The Call of Isaiah

I’ve read and I’m told that the Church is in trouble.

According to George Barna, 3500 to 4000 churches close their doors each year in America.  Some agencies put the number at more like 7,000.

As one church planter put it:

“I foresee a quickening of churches dying in America over the next twenty years.  There are tens of thousands of churches filled with communities that have shrunk below 100, 70, 50 and are filled with an aging population.  Many of these churches will not know how to survive.” (Drew Goodmanson)

I’m told the Church is in trouble.

Only 15% of churches in the United States are growing and just 2.2% of those are growing by conversion growth.  In other words, many others are playing a shell game with the already-Christian, as they move from one congregation to another.

I’m told the Church is in trouble.

According to some estimates churches lose over 2.5 million people each year to “nominalism and secularism,” the majority of whom may never set foot in a church community again.  Perhaps you know some folks in this category, or perhaps you were in the category for a while.

Specifically, in the Episcopal Church, according to Dr. Kirk Hadaway (program officer for congregational research) in the most recent state of the Church report to General Convention: “The age structure of The Episcopal Church suggests an average of forty thousand deaths and twenty-one thousand births, or a natural decline of 19,000 members per year,” a population larger than most dioceses. The advanced—and still advancing—age of our membership, combined with our low birth rate, means that we lose the equivalent of one diocese per year.”  This is, of course, assuming that most of those 21 thousand babies grow up and continue to practice their faith in the Episcopal Church or elsewhere–a rosy expectation that experience has proven to be false in most cases. (click here to download the State of the Church Report as a PDF)

I’m told the Church is in trouble.

Our experience in the Episcopal Church is not unique.  The Southern Baptist Church–which, along with the Roman Catholic often acts as a bit of a foil in conversations amongst Episcopalians–The Southern Baptist Church has the highest proportion of members over the age of 70 years old of any denomination.

In 2008, their outgoing president Frank Page, warned that, should current trends continue as many as half of all Southern Baptist Churches could close by 2030.

And if the Church is in trouble, you might expect evidence to be visible among leaders.  Unfortunately it is.

According to Ashland Theological Seminary and the North American Missions board (also found on this blog):

• Fifteen hundred pastors leave the ministry each month due to moral failure, spiritual burnout, or contention in their churches.
• Fifty percent of pastors’ marriages will end in divorce.  Anecdotally at least, the number seems higher for second career clergy.
• Fifty percent of pastors are so discouraged that they would leave the ministry if they could, but have no other way of making a living.
• 90% say their Seminary Training did not prepare them for what they face day-to-day in the congregation.
• Eighty percent of seminary graduates who enter the ministry will leave the ministry after their first position and within the first five years.
• Only 10% reach age 65 as a pastor.
• Almost forty percent polled said they have had an extra-marital affair since beginning their ministry.
• Seventy percent said the only time they spend studying the Word is when they are preparing their sermons.

Pastors’ Wives/spouses:

• Eighty percent of pastors’ spouses wish their spouse would choose another profession.
• The majority of pastor’s wives surveyed said that the most destructive event that has occurred in their marriage and family was the day they entered the ministry.

I’ve heard the Church is in trouble, and looking at these realities would seem to confirm it.

It would be tempting, even for me as a clergy person, to look at the evidence and say that it demonstrates dysfunctional and inept pastors or troubled congregations.

But the thing is, I think that the majority of people in those congregations that end up closing, and the majority of those pastors who ended up throwing in the towel on their ordained ministry are faithful people who had their hearts in the right place.

And maybe that’s an even scarier prospect.

There’s no easy scape goat.

But the fact of the matter is that there aren’t any qualified leaders in the Christian community–not the way we’ve been conditioned to think about it.

None of those pastors were “good enough” to be pastors.

Perhaps some of them made the mistake of believing that they were.

Our first reading this morning has something to say about that.  I’m thankful that it is a reading that I’ve heard at every ordination service I’ve been to.

In it, we hear the account of Isaiah’s call to be a prophet.

The pivots on the thresholds shook at the voices of those who called, and the house filled with smoke.  And I said: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”

Consider Isaiah’s reaction to God’s presence.  He does not pretend to be worthy.  He does not presume to stand before God as a holy person, prepared for whatever task.

“I am lost,” he says, “for I am a man of unclean lips…”

One of my friends, quite an evangelical, explained his decision to prostrate or lay face down at his ordination service, something usually more associated with the Anglo-Catholic wing of Episcopalians/Anglicans.  Looking at Isaiah as an example, he said “when God’s in the house, you hit the deck.”

This is the proper response of humanity to holiness.

So no one is fit to be a pastor or priest without divine intervention.

And I’m sorry to be the one to have to tell you this, and it may come as a shock–but none of you are fit to be Christians without Jesus Christ.

Consider the way Isaiah’s story unfolds:

Then one of the seraphs flew to me, holding a live coal that had been taken from the altar with a pair of tongs.  The seraph touched my mouth with it and said: “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.”

Isaiah’s confession to God, that he is a man of unclean lips among a people of unclean lips–is followed by God’s assurance of forgiveness: “Now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed from you and your sin is blotted out.”

Having been made clean, Isaiah then hears the voice of The LORD saying “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” And he responds “Here am I; send me!”

Do you see it?  Here, in Isaiah’s story, we are shown the template.

One who is unprepared hears the call of God and recognizes their inadequacy and even sinfulness in the face of the Almighty.

The holiness of God inspires the confession of sin, which is met by God’s assurance of forgiveness and being made pure.

And then, after being made ready by God, the person is called to mission as a response to forgiveness.

God does not call the equipped, it is said, he equips the called.  He does not call the perfect, he perfects the called through the sanctification of the Holy Spirit.

God does not call the sinless, he washes their sins away through the blood of his Son.

And this story of Isaiah does not only apply to clergy but to all those who are called to follow Christ.

You should have noticed some familiarity with the pattern of Isaiah’s story.

Encounter with God.  Confession.  Forgiveness.  Mission.

This is a shape echoed in nearly every one of our Sunday services.

Encounter God through his word proclaimed.

Confessing our sins in response.

Forgiveness pronounced and then sealed with the physical sign of the Body and Blood at Communion…

Which is a sacrament of God’s grace that empowers us to do his work in the world.

All of us have been called.  As Peter says in his first Epistle: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

All this information, all these details may seem daunting.  The trends seem to be against us.

But it’s only through recognizing the way things stand in our culture, in our society, that we can hope to face the challenge.  It’s only through recognizing the changes in our world that we can reflect on the ways in which we need to change in response, or understand the unchanging truths that we need to proclaim with even greater vigor.

Change can be hard.  Humility can be difficult.  But it may be the only thing that can put us in the right place to withstand these challenges and to thrive in the face of them.

And we can take heart that we are far from the first people who have been called to this sort of humble obedience.

Consider our gospel reading this morning.

Jesus is out beside the lake of Gennesaret, and there was a crowd surrounding him and pressing in who wanted to hear the word.  Jesus gets into Simon Peter’s boat and asked him to put out from shore so that he could teach the crowds and be heard, the water acting as an amplifier.

Then he did something else.  He asked Simon to go out to the deeper water and let down his nets for a catch.

Simon’s incredulous response can be explained by the long hours he’s worked, as he says “Master, we have worked all night long but have caught nothing.”  Simon has been working all night; he’s tired and ready to finish up and head home.  Along comes Jesus and he listens to his teaching for who knows how long only to have him tell him to put out a little farther and let down his net again.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Simon was a little frustrated.  Who’s the fisherman here, he must have wondered.

Despite this, He does not continue to protest, but responds:

Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.

Simon is willing to do something that he believes, on a rational level, based upon his own experience, will be fruitless.  But when Jesus asks, he responds out of faith, and his faith is rewarded, as “they caught so many fish that their nets were beginning to break.”

When this happened, Simon had an epiphany and recognized Jesus’ authority and holiness, falling down at Jesus’ knees in an immitation of Isaiah in our first reading and saying:

“Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!” (Confession)  

Jesus sees his response and responds, telling him “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.” (Forgiveness and mission)
When they had brought their boats to shore, they left everything and followed him. (going forth to accomplish the mission, beginning with following Jesus).

There are so many things that stand out about this gospel reading.  The desire of the crowds to hear the word of God–a desire that I do not believe is any less in our own day.  Our task is to discover the best ways of reaching people “out there,” in a way that is faithful but is also expressed in a way they can hear and understand.

The willingness of Simon to take a risk, to go against what he presumed to be the case and step out in faith.

His confession, the grace offered by our Lord, and the promise and commissioning that  they would be “catching people.”

This is Jesus’ promise to Simon, and it’s his promise to us.  We will find ourselves fishing for people, if only we make the decision, and continue making the decision to follow him in the recognition that

This church,
Any church,
The Church–belongs to Jesus and no one else, because we–each one of us–belongs to Jesus and no one else.  That’s what it means to be sealed as Christ’s own forever.

Bought and paid for,

forgiven and restored by him.

You see, I’ve heard that the church is in trouble, and now so have you.  But I’ve also heard something else:

I’ve heard the words of Jesus that He will build his church and the gates of hades, of death, will not prevail against it. (Matt.  16:18).

I’ve heard the words of Jesus, “Do not be afraid.”

And I remember that when our Lord told us to go forth and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, that he also said:

“Behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

and so, as we reflect upon the ways in which we’re called to fulfill the mission that Christ has set before us, let us all strive for the humility that is the hallmark of the Christian life, but also for the confidence and joy that should characterize those who have seen the Glory of God in Jesus Christ.

Our goal is the same as it has always been.  To be able to say, with Paul, in the end:

“For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures,”

We know our goal, we have our mission.  Our task is to discern, together, how to accomplish this.

Amen.

After reading the first chapter of McAdoo’s book, I thought I’d share some of it with you:

The term theological method needs some comment.  There is a distinctively Anglican theological ethos, and the distinctiveness lies in method rather than in content, for Anglicanism, as Chillingworth put it, has declined to call any man master in theology.  There is no specifically Anglican corpus of doctrine and no king-pin in Anglican theology such as Calvin, nor is there any tendency to stress specific doctrines such as predestination, or specific philosophies such as Thomism or nominalism or any other one of the several medieval brands of philosophy.

Richard Montague’s assertion that he was neither a Calvinist nor a Lutheran but a Christian, illustrate the point that Anglicanism is not committed to believing anything because it is Anglican but only because it is true.  Perhaps the most important thing about Hooker is that he wrote no Summa and composed no Institutes, for what he did was to outline method.  What is distinctively Anglican is then not a theology but a theological method. (p. 1)

Ruins of Laodicea

What I mean by that is something exhibited  by Richard Dawkins’ defense of Pat Robertson as a “true Christian.”  The campaign of the new atheism depends largely on the widespread belief that all religious folks are fundamentalist and all religions dangerous by nature.  I would say that many Christians have tacitly accepted this narrative as well, and, if they are not fundamentalists express their faith largely as “we’re not that.”  It’s just this sort of attitude, coupled with a natural desire to preserve institutions and the natural resistance of structures to change  that have wrought much of the decline within mainline denominations.  (That, and the fact, as Peter Berger has pointed out, the mainline “won” culturally speaking and the values that defined the mainline protestant churches have pretty much been universalized in our culture while being detached from their roots.  For many folk, there’s no reason to go to church only to have what one already thinks affirmed.)

The lowest common denomination: a lament

by Scott Stephens (Scott is a pastor and theological educator in the Uniting Church in Australia, one of the country’s largest mainline denominations. In this piece, Scott discusses the Church’s founding confessional document, the Basis of Union. A shorter version of this piece was published in the denominational magazine, Journey.)

Over thirty years ago, the Uniting Church in Australia (UCA) embarked on what could have been a remarkable journey, but it deviated from its original course with devastating consequences. It is now a shell of its former self, like so much Liberal Protestantism throughout the West, having gone whoring after the strange gods of impotent theology, liturgical gimmickry, inert bureaucracy and social respectability.

The past decade in particular has seen the UCA relinquish any prophetic vocation it might once have had — along with a considerable portion of its ecclesial and evangelistic vitality — and instead assume the inoffensive role of the religious division of a non-government provider of community and health services.

And so, in an extraordinary apostasy from its original calling, the UCA has decided to represent the ‘middle way’, the path of least resistance, a facile alternative to fundamentalism, evangelicalism and pentecostalism. In short, it has become the lowest common denomination. It doesn’t take much effort to imagine that, if God sees fit to grant it another thirty years, all that will be left of the Uniting Church itself is the logo on hospitals and Blue Care letterhead — and that for purely historical reasons.

But perhaps most troubling is that the fledgling church was warned against this very apostasy by Davis McCaughey, inaugural President of the Uniting Church. In his incendiary address to the 1979 Assembly of the UCA, McCaughey expressed his fear that the Church would be hijacked by bureaucrats and pedants, and that its clergy would be reduced to careerists and panderers:

“We no longer seem to expect our ministers to spend hours (literally hours) every week, thinking, reading, praying: so that when the hungry sheep look up they may be fed…. And I am not wholly convinced that our Constitution, Regulations and Procedures are sufficiently and rigorously controlled by [our eschatological hope]. I am not persuaded that they are not in danger … of becoming ends in themselves.”

He warned just as passionately against the tendency he perceived to adopt a form of incestuous Church patriotism, which would obscure and ultimately destroy the Church’s vocation to carry on the mission of Christ:

“At all events the cry for a sense of identity in the Uniting Church cannot be answered by the offer of a new kind of Church patriotism. In an important sense, we in the Uniting Church in Australia have no identity, no distinctive marks — other than belonging with the people of God brought into being by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ on their way to the consummation of all things in him.… We have embarked on a course in which we ask men and women to forget who they are, and chiefly to remember whose they are.”

{Read it all}

Not that long ago I was down at Church of the Advent joining in one of several focus groups that the Bishop had asked all clergy to participate in.

Fra Angelico: Sermon on the Mount

As we discussed the past, present and future of the Diocese of Tennessee and reflected upon our strengths and weaknesses as well as the challenges and opportunities that face us, I was reminded of a presentation I once saw that I thought was applicable to our circumstances.  In his presentation for “TED” (a non-profit devoted to “ideas worth spreading,”that holds conferences where thinkers from various disciplines share theirknowledge) James H. Kunstler talks about “the immersive ugliness of our everyday environments in America” and shares his belief that much of the way we have organized our contemporary environments and communities lead to depression because they are places that “aren’t worth caring about.” His argument and hischallenge is for Americans to begin considering the ways in which we can makeour communities worth caring about through the development of buildings andpublic spaces that hearken back to age-old principles of urban planning. In effect, Kunstler argues, if communities are not inspiring and do not illicit care from citizens, they will eventually cease to function as meaningful communities and will be besest by all the problems one can find in communities in decline.While Kunstler’s ideas were specifically applied to the built environment andurban planning, I believe the same principal holds for our diocese as a whole as well as each congregation: our goal should be to build or grow and improve upona community worth caring about.

I believe doing this in the diocese and the parish begins with a simple but often neglected task: the cultivation of relationships between our members.

As a diocese this may mean being more aware of the opportunities available for Christian formation atsome of the larger parishes–St. George’s and Christ Church Cathedral for example–that invite speakersand presenters on occasion. It also means being more willing to partner with one another to do things thatwe may not be able to do as individual congregations.The joint Vacation Bible School that St. Joseph’s hasbeen involved with over the past few years with St.Francis and Our Savior–which will be continuing thisyear–is also a practical example.

Within our congregation, the building of relationships is also important, and I have already seen that thereare a number of different ways for people to connectwith one another here at St. Joseph’s. But within ourparish community our challenge is not only to build relationships around common interests and passions, but to go farther.  As individual congregations, if we want to truly be seen as communities worth caring about by all of our members–and even the surrounding community–we need first to be acommunity that cares for others.

Even as I type this, I know that there are so manydifferent ways that we at St. Joseph’s demonstrateour care for one another and for the community.Whether it be through our involvement with theHendersonville Samaritan Association, our supportof Jesús el Señor, The Second Base foundation or theassistance we provide to families throughout the yearand particularly at Christmas, there are so many thingswe already do as a congregation that demonstrate thatwe care about our community and one another.

The challenge for us as we move forward into thefuture is that we don’t lose the places where we’realready demonstrating our care for one another, andsecondly that we become more conscious of the goalto be a caring community that is therefore cared for.  This means that we must be on the look out for the ways in which we can strengthen the bonds betweenone another. It also requires us to become more andmore active and visible in our community.

One of the most important points made by The Rt.Rev. Gregory Kerr-Wilson, the guest speaker at ourmost recent diocesan convention, was that the centerof gravity in our culture has moved away from churchattendance. No longer can we simply talk about “removing barriers” for newcomers and expect themto walk through our doors.  Instead we have to become an invitational church, not just an atractional church.  Part of being an invitational church, a community thatpeople want to visit and remain a part of is building up our identity as a community of caring.  As wemove forward together, I pray that we all find ways ofworking toward the goal of making our congregationsuch a community of caring that we inspire others.  One of the earliest recorded statments about Christians, according to the third century apologist Tertullian, was “See how they love one another.”  Let this be our watchword in our own day as well.

For an eye-opening experience, explore the map below from slaverymap.org:

I don’t think it’s a red herring to discuss the aesthetics of the way schools are constructed.  I once heard a TED talk (if I can find it I’ll post it in the comments) where the presenter talked about the importance of creating “communities worth caring about.”  I think the same principal applies to learning communities/schools.  One can create a community worth caring about (and therefore an environment in which learning is valued), or a community that is despised and inculcates a distaste for learning.

Click below for the video

From my mother’s side, amongst other family items, I’ve found a letter written by a young teacher just out of normal school to my great grandfather, thanking him for his support of the new school (a one room school house) that had just been completed in the community.  It was the first school in that community, and the enthusiasm of the young teacher is still infectious just shy of a century later.  My great grandfather was a veteran on the Spanish American war who returned home to live the remainder of his days farming, raising tobacco and pushing for the building of roads and other elements of progress in the community.

On both sides of my family I see evidence of the great tradition of Southern Populism that gave rise to and supported education in North Carolina in the University of North Carolina system and in many smaller local institutions, from the founding of one room school houses to community colleges.  As an heir of even a small part of this tradition, you’d be hard pressed to get me to say anything negative about the idea of education in general, and the importance of the liberal arts in particular.

But as true as all of this is, it doesn’t make me less of a critic of some of the negative trends in education which are especially prevalent in public schools–perhaps because they are the push-me-pull-me of education.  I say this not to be critical of public school teachers–my sister is a talented and committed high school history teacher at a public school in North Carolina–but because I believe the institution we have constructed to educate our children is systemically flawed, in some cases tragically.  I’m sure my sister or any number of other gifted teachers could write pages about the specifics of this claim, and they are in many ways as much victims of the system as the children they strive to educate.

I bring this topic up today because of a pair of articles I just finished reading by Gordan Atkinson, aka Real Live Preacher.  In Our Life With Shelby, pts. 1 & 2, Atkinson recounts the experience of his middle daughter, Shelby, in the education system.  It is a powerful story and I pray that the positive note that the articles end on will only continue and that Shelby will flourish.

Our Life with Shelby, pt. 1

Our Life with Shelby, pt. 2

Killing the Messenger

During the previous triennium the State of the Church Committee told the truth about the condition of our church. It did an excellent job of reporting the difficulties of an aging, financially challenged denomination. It acknowledged further losses due to conflict in our churches, particularly over sexuality issues that have exacerbated the decline in attendance and membership. The committee made recommendations for addressing these challenges.

Were their recommendations heeded? No. Our General Convention had no real strategy in its decisions. The cuts in the triennial budget were hailed as “fair” and “across the board.” But they weren’t strategic. Seemingly strategic staff positions of three years ago and even one year ago were eliminated with little dissent. The convention passed all evangelism-related resolutions while at the same time eliminating the church’s evangelism officer.

So many of our dioceses are in financial difficulties. Some of the financial shortfall in diocesan income is due to the recent recession. But remember, giving to the Episcopal Church by the dioceses is based upon previous years’ income. The most recent financial shortfall for the Episcopal Church is attributable, not to the recent recession, but to decreased income to our collective dioceses in the past three years.

With ever-increasing decline in attendance and giving and ever-increasing costs of doing business at the congregational level, assessments paid to the Episcopal Church by our dioceses will likely decrease even more within the next six years. In other words, this current financial shortfall was a long time in the making, and it will likewise be a long time in the remedying.

As a denomination, we need transformational change, not incremental change. Incremental change represents business as usual. Incremental change represents “just trying a little harder.” If we continue doing things as we have done, we will continue our decline, continue bleeding off the endowments of previous generations, continue to congratulate ourselves on the pockets of vitality while we become a church pastored primarily by retired and part-time clergy. One recommendation of the previous

State of the Church Committee was that some members be reappointed to provide for some continuity with the previous committee. Was that advice heeded? No. Not one member of the 2006-09 State of the Church Committee was reappointed for 2009-12.

{Read it all}

To be clear, this sort of thing frustrates me, but does not cause me to loose sleep at night.  I don’t actually thing TEC is unique, nor do I think the failure of an institution means the efforts one puts in in parish ministry are pointless.  Institutions rise and fall, but that does not mean that congregations cannot experience health and vitality as this occurs.  Likewise, if a congregation fails after a pastor puts their efforts into it, so be it.  What matters most (in my opinion) is the impact one has on individual lives while being faithful, and the cumulative effect of that.

Meth, like most addictive drugs, plays upon particular weaknesses.  Meth, however, seems particularly suited as a drug for the “common man.”  A drug that helps you work longer hours, feel strong–like superman–and helps you forget the meals you haven’t eaten or been able to afford.  Well, it’s too much for many people in poor communities, rural and urban, to pass up.  This book is definitely on my reading list.

Methland

Claremont, CA. They call it the “Superman Syndrome.” People who use methamphetamine often believe that they are capable of doing impossible things. Like flying. Or walking through walls. Or earning a living as a meatpacker in the era of agribusiness.

Nick Reding’s Methland (Bloomsbury, $25) made a number of “Best Books of 2009” lists, but I want to make sure it does not get consigned to the Decade That Was. It is one of the best pieces of book-length journalism that I have read in years, and if you haven’t read it already it should be your must-read book of 2010.

Methland starts out as the tale of one small town – Oelwein, Iowa – so ravaged by small-time methamphetamine production that its officials ban bicycling on Main Street. (Meth makers were riding through downtown with chemical-filled soda bottles strapped to their bikes; the motion helps to “cook” the drug.) Everyone is in a state of collapse: the people who are addicted to the drug, of course, but also the people – the mayor, the prosecutor, the doctor, the policemen – who are trying to fight it.

It sounds like an ABC Afterschool Special for the literary set – drugs are bad! see what they can do to you/us/Iowans! – but as Reding gets further into his story, the story gets much more complicated.

What Methland is really about is the many connections, subtle and apparent, among methamphetamine, immigration policy, and the mega-consolidated industries that we call Big Pharma and Big Agriculture. If the denizens of Oelwein were finding it almost impossible to combat the scourge of meth use, it was because structures and forces well beyond the scale of the town were effectively conspiring to spread it.

Reding’s critique of Big Agriculture – those same folks who chastised the First Lady for growing her own vegetables – is in particular worth the price of admission.

In Oelwein he gives us a sad example of what the introduction of agribusiness can do to employment in a farming community: In 1992, the local Iowa Ham plant was bought by Gilette. Within a day, Gilette dismantled the union and wages fell from $18 to $6.20 an hour. Gilette then sold the plant to Iowa Beef Products, and in 2001 Iowa Beef Products sold the plant to Tyson. With each sale, people were fired. In 2006, Tyson closed the plant for good. (Also with each sale, more and more workers turned to meth, hoping that it would allow them to stay awake for enough shifts at a time that they would be able to earn a decent wage. As Reding notes, meth has always been the drug “associated with hard work.”)

But Reding also describes the extent to which Big Ag has fought for the ability to hire illegal immigrants – as many as 25 percent of the agricultural jobs in the United States are performed by illegal immigrants – which among many other effects has made it harder to police cross-border drug trade. Although the powerful Mexican drug trafficking organizations employ only a “miniscule percentage of the illegal immigrants in this country,” Reding observes, “that fractional number is harder still to police within an ever-expanding multitude of people that is overwhelmingly law abiding.”

{Read it all}

All for love’s sake becamest poor;
Thrones for a manger didst surrender,
Sapphire-paved courts for stable floor.
Thou who wast rich beyond all splendour,
All for love’s sake becamest poor.

Thou who art God beyond all praising,
All for love’s sake becamest man;
Stooping so low, but sinners raising
Heavenwards by thine eternal plan.
Thou who art God beyond all praising,
All for love’s sake becamest man.

Thou who art love beyond all telling,
Saviour and King, we worship thee.
Emmanuel, within us dwelling,
Make us what thou wouldst have us be.
Thou who art love beyond all telling,
Saviour and King, we worship thee