What I Would Do (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 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)
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Let me begin with a quote from Annie Dillard that says a great deal about what I think the church can be:

“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.