Power of One

“Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.“ (Margaret Mead) We are after all created in the image of God, each and every one of us in our own uniqueness and in our commonality. It is when we bury our uniqueness in our commonality that the community, as well as ourselves, suffers for the want of it.

We as a congregation are starting a focus on the “Power of One,” what one person can do, what one hour can do, what one gift can do in the family of God. Let us take a look at what the “Power of One” can and is doing within this community of faith.

The idea of the power of one came from our financial needs, so it seems appropriate that we look at that area first. It is so easy to slip into traditions, and we all do so without thinking. The Power of One is a call to look at your charitable giving and ask yourself what it would mean to you if you were to increase the percentage of your income you give to the church by one percent. Many of you have responded to that call already. The scriptures call for a tithe, or 10% as the goal of giving. For some this figure is low, for some it is high. For everyone to increase by the power of one however, helps us move from a congregation that is just making it by to one who has the ability to invest in evangelism, programs for the youth and many other forms of ministry. If you have not done so yet, look over your taxes and determine what percentage you gave in 05 and then consider committing yourself to growing that by the power of one.

Many individuals give of their time in this congregation and many of us have lives that we have made to be very busy. Many of you also have a ministry you would like to do through this congregation. What ministry would you like to do through this congregation? In what fun group activity would you like to participate? Are there others who are of like minds? Imagine the ministry that could be done if 10 people gave an additional one hour per month (that would be 120 hours of ministry per year). What would happen if 50 people, or 100 people, or 200 people each gave of one hour per month? Consider finding some friends who have the same passions for a particular ministry as do you and see if you can multiply the power of one hour per month into a new ministry.

In our Care and Share program, which is the way we get the chores done around here, we have moved from people volunteering, to assigning individuals and families to a particular month. The results have been wonderful. More people are getting involved, more faces have smiles on them, more people are getting to know each other and more people are providing input. With everyone helping out one month of the year, all are freed up eleven months of the year. It has been an empowering gift to all.

We are a medium size congregation, and yet there are times when it seems we are just short of a critical mass of people for some project or another, or just short of what it would take to start one new worship service. What would happen if you were to invite, support, guide, and help usher one new person into this congregation? The obvious answer is that we would have one more person in the congregation. What would happen if everyone invited, supported, guided and helped usher one new person into this congregation in the next year? The answer is that we would double in size. It reminds me of the question, “would you rather have $1,000,000 or would you rather have one cent doubled every day for one month (31 days)? The one penny doubled every day would come to $21,474,836.48. If every person in the congregation would invite, support, guide, and help usher one new person into this congregation each year for the next 5 years, we would have 8,224 members plus a whole lot of active worshipers who are not members. We better look into more services.

Martin Luther said that he was so busy he didn’t know how he could get everything done if he did not spend several hours a day in prayer. This seems just the opposite of our current world view. What would happen in your life if you were to give one hour to prayer per week? Ten minutes a day. If every one in the congregation were to spend ten minutes a day (six days a week, Sunday you would be in church) in prayer and pray for the ministry of Christ Our Savior Lutheran Church, do you think 13,364 prayers for the ministry of your church would do something positive for that ministry?

Our world is getting in dire straights due to global warming. The coral reef is dying and the polar bears it seems will not be far behind. We cannot save the planet. We can however do our part to help it. Perhaps it is time we as a congregation start the process of recycling one thing, adopting one park or stretch of highway or try to produce one less bag of garbage for the church. Maybe some day we can be known as that one “green” church.

Back to Margaret Mead, each of you is absolutely unique. You each know things, or look at things in a way no one else does. If everyone would teach one thing, one class, one skill, one craft to others in this congregation, what we all learn from one another would fill a university.

The danger of course is to let the other person do the power of one, the result is the power of none. In some math the symbol “n” is used to indicate an unknown number. Using that unknown is the difference between the Power of “n”one and the exponential growth of “the Power of One.” “Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.“ (Margaret Mead) It is when we use that uniqueness along with everyone else that we become a vibrant growing family of God.