If I Went Back

Saturday, July 28, 2007

What I Would Do (9)

Pioneers are not the ones who get the things into reality and a final form. Pioneers, I am told, are passionate people who can sometimes be too passionate. Passion is scary (even to another passionate person.) Passion can turn people off. But the good news is that in most cases somewhere along the line, many of the ideas and dreams of the pioneers become real to others. They settle in and others take them, add flesh to the bones- and off it goes.

Such is the patience and humility needed by the pioneer- to cast the vision, live the passion and then wait to see who picks it up and runs with it.

That is a difficult thing to manage when one is pastor of a church. At least on the surface. It seems like the pastoral role is quite well understood and has been so for a long time. Well, I still believe that with the right kind of dialogue and conversation, beginning before the call is even accepted, it can be done. It is not an easy or a quick task. It may take some time to develop. But it all comes back to leadership.

It does appear that the further into this series that I get- and the closer to the end I get- the question of leadership and management is at the heart of what the church may need for the coming years. I know of very few churches that will be able to survive if they do business as usual from 25 years ago. No, they won't die overnight, but they will find themselves having greater difficulty meeting the needs around them in the changing world.

That leadership can be seen and developed in any style of church. It just has to be appropriate for the community that one is in- and in which the church seeks to be in mission.

Note: I have a hunch that we are quickly coming to the end of this series. There will probably be one more to go summing it all up - if that is possible. It will probably be in a couple of weeks since I have a few other things I think I want to be working on in the next weeks. But feel free to drop me a note if you want me to deal with something specific.

Friday, July 20, 2007

What I Would Do (8)

Section One of this series dealt with what I miss now that I am doing "secular" ministry after thirty years as a parish pastor. Section Two was about what I don't miss. Section Three was talking about "secular ministry." Section Four looked at what I've learned in these three years in "secular ministry."
Links to earlier sections:
Introduction
1. What I Miss: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
2. What I Don't Miss: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Interlude (1)
3. Secular Ministry: Part 1, Part 2
4. What I've Learned: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Interlude (2)
5. What I Would Do: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I am a denominational person. This September will mark 33 years that I have been ordained pastor of my particular denomination. Over the past three and a half years I have not sought out any other denomination to worship in. When I walk into a church of my denomination I know I am in a place that feels like home.

I know that I may be part of the last generation of era in which denomination plays such a role. Or maybe not. Pope Benedict XVI and his recent proclamation about the "one true church" and the rest of us as "ecclesial communities" may be an attempt at maintaining the prime position the Roman Church feels it has. But with possible exceptions like his, there are those who say that the era of different denominations is coming to an end.

Or at least the die-hard connections we have made to them. There is a melting pot of worship and style that is happening. There is a re-aligning along different theological fault lines. There is a new tribalism that may be at work based more on comfort than theology.

Which may be the way it has always been. It's just that we got comfortable with our own denominational styles and structures and made them basic to the faith. But does it have a place in the postModern world? Is it useful?

I would give a resounding "Yes!" to that. It potentially marks clear areas of agreement and at times disagreement. The problem is not the different theologies- the problem is when we believe that our theology is the only one, true theology. The question may be more important to consider how we can get along in spite of our differing theologies and bring a united witness to the Gospel.

Denominations give us a sub-identity. Christian- in this day and age- is far too broad a category for most of us. Different denominations give us different places where our individual and unique experiences of the faith can be lived out.

For example, I am not a Pentecostal. I have never spoken in tongues. I believe in the presence of the gifts of the Spirit, including tongues. But such ecstatic worship is uncomfortable to me. That doesn't make it wrong or bad. It just doesn't connect me to God. Is that okay? I hope so. In a postModern world where absolutes will be challenged, anything that appears to be presented as an "Absolute" will be questioned.

Denominations, then, become associations of congregations with like-mindedness on a variety of topics- worship, style, attitude, theology, history, and the like. In that they give those of us in them an identity that says more about us than it does about God. For example, my particular denomination- Moravian- has quite a singular place in history. It is where Protestant mission began. It is where music and congregational singing was introduced. It is where the roots of the Reformation were planted 100 years before Martin Luther.

It is also a denomination that is built on fellowship more than dogma; our story as evidence of the directions we take than on theology. It is a denomination that looks to a religion of the heart more than the head. It is a denomination that is clearly in the mainstream of the mainline Protestant movement and traditionally connected to ecumenism.

That means we are not Lutheran or Episcopalian or Methodist though we have strong connections with all three of them. I can appreciate them- as well as the Baptists and Mennonites, Presbyterians and Alliance churches. The rich tapestry (as one of our liturgies says) of the Christian faith needs- absolutely NEEDS- this diversity. Especially if the church is to reach out to all kinds of people with all kinds of personalities.

How then do we work this in our postModern world? Denominations will hopefully work more fully together to develop resources and opportunities for mission to their own particular groups. If we think we are in competition with other denominations and congregations, we miss the mark. By a wide mile or more. A person who feels comfortable in a Baptist church will probably not feel comfortable in a Lutheran Church. Someone who likes the high liturgy of the Episcopal/Anglican communion will feel short-changed in the Moravian Church. And that is okay!

Denominations give the smaller organizations- the congregations- the chance to do things they might not be able to do on their own and make international and national connections that they never would be able to make. What I guess this means to me is that I would continue- if I went back- to support and promote the work of the denomination as essential to our local mission and our being essential to the greater mission.

Denominational structure is not there to support its own history or view- although it will do that. It is there to support the missional nature of the church. It is essential that the denomination recognize its partnership with the local churches and the local churches partnership with the denomination. We need each other. We are not as a local church to rely solely on ourselves and do only what we want to do. The greater church - as evidenced by the denominational connection- is a way to keep us from being too ingrown.

This is a change in thinking. Not in theory but in practice. It is important as a way of keeping the world-wide witness of the church from being further fractured. If we are looking beyond simply shuffling members around from one church to another, if we are truly interested in reaching out in mission to those who have chosen to remain outside, such a willingness to work together is essential.

We will keep our individual identities and theologies. And thank God for that. I would hate to lose the richness and color of all our styles living and working together in this Kingdom of God.

Saturday, July 14, 2007

What I Would Do (7)

Unfortunately, I fear that most of us pastors think of ourselves as caregivers to the congregation, maintainers of the status quo, rather than agents of change.--Link to blog post

In a discussion earlier this week, this post came to mind. Several of us were talking about the difference between church planter-type pastors and parish-type pastors. It may very well be that the practical difference is found in that very quote. Or, as Bill Easum used to describe it- it is possible to have too many gifts of mercy for the job you are doing. Or, as Jim Collins talks about in Good to Great, you have to get the wrong people off the bus and the right people on in order to move to greatness. We don't like to do that. We don't want to leave anyone out.

The same kind of distinctions may very well be in place for the difference between leaders and managers. As we continue to look at the issue, we are on shaky ground. We are, in many ways moving away from the training that most clergy have had. Most training is a professional education to do a particular type of job. Feed the hungry, visit the sick, kind of things. That has become, as we talked about in a much earlier post, the definition of being a pastor. Add a little bit of good theological education, put a dash of church history, stir in Clinical Pastoral Education and there you have it.

Pastor. The Expert. The Hired Hand to do The Job.

Nothing wrong with that in theory. But it certainly based on Jesus' ministry. I know I have covered this in other posts but I bring it back in here because it would inform and guide my attempts, if I went back into parish ministry, to live it differently. In order to do that one of the things I will be required (by my own needs) to do is find a spiritual director and a coach. They could be one and the same, but II will want to utilize the coach in specific leadership and development ways and a spiritual director as a guide along the spiritual road that must be walked through the whole thing. If I can find someone who can do both, all the better. It will allow for a deeper and broader intergration.

I have learned that outside support is critical to a personal ministry that is growing. An outside coach and spiritual director can often see through the pains and acute tensions of a situation and ask the right questions. Never, never do I have enough resources in myself to do it. Never, never do I have all the insights and answers. I need to be able to admit that and look for those people around me. Support is not an option. It is non-negotiable. Professionals, non-professionals, friends, even strangers.

I have a close friend that I have been doing this with for 19 years now. We now live over 320 miles apart, but once in a while, if too much time goes by, we meet at a restaurant 160 miles from each of us. He is a supportive friend I couldn't live without. Other friends are contacted on the phone. Other people are at my support meetings. At another point in my ministry I was part of other support groups through the greater church. Non-negotiable.

Last week I commented that if all this were possible we wouldn't need God. The real underlying importance of that statement is not that we need God, but that we need to know what God wants us to do and then seek the proper power to do it. We all pay a lot of lip service to that idea but in our actions and realities of daily life we often behave differently. That's why one of the things I would seek to do differently were I to re-enter the ministry is to seek more and broader ways to introduce spiritual disciplines to the church I am serving. That says Alan Roxburgh is an essential part of being missional.

From Alan Roxburgh's Journal comes this:

Growing numbers of leaders are aware that missional change is not primarily about techniques and programs. It’s about culture or worldview change... The question is: How does this kind of disciplined culture change occur? there is one element that does seem common to those leaders who sustain themselves on the way - they are rooted in some form of regular spiritual practices... but .. the vast majority of church leaders have no daily form of Christian practice or formation in their own lives.

To live and grow together as a missional congregation/community the practice of Christian formation is one I would seek to develop. There are countless ways that such formation has been done over the centuries. We are rediscovering many of them in new ways today. The modern semi-monastic movements, praying the Daily Hours, quiet contemplative retreats- these and many more work to strengthen the community and keep us aimed at God and the world beyond our own doors.

I said I would talk a little about denominationalism...well- I guess that will wait for another week.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

What I Would Do (6)

Managers:
Plan and Budget
Organize and Staff
Control and Problem Solve
This leads to predictability and order and the short-term results expected by those who are the stakeholders.

On the other hand we have:

Leaders:
Establish Direction
Align People
Motivate and Inspire
This leads to change.

To manage or to lead, that is the question. Nope, that is not a question at all. Not if one is missional. That is the question only if the status quo is what we want to maintain. That is the question if the pastor and leaders are there to serve the congregation alone or their denomination alone. (Maybe a little bit about denominationalism at a later point, but not here.)

If you want to take it a step further, leaders see a different set of stakeholders, or even for that matter a different Stakeholder. Management sees those who pay your salary; leaders see who called you. Management is institutionalism personified; leadership is mission in action.

One of the problems Kotter talks about is complacency. He says, for example, in essence that when complacency is at work the fights and arguments tend to be inward, aimed at each other. Complacency comes from

Arrogance- we know, they don't.
Insularity- separate classes of people
Bureaucracy- organize, organize, organize.

These do not produce change programs that will be anything but DOA. Complacency is the result, for example, of the attitudes of Christendom- the melding of church and secular culture, where everyone was a Christian and expected to be loyal to the church- even if they weren't Christian. It is the equating of culture and/or state with the Christian faith. You will be complacent at that point since you don't have to do anything. Or you direct your mission efforts beyond the culture- overseas, for example, in order to bring them to faith. We don't need it.\

Leadership in the post-Christian/pre-Christian world cannot be about management. It must be about the mission of God in our midst. It must lead us to see what we can be doing and how the opportunities for mission are beyond counting.

If all we do is manage, we are trying to save the institution. That is never enough. Here is a quote from Seth Godin's book, Survival is Not Enough (p.204 - 205) thanks to an article in Jeff Patton's newsletter:

How can you motivate a group of successful people to give up their point of view before it is too late? In many cases you can’t. They are too fat, too happy, too sure that they know how to do it and that there are no other right answers. These are at an evolutionary dead end, and their DNA has calcified. They want to be serfs so let them.

Create teams of naive novices, people who bring a beginner’s mind to a problem. They haven’t figured out all the ways that are impossible, so they ‘re far more likely to come up with solutions that are bad...and then motivated enough to evolve those solutions into ones that work.

There's a lot of wisdom in that last paragraph. A beginner's mind. Come at it with wide-eyed wonder, not a sight blurred by dullness and the way it has always been. Such leadership needs to keep working through all the things that don't work until the things that do work begin to show through. Such leadership is dangerous- and may even be fatal in some established churches. One must have a vision and be able to share it from the depths of one's heart and soul. Then, as Bill Easum would say, watch for the twinkle in someone else's eyes- and grab them.

It may be easier to do this in new church starts. But unless the people coming into the church plant are new, naive novices, chances are it may end up looking like a variation of what has gone before. Pretty soon the complacency will set in and well, we don't need more complacent churches. We need more missional ones.

If I went back I would want to make this as absolutely clear as possible from the word "Go!" It is not fair to pull a bait and switch by holding back on this and then saying, after the furniture is all moved in, "By the way, I'm not going to do it that way." Share the vision. Live the vision. It is essential to be transparent. In an established church it would probably take more time than I have left in ministry to get it done. Not that it can't be started and the DNA re-engineered. Sure it can.

And of course if I could do it, I wouldn't need God in the process.

But that, like denominationalism is for another week.

Tuesday, July 3, 2007

What I Would Do (5)

Servant leadership is an approach to leadership development, coined and defined by Robert Greenleaf and advanced by several authors such as Stephen Covey, Peter Block, Peter Senge, Max De Pree, Margaret Wheatley, Ken Blanchard, John Sullivan, and others. Servant-leadership emphasizes the leader's role as steward of the resources (human, financial and otherwise) provided by the organization. It encourages leaders to serve others while staying focused on achieving results in line with the organization's values and integrity.
--Link

As I see it, servant leadership in the church is to follow the ethics, style, and direction of Jesus. That sounds so straightforward and intuitive that it is hard to think of any way to disagree with it. But in practice that is not the style of the church and probably hasn't been for quite a few centuries. For lots of good and bad reasons the idea of leadership in the church has been more hierarchical or tyrannical with a hierarchy or tyranny of both clergy and/or lay people possible depending on the particular theology or history of the church.

To live that out in a church is not an easy task. Clergy have been misused and abused by churches through low-pay, incredibly impossible demands on them, or lack of free or family time for generations. They justify is through saying the clergy is to be a "servant." Vice versa there are clergy who abuse and misuse their leadership by insisting that the lay people are their servants by being the "earthly ambassador" for Christ or any of a number of different theological constructs. In short to be a servant is usually to be misused and abused.

In contrast Jesus-led servant leadership is far more proactive. A servant is not a slave. A servant is not to be mistreated. A servant is to do the work of the master- and in the church the master is neither the pastor nor the congregation. The Master is God. So first and foremost a servant leader knows the mission and helps live it. In that moment the servant leader knows that it is not about them and their power. It is about the growth of the mission of God and their commitment to it.

All well and good. But there has to be more. In searching the Web this past week I found a series of questions that according to its authors are a way of checking whether you are or have been a servant leader. Note as you read it that this is from a state university in a secular setting. It is not from within the history or theology of the church. But it sure could be....

Do people believe that you are willing to sacrifice your own self-interest for the good of the group?
Do people believe that you want to hear their ideas and will value them?
Do people believe that you will understand what is happening in their lives and how it affects them?
Do people come to you when the chips are down or when something traumatic has happened in their lives?
Do others believe that you have a strong awareness for what is going on?
Do others follow your requests because they want to as opposed to because they “have to”?
Do others communicate their ideas and vision for the organization when you are around?
Do others have confidence in your ability to anticipate the future and its consequences?
Do others believe you are preparing the organization to make a positive difference in the world?
Do people believe that you are committed to helping them develop and grow?
Do people feel a strong sense of community in the organization that you lead?

--Link-University of Nebraska-Lincoln

The authors, John E. Barbuto, Jr. and Daniel W. Wheeler, Extension Leadership Development Specialists for the University, could have been describing what we have traditionally called "ministry." Yet we can see where that has fallen apart with the questions on community, the openness of others to share their visions, preparing to make a positive difference in the world and not just in the church, and people following because they want to not because they feel coerced or forced. This kind of give-and-take openness isn't any more common in the church than it is in the business world. Yet it is essential.

In this postModern world it has become a non-negotiable. One of the things about the world around us is that people are less and less willing to accept leadership based on simple position, authority, or degrees. Leadership is followed when it is earned. Loyalty is to those who exhibit true and open leadership and is withheld from those who don't. "Because I'm the boss" is no longer as good a reason to do it as it is to look for a new job. The leader has to be willing to risk and share their vision and bring the people on board.

On one of my recent travels I listened to a CD of a servant leadership training session by James Hunter. The CD was subtitled "achieving success through character, bravery & influence." In one section he commented on this change in leadership acceptance by saying that today most people don't quit their job- "they quit their supervisor." Many will not remain in a job where they are treated poorly or misused and abused even for better pay. It may work for a while but it won't stick.

Perhaps that is one of the lessons we in the church haven't learned. Perhaps it isn't that people have left "the church" but rather the human institutional leadership style. When old traditions are more important than the mission, when the feelings of long-dead members still control the decisions, when lay and clergy seek to have their will done at the expense of other people's visions, people will leave.

Now no one is perfect. Even the best servant leaders make mistakes all the time. They step on toes, they ignore a vision, they get bogged down in institutionalism. In spite of the long history of servant leadership in the teachings of Jesus people like St. Francis are few and far between. The rest of us have to work on it daily, prayerfully, and very intentionally. A place to start is with that series of questions that delineate the characteristics of servant leadership. To ask those questions on a regular basis, to hold them up as a guidepost toward greater fulfillment of the life of Jesus in our common life will bring us all a little closer to living a little more often like Jesus.

That's the theory and theology. That's the easy part. As one of my youth group once responded in a Jesus-based values discussion- everyone knows what Jesus would do. I just might not be able to do it. But that's for next week.

Sunday, June 24, 2007

What I Would Do (4)

I had heard that the early church was a place where the faithful gathered to celebrate their faith in community. It was an acknowledgment of commonly held beliefs, yes, but more importantly an acknowledgment of common Christian practice.

In other words, church wasn't a "weekly filling station" where the faithful got enough fuel to last them all week.

I know I haven't invoked the "Early Church" as a reference for much of what I have written anywhere in this series. So Greg's comments bring me to the point of having to say something about it. I am not a First Century Church Scholar so most of what I'm going to say is based more on intuition than on study. So, let me jump in with my thoughts and opinions.

It would seem to me that there was not a single "First Century Church" style. It varied, I am sure with the leaders and ethnicity. The Gentile communities worshiped differently from the Jewish communities. That is clear from the arguments reported in Acts between those who insisted on the old Jewish ways and those who were willing to admit the Gentiles without circumcision. So the first thing to remember is that the styles differed by the community- a common ground that we share with them in this age that is far more diverse than any place since the First Century Rome. In other words it is not about the style of worship- it has to be something more.

Which brings me to Greg's reminder that the often heard comment about coming to church to get refueled for the week may not be the whole story- or even a very large part of the story. This gets to the very heart of what worship is to be. The "refueling station" concept is one that grows out of the individualism of our modern American civilization. "I" come to church for "my" benefit. It makes "me" feel better. It fits the individual (personal) salvation model that underlies much western Protestant thought, even outside the more conservative and evangelical circles. Church is all about "me" and "mine."

I don't believe that was the focus of the First Century Church's worship. It was about the community. It was the opportunity for the community to get together. It was the time to remember that it wasn't all about "me." It's about God and "us."

A number of things actually do occur in worship- and one of them is the "refueling" for the week ahead. But it's not for "me" to have strength. It is so that "we" can be strengthened and empowered to go do mission as community. The mission is always the motivating force of all that the church does. It is even part of what happens in worship. "We" are refueled- empowered- by worship because

we pray together
we hear God's Word together
we learn together
we confess our shortcomings together
we experience forgiveness together
we sing and praise together and, in short,
we are community together.

I would find it essential that when planning a worship service these elements be kept in mind. Somehow or another, depending on styles, traditions (or lack of them), culture, and so on, these are part and parcel of who we are as a church and therefore of our worship together. Which may be why, in the long term, the sweetened, self-centered styles of worship may feel good for a while, but will in the end discover they have lost the true center of worship- the mission of God.

The more I think about worship, the more convinced I become of this unbreakable connection. It is at the very center of Judeo-Christian worship, for example. Being God's People is what worship expressed. Not being God's individual person who happens to be sitting next to another of God's individual persons singing the same song or daydreaming during the same prayer. Those interconnections make community and become the very incarnation of Jesus in our world.

Greg is right- it is faith expressed in community, in the practice of worship in community, and ultimately the faith of the community lived and practiced in the world.

So, next week, on to leadership issues.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

What I Would Do (3)

Section One of this series dealt with what I miss now that I am doing "secular" ministry after thirty years as a parish pastor. Section Two was about what I don't miss. Section Three was talking about "secular ministry." Section Four looked at what I've learned in these three years in "secular ministry."
Links to earlier sections:
Introduction
1. What I Miss: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
2. What I Don't Miss: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Interlude (1)
3. Secular Ministry: Part 1, Part 2
4. What I've Learned: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Interlude (2)
5. What I Would Do: Part 1, Part 2
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Time now to think about preaching- the proclamation of the Word. It is fairly obvious from the Book of Acts as well as Paul's letters that preaching goes back to about as early a stage in the church as there is. Or, more to the point, the proclamation of the Word goes back that far. I am not enough of a Biblical scholar to know what the real difference is between what they did and what we tend to do. But somehow it seems to me that there is something quite different.

I think we can actually see that difference when we compare the "sermons" recorded in Acts and the fairly wide content of the different letters. The sermons tended to be given as an explanation of Jesus and the Good News, most often for those who were outside the church. They often included an outline of what we call salvation history in a kind of proof development. Peter's sermon in Acts 2 is the first such example, but far from the last. There is a formality to such things.

The letters are more like dissertations on Scripture. They seek to explain and dig and interpret the Word for people who are already within the church. While they may seem formal to us in style and language, they had a much more informal and less rigid style.

I have a hunch that there was a third style that is often referred to as being "devoted to the Apostle's teaching." They didn't have formal preachers. They didn't have formal teachers. They didn't even have informal ones- at least not in the way we think about them. It was not "The Expert" informing "The Unknowing" about the Word. It was a community event. It was a give and take. It was one sinner helping another sinner discover salvation.

Which reminds me- again- of the 12 Step movement. I am no longer surprised when I end up back in the AA or NA or Al-Anon rooms when I think about the church and its style. Way back in the earliest years of AA people were noticing the apparent similarities between the fledgling movement and the First Century Church. In essence the 12 Step movement was modeled upon the original small group movement.

You go to a 12 Step meeting and you will find amid all the different styles a basic approach that works quite well. Not perfectly, but overall, quite well. There is the basic text, the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous or whichever group you are attending. They read from portions of it. Some groups read larger portions. Others just the basics of the 12-steps and How It Works. Then they talk about a paricular step, topic, or problem related to being sober. You may or may not have announcements and prayer and concerns. Sometimes there is only a speaker and no discussion. Sometimes you break up into small groups for discussion of the lead or step and sometimes you remain in a large group and some get a chance to share.

But people walk out feeling better than they walked in. They also leave wit a deeper undrestanding of the step or topic. Some meetings will stick to the steps, repeating them every 12 weeks so in a year you will have covered the essentials and heard differing opinions on them 4 times. There is only one primary purpose of these groups- helping those who are still suffering under the effects of addictions. People attend these "religiously" - regularly. Several times a week. Some start recovery by going to 90 meetings in 90 days.

Now I realize this was a long detour but in that detour is, I believe at least a partial answer to the why and how of preaching. It is first and foremost a community event, shared by those who have gathered. Preaching, then, comes out of that life. One of the problems I have often seen with some preaching styles is that they are often "generic" or evangelistic. I think it is essential that in this postModern age such contextual opportunities for living and preaching the word become standard. Pastors cannot be "The Experts" who give "The Word". They are the mediators of the Word within the context of the community.

One way to experiment with this is for the pastor to gather a Prayer and Word group to look at the lessons upcoming and reflect on them in the light of the congregation's life and mission and within the greater issue of the missio dei. In that the pastor hears and responds and becomes aware as he or she works on the message how this passage might have an impact. Having personal messages from individuals on particular issues would also add to this. I have a hunch that a broad discussion of this within a congregation could have an impact in ways that we all would be surprised.

Sermons, though, are also ways to reinforce the mission and meaning of the Christian faith on a regular basis. A talk I heard the other day reminded me that of all those attending a workshop only 10% put what they learn into practice. Most have only an inspirational time and then go back to the ways they used to do things. I have a hunch that for many events, 10% may even be too high a number. The speaker commented that this is why he sees it essential to go to church weekly. It is to reinforce the message and build the possibilities of living it in daily life.

He's right. It can be so easy on Wednesday morning to forget how to live as a Christian. The time span from Sunday to then is too great. The way to get to a deeper commitment to growth is repetition. AND to practice the things we learn. One of my discoveries is how much more I have to think about my faith in the secular world. In the church I was surrounded by it day in and day out. Now I know that working in the church isn't a guarantee that one will be more faithful, but at least I thought about it more often.

So preaching for me, then, would attempt to be intentional about sharing the Word within the context of the community and the communities needs. Then it would be to reinforce the calling of each of us to live as Christ-followers in what we do all week. Somehow in this there may also need to be the opportunity to reflect and discuss about our own lives, but that is a response to the sermon, not the sermon itself.

As I wrote this I wondered how different this might be from what I used to do. From feedback I have received over the years, I think this has been my style for most of my ministry. But I can't say I was intentional about it. The intention now would be to reinforce the mission, not to make people just feel better. It would be the ongong challenge to see everything within the life of the church as going in that single, missional direction.

Next week I'll jump into the fray of leadership, management, and how to work in a church.

Thursday, June 7, 2007

What I Would Do (2)

Section One of this series dealt with what I miss now that I am doing "secular" ministry after thirty years as a parish pastor. Section Two was about what I don't miss. Section Three was talking about "secular ministry." Section Four looked at what I've learned in these three years in "secular ministry."
Links to earlier sections:
Introduction
1. What I Miss: Part 1, part 2, part 3
2. What I Don't Miss: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Interlude (1)
3. Secular Ministry: Part 1, Part 2
4. What I've Learned: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Interlude (2)
5. What I Would Do: Part 1
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I preached on Sunday, substituting for my pastor who was celebrating with his daughter on her graduation from high school. How easily one falls into the rhythm and mode of leading worship. Of course it is the church where I am a member and you know generally the routine and flow of the service. But you still look out and get an energy as you preach and look at their faces and hope you're reaching their souls.

Which takes me to going back, part 2. How would I do worship differently than before? What would my preaching look like? This makes me think of the development over the past decade or so of "seeker-sensitive" worship and whether that is what we should be about in worship. The goal of the mega-church developed seeker sensitivity is attarctiveness. It is, as is being described in some circles as "attractional" church (as opposed to "missional" church.) It's purpose has been to make worship "friendly and familiar" to non-Christians, to the "seekers" who are looking for something but still haven't found what they are looking for.

Hence seeker sensitive worship was often about looks and the surface of theology. In the larger churches the more "in-depth" worship for those who are further along in their faith was held on another night of the week. Things like Holy Communion may even be reserved for the non- seeker sensitive worship. It seems to me that such a set-up is a good way to develop a hierarchy of worshippers, a class system.

This attractional view of church presupposes that people have to come to us. We have to be attractive to them. When they walk in they have to feel comfortable. So we make it easy to understand and try not to struggle with hard questions. We may present a happy, smiley-faced worship. Obviously (?), this isn't wrong- to a point. But one of those points is that it easily turns into a bait-and-switch.

A number of years ago a friend of mine was attending one of these seeker-sensitive mega-church worship experiences. He was not a newcomer to the faith and had a deep and missional faith. He liked the worship, it's music, the preaching, the atmosphere. It was moving, and did provide more than the basic superficial stuff. But obviously not as much as was under the surface. After a few years he and his wife decided that they would explore joining. Now, all of a sudden they were presented with a lot of things they never knew before. There were requirements that were seldom if ever publicly shared. Once you joined there were rules, rules, and more rules. Once you wanted to be on the "inside" things changed. They left. Not because they were afraid of commitment, but because they felt misled.

I can agree that they should change. If one makes that committment to Jesus and his community discipleship comes along with it. That means living out the mission. But in these type of settings they are often church-directed, institution-driven, not discipleship building. And there was never a hint of these things to come at any time before they expressed a desire to join. Jesus wasn't worried about such attractionalism. He made it clear about having to carry yokes and walk narrow paths- although he also promised that such yokes and paths would be easier because they were his and not those of the world.

The worship service needs to express the mission, life, and needs of the church and community. It must represent the fullness of life in Jesus and the fullness of the life of the congregation. What you see is what you should get. Which means that the style, mode, feeling, and direction of worship must reflect the unique circumstances of the congregation's mission. Therefore it will be different in each church- within whatever liturgical, non-liturgical, historical, non-historical tradition that the congregation is part of.

It will also be determined by the size. One of the powerful moments in our cogregation's worship is the prayer time. All kinds of concerns are raised- joy and fear, celebration and sadness. There was one week when I was in a deep and sorrowful time right after we realized that our friend Sue was losing her battle with cancer. I was restless for three days waiting to get to church to have her in prayer time. It was an essential mission of the church and I needed to participate for Sue (and all of her family and friends.)

That won't work in the same way in a worship service with 200 or more people. It is often tried, but just as often feels out of place. The same would go for testimony, witness, and updates on mission that is happening. Some churches have used technology well to highlight these; others the old tried and true standing up and talking. The amount of "insider knowledge" that is necessary in order to appreciate what is happening can be a drawback.

Which comes back to the seeker-sensitivity. I'm not sure that what we want is to "dumb-down" what we do, but rather "open-up" what we do. This is actually an issue of postModern culture. As I have commented earlier the culture is no longer steeped in the language and rituals of Christendom. We can no longer assume that people have even a basic knowledge of what Christianity is. We absolutely must be aware that people may be completely lost when we begin to use big fancy words.

I think we often need to keep the words- and expand and unpack them. For example, there is power in the word Eucharist. It is an ancient power that can build into a life-changing understanding. We shouldn't lose it. But we can't assume that people know it, either. To build the unpacking into the service can be done quite unobtrusively with a welcoming attitude leading into the experience. We can do the same for things like "baptism" or doctrines like "Trinity" or "repentance". Yes, it may take some work on the part of worship leaders, but if they are listening to the people and paying attention to the culture it can be a redeeming (there's another word) experience.

Again, all this is built around the mission of the community as it incarnates the Missio Dei, the mission of God in their community. Tale a look around the Internet for "Missional" or "Emergent" churches for some examples. Better yet, maybe each of us should sit down with our brothers and sisters and see how we would describe- in a worship experience- the life of God's mission in our own midst.

Monday, June 4, 2007

What I Would Do (1)

“Why do people in church seem like cheerful, brainless tourists on a packaged tour of the Absolute? … Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us to where we can never return.”
—Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk: Expeditions and Encounters (New York: Harper & Row, 1982), pp. 40-41.

I would not have the ushers in a church I served issue life preservers, but I would hope that working together with God's Spirit, we could become dangerous for God's sake and bring about the miracles and hopes that are at the heart of the Gospel. Like the description of Aslan in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe:

Safe? No he's not safe. But he is good.

That would be a way of describing church. Far, far from safe. It would be a place where people are introduced to power and life and hope and grace that will leave them changed. No, not safe- but more than good!

So what would I do? First, I believe that any form or structure can accomplish the things I would want to see in church. Community can be found at the heart of the most structured, hierarchical church to the least organized small group. Mission can be done by denominational mission boards with vision, church planting teams with strong core values, or a group of friends who get together monthly to visit the sick. Whatever the institution (or even non-institution) or group, organized, spontaneous, or de-centralized, it has to start with core values that support mission and a vision of where they want to go.

So if I were to go back to parish ministry- in whatever form- I would start with my own personal mission, vision, and core values and I would share them from the start with the people I am being called to serve together with. A great deal of my vision and values can be found in what I have already written here, but I would expand it to embrace the specific setting I was to serve in. These become the non-negotiables. If a church does not believe it can partner with me in my vision and values, it would be difficult to be a pastor there. That wouldn't mean they were wrong and I was right. I would mean that I wasn't the right person for that setting.

No matter the setting, though, it would start with a commitment on all our parts to develop broad-based ministry within the congregation and to mission beyond. I would be firm that my vision of mission is not that we should send money to missionaries, mission boards or local organizations (although we would!). It is to do mission.

The specifics of this would depend greatly on the setting, age, and size of the congregation. But size and setting don't preclude possibilities for answering the calling - and experiencing the joy - of actually doing mission. My task as pastor would be to help them discover their unique bend of ministry and mission where they are, with whatever gifts they have, and using whatever resources are available.

Over the past 20 years short-term mission opportunities have, I believe, started a revolution within many churches. One of the most exciting and humbling aspects of the ministry I shared in Wisconsin for 15 years was that we were able to be pioneers in developing those. In the mid to late 80s we simply went and did it. One member went to Alaska and then to Labrador. Ten youth and five adults went to New York City. We showed it could be done. I was told that it was a waste of time or money by some outside our congregation. Why go to these distant places and spend all that money?

I am still awed by the fact that parents let their children go with me to New York or Trinidad and Tobago or the Rosebud Reservation. Other churches soon picked up the idea and got a great deal of publicity out of it. Members of our church started water projects and helped rebuild hospitals and churches. Twenty years later they are still traveling to Alaska or California. It was a life-giving work- giving life to both those who were served- and those who did the serving.

I know all the pros and cons of the short-term mission movement. I am aware that at times it is more for us than for them- at least in our minds. Yes, we need to confess that. But I also know that relationships were made- community, albeit for only a short time. I know the Kingdom was advanced because people were touched. The remarkable and continuing outpouring of support and mission to the Gulf Coast since Katrina has been one of the remarkable by-products of the whole movement.

But mission is more than rebuilding homes destroyed by hurricanes, whether in Louisiana or Central America. It is also building relationships and living a Kingdom-based life. Matthew 25 where Jesus calls people to minister to "the least of these my brothers" and Matthew 28 where He tells us to "Go and make disciples of all nations" are intimately and completely intertwined. So are the Good Samaritan parable and the Lord's Prayer in Luke. You can have one without the other but neither alone gives you the whole picture.

To make disciples is to expand mission. Disciples are those who do what Jesus taught. To make disciples is to bring people into mission- internal, external, local, national, international. To make disciples is to be empowered ourselves and to empower others to join Jesus in living as He lived. Making disciples is far beyond baptisms, transfer of membership, or confirmation. Matthew 28 reminds us that baptisms are the symbol of having become disciples- people in mission.

Yes, I believe that Jesus was about "saving souls." As He freed us from sin by his death and resurrection he was setting a tone of service and mission. But being freed from sin by Jesus may only begin to touch the many ways we - and our souls are still imprisoned. Life itself can keep us from living the way we are called to live. Poverty, political oppression, addictions, crime, fear do more than harm our bodies. They suck the very soul out of us. "Saving souls" is as much about social and political and economic oppression as it is about spiritual oppression to sin and its effects.

The challenge to many of us within the church is to recognize- about ourselves- the ways we are imprisoned and how we may even participate in the imprisoning of others. Honesty, humility, turning from our own self-righteousness and self-elevation while celebrating the presence of God in the Holy Spirit works wonders- and miracles- that is when a church will begin to be dangerous. That happens because we are no longer afraid of our sins and shortcomings. They have been dealt with once and for all. We are no longer trying to impress others or ourselves. We discover - and come to believe - that we are no better or no worse than anyone else and only by working together can we work beside and with others who are just like us.

This then is the foundation of how I would serve with a church. Where this goes next could be interesting.

Monday, May 28, 2007

Interlude (2)

Maximizing what I miss about parish ministry and
Minimizing what I feel gets in the way of ministry;
Utilizing what I've learned from being out of ordained ministry and the
Strengths that secular ministry has opened to me, I want to
Describe what church-based life and ministry would look like for me
If I went back.

That seems like the most likely way for me to keep this orderly. In order to do that, let me try as succint a summary as I can of these points. That way I can get to the core of what I see as the essentials.

So, first, what to maximize:

Community. This is one of the true essentials! I am convinced that without it the church cannot be the church. There are a myriad of ways this can be accomplished, but I have a hunch that we have to be more intentional about it today than in the past. There are just too many ways that such a community can be torn apart or that people find to get at least a pseudo-community.
The possibility of experiencing and sharing The Holy. For me worship and study and life together are ways that help make the church-based community unique. This is the Spiritual dimension that allows us to be in touch- together- with the Power that empowers us to be a community. It is easy to be religious. It can be far more difficult - yet far, far more rewarding- to also be spiritual. When you have both, it can be awesome.
Jesus and Bible Centered. I didn't mention this as something I am missing about parish life because I haven't lost it. Jesus and the Bible-centered life is what I continue to try to live. I should probably have talked about it separately from The Holy although they are strongly related. One cannot have a church that ignores Jesus and what He calls us to do. The Bible is the place we turn to see how others have been called and used by God and what it all means. To keep the basics of Jesus or the Bible, while remaining open and accepting of many differing interpretations provides a truly unbeatable foundation.

What, then, would I try to minimize:

Christendom's leftovers of grandiosity. That feeling that the church has special permissions and special exemptions in society needs to be minimized. We have to begin to see- and accept- that even if we believe that we have something unique and special to offer (which we do!) that does not exempt us from dealing with the culture and the world's issues. We have to do that from a servant position.
Clergy-centric institutionalism. And on the inside, the special class status of clergy can be downright dangerous. We must all be brothers and sisters among brothers and sisters with no one being "more equal" than others. This re-empowering of the non-clergy is a non-negotiable in my book.
Inward self-centeredness. If we want a country club or a private for-me-only hospital, go found one. That is not the church.

Adding the strengths of "secular ministry":

People orientation. A "secular" view of ministry reminds us that it is not the institution that is the beneficiary but the people who have a need. A "secular" view remembers that Jesus was always looking after people in need. He was not an institution builder. People orintation helps remind us of that.
Outward looking. When the church looks outward beyond itselt as the place to do ministry, the church has found an often forgotten and overlooked aspect of Jesus. The community we seek to maximize is the internal support for ministry and our lives. Outward looking is where the inward ministry is called to be lived day in and day in an honest and humble way.
Reality based. It is easy to live in denial in the church. It is easy to hide the needs and failings and worries that may no look nice or proper. But we are just a bunch of sinners trying to help other sinners find their way. Let's be real while at the same time working to live the difference that faith in Jesus can have.

That, then is the outline, if you will, or the underlying core values of what I see for the kind of ministry I would try to develop were I to return to the parish ministry. As we go further in depth with that over the next few weeks, I will try to remember that this is an ideal- a vision. I know it won't be 100% possible. Life isn't that tidy. I also know it needs God to become reality. If it were possible for us to do on our own, we wouldn't need the Holy Spirit.

One thing I will look at as well is the major question faced by many who have tried to do this: Is it even possible in an already well-established church? Might it not be better- and easier- to do it in new church plants and the many alternatives that are springing up? I don't have an answer to that, but I am going to explore it.

Next time we will begin to discover what I see as the forms and directions. I do know it is worth striving for. It is a life in mission with Jesus Christ.

Saturday, May 12, 2007

What I've Learned (3)

Section One of this series dealt with what I miss now that I am doing "secular" ministry after thirty years as a parish pastor. Section Two was about what I don't miss. Section Three is talking about "secular ministry."
Links to earlier sections:
Introduction
1. What I Miss: Part 1, part 2, part 3
2. What I Don't Miss: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Interlude
3. Secular Ministry: Part 1, Part 2
4. What I've Learned: Part 1, Part 2
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

One more set of things that I need to talk about before I get to the ideas that I would work from if I returned to the parish ministry following my present time in secular ministry. There are some things that I learned that took me more by surprise than I thought they would. It is not a big insight. It even sounds obvious. But it still surprised me.

The world is full of sin.

This is far more true than most people are willing to admit or perhaps even aware of. It is going on all around us. It is embedded in our human psyche. It is part and parcel of who we are. What’s more it is far more embedded in each of us, even those of us who follow Jesus than we can confess. We try constantly to put a different face on our lives. We try to appear better than we are- striving, perhaps, to reach a higher level of action of faith than we can admit to.

Such is the basis of the cries of hypocrisy that come at Christians from many different corners. Such is the basis of the periodic revelations that cause the perfect TV or other preachers such pain when they are discovered to be just as human as any one else.

I discovered this issue when no longer wearing the symbolic mantle of “ordained clergy” in the daily world (again as Barbara Brown Taylor describes so well in her book, Leaving Church.) It is amazing how people act differently when they are not aware that you are or have been a clergy. You hear language and stories and actions that they would have hidden or been embarrassed to describe in front of a “person of the cloth.”

So all of a sudden I was seeing and hearing and participating in a world at its basic normal activities. I was hearing about things that few pastors get to hear about in their daily walks of life. These stories and events and words came from strangers, from co-workers, from clients, from atheists, from church members, from young, from old. In other words- from just about every walk of life. Some are deeply aware of this gap between action and morals, values and weakness. Some could care less.

Why was this so much of a revelation to me? I have no idea. I have always known the power of sin and its hold on us humans. Original sin is a reality that I have never sought to deny. I even know many of the surveys and polls that periodically show that church members, by and large, have the same basic activities and issues as the population as a whole.

But the whole thing took me by surprise anyway. Or, more to the point, I was surprised by how open so many people were about what they thought and in some cases did. I was used to the silence of so many of us in the church about the kinds of lives we and others in the church might be leading. I was used to the polite ways in which people keep their real selves away from the eye of the pastor-types.

Unfortunately it is in this make-believe-seemingly-perfect-world that we develop the potential for arrogance, holier-than thou attitudes, and the whole movement toward control and legalism in the religious and political structures. We give off the feeling that people need to be perfect before they can come to the church. We allow an attitude that says we love reformed sinners, but they better reform first. We can unwittingly appear judgmental and intolerant. Or worse, become judgmental and intolerant. In so doing we close the doors on many people’s honesty and perpetuate false fronts and deeply painful woundedness.

Yes, sin abounds, far more than most people are willing to admit or perhaps even aware of. It is going on all around us. It is imbedded in our human psyche. It is part and parcel of who we are.

But so is being formed in the image of God. One of my mentors for a few years, a wonderful retired pastor and missionary once brought me up short. In response to some mistake or shortcoming or sin I had noticed, I commented, “Well, we’re only human.”

To which my friend qquickly replied, “Only human? We are created in God’s own image. Only human is far more than you think! It is God at work.”

Amen to that, I realized. God's image is within us- not Satan's. We may be in the midst of being sinners, but that isn't our underlying foundation. God's image in our soul is.

Therefore I believe, grace is part and parcel of what the church is to be. If we are the Body of Christ incarnate in this 21st Century, then we cannot miss out on grace. We cannot allow legalism and fear of sin or judgment, especially by others to force us into the mask of sinlessness and the unbearable mantle of fake righteousness.

For I have learned that we are all imperfect, fallible, fearful human beings. All of us. Me. You. Christians of every stripe. People of every nation and language and race. We are far more alike than we are different. To deny that in ourselves, to deny that the church is anything but a gathering of such sinners, is to lose our ability to hold forth the opportunities for healing.

Monday, May 7, 2007

What I've Learned (2)

Section One of this series dealt with what I miss now that I am doing "secular" ministry after thirty years as a parish pastor. Section Two was about what I don't miss. Section Three is talking about "secular ministry."
Links to earlier sections:
Introduction
1. What I Miss: Part 1, part 2, part 3
2. What I Don't Miss: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Interlude
3. Secular Ministry: Part 1, Part 2
4. What I've Learned: Part 1
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Last week I talked about the humility that I truly needed to learn if I was to begin to notice what the world thinks of the church and of religions in general. If I wasn’t humbled before, I would certainly be once I got out into the secular world and discovered what is happening with many people.

They could care less if the church exists. Many have left the church behind in a world that we have long since left behind. Even those who still attend church may keep it quiet. Even Christians don’t always talk about what they believe or where they go to church. It is like being part of a secret society- without even knowing who the other members are. As a result church and religious views are often viewed as irrelevant.

Sadly the church doesn’t help matters any. Sometime go through the church listings on a Saturday and look at the sermon titles. Some are meant to be cute. Some are meant to convey some hint of the sermon. Most are nothing shot of yawn-inducing. The same is true with many notices on church signs. They range from dull to schmaltzy to “inside jokes” to (as I mentioned last week) downright offensive. The better ones- the ones that actually do what they’re supposed to do- are often thought inducing, positive, and hopeful, addressing real issues in people’s lives. The exception, sadly, not the rule.

Which leads to an even sadder understanding of the church in the greater community. We are irrelevant. We don’t speak to their world. The view they get from us is that we are disconnected.

And the view they get from the headliners of the faith makes it even worse. There they discover that Christians are bigots, anti-scientific, controlling, intolerant, and downright judgmental. And those appear as our good points. The hijacking of the church by the radical religious right may be one of the greatest theological crimes since the Inquisition. Yes, that is strong, but they have so ruined the image of the church that any positive work we do will often be brought into suspicious scrutiny and discounted, our motives seen as mixed or malevolent.

I have sat in groups and watched reactions from people when a Christian starts talking about their faith. I see eyes glaze over, people turn their heads, others try to look interested. Some, and I know there are many like this, fortunately, will listen intently trying to figure out if the person is sincere and open or a right-wing bigot. Some will listen for the kernels of hope and truth that they know must be there or the person wouldn’t be talking so intensely and deeply about something so personal.

In that is the hope! Because I have also learned that people are by nature spiritual. As a species we are incredibly open seekers. We look for hope or meaning wherever we can find it. We have our radar going in two directions at once- seeking out the BS factor while allowing the spirit that God has placed within each of us to seek for ways that will turn our lives into spiritually fulfilling lives.

Perhaps one of the ways we can see how irrelevant the church seems to many is the way the phrase, “I’m spiritual but not religious” has become so common. It is how we acknowledge that we are seeking for the meaning, that connection, that transcendence, that community that opens us up to more of what we need. At the same time it marks the boundary between us and those who would use the “spiritual” for less than spiritual purposes.

I was watching C-SPAN2/Book TV on Sunday with a panel from the Los Angeles Festival of Books. They were discussing religion and culture. Christopher Hitchens, author of God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything commented that he understood that religion is supposed to make one happy. Why then do they have to make the rest of us miserable? They are not happy until they get the rest of us to think like they do. He wants us to keep it to ourselves.

“God forbid!” was my response. But it was a powerful reminder of a very common attitude which also points out the great fallacy and weakness of our traditional understanding of the ways to do evangelism. Besides the fact they don’t work well, they turn people off. They shut more doors than they open. I know, I know. God rejoices over that one lost sheep. But I don’t think God is into the kinds of things we often do that harm us and our ministry for God far more than it helps.

I know that relevance and acceptance isn’t what we are about. Just look at Jesus. But then again, do look at Jesus. He did not look for the acceptance of those in power. He did not look for the acceptance of the religious leadership. He looked for the acceptance from those who needed him. Many of them didn’t accept him, of course. But many did. Too often the church is looking for acceptance in all the wrong places and from all the wrong people.

True Jesus-based relevance will be when we learn that getting the message to the people in ourselves and our lives is what it is all about. Living and giving – not to the church but to those who need God is what needs to be done. That is not just the pastor’s job. It is probably not even the pastor’s job. It is our job each and every day.

It is essential. I will talk about that next week in the third part of what I have learned in the secular ministry I have been doing- the incredible needs that we don’t even know we have as people and how God can do something about them.

Sunday, April 29, 2007

What I've Learned (1)

Section One of this series dealt with what I miss now that I am doing "secular" ministry after thirty years as a parish pastor. Section Two was about what I don't miss. Section Three is talking about "secular ministry."
Links to earlier sections:
Introduction
1. What I Miss: Part 1, part 2, part 3
2. What I Don't Miss: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Interlude
3. Secular Ministry: Part 1, Part 2
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Before finally getting to the point of all this rambling- what I would do differently if I went back into parish ministry- I want to lay another foundational layer that comes as a result of working and living these past three years outside of the institutional church. It’s time to talk about what I have learned – about the church and about life in the non-church world.

Actually, my learning process goes back about 18 years. When I discovered that I am an alcoholic I began attending various 12-step meetings in and around my community. Most of the time, as is appropriate for anonymous organizations, most people didn’t know what I did for a living. Even in a relatively small city it can be surprising how few people really know who you are and what you do.

So the first thing I learned from all that was humility. I was not the center of attention in the city just because I was a pastor. Even in other situations when someone would find out I was the “Moravian pastor” even long-time community members might ask- “And where is the Moravian Church? I’ve never heard of it.”

Ah, the power of humility. The church is not the center we thought it was. Yes it may have been, but that humility was an important step for me- and should be for the church. If we think everyone knows us, we are going to miss a lot of information and opportunity to grow and learn about the people around us.

In those 18 years I have also worked and talked and shared lots of fellowship with people who are not church connected. A goodly number, in fact, have very little good to say about the church. Don’t get them started or you will be sorry. They taught me that the church’s grandiosity and self-centered message turned off more people than brought them in the door.

One of my closest friends over the years was a self-proclaimed “agnostic” who nevertheless had a remarkable spiritual life. One day we were driving to a gathering and passed a church with one of those cutesy message boards. This one said something like the saying:
No Jesus, No Peace. Know Jesus, Know Peace or
Life without Jesus is life without meaning.

They don’t know me, was his first response. They don’t know a thing about what I feel or know or how or where I find meaning. How arrogant.

All I could do was agree- because I knew that he was a man of deep love and meaning and would go out of his way to offer a hand to someone in need. I never agreed that he was an agnostic. It was his way of separating himself from the church-people. No, he wasn’t a Christian or even religious. But he did have a spiritual life that gave him peace and meaning and joy.

Or there was the other close friend who was Jewish. I learned a great deal about the breadth and depth of spirituality from him. His most memorable line to me was about driving east to work in the morning.

Sometimes I have to turn off the radio because the sunrise is so loud.

I knew exactly what he meant. Life took on a joy and a meaning thanks to these caring spiritual friends. They didn’t need to know Jesus to teach me something about God and faith and life.

The arrogance, grandiosity, self-centeredness of the church and many of us as Christians was painful to learn. These are signs of illness, of addiction, of potential personality disorders like narcissism and even anti-social personality. I would often fall in humble contrition before God when faced with such awareness from people I trusted and liked so deeply.

But at least many of these people paid some attention to the church and religion, even if it was to react against it. The second thing I learned which I will talk about next week is the way that a significant minority of those we meet have no interest at all in what we in the church do and have basically ignored us and received a very biased view of us.

But to learn that I had to first go through the humility of these earlier years.

Sunday, April 22, 2007

What is Secular Ministry (2)

The job of a priest is to recognize holiness in things, hold them up to God and to speak of them to others so that they can recognize the holiness in those things, too. A priest is a priest no matter where s/he happens to be. Outside the church, s/he is working without a net. (pp. 204-205)
I knew that while the scenery had changed, my vocation had not. I was still on holy ground. All the familiar human sorrows were in that room, all the human hungers for meaning and love. I was still in the privileged position of choosing words that fell into deep water and asking the kinds of questions that mattered. (p.208)
I was in a room full of 18 and 19-year olds, a group of people most clergy see very little of in church... (p. 208)

As I reflect on those thoughts in my own "secular ministry" I realize again and again that we are not different when called into secular ministry. The setting is different, though. When the world was "officially Christian" ministry took place in and through the church. It was the left-over of a different world. Today when so few (relatively) avail themselves of that ministry it may be time to think again of the model of Jesus' ministry. It was outside the institution- which is where he found the people.

Does this negate the "internal" mission and ministry? Not at all. It simply places it into a new perspective of a postmodern world where the opportunities for ministry are far more varied and less apparently "holy." All the more need for a priest who can reach out and discover the holiness and hold it up to be seen in whatever ways the world may be ready to see.

I, too, am still on holy ground. When I walk into my group room at 6:00 each evening or 9:00 on Saturday morning I am walking into a place where God already is. I may not use "holy" language or "religious" ritual or even "traditional" sacraments. I do come to minister in its best and holiest ways. I am not there to convert or convince or evangelize. No, I am there to feed and clothe and visit and heal. I am bringing into reality the possibilities that God (however they may understand God at that point) has a better and deeper and more peace-filled way of life. I bring grace to a group that may not have heard that such a thing could even exist- especially in their lives.

In our postmodern world we "secular" priests/pastors/prophets are working in places that don't look holy but are just as filled with holiness as any other place in God's presence. I am working with people most clergy would love to see in church, but won't. Like Barbara Brown Taylor's classroom, my group room or counseling office become sanctuaries- safe places. They become holy ground where I stand in awe of God's power at work day in and day out.

One more quote from Leaving Church.

I saw that my humanity was all I had left to work with. I saw in fact that it was all I had ever to work with. There was no mastering divinity. My vocation was to love God and my neighbor and that was something I could do anywhere, with anyone, with or without a collar. My priesthood was not what I did, but who I was. In this new light, nothing was wasted. All that had gone before was blessing and all yet to come was more. (p. 209)

I guess maybe my cutesy introduction to secular ministry a few weeks ago may not be as far from the truth as it felt. Secular ministry may very well be nothing more- and nothing less- than doing ministry just like Jesus did it.

Thursday, March 22, 2007

What is Secular Ministry?

secular ministry is doing God’s work of living the Good News among those who may not be in or involved in the church- and doing it with no connection to the work and ministry of the church. It is being in times and places where the Gospel may not be spoken or might be challenged if it was.

I have always been an articulate person, who, even though shy, has been able to stand before a crowd and speak. For that reason I was always chosen to give the “message” whenever our youth fellowship did worship. After every time someone would invariably come up to me and say something to the effect that I belong in the ministry.

I would smile, say thank you, and add, "but I could have a greater witness not being a minister." Why should that be? I felt that people were less real when the pastor was around. Therefore a non-clergy could be places and have openings that a clergy could never have.

In that are the roots for what I am today calling “secular ministry.” You are able to impact people who would never be inside the church or even be available for discussions on spiritual matters.

One of the underlying groundings of this is that people are in need of hope, promise, grace, and love – unconditional acceptance – where they are, not where we want them to be or think they should be. It’s kind of like doing what God has already done for us. While we were still sinners, Paul reminds us, Jesus came. He didn’t wait until we were perfect or even repentant. If he had waited for that, well, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

We live in a secular world. Perhaps more to the point, we live in a world that often ignores or struggles against the sacred even though it is right there in front of us. It is a world dominated by non-spiritual values such as war, consumerism, fear, wealth, poverty, crime, addiction. You all know the list. Yet at the same time, the non-spiritual values are in fact spiritually driven. They often seek to fill the holes left by spiritual desires and drives for meaning, hope, and purpose.

In other words this is a world that is just like the world has always been. Jesus promised that the time of the coming of the Son of Man would be like the days of Noah. People will be eating, drinking, marrying. Normal. The world Jesus walked in was just like the world we walk in.

It’s also the world we all work in whether we are in the church or not. These things are the roots of what I have talked about not missing about the church. We just try to hide it better or mask it or deny it inside the organization.

Anyway, let’s talk about ministry. In our Western, Christian view, this is what the clergy do. We have developed a whole language that makes that clear because, alongside ministry (no adjective attached) we have “lay” ministry as if one (the one without the adjective) is more essential to the church than the other. The dichotomy goes back to the pedestal problem, but reveals the deep division that often exists between clergy and members.

From this problematic point of view the ministry is what is done most of the time by professionals inside the church for the benefit of the church. Once in a while we may talk about some outside ministry but most of the time ministry is what happens within the doors; things that people have to come to get so they can be ministered to.

One of the questions I have often batted around in conversations with church people (non-clergy-types) was, “Do you see what you do in your daily work life as ‘ministry’?” More often than not I get a quick “No” even from people who work in the service sector where they are helping people. “Of course not,” is often the unspoken reply. “I don’t work in the church.”

Every now and then someone will surprise me. “Sure,” one person said. “No matter what I’m doing I’m doing it for God and helping others hopefully see God through me.” This person worked in industry.

So let’s look at the heart of the word, not its current usage. Here’s its etymology from Dictionary.com and the Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper:

1297, "one who acts upon the authority of another," from O.Fr. ministre "servant," from L. minister (gen. ministri) "servant, priest's assistant" (in M.L. "priest"), from minus, minor "less," hence "subordinate," + comp. suffix *-teros.
Meaning "priest" is attested in Eng. from c.1315.
The verb is from c.1300, originally "to serve (food or drink)."

Servant. Right from the words of Jesus about what his followers are supposed to be. We have no problem thinking of that when the pastor calls him/herself a “servant.” That’s what they’re getting paid to do. But we have a difficult time when we move outside the church. I had people tell me I would always be a pastor or minister because that’s my personality. I would challenge back and say, “But you’re a minister, too.” To which they would often respond. “No, that’s not the same thing.” Only the ordained do “real” ministry.

Others have asked, “Why did you leave the ministry?” I always respond, “I didn’t. I just changed the location.”

Which should be every Christian’s response.

More next week as we continue to look at secular ministry- life in the world- and what we can learn and experience.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Interlude (1)

Section One of this series dealt with what I miss now that I am doing "secular" ministry after thirty years as a parish pastor. Section Two was about what I don't miss.
Links to earlier sections:
Introduction
1. What I Miss: Part 1, part 2, part 3
2. What I Don't Miss: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
So Far, What Does This Mean?
One of the readers of this series asked me the other day- “So, you aren’t going back, are you?” That seemed to be his take on what I was saying in this series. I guess it would be possible to read it that way. I have spent a good deal of time talking about what I don’t miss. But I also spent a great deal of time about what I do miss.

But both of those miss the point.

This is for me, in essence, a reflection on the church and it’s role and place in our world. One thing that I have never doubted in these 3+ years of secular ministry is that I still care very deeply about the church and its future. I spent 30 years serving God through the church- and at times serving the church just because that was my calling from God.

In that is the pivotal point in the issues of whether I go back into parish ministry or not.

Calling.

I have told denominational leaders since going on leave of absence that I will consider any call sent to me with an open and prayerful mind. I am still a minister of, a clergy of the church. If God wants me to be in that position again I will be in that position again. I have learned through experience not to close doors on God and “never to say never.” I have no idea where this reflection will lead me personally, though. It is a mental and prayerful examination of what it’s like on the outside looking in. It is an attempt to say where I see the church and what I think might be some insights into its future.

Calling is a tricky idea to deal with in the church. When it has a small “c” it is generic. It is what any Christian can be “called” to do for God. We have the other one with the capital “C” which has come to mean service to the church. I am not sure I like that dichotomy. It doesn’t appear as if Jesus did. It ends up with power or prestige or more-vs.-less holiness. When I get to the end of this series I may perhaps have a better idea of what that means to me.

But next week I will move on to the next thought- what I mean by secular ministry. Until then, I reflect on the idea of calling by remembering what one of my guides- Frederick Buechner -
has said about calling:

The place where God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.

That is what this is really all about for individuals and for the church.

Saturday, March 10, 2007

What I Don't Miss (Part 3)

Section One of this series dealt with what I miss now that I am doing "secular" ministry after thirty years as a parish pastor.
Links to
Introduction
What I Miss: Part 1, part 2, part 3

Section 2 is all about What I Don't Miss
Part 1, Part 2
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side."
--James Baldwin

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Putting together what I don’t miss in as clear and careful way as I can is that the institution has, in many instances, lost its mission. We can see the roots of that in the other two things I have already talked about- the sense of control and the entitlement of Christendom. Let me explain.

Thirty-five years ago when I entered the parish ministry we thought we still lived in Christendom. Underlying that is the belief that everyone, with a couple exceptions here and there, was a Christian. Some may be of one type, some may be of another, but underneath it all we are all the same.

Since everyone around here is a Christian, the mission of the church is really to be found in far away places where the non-Christians (sometimes called heathens or pagans) live. Mission festivals celebrated this work. We collected money and other goods to ship over there. Once in a while a son of the congregation became a missionary (or a daughter married one) and went overseas from where we got all kinds of letters and updates and sometimes an interesting show when they came home on leave.

My Moravian denomination was built on this work. Overseas mission was- and still is- essential and honorable work and definitely not to be overlooked. When the Moravians in 1731 decided to send missionaries to the West Indies they were thought to be crazy. They became the first Protestant missionaries. When they came to America in the 1740s they did so to bring the Gospel to the Indians. They often treated them well and did not participate in most cases with the oppression that was building.

Most American denominations have supported mission workers around the world. They never thought that the mission field was actually growing around them while they lived in their understanding of Christendom. Pretty soon, however, more and more different types of Christians showed up. A community that had once had only three churches now had seven. Denominational loyalty became more difficult- or the flip side- even more determinative. When you feel under siege, you circle the wagons. Little did we realize that the siege wasn’t even happening. We were slowly finding ourselves as outside the thought of many people.

That’s where the control sets in. And blaming. And inward looking. In the centuries of Western Christendom, though, we lost our understanding of who we are. We are not the anointer of the king or the political partner of an ideology. We are not a place for US. We are a place to go from. We expect people to come to us- hence we have to advertise. In reality, if I read Jesus correctly, we to be a community we leave from to bring the least and the lost and hurting and hungry and naked and imprisoned back to join us.

Mission. We don’t have it. We don’t want it. The people we bring in might be dirty or different or obvious sinners or drunks or …. We still use the language. We still think we are doing that mission. But too much of the time we are not.

I am saddened by that. I do not miss it for one moment. Or more to the point, I do not miss trying to convince us (yes, me, too) that we should be about something else.

Please don’t misunderstand me. As Philip Yancey said in a recent column in Christianity Today, a lot of good things DO happen in the church.

The world is full of pain. The prosperity promised on religious television must exist in some alternate universe from what I encounter as I visit churches in person. For all its faults and failures, the church offers a place to bring wounds and to seek meaning in times of brokenness and struggle.

It is a shame that we cannot do that more often to those beyond our current boundaries, boxes, and fears. I dream of a time when we can rediscover the incredible power, strength, peace, hope, and joy that mission work can bring. Not to mention the even more unbelievable feeling of doing God’s work.

Before taking up the next phase of this series by looking at the idea of “secular ministry,” let me repeat a story that I have used before. It was the Preface to the classic Introduction to Pastoral Care and Counseling by Howard Clinebell. When I first read it in 1972 I was overwhelmed. It has set the definition for my ministry (though not as well as I would have liked at times.) I would preach it every three years or so, even if they had heard it before. It is that important to me. It speaks today as well as ever.

"The Parable Of The Lifesaving Station"
On a dangerous seacoast where shipwrecks often occur there was once a crude little lifesaving station. The building was just a hut, and there was only one boat, but the few devoted members kept a constant watch over the sea, and with no thought for themselves, they went out day or night tirelessly searching for the lost.

Many lives were saved by this wonderful little station, so that it became famous. Some of those who were saved, and various others in the surrounding areas, wanted to become associated with the station and give of their time and money and effort for the support of its work. New boats were bought and new crews were trained. The little lifesaving station grew.

Some of the new members of the lifesaving station were unhappy that the building was so crude and so poorly equipped. They felt that a more comfortable place should be provided as the first refuge of those saved from the sea.

They replaced the emergency cots with beds and put better furniture in an enlarged building. Now the lifesaving station became a popular gathering place for its members, and they redecorated it beautifully and furnished it as a sort of club.

Less of the members were now interested in going to sea on lifesaving missions, so they hired lifeboat crews to do this work.

The mission of lifesaving was still given lip-service but most were too busy or lacked the necessary commitment to take part in the lifesaving activities personally.

About this time a large ship was wrecked off the coast, and the hired crews brought in boat loads of cold, wet and half-drowned people.

They were dirty and sick, some had skin of a different color, some spoke a strange language, and the beautiful new club was considerably messed up. So the property committee immediately had a shower house built outside the club where victims of shipwreck could be cleaned up before coming inside.

At the next meeting, there was a split in the club membership. Most of the members wanted to stop the club's lifesaving activities as being unpleasant and a hindrance to the normal pattern of the club.

But some members insisted that lifesaving was their primary purpose and pointed out that they were still called a lifesaving station. But they were finally voted down and told that if they wanted to save the life of all various kinds of people who were shipwrecked in those waters, they could begin their own lifesaving station down the coast.

They did.

As the years went by, the new station experienced the same changes that had occurred in the old. They evolved into a club and yet another lifesaving station was founded.

If you visit the seacoast today you will find a number of exclusive clubs along that shore. Shipwrecks are still frequent in those waters, but now most of the people drown!

Saturday, February 24, 2007

What I Don't Miss (Part 2)

Part One of this series dealt with what I miss now that I am doing "secular" ministry after thirty years as a parish pastor.
Links to
Introduction
What I Miss: Part 1, part 2, part 3

This section is all about What I Don't Miss
Part 1
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side."
--James Baldwin

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Underlying much of what I don’t miss about the church is the remnants of Christendom. Christendom is the Church existing in essence as a non-localized nation-state. It began with Constantine in the 4th Century when he realized that he could conquer the world if he accepted this relatively new religion as the “official” religion of the Roman Empire. It only went downhill from there into state religion. The church controlled the state which brought along a high degree of triumphalism that comes when you, the church, have Kings and Armies and lots of money at your beck and call. Your missionary efforts become identical with the imperialistic efforts of the state. (Look at Spain in the New World, for one of many examples.)

Now, another disclaimer. I’m not one of those who think that the “true” church died with Constantine’s announcement. It is simply a part of the picture and a major watershed in Christian history. What I do think is the case is that when power was offered, the church saw it as a way of expanding the Kingdom of God. This was obviously God’s way to opening new ways and new doors. There were, I am sure, many other motives, but I tend to believe that the most basic was the desire to expand the Kingdom. The fact that the power was eventually misused and abused is simply a fact of original sin. Paul’s letters show that the 1st Century Church wasn’t a whole lot saintlier- just smaller and with no broad power-base to further corrupt them.

But this isn’t about corruption in the church. It is about the equating of being a Christian with being a good citizen of a Christian nation. You had a choice of course. But not much of one. When the church is in charge, you just fall into place. You become a Christian because that’s what people do. You go to church because that’s what good citizens do. It was an integral part of the culture, something I think Jesus would have at once understood and challenged just as he did with the established Jewish institutional religion of his day.

With that came a sense of Church entitlement that the Reformation didn’t break because the Reformation churches were just as much state churches as the Catholic Church had been. They may have lost some of the power, but they still had enough to maintain their position. They didn’t like new and different religious understandings coming along and threatening their supremacy. Look at England and the Anglican-Methodist fights or Germany with the Lutheran-Moravian misunderstandings and you will see how it could play out. Even in many of the American colonies there was an “official” church that you better pay attention to.

That leads to a real sense of entitlement on the part of the church and a high expectation that everyone understands and accepts your world-view. As I moved west over the past thirty years I witnessed over and over the extension of stores opening on Sundays. Starting in the Lehigh Valley in the mid-70s, into south central Pennsylvania in the early 80s, and Wisconsin in the late 80s - early 90s, cultures began to crumble and be rebuilt. The owner of a local department store once said to me that he hated to open on Sunday. But he had to do so. It started at Christmas season and moved beyond it. The same happened here in the Twin Cities a couple years ago when the local chain of Christian bookstores decided to open on Sunday afternoons in the weeks before Christmas. They still do it. The Christian expectations of culture have shifted.

And we spend so much time fighting it as if it was an entitlement of ours. We want it this way; therefore it must be this way. The world was better when…. Yes, it may have been, but I doubt it. The good, old days were probably neither. The natural extension of that can also be the political wrangling between the Christian Right and democratic ideas of separation of church and state or the incredible feeling that Christians are being persecuted in the United States. As a pastor from then East Germany once said to me, “You Americans get your American freedom and freedom in Christ all mixed together. That is not good.”

What a waste of our time and energy. What an incredible distraction of what we are supposed to be doing. If Evil were to plan a better way to subvert the mission of the Good (of any type or spiritual history) this would seem to be one of the better ones. Spend all of your time arguing with the culture, trying to secure something you don’t need to truly do your calling. Sure it makes it easier and opens up a lot of possibilities to live in a free country, but it isn’t a necessary condition for the survival of the church. The First Century Church and the Church in China are prime examples of the falsehood of our American Freedom-Centered belief.

What happens is we end up wasting time and energy fighting battles that we shouldn’t be fighting. We are often afraid to discover that people may actually rather go out shopping on Sunday than go to church. We fight the creeping secularism instead of preaching the Gospel. We get angry at out schools for having too many activities or too much homework on the old church night- Wednesday. We are not being positive- we are being negative. We turn Christianity and Church into duties in order to combat these trends. The result is often hostility or confusion or apathy. The loser is not the secular trend. The loser is the church. I will have some thoughts on that in a later installment.

The remnants of Christendom are still here. Perhaps, when they are finally gone, we can get on with being God’s people as a leaven in the bread of the world.

Sunday, February 18, 2007

What I Don't Miss (Part 1)

Part One of this series dealt with what I miss now that I am doing "secular" ministry after thirty years as a parish pastor.
Links to
Introduction
What I Miss: Part 1, part 2, part 3

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Perhaps this section needs an epigraph. Here's one from writer James Baldwin:

"The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
What then is there about the Institution that I won’t miss? Probably most of it. But the basis of what I will not miss is the underlying issue that the survival of the Institution is often the #1 priority. Yes, it’s often said in terms of “mission” or “purpose” or “doing God’s work.” But it’s often really about keeping the Institution alive.

Naturally it is true that if the Institution is alive and healthy then the work of God can more fully be done. No argument there. It is also true that there has to be an organization of some kind. (At least it appears that way as early as the Book of Acts.) But the Institution often becomes the end-all and be-all of the life of the Institution. That then gets translated into the Institution existing to serve itself and those who are its shareholders- its members. The Institution has to continue so there’ll be a place to be married, to have my children baptized, and then someone to bury me. I can only get truly interested in bringing outsiders in if they help the survival of the Institution.

Now that I’ve gotten all that cynical stuff out of the way let me get more specific. But first, a disclaimer. Much of what I’ve said is not necessarily a bad thing. The Institution in some form or another (or many forms or others) is a necessity. The work of God has many variations and facets and aspects. No one of them is the only thing to be done. Acts gives us the best and probably first example way back at the very beginning. The Apostles had their task to do- spread the Gospel by preaching, teaching, and baptizing. But the widows and orphans who were “members” of the community weren’t being supported and served. This was seen as a task as essential as that of the Apostles. You cannot ignore that work and still be doing God’s work in your community. They found the workers who had that gift. The work could now get done. We’re not talking about a hand-holding ministry or providing fun and games at youth group. This was life-supporting work. The widows and orphans needed physical as well as spiritual help. No one else was doing it; God wants it done (see the Prophets); they did it.

This is organization and institution. That it not optional. The question becomes one of extent, purpose, mission, and control. The result in many a modern Institution is far more internal or even self-serving. Nine times out of ten when you mention “outreach” or “bringing in new people” you will get, “But we have to take care of ourselves first. We can’t help them if we can’t do it for ourselves first.” Nothing happens. The metaphor of a country club for the saints is probably overblown and overused. It is much narrower than that. It usually has more to do with control and image in order to assure that the Institution remains like I want it to be.

Examples abound.

Budgets are often so bare bones and filled with fixed, nearly unchangeable costs. Yet by the arguments at most congregational or board meetings you’d think it could be changed by wishing it were so. All figures have to be to the penny. None of this rounding up or down.

Board meetings last forever. Everyone has to have a say. Everyone has to get the final word. Everyone is The Boss. Everyone is an owner. In many instances that leads to a lack of trust of everyone else, especially if they have a different opinion.

This is the unfortunate part of the Institution- it is made up of human beings- sinners and imperfect. It doesn’t appear as if God has a Plan B, however. It’s not going to change, of course, since that‘s how these kind of institutions work.

It doesn’t help a lot to use business or other non-profit models as if they were the solution. Our bottom line is not greater profits or shareholder satisfaction. We can, however, learn from healthy, efficient corporations about effectiveness and support and human resources. In those areas we’re still back in the 50s. They, too, we must remember, have their own fallible imperfections. I’m not sure that we think that we can be fallible in the church since we are supposed to be the Body of Christ, forgetting that Jesus was not an Institution.

After thirty years of control politics and micro-management, I don’t miss it at all. I don’t have to keep trying to have all those juggling balls in the air. I don’t miss those church meetings for even a minute.

It would appear that this has had a negative tone to it. I realize that as I scan what I have written. But I am talking about the things I won’t miss. The Institutional nature of the church is not something I will miss. I used to enjoy the “politics” but have come to realize that we often use the politics in very un-Christ-like ways to control, to shame, to win over others. Some of the things I have seen happen to church leaders is worthy of a dog-eat-dog organization.

So, yes, there will be a negative tone to how I feel. For that I ask your indulgence until I can put this all back together in what I would do differently if I went back.

For now, then, simply hear the sadness under the surface that we have been so unaware of what we do, and confession for the fact that I am not innocent of this myself.

More next week on what I will not miss.

Friday, February 9, 2007

What I Miss (Part 3)

As I said in the first post in this series, this is an attempt to the answer the question: “What would I do differently as a parish pastor if I went back?” After 30 years in ministry and now 3 years in secular ministry, I think this is as good a time as any to begin thinking about that.

In part 1 I began to talk about the things that I miss now that I am doing secular ministry beyond the walls of the church. I said there were three things:

Serving Communion
Doing Baptisms
Community.

In part two, I discovered the important place of funerals in the life of a parish pastor. Often it was for me the pinnacle of ministry even if there were only five of us huddled against a snowy wintry wind.

I think all of these come together in the word community. Everything I have said about sacraments and funerals comes out of and leads back into community. In its own unique way I have a hunch that this is the great “secret” the Apostolic Church that allowed it to grow so explosively across the Roman Empire. They offered an alternative to the secular community that revered the state and worshiped the political leaders. They fed the poor; cared for the widows and orphans; stayed out of politics; and they were there for each other- no matter what. Of course they had their share of problems. Just read most of Paul’s letters. But these didn’t keep the community from growing. I would love to know how, but that’s beyond any of our abilities to ever find out in this life.

I also have a hunch that part of their success was that they were a two-pronged community. One was the community of people; the other was a mystical community. The community was more than the material, there was also the spiritual- connections which gave hope and meaning.

For twenty-two of my thirty years in the parish I experienced that kind of community. (The other eight years are best left to the silence of the past.) In those twenty-two years a bond existed within those two churches that was welcoming and forgiving. They were not churches that shot their wounded. They cared about each other in myriad ways. Of course not every person who walked in the door felt that. Sometimes they were told they were cold and unwelcoming. That’s not unusual. Churches have personalities and not every church can be welcoming to every personality. No church can be all things to all people. Only Jesus could do that. But as a whole these two churches were able to be community.

They also allowed the pastor and family to be an intimate part of that community. He/she/we were not seen as outsiders, there for a short time only to leave. Better not get close, then, for you will be disappointed when the pastor leaves. Sure, they knew that the pastor would one day leave. But that’s no reason to deprive them and you of the chance to get to truly know each other in all the intimacy of community. The pastor was not seen in general as a “hired hand” to do the congregation’s bidding. The pastor and family were as integral to the life of the church as anyone which meant both celebrating and mourning together.

When our daughter was to be baptized at the one church it was only natural that we invited my predecessor- a retired Bishop- to return and do the honors. He was still part of that church’s life in Spirit. He was still deeply loved. We asked him- and then surprised him by having a surprise 70th birthday party so we could all celebrate both together.

In the second congregation I had the painful task of admitting to them and myself that I was an alcoholic and needed to leave them and enter treatment for four weeks. It was suggested by some in the greater church that this would probably mean the end of my ministry there. Might as well start packing the boxes. I had already been there for a little over four years. That’s enough. Leave. Start over. Get a clean slate.

No one in the congregation suggested that (at least to me.) Instead I received over 100 cards and letters in my time in treatment. Maybe more. They then welcomed me back with hopeful open arms.

I stayed. I finally did move the day after I celebrated 11 years of sobriety and over 15 years at the church. It was a deep bond. Very deep. They allowed me to be human. The bond is still there over seven years after we moved.

It is hard to find that in the secular world. It may even be difficult to find it in many churches. I don’t know. I do know I miss it today. But maybe being the pastor for those twenty-two years spoiled me. In both situations it was a community present before I got there and is still there after I’ve been gone. I didn’t have to work at it to build it. I just had to be open to allow myself to be surrounded by it and return it in kind.

Today, for a number of reasons, I don’t live close to the church were I am a member. It’s the closest church of my denomination where I feel I can attend, but it’s thirty miles away- a thirty-five minute drive in the minimal traffic of Sunday morning. I work evenings and Saturdays so I cannot attend weekday events. You don’t develop community at that distance on Sundays only.

I miss the natural community of a church. What I have will have to suffice for now. I may have more to say about this when talking about what I’ve learned in these past three years. It is probably at the heart of what I miss the most- and fear that the church may be losing by leaps and bounds. Only time will tell about that.

A friend asked me how long I can go without this community. I didn’t- and still don’t have an answer. For now I enjoy what community I can find and keep my spiritual eyes and ears open for the possibility of what is waiting out there for me.

Next: What I DON”T miss about parish ministry.

Thursday, February 1, 2007

What I Miss (Part 2)

This is part of a series that tries to answer the question: “What would I do differently as a parish pastor if I went back?”
Introduction
Part 1
................................................

In part 1 I began to talk about the things that I miss now that I am doing secular ministry beyond the walls of the church. I said there were three things:

Serving Communion
Doing Baptisms
Community.

I then talked about the first two, the sacraments, and why I miss them.

As I was writing about the role of “sacrament server” it brought to mind one other aspect of parish ministry that I miss, perhaps even more so than the sacraments. I miss the opportunity to perform funerals. The opportunity to be with families, leading them through their time of grief when they have little idea where to go next, standing in the cemetery saying final words.

There has always been something deeply spiritual about those moments for me. Perhaps because I was faced with death in my life at a very young age with my parents dying before I was 16 years old, there continued to be something about funerals that were uniquely special and important. I didn’t always feel natural at doing it. In fact it was often awkward as I tried not to place my personal experiences onto others. But as I got older and was seen as more “mature” people became more willing to let me talk or just be there.

It all came into a vision of clarity on a blustery, late winter’s morning in a rural cemetery. It was a simple graveside service for a man who was the brother of a couple members of the church. There were maybe five of us there as the snow showers moved through and the wind moved over the frozen ground. None of us truly knew what to say. He had died after a number of years living on the streets, homeless, in a distant state. After a few moments of greeting each other I took my place at the head of the casket.

Out of the silence, or perhaps into the silence, I began the words of the liturgy.

Lord, our God, in whom we live, and move, and have our being,

Have mercy upon us.

Lord, our God, you do not willingly bring affliction or grief to your children.

Leave your peace with us.

Ancient words, originally in other languages, brought down to us over the ages through countless versions and places merging into even more timeless words…

I am the resurrection and the life, says the Lord. Those who believe in me will live, even though they die; and those who live and believe in me will never die

Then, joining together we prayed, said, pondered, the Lord’s Prayer.

…for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.

Simple words. Oh, but what better place to go when you have nothing else to say. There are no new words that can do that. Even many un-churched find themselves moved when they least expect it by such ancient echoes, simply and imperfectly moving against the cold and snow. They were the movement of the Spirit across the barren ground into waiting souls saying there is more here than meets the eye.

It was a moment of change and reversal and rebirth. I realized that I was standing in a long, long spiritual line. It went far beyond the religious- deeper than that- to the places where the religious rituals and actions seek to connect. It was a line of priests and ministers, Imams and Rabbis, shamans and who knows who. It was a line of those who had been chosen and called for various reasons in all places and cultures to use the words and rites of their unique traditions to help at such a moment of transition when the whole issue of the purpose of life is called into question.

We stand at those moments comforting each other, reminding each other that this life is not all there is, while sending the soul of the departed off to a better and eternal place.

You cannot top those moments.

Which will lead me next to- community.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

What I Miss (Part 1)

This is part of a series that tries to answer the question: “

What would I do differently as a parish pastor if I went back?”

(See Introduction for some more background.) After 30 years in ministry and now 3 years in secular ministry, I think this is as good a time as any to begin thinking about that. Here then is part 1.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The best place for me to start is with the essential question: “What do I miss about doing ministry in the church?” My immediate first response had three things:

Serving Communion
Doing Baptisms
Community.

Those are the basics.

Yet I wonder, even as I write that, if the first two are in reality power trips. That is an odd thought that had never come to mind before. Think about it, though. How much power does one feel when he or she is doing something that is done only by people like you- and you do it for God.

It is also potentially selfish. It has always been such a joy to say the awesome words of both sacraments. Take the bread and the cup and then serve others. It is a remarkable feeling. Am I just missing the feeling and the power? When I do those events there are a number of role-feelings that I can have.

Mediator? i.e. priest-like. Yes, I can say there is some of that even in the Protestant tradition.

Holy One? I mean that in the sense of the keeper and sharer of the sacred story. Yes, certainly there is some of that.

Servant? In the tradition I come from this one is the most certain of the role-feelings. We stand when we received Holy Communion from the clergy who comes into the pews and serves each individual at an equal level. To be able to stand, look the person in the eye and then to share, for a moment, the mystery we are both partaking of. That’s not magic- it is a faith-filled mystery that I do miss more than any other part of it.

It is the same with Baptism. I would take the water and place it on the baby’s forehead and then remind all of us who are baptized that we live- yet it is not us, but Christ who is living in us. Another mystery of depth and holy awe.

Sacraments: the outward and visible signs of the Grace of God that can work within us. To be allowed to share that mystical, spiritual intimacy is incredibly humbling. It is not, then, a sense of power. It is in itself and “anti-“power- a moment of humility in a not so humble world.

Of course many clergy are put on a pedestal that can feed their ego and give them a sense of controlling power. I do not miss that. (I’ll probably have more to say about this in the section on what I don’t miss.) I love being just me. Whatever “holy” vibes I may be able to give to others has to come from somewhere else and not given because I have a title. I try to be real and to be me as God has given it all to me.

Originally that’s where the servants and “holy ones” came from. They were called out not because they saw something in themselves that was special, but because the community did. That’s how they often got to be tribal elders or medicine men or the holy ones. They stood out, not by calling attention to themselves, but by living their lives as they were meant to live them and the community noticed. The mystery of the spiritual became more visible when they were around.

Of course, just because someone has a “title” or a “position” does not mean that they are automatically able to live and share that mystery. Some definitely grow into it. Others never do and the results can be damaging to many around them. In fact, I have a hunch that the crisis of many a church leader has been to some extent caused by this disconnect or a misuse of the spiritual pulled apart by the original sinfulness of we poor, powerless, human beings.

I guess, then, what I miss is those moments and times when I am reminded of the work of the community through the sacraments and the work of God in the community. I miss being the one who can help bring that to life. I miss the joy of being a vessel of that to occur.

Maybe, after all, that is selfish or even part of a power trip. I hope I did it well, though. I hope I was able to open a door to the holy through my actions. But I do miss doing it- and love it when I am there to participate in the pews.

Next time: More of what I miss about being a parish pastor- funerals and an introduction to community.

Friday, January 19, 2007

If I Went Back (Introduction)

What would I do differently today if I were to go back into parish ministry? For no particular reason I asked myself that question the other week.

Three years ago I went on a leave of absence after 30 years in parish ministry. I have the good fortune of being a licensed alcohol and drug counselor and a licensed professional counselor which gives me some freedom to go out and earn my living in what I have come to decide is secular ministry. In other words, three years ago I finally listened to God’s call to do ministry outside the church where few pastors are able to go.

In these three years I have spent a great many hours thinking, praying, reading, and writing in my journal (and here on the blog) about the church. I have sat in church wondering what it is all about from this side of the pulpit. I have had a few opportunities to preach or lead communion and I asked myself as many questions as I could. I keep asking myself the question, “Why do I still care?” What is it about “church” that keeps me confounded and “interested?”

Friends have asked me “So, what have you learned about the church in this time?” But no one has asked me what I would do differently now if I went back into the parish. I have no idea whether that’s because they don’t expect me to go back or whether they just assume that if I did I would do the same things I always did.

Or, since I have always been the pioneer, early adopter, never-satisfied-with-the-status quo- radical-type, maybe they haven’t wanted to hear what I have to say.

Since being on leave of absence means that while I am not “officially” on the “call list,” I am open for call if one comes. Perhaps that's why the question did finally come to me a couple weeks ago. It was kind of out of the blue. I am not holding a call and I have no idea whether I will ever get one. But it is an interesting activity.

What would I do?

What I have learned?

What don't I miss?

What do I miss?

Over the next few weeks I am going to try to answers those questions here in this postmodern Pilgrim’s space, perhaps in a once a week post. I will take them in reverse order since that is the way I experienced them. I don’t know entirely what I will find as I put these thoughts on the virtual page. I have no bottom line.

Yet. Perhaps there isn’t one. Perhaps in the end it isn’t my decision anyway. I believe in the ability of God to call us to where we are supposed to be. I know I am where God wants me at this moment. Perhaps at this time in my life and the life of the Moravian Church, my ministry and insights are more useful in secular ministry. We'll see where God leads me in this.

More next week.

I ask that you pray for insight for me as I work on this. Pray simply that, in the words of the Eleventh Step of AA that I may find an improved “conscious contact with God, [as I pray simply] only for knowledge of his will… and the power to carry it out.”