 Excerpts
from the 2002 Mission
Study
Mission Statement
We believe our calling
is to be the Body of Christ – reaching out into the
world with love, and growing in God’s grace together.
In the spirit of
God’s inclusive love, we welcome
everyone who comes to St. John’s, and we support each other
in our spiritual
journeys.
We believe God calls us to be a
place of hospitality for
all those who seek to know God and to live in Christ. We invite
everyone who
comes to St. John’s to join our ministry and to share in our
part of God’s
work in the world.
We come together to worship and
study our Judeo-Christian
heritage, and to open our hearts and minds to God’s
continuing revelation in
the world.
We come together to worship and
engage in helping to build
God’s world of peace with justice.
We come together to worship and
rejoice, to encourage
gratitude and wonder, so our congregation and the larger community will
love and
care for all creation.
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The above statement was created by the 2002
Mission Study
Team after study of the Book of Order Chapters I & III, lengthy
discussions
among themselves and with members of the congregation. It has provided
a guide
from which to work on the larger Mission, our current situation, the
challenges
we face and to set Goals and Objectives. As the preamble serves the US
Constitution by presenting an overarching set of principles to which
the
constitution then provides implementation, the St. John’s
Presbyterian Church
Mission Statement’s purpose is to serve as a statement of who
we believe we
are and wish to be. This statement was slightly revised by the Session
at its
August 20th meeting.
Who We Are
St. John’s is an
aging congregation, yet
we have a number of vital, active young and middle-aged members. We are
"a
liberal church with a reverence for the great traditions" (a quote from
one
of the questionnaires the Mission Study Team received). Another calls
us a
"wide-ranging congregation." Within this wide range, we see ourselves
as friendly and supportive, caring for each other and the community we
live in.
We have an open and inclusive membership, and feel free to question and
speak
out. We feel welcomed on Sunday mornings and cared about by other
members. We
have close friendships with other members and enjoy the diversity of
our
congregation. We feel that communication from the church is adequate
and that we
have opportunities to serve the church. We wish to continue serving and
providing our time to our church - more than the community and the
world.
In the box below are some words
we use to
describe ourselves and what keeps us at St. John’s.
Accepting,
Caring,
Challenging, Concerned, Engaged,
Loyal,
Spiritually
Uplifted, Consistency, Family, Fellowship, Fine Music,
Outreach,
Openness, Opportunities to Serve, Preaching,
Warmth,
Welcome,
Witness, Worship
What We
Value
St. John’s
Presbyterian Church
has a long history of supporting domestic and global Presbyterian
Church
Mission. It has been an active partner in such vital mission activities
as the
Berkeley Missionary Homes, Westminster House, East Bay Chaplaincy for
the
Homeless and the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant.
The number one desire expressed
in the questionnaire is "Increasing the Membership." To accomplish
that goal we want a strong worship service, intellectual and spiritual
nourishment, and activities and programs for all ages. While we
continue to care
about ministry to the neighborhood and local and global missions, we
realize our
membership needs to grow to support these concerns. We want to be open
to new
ways of looking at our faith and our place in the world.
Programs
and Building Use
St. John's is a true presence
in
Berkeley – socially, educationally, artistically, and
spiritually committed to
our community. More than a dozen community groups use our facilities.
Additionally, parish-related activities make St. John's virtually an
all day,
everyday operation.
PROGRAMS AT ST.
JOHN’S
St. John's Center, built in
1964,
was designed for congregational use. Each room was planned for a
particular
church activity, except for the ground floor recreation room designed
for the
rough activities of three Boy Scout troops. In about 1970 the building
was paid
for by a large bequest which also provided funds for construction of
the
sanctuary, offices, and music rooms, debt-free.
As church membership declined
and
we realized the vastness of our building, in proportion to our needs,
we decided
to make the building available as a community center. As we did this we
were not
concerned with finances. A center endowment fund provided some funds
for
programs. The building was new and required little maintenance. We saw
need for
child care and created a child- care program with some government
subsidy for
low-income families. We saw need for senior activities and created a
senior
center in collaboration with the Berkeley Public Schools. The center
director
was paid with public school adult education funds. We made our space
available
to Boy and Girl Scout troops and musical groups, including two youth
orchestras.
And we converted a large room initially planned for junior high
activities to a
dance room and allowed use of the room by a liturgical dance company,
which
occasionally participated in our worship services.
Church members were a part of
these activities. Scout masters and families often came from the
congregation.
Many volunteers and participants in the senior center were church
members. Many
members of our first youth orchestra were children of the church and
the
orchestra sometimes performed with our church choirs. Musical groups
discovered
that the acoustics and arrangement of our sanctuary made it an
outstanding
performance space. Many musical groups requested use and we charged
modest fees.
We opened our doors to twelve-step groups and to occasional use by
public
schools and for city and neighborhood meetings.
As the building aged and repair
and custodial costs increased, we began to look to certain uses as
sources of
income. Our infant care program produces no income and is a cost to the
church.
The Senior Center produces no income and is now a cost to the church.
The church
now funds the director's compensation. We allowed the following two
changes in
room use to produce income at a cost to our programs. We allowed a
pre-school to
take over the recreation room and north play yard, making this space
less
available for the Scout and youth activities for which it was designed.
This
pre-school program does meet a community need, because pre-school
programs are
in short supply. We also allowed the dance room to be used full time
(except
during the summer) by a small private elementary school. Church members
are
divided as to whether or not the church should be used for private
schools.
PASTORAL LEADERSHIP
In 2003 St. John’s
Presbyterian Church
called a new pastor, Max Lynn, who
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is a strong preacher and
interpreter of the scriptures and proponent of our faith for our time
and place; |
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is a warm and approachable
person with strong pastoral and counseling abilities; |
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works well with colleagues both
within the faith and outside of it; |
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knows music and appreciates and
is comfortable with a variety of music; |
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relates well with youth; |
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values church engagement with
the social justice issues; |
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inspires lay leadership and is
able to delegate work and authority. |
Come experience the new spirit
and energy emerging in our congregation.
It is generally believed that the critical mass of
a healthy congregation is 200 members (Presbyterian Church USA,
Louisville). St. John’s Presbyterian Church has been a
diminishing congregation. The aging of the congregation combined with
the church’s failure to foster programs and other attributes
that attract and retain new members has meant that fewer people now
attend and are "active" members. With increasing attendance over the
last several months we are optimistic about building a larger
congregation.
St. John’s
Presbyterian Church is the owner of a large Center used to provide
space for church programs as well as programs and meeting space for the
community. There are many who feel we are both blessed and burdened by
a large building and grounds. The amount of money required to
run the Center raises significant questions and the challenge for St.
John’s Presbyterian Church has for years been how to best use
and maintain the building and grounds. The lesson learned is that St.
John’s Presbyterian Church is and will continue to be a
respected and vital center of community and church programming, be it
arts, healing programs or schools. Our challenge is to find a new
balance in the relationship between the church and the surrounding
community.
One
aspect of St. John's identity that has attracted members in the past is
its active participation in social justice programs. However,
participation in previous social justice commitments, such as the East
Bay Sanctuary Covenant and the Berkeley Ecumenical
Chaplaincy to the Homeless, have diminished while commitments
and engagement with new programs, such as More Light
and Peace in Northern Ireland, have not been
sustained. An Environmental Forum program
is a new effort with considerable support; however, its future is
dependent on the dedication of a few.
With membership of over 50% in
their senior years, it has been increasingly difficult to be a church
that
provides a more youthful approach to its ministry. Teenage groups have
come and
gone, singles groups have also been tried and no longer attract
followers. One
program, which is meeting this need, is Camp Elmwood, a summer program
designed
to attract elementary age kids and teen-agers into a semi-theological
environment for creative play and learning. The challenge ahead is to
succeed in
building a program for youth in order to attract more families and
their
children to church programs. Over the years St. John’s
Presbyterian Church has
kept a small group of youth in the pipeline towards membership, but
this number
needs to increase.
Over the years the congregation
has faced challenges related to changes in the composition of our
membership.
Most members who have stayed with St. John’s Presbyterian
Church during the
last thirty years of social turbulence in Berkeley have learned and
adopted a
particular brand of caring and sensitivity. The challenge is for the
congregation to develop into a more diverse group of people, remaining
mindful
of our differences, respectful of every person who enters our midst,
and helping
each other to become a loved, and loving, member of our church family,
our
community and the earth which we all share.
St. John’s
Presbyterian Church
is a "classic" church. It is a congregation with a rich and wonderful
history dating back to the beginning of the last century, and a church
with an
aging congregation. The challenge that has grown ever more acute in the
past
twenty years has been to find a balance between the velocity of change
in the
world, the church and society, on the one hand, and the speed at which
many of
our members can effectively keep up with the change. This includes, but
is not
limited to, the use of new media, such as the Internet for
communication,
alterations in the pace of worship and of music in worship, and
distribution of
work among professional and lay leadership. Change will happen, and can
successfully happen at St. John’s Presbyterian Church.
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