Two Christmas Trees
The Church newsletter Visitors were arriving to pick up their binders and marching orders for the pre-Christmas outreach to all the Faithful - and not so Faithful - on the church database. The year’s first snow was coming down hard and furious. Little two-year-old Sarah and her mom Sharon, blew in the front doors with a flurry of wind and snow.
“We’re gonna put up the Christmas tree and go to the bank and go shopping and see Daddy at home” she announced up to me as she patiently stood there while mom peeled coat and boots off of her.
“That’s if we can find all the boxes again.” explained Mom “I always put the tree up but different people take it down. Last year we searched everywhere for the stand and Bud finally found it out in the barn.” She and Sarah disappear down the hall while I go and make tea and chat with the other faithful few who show up on this wintery afternoon. In a few minutes, we hear cardboard sliding along tiles and Sarah is pushing a huge box around the corner – her Mom supplying the extra horsepower.
Of our more that 40 newsletter visitors, Sharon is the only one of her generation to take up the task of knocking on doors, delivering the newsletter, and maybe being invited in for a cup of tea. At first, coming to church was something she did with her Grandmother. When I first arrived in Bobcaygeon, Sharon, and her friend Wendy, were the only twenty-somethings in church on a Sunday morning. They helped out in the Nursery. That was their turf.
One of my first naïve blunders upon arriving as a green congregational minister – one of them - was to assume that children would be allowed to play with the Sacred Cows. I’d heard that a Christmas Tree was put up in the sanctuary each year. I thought “Hey, what a great activity for our growing little group of kids! What better way to give them a sense of ownership and belonging in the Sanctuary? Let’s get them to help decorate the tree.”
What I discovered was that this Tree was designed as a showpiece for the newly remodeled sanctuary and was not to be messed with. It is a beautiful tree. It stands 12 feet tall. It is decorated with symbols that come from a CGIT group in another era. The symbols and their meanings are deciphered with a hand-out that comes in the Sunday bulletin. It is as perfect as any tree found next to Santa in a department store. The people involved with that tree are some of the hardest working bunch in the church. When they draw a line, well…. A line was drawn around that tree.
So, a second tree was found. It was a donation from a couple who were downsizing out of their home and into a condo. It had many years of faithful service in it before it arrived at Trinity-Providence. It was much smaller than the Sanctuary tree and it even shed needles like a real tree every time it was handled. A home was found for the “Children’s Church” Christmas Tree out in the Narthex right in front of the big glass entranceway doors. You can see its lights from the street.
Sharon, then a young single woman, took on the project and set it up. A new tradition was created along with it. It became our Mitten tree. Instead of decorations - hats and scarves were placed on the tree as gifts from the congregation to children in the community who might need a little extra protection and warmth.
Today, Sharon is a mother of two. Her husband Pete, like so many in his generation, struggles with the whole church thing. He has no church background and has a hard time getting comfortable in this big group of people who all seem so comfortable and friendly. He feels he can’t just show up on a Sunday morning without getting asked to join a committee. The last thing he needs in his life right now is another commitment. And he’s not alone. The song Pete is singing is a song that the United Church is listening to more and more. The National Church’s Emerging Spirit campaign has done extensive research – asking people in Pete’s demographic their impressions of “church”. (see www.emergingspirit.ca)
The two Christmas trees are symbolic of what’s happening in our little congregation and in churches across the country. We have around 15 young families bringing their children to church. On average they show up maybe once a month – some more – some less. But for the most part, it’s not really “their church” – quite - yet. The church they’re attending is set up and decorated by another generation. It has words and symbols that for many of them require translation. It’s beautiful and special and they’ve heard about the invisible line drawn around it that says “don’t touch”.
So, there’s another church that is emerging in Bobcaygeon. It is small and kind of shaggy-looking. It’s out on the edge of the church just outside the Sanctuary doors – but still inside the front doors. The glass doors it stands in front of are part of its welcoming spirit that says “Come on in – come as you are.” or “O Come all ye Faithfull – ye not so faithful welcome too!” The message of the mittens on the tree is easy to figure out. They mean this place cares about what’s going on outside its doors.
In Bobcaygeon, everyone’s sure that we want young families as a part of our church. But we’re not all so sure there’s enough room to accommodate their strange ways; their music, their styles, their loosey-goosey-email ways of organizing without committee meetings. There’s some resentment that says “why should we give up the traditions we love for these people who don’t pull their weight, who don’t come to the church dinners, who don’t even come to the UCW bazaar, who we haven’t even gotten to know yet?”
And the young families say “We don’t want to rock the boat. We’re not even sure that this is our boat to rock. Running a church is way beyond what we few can take on. And we’re not sure how committed we are to a church where sometimes it feels like there isn’t room for who or what we are.” And so, they’ve found a place out in the hall that’s theirs. They run the Children’s Church. This year they took over running the Pancake Breakfast that welcomes children back to church. A few of them are on Council. A few have taken lead roles in planning and doing Worship.
This congregation is generous and kind. It is friendly and welcoming. It has embraced all kinds of new ideas and styles and – it has difficulty dealing with change. I’m not saying they can’t or won’t change – just that it’s difficult. Will they have to give up all of the traditions – all of the decorations – that feed their spirits? Where will it end? Where will the new lines be drawn? Will it be worth it?
Who knows? The young families sure don’t know yet what a newly “decorated” church might look like either. They’re just renting and not sure whether they want to buy in. Their lives are so full of change – changing diapers, changing jobs, renovating old homes – making them “theirs”… They haven’t got the time or energy to try to push their ways into a church. If they sniff out a fight – it pushes them in the other direction. When you’re struggling and juggling – who needs a fight?
And so, there is a tension we live with in Bobcaygeon. A creative tension – hopefully - between traditions that work for most and new ways that work for a few. A tension between what we know and love and - what we hope for but can’t see yet. Two Christmas Trees. Is there room enough for both in our Sanctuary? Is there room at the Inn for a Christ - a Saviour - that everyone longs for but isn’t what we’ve come to expect?
from Allan Reeve
allan@trinitybobcaygeon.ca
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