needs us to be present with righteousness, justice and compassion like an overflowing stream. They don’t go home and dream of a day when every community around the globe has a water well or a hospital of its own making. Or a day when all the food banks and shelters are out of business because we have really made earth as it is in heaven. This work did not flip any tables or change even their hearts.
What is really generous and what is really in service of others may require us to listen, learn and grow. I think there are some red flags in service and generosity, like if we get upset about the non-profit not doing it our way or not wanting us to serve as planned. If we can’t hear no, accept direction, or only want to serve with our best friends, it might not be about connecting mercy and justice. If we get indignant about how our time was used or not used the way we wanted it to be, it might not make that table-turning Jesus proud. If our ego gets bruised then it might not be service, it might be toxic charity.
At the Abbey, I want us to pay attention to the world around us. Perhaps your service one week may be at the coffee bar and perhaps another week we will be asked by the Women’s Fund to show up for young adults seeking inclusive health education or at an OTOC candidates accountability forum. We may plant flowers when asked or we might clean up trash for the Downtown Improvement District or even make slime with 700 kids through 4-H. But whatever we do, we will do it because we were asked, it was needed and it's not about us. Most important, service is also the presence we offer every day and every moment. Perhaps there is a meeting or a class or a family table where your voice of care and justice is needed or a moment when your ears are needed for listening. Service isn’t a project. It’s presence and we are going to engage with care all the time.
Consider:
What are your gifts?
When will you take time to listen and be present?
What does it mean to you to serve, every moment?
Read more: Non-Toxic Charity
Witness
In some churches, witness means everyone learns the same five verses, memorizes a prayer, dons matching t-shirts and piles into a big van; then they pull up on some unsuspecting cul-de-sac to save souls by knocking on every door and asking folks if they need Jesus. We are not going to do this. This is about domination. Christians invite other folks to be just like them, value the same verses, think the same things and then ultimately complete this cycle by going out again to get more people to be more like them. Matching t-shirts might be fine but if you see them jump out of a van in your neighborhood, I would run.
We are on a mission of inclusion, welcome, and transformation for ourselves and the world. So we need and want to meet people, all the people, and wherever they are because the transformation of the world is going to take everyone. But our growth is not going to shame people into connection, and the reason anyone joins us isn’t going to be their fear of an angry judgy God who loves the world but also loves sending people to a fire filled hell. Our growth is about connection and people do not need to be Christian, or pray a prayer we like to matter to us. We want to know folks and develop a web of life-giving relationships.
I hope you will invite folks to one-on-ones and learn their passions. I hope we will be curious and interested in one another, I hope we will be present and listening so when someone is looking to connect that we invite and include. I also hope we can be as passionate about invitation as the evangelicals, because our work is equally - if not more - important. Plenty of times, I have heard the stories of people who thought they found a church that loved them only to find out that when they came out, or their child came out, or their daughter wanted to preach, that the church was not at all safe, inclusive or empowering. They were hurt and heartbroken. I hope we will invite and spread the word, and share in the work of invitation to create a healthy, holy, and perfectly-imperfect community together. This work is about empowering, not dominating, celebrating gifts and growing them, rather than making people so afraid of a violent God that they follow a set of old absolutes
Announcements are not invitations. So part of this is actually inviting people with a note, a call. or a text. And I don’t just mean church. I mean invite folks to anything and everything. Like a rally, a parade, a mac-n-cheese off, an Advent service for miscarage, an interfaith tacky holiday sweater party…and church. And I mean go with people when they invite us. When we are asked to be with our partners, it is bearing witness to our call for love and justice to show up, stand alongside and do what folks need us to do…and we can wear our matching t-shirts if we want to.
Consider:
What is my experience with evangelism?
What is my experience with outreach, inclusion and invitation?
What does it mean to connect and empower for the transformation of the world?
Read more:
Invitation in a World of Domination
Rhythm of Life
Choosing membership in the Urban Abbey community means committing with your prayers, presence, gifts, service and witness. You are welcome here regardless of membership. Only make this commitment if it means something to you, or when it means something to you and you can earnestly endeavor to offer your prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness.
Start small, one step at a time. Schedule worship in your plans and maybe start twice a month and work your way into weekly worship. Plan your giving and see how it feels, start with 1% or 3% rather than moving to tithing. Consider your time. What would 4 hours a week invested in your spiritual health mean, (like a tithe of our 40 hour work week). An hour of worship, an hour of small group or grow night learning, an hour of prayer spread over the week and an hour of service.
Try out the prayer practices and see what patterns fit well for you. Consider your own rhythm of life, what would you add to prayers, presence, gifts, service and witness to make your life whole, healthy and rooted in love.
Do you have questions?
Join us in Urban Abbey 101 and Urban Abbey 201.
Email us at ministry@theurbanabbey.org
Thanks for sticking it out and exploring!
Blessings from your friendly, local Abbot,
Rev. Debra