Trinity’s Faith in Action staff met recently with a major foundation leader here in New York to ask how the foundation measures its work. When we arrived at his office, the foundation executive startled us by asking a question of his own. Which element is more important to us — the experience of our volunteers or the outcomes for the programs we support? Do our resource choices favor the volunteer input or the social result?

Um, we responded, we want both: our people become more engaged, and the world around us changes. He didn’t buy the answer. He posed a hypothetical situation: say we have volunteers supporting a school program. The volunteers are enjoying a great experience, but, though children are not harmed, the students receive no discernible benefit. Would we continue volunteering for the program? Do we favor inputs (volunteers) or outcomes (student improvement)?

We squirmed. We resisted. We protested that his question tried to place us in an unrealistic straitjacket. Our volunteers become involved precisely because they see an outcome. There’s no chance they would continue to participate in a school effort that didn’t really help kids. He
wouldn’t let us off the hook. Having a strategy means making a choice. I left really irritated.

But his rigor forced us to look closely at what we thought our ministries actually produced. What is the role of Church in social transformation?

Here’s our answer: as a Church, the most important thing we can do is to invite leaders to give themselves in service to be shaped, grow, and be fed by the transformative relationships they nurture through these activities. The members of our community should have the opportunity to offer their gifts in service to our neighborhood, city, nation, and world. To borrow foundation language, we are called to focus on inputs.

The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori, states it more theologically: “We are in the business of transforming souls, beginning with our own.”

But wait. How do we answer “soul transformation” with a straight face to inquiring foundation executives (or, perhaps more to the point, on foundation grant applications)? Doesn’t soul change put us squarely back in the missionary role that we have worked for at least a generation to escape?

I don’t think so. Offering hand outs to those whom we decide are less fortunate absolutely represents the bad old days. Instead, soul transformation returns us to an ancient and more liberating space that allows us to understand what’s happening when we hand out lunches,
tutor, or travel on mission trips. It allows us to sustain our ministries over time.

Many parish-based “social outreach” programs started in the early 1980s in response to federal government budget cuts. These efforts have been faithful and consistent. In more than a few cases, volunteers have labored for years in the same programs. Yet, food pantry lines have gotten longer. Half our students still do not graduate from high school. To echo our foundation colleague’s question, why do we continue?

We persist because we know the names and stories of those whom we serve. They are not clients or case files for our volunteers. We live in the same neighborhoods. We spot Christ in the troubles as well as in the triumphs of the people who arrive at our food pantries and our tutoring programs because their experiences mirror our own.

To escape the missionary trap, we have sometimes run in the wrong direction and tried to imitate nonprofit organizations. Whatever our formal tax status, for churches (and synagogues, temples, and mosques) nonprofit service delivery should never be our primary purpose.

My colleague Anita says it really well: for us, the relationship is always more important than the program. My observation over sixteen years of work with churches is that most do not have the capacity to sustain initiatives that focus on outputs. It requires a professionalization that strains resources and separates them from parish life.

A shift towards soul transformation means care for the formative connections between our volunteers and our guests. It means offering pastoral care for all involved. We recognize the blurry line between those who serve and those who receive; we all have gifts, and we all are broken. We see Christ in both. C.S. Lewis memorably cites Anglican theologian Richard Hooker as imagining a universe “drenched” with God. The late Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple similarly suggested that the universe itself is sacrament. That is, the entire universe displays God’s goodness and love.

Our most pressing question is, how do we prepare our communities for this up-close and awesome God experience? We’re not missionaries in this role, either. Churches don’t pour knowledge into their people — they recognize and nurture the gifts they bring. Here’s one Trinity News more citation from an Anglican luminary, New Zealand theologian Jenny Te Paa:

“To each of us has a measure of God’s grace been given — sufficient for us to make a difference, sufficient for us to fulfill the call upon each and every one of us to love as we are loved, to do for others that which we would wish for ourselves, to be truly as sisters and brothers in all things for all time.”

I have been astounded at what has happened in Trinity’s ministries as we develop deeper relationships with our partners. We’re doing more building, feeding, tutoring, teaching than we ever have before. But these activities are possible because we practice reflection and storytelling together. We celebrate the successes and pray for the troubles of those involved. And our involvement keeps changing as our gifts expand and our partners’ needs change. We’ve worked with the high school next door to the Church for five years. Each year has been different as the relationship deepens.

There are things we can count that are happening as a result. Volunteers involved in our Faith in Action ministries have tripled over the last year. Congregational stewardship has increased by more than 50 per cent over two years, even as members of our community have faced financial hardship. Our spiritual call has attracted people of very different backgrounds. We welcome volunteers now from around the world and from different faith traditions. There is something attractive about the “sacramental universe.” These outputs are ones we can measure — that we form communities of hospitality, invitation, and stewardship. We support spiritual discernment and growth.

The last several years have made me a devoted mystic. William Temple is right. We live in a universe that resounds with God’s love. I spot God everywhere. God’s love is reflected in friendships in New Orleans, Panama, and Haiti, as well as in neighbors on our front porch. We are drenched in God’s grace. My friend Ted says that our Brown Bag Lunch ministry “feeds people’s souls.” Our ministries commit us to the awesome work of soul transformation, lunch by lunch, child by child.

The Rev. Matthew Heyd is Director of Faith in Action for Trinity Wall Street.