I want to start with a story this morning. At our prayer breakfast in May, rather than sitting in a room talking and praying, we came out onto the property and prayed, with some of us walking circles around the property and praying, although only a few of us got all seven laps done, and the laps did get smaller and smaller as we progressed. But we were praying for big things, including the elimination of our mortgage debt. That was a Saturday. On Tuesday afternoon I received a call from Rev. Randall Partin, who is the provost for the conference, which is a fancy way of saying he is the bishop’s assistant and runs the conference office and staff. Now Randall had been in conversation with us about some of the things we have explored for doing with the eastside of the property, and he wanted to know if we were interested in having a conversation with a Methodist organization who was looking for some property. That led me into a conversation with Saranam, which runs a two-year residential program for homeless families. They were begun when Central UMC received a several million-dollar gift in someone’s will, which serves as a reminder that you too can make gifts to Mesa View in your estate planning, and one of the things we are beginning the work on is an endowment committee and policies and procedures for the reception and use of endowed gifts. So, I met with Saranam for an initial conversation, which then led to a meeting with some of their board members and some representatives from Mesa View, and this week the Trustees voted to approve conversations about the potential sale or lease of the back piece of the property to move forward. But, before I say any more, I’d want to show a shortened video about Saranam…
Now a few points. The first that is that Saranam is a Sanskrit word that means refuge. There’s actually a song in the hymnal entitled Saranam, Saranam. The second is that at this point we are only in conversation. We have not made any agreements, we have signed any documents, we haven’t even agreed on any terms. We are now waiting for their board to meet and approve moving forward in conversation with us on the possibilities. I believe we are still a few months away from that conversation, and even farther from a deal. If we do move forward, we will have presentations on who they are and as well as what it might mean to be working together, as well as listening sessions to get feedback. Right now, this is just so you are aware, and hopefully some, or most, or all, of you are as excited about this possibility as I am. Not only will this help us in our mission of serving our community and making good use of our property, but it will also greatly help us financially.
Our mortgage balance is currently around $837,000, with monthly payments of $6,045. That makes our financial reality very difficult. As we saw last fall, it doesn’t take much for our financial viability to come into play, and everyone making a leap of faith last fall was a true accomplishment of this church in the past year. But, finance has been looking very hard at how to deal with this and passed a goal to eliminate our debt by December 31, 2020. When that date was first given to me, I’ll be honest and say I got a knot in the pit of my stomach and wanted to change it, because I didn’t see any way that was going to happen. It was a giant too large to overcome. But, then I realized that was probably exactly the right response, because that means that first we were going to be serious about it, and secondly, we were going to need God’s help. And I truly believe that is what we are seeing. This could eliminate most or all of our mortgage debt if it happens. So, please begin to pray for God’s help and guidance, and we will keep you up-to-date as we go forward.
So, let’s talk about some of the things we accomplished in the past year, and this is only a fraction of them. First, we accomplished one of our strategic goals and became a reconciling congregation, the first one in the New Mexico Annual Conference, and the 900th reconciling group in the denomination. This was not without consequence. We did lose some people because of that decision, although we also gained some people, and we received a rather scathing letter from the cabinet about that decision, of which we simply responded with our process and that we believed we were called to love everyone, and I think that’s where we are. This month we will celebrate the one-year anniversary of hosting the memory café which gives those with Alzheimer’s and dementia issues and their families a safe space to spend time with others going through the same issues. While Memory Cafes are a world-wide effort, there are only two in Albuquerque, and both happen to be sponsored by Methodist churches. We host parent’s night out, which has 30+ kids from the community attending. Several of these children have special needs and without this program their parents would not otherwise be able to go out on their own because finding a babysitter who can stay with them is very difficult. Our youth group continues to be made up of nearly half the participants don’t attend church anywhere, but they are learning the good news of Jesus and of God’s love here. They made lunches to help support people who are building houses for habit for humanity, of which several of our members also participate. We collected thousands of pounds of food that were given to food pantries and homeless programs. Cindy Kaiser told me this week, that when we collected cereal and she was able to give whole boxes of cereal to the homeless population being served by Helping Hands, that you wouldn’t believe the smiles on their faces. We very conservatively estimate we rescued 40,000 cartons of milk, and thousands of other food items from just two elementary schools that otherwise would have been thrown away, which were given to food pantries and homeless programs, and we are in need of some more volunteers to help us do that. We give away 40-60 prayer blankets and prayer shawls every month to people who need to know that they are not alone, that there are people who care for them, including residents at the Ronald McDonald House and UNM and Presbyterian hospitals. You make that possible.
We installed shade structures on our playground and had the parking lot resealed and painted, as well as doing some other landscaping work around the property. We have four laity who are being trained to be certified lay servants, and some of them will be moving on to become certified lay ministers. We had Jim Ozier come out to consult with us on creating a satellite location out in Ventana Ranch, and we are working towards a possible December 2019 opening there, which is not very far away. And that’s just a portion of the things that we do. If you weren’t here last week or didn’t get a copy of the charge conference report, I would encourage you to do that and read through all the things that we are doing. We are a congregation that worships under 100 people every week, but we are doing more than many larger churches can even begin to claim to do. You should be proud and who we are and what we do to further the building of God’s kingdom.
Now a couple of cautionary notes. As already stated, finances continue to be a major concern for us, but the celebration side of that is your faithfulness and God’s faithfulness. There were a couple of times this summer where we weren’t sure how we were going to make payroll, or pay some of the bills, but, except for some payments to the annual conference, we have made everything work. And for those who have been here for a while, you know this is nothing new. The other cautionary note is that worship attendance is down. We reported three fewer people in worship last year than the year before, and worship attendance is also dragging a little this year. Remember when we had 70 in attendance here just a few weeks ago? Wasn’t that a lot more fun that having 40? That means your attendance is important, not for numbers sake, but for all of our sake, because when you’re not here then we are missing part of the body of Christ. And second, if you love it here, tell other people and invite them, or even better get them and bring them here, not just to worship but to lots of things that we do, which leads us to where we are going and new things happening, or that I would like to see happen.
One of the things that nearly all of the churches I attended in June emphasized was their small group opportunities. Getting everyone involved in a small group is one of our strategic goals, but it has not yet gone anywhere, but it needs to, and let me say that this is about more than just dinner groups or even classes. One of the churches had a small group for dog training, for example, or a walking group. There are lots of ways to make this happen, but we need to have a group to coordinate these activities. I have met with some of the young adults in the congregation, and we are going to start a small group for them, in addition to some specific classes for their place in life. They have also said that they would be interested in setting up some mentor relationships with some older members of the congregation, so if you are potentially interested in that, stay tuned for more information. John and Violet Foley made a donation to be used for outreach activities, and we are talking about different possibilities, but one of them was starting a lecture series, called something like Views from the Mesa, to bring in experts to talk about issues of concern to the church, our community and the world. I’ve already talked some about potential additions to the way we do worship, and we are compiling a new worship team to oversee those activities, but in addition to those things, I would also like to do a quarterly healing service, not where we are healing people, but simply giving people a space to lift up their needs and concerns and to be prayed for healing in their life. I would also like us to begin to do a worship service for people dealing with addiction. I would like to increase our usage of video in worship to tell the story of what we are doing, so we’re more aware of it to start, but also to give people the space to give testimony about their faith and what Mesa View means to us. We need to greatly increase our use of social media but doing so in a way that tells the story of who we are to the world, which also includes, I believe, a redesign of our website. I would like to put together a time, perhaps monthly, in which we come together and dream dreams, to talk about possibilities and potentialities for the congregation.
I see the wall outside that separates us from our neighbors and can’t help but think that it seems like a great place for a mural to be done. Perhaps in conjunction with a school or city art project, and then there is this corner. Just as a reminder, there is nothing natural about the pond. It was created as a place to catch water run-off, and I believe that we can do that and have it in a different form, with a water feature. But, what we also have there is sort of an amphitheater space, with the slope, so what if we enhanced that and put in a stage so that we could not only worship out there, but hold concerts or theater productions. And what if it was surrounded by a prayer garden, perhaps a columbarium, other places for people to gather so that it becomes a true treasure and use for us and the community? And I haven’t run any of this by the trustees, so this is not what has to happen, but what could happen. Just big Holy Spirit filled dreams, and I still have a dream that we will have a playground that is truly handicap accessible. And that’s on top of our other goals, and other dreams that you have of what we can do and be. God doesn’t call for small dreams, or small wishes. God calls for us to dream big and to pray big, which is why I think those passages we heard from Matthew and Numbers are so important.
When Peter decides to get out of the boat and walk on water, that’s a pretty big dream, and one he knows he can’t do without Christ, and seems like a good expression of his faith, and yet later he gets chastised by Jesus for not having enough faith. Why? Is it because he begins to doubt and sink? I don’t think so, because that’s not when the rebuke comes. Instead the rebuke comes after he cries out to Jesus to save him. That is taking a big leap, and failing is not the problem, the problem is thinking that God isn’t going to save us, or that God isn’t helping us. That same problem was encountered by the Israelites as they sat outside the promised land after escaping Egypt. God tells Moses to send in spies to scope out the land, and has also told Moses that the land will be given to them, that means the hard work is already done. And so, Moses sends twelve men in to scope out the land, and they come back and what do they say? Or at least ten of them? There are lots of people there, and they look vicious and strong, in fact some of them are giants, and so they say we can’t go in as they’d be destroyed. But Caleb and Joshua both argue that God is on their side, so how can they lose? Who cares that they’re giants, with God all things are possible, so stop being faithless and live into the dreams that God has given to you. The same is true for us. Some of these things we are talking about are giants. But God calls for us to move beyond our fears, to move beyond our comfort zones in order to live into the dreams and visions that God has given for us, to move into the promises of God, and to bring forth the Kingdom of God. Our future lies not in the past, our future is before us, so let us fear not, but begin to see God’s visions and to dream God’s dreams and move beyond our areas of comfort to do God’s work so that next year may indeed be the best year that Mesa View has ever had. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.
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