THE VIEW FROM THE PULPIT

Kids are back in school this week in a lot of American communities.  Do you recall the little essay at the beginning of the school year, when we were nine years old: What did you do this summer?  You remember that one?  Just a little kick start to get us writing again.

So for my Fourth Grade Teacher, Barbara Matulich, wherever she is in this world or the next: here goes (my 2025 summer essay):

In one respect, it was a summer of extremes: Summer began with a cruise to Greenland to experience Inuit culture first hand.  There, we experienced an early July day of midnight sun in Nuuk, with a high in the upper 30s, hard wind, and a chill factor in the teens.  This was followed by warmer times in our home town of Palm Springs, California, where temps maxed out at 115 several times.  Yet, the locals marveled at “how mild the summer was compared to last year,” when it maxed out at 124.  So that was the weather report.  But so much more happened.

A notable part of my summer this year was preaching each Sunday that I was home, subbing for our pastor Jane Voigts who is off on sabbatical. In these summer Sundays, I have looked at our congregation from a different vantage point, from the pulpit - in this case from a nice elevated pulpit which our church’s mid-century architect threw into the design.  You can really see what’s going on from up there!  And you can make eye contact with people on the back row.   One Sunday, somebody called the police on somebody else in the back, and I watched the drama through the glass windows that look into the narthex.  Most folks in the room had no idea what all was going on back there.  In all the distraction, my sermon wandered around a bit that week.

But the thing that I will long remember, from my pulpit-view perspective this summer is that our church is flooding with new people!  In fact, I think we just hit a tipping point where the newbies now outnumber the old-timers.   Now I knew we were growing.  But when you stand in front and look out into the crowd, you can really see the people.   We had become a church of retirees in the early years of this century (Palm Springs, California, hello?).  Then then one day we noticed we were a growing church of retirees.  Then one day, we noticed that the LGBTQ people were outnumbering the straight people in our new member classes.  Then - and I could really see it from the pulpit this summer, there has been the recent invasion of the 40-somethings, which marks a generational shift for the United Methodist Church of Palm Springs.  In fact, nine of the last ten new members were younger than me, dipping all the way down into their 20s.  One of those young people, who Jane just baptized, lives on the edge of homelessness, but he sits on the front row and worships with such earnestness. He energizes this preacher.  His spiritual youthfulness energizes all of us.

When Jane gets back from sabbatical, she will have completed seven years as pastor here.  And one rather common marker of a good seven-year run is that when a pastor looks out into the crowd from the pulpit, more than half the people she will see should be new on her watch. Another way of saying it: the church members she met in 2018 are now a minority of the new whole. As a coach for pastors, I have long kept tabs when this tipping point hits with my clients - because when it does, a church shifts on its axis, new perspectives drive decisions, change accelerates, and the church finds itself re-rooted in its community for another generation.  And pastoral leaders are empowered to lead boldly!  If one gets to the seven-year marker, and there has not been a slow accumulation of new people who now constitute the majority, it’s likely time for a pastor to move.  But once a church hits this tipping point (and sometimes it happens in year two), the best years of that pastor’s tenure are upon us.  Thankfully, Jane has about six years left before retirement - and I fully expect that we will double again in size in that time, and that we will make significant changes will occur in worship, in community outreach, etc.  These moves will in turn anchor a vibrant United Methodist witness in Palm Springs for years to come.  And one day, a couple decades out, we will need a fresh people infusion yet again.

If you are a pastor, look out at the crowd next Sunday while they sing the first song, and do a quick assessment.  What percentage of the crowd arrived on your watch?  If it has passed 50 percent, do not waste this precious opportunity.  You went to seminary for this moment, for this special season.  You were born for this moment.  Forget the former things.  See, God is now doing a new thing among you.  So, forget the habits of hesitation which have served you in prior years.  It is time now to lead.  To leap.  To dare.  To risk.  To make changes.  Your people are ready.  They believe in you as their pastor.  Lead them to do something magnificent for God!

And give your community a church renewed for another generation.

(My dad was a pastor, who wrote a weekly pastor’s column for his church newsletter titled The View from the Pulpit. After this summer, I better appreciate what what that title was about.)