Category Archives: Uncategorized

What if Jesus had used weapons?  Can you think of a Bible story that speaks of Jesus using some kind of weapon?

I remember having an epiphany in the Topkaki Palace during my sabbatical in 2009, seeing the sword of Muhammad (PBUH) and thinking, “I’m pretty sure that Jesus never had a sword.“

Today many are demanding action to end gun violence.  It’s also the day when we remember that Jesus healed the ear of the high priest’s slave when one of Jesus’ followers tried to defend Jesus and cut off the slave’s ear.

So, not only did Jesus not carry a sword, but he healed somebody violated by one.

What if Jesus walked among us today?  What would he say about carrying guns?

Christian tradition marks the Wednesday of Holy Week as Spy Wednesday – the day we remember that Judas agreed to betray Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.

Betrayal continues to be a heart-wrenching human choice today.  What if each of us in the Church, everyone reading this blog post, everyone planning to remember Jesus’ crucifixion – and resurrection – this week shared 30 pieces of silver to an organization that serves those who have been betrayed.

At most, in US dollars at least, it’s a mere $30.  But nickels and dimes would be helpful too.

For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength. I Corinthians 1:25

What if we refrained from penalizing people who disagree with us?  What if we refrained from calling people “evil” or “bigoted” or “foolish” for having strong views that are the opposite of our own?

No one fully knows the mind of God.  And with that in mind, please read these two pieces:

• This transcript from an interview between Rachel Martin of NPR’s Weekend Edition and Jim Daly of Focus on the Family about same sex marriage.
• This post from my Writing Revs sister Ruth Everhart about the problem with making theological standards by voting.

The Supremes are talking about marriage this week.

I, as a clergy person, can choose not to marry a couple I cannot –  in good conscience  – marry.  Maybe they don’t seem serious about marriage.  Maybe they’ve shared with me that they plan an “open marriage” and that is against my theological beliefs.  Maybe I’ve learned that the woman is a victim of abuse at the hands of her future spouse.

I don’t have to marry them.  Someone else will, perhaps, but I don’t have to.

Many years ago, my denomination voted to ordain women.  Some people left the  denomination because they could not – in good conscience – ordain women.  They were okay if other pastors and congregations ordained women.  But they could not – at least at that time.  And that was not okay with our denomination, so those pastors left.

What if we had said, “You know what? That’s fine.  Don’t ordain women.“?  To be perfectly honest, I know – as a woman – that some Presbyteries are friendlier towards women pastors than other Presbyteries.  And I choose not to seek a call in those less friendly Presbyteries.  It’s my choice.  If there was a high incidence of people in a particular Presbytery who – I knew – were not going to support my call, I would probably not go there.

Things get dicey – legally – when we are talking about refusing to support something and a particular gender, sexual identity, race, religion, etc. is involved.

Jim Daly of Focus on the Family quotes a gay rights activist in the NPR piece who said:  ” . . . if I wanted to get married to my partner and a Christian person was working at the county courthouse, if they refused to do it – even politely and had somebody else come over to do it – she shouldn’t work or he shouldn’t work in the county courthouse. What about a doctor that wouldn’t do in vitro fertilization for a lesbian couple? Well, they should never be licensed by the state because they would be violating my rights.”

Honestly, if a clerk at the court house or a doctor couldn’t – in good conscience – sign a license or do an in vitro procedure for any couple, I am okay with them not doing it.  The county clerk – as a government employee – is a trickier situation.  The doctor, I believe, as a private business person, should have more say about what procedures she chooses to perform.

This might be politically and theological incorrect, but it’s sort of the same way I feel about women who are against abortion.  If you find yourself being pregnant with a child you do not want or cannot have, don’t have an abortion.  No one will make you have an abortion – at least in this country.

This is what it means to live in a free nation.

Yes, you can all run circles around me logically in terms of legal definitions of discrimination, etc.  But I am at a point when I am feeling libertarian-ish.

When I attended the first Evangelical Covenant Order event back in 2011, I sat with a group of good people who were concerned about the recent change in the PCUSA constitution that had removed the prohibition known as G-6.0106b in the church’s Book of Order.

One gentleman from a large church said, “Now we have to find homosexuals to ordain.  I know that, in my church, we don’t have any homosexuals, but now we have to go out and find some to ordain.”  I tried to explain that this was not the case.  There was no new requirement to find GBLTQ people and ordain them.  But – just as it had been required for congregations to ordain women – he assumed that his church would now be required to ordain GBLTQ folks.

(Note: Congregations in the Presbyterian Church USA must elect officers that are representative of their membership.  If there are no women in your church, you don’t have to ordain women.  If there is no one under the age of 50, you don’t have to ordain “young people.”  If you are part of a Biker Church, there should be some bikers in leadership.)

With matters of leadership standards – as well as the definition of marriage – people of faith can disagree because none of us has cornered the market on God’s Truth.  One thing I know for sure is that Jesus has told us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us.

What if we agreed together that even if we thoroughly disagree with someone, we can let them believe what they believe and still love them.

What if we could really love our enemies?  It might seem foolish, but God is so much wiser than we are.

Image Source.

On the cusp of Holy Week, officials of the Chicago Public Schools announced Friday that 53 elementary schools and one small secondary school will be closing.  That’s 11% of the city’s grammar schools.

Most of these schools are on the South Side of Chicago in low-income neighborhoods, some bearing the names of African American or Latino-American heroes:  Mahalia Jackson, Marcus Garvey, Ana Roqué de Duprey, Benjamin Banneker, Mary McLeod Bethune, Jesse Owens.  It looks like this is a done deal, which begs the question:  what will Chicago Public Schools do with these buildings?

Leaving buildings  abandoned sounds like a particularly terrible plan.

After listening to this radio show on Friday, it struck me:  What if the Presbytery of Chicago – or any denominational body in the city – partnered to lease at least one of these soon-to-be empty school buildings and create something new?  This is why we have denominations – so that we can join lots of congregations together to do what a single congregation cannot do.

So, here’s my Big Idea:

• Choose a school, preferably near a Presbyterian congregation (or whatever kind of congregation is part of a larger body that wants to do this with the community.)
• Lease it with the understanding of the City of Chicago that this will be a non-profit center for service, education, and ministry.
• Invite the amazing Ashley Goff to come share with us what she’s learned about The Pilgrimage in DC and start by creating a Pilgrimage-esque facility (sleeping quarters, showers, kitchen, gathering space) in the former school – for youth and adults to stay for Urban Plunge Experiences to paint, clean, and serve in countless other ways to prepare this space for ministry.
• Find – among Presbyterian Christians in our churches or from other connections – contractors willing to donate HVAC, lighting, plumbing, landscaping, and other services to refurbish the school.
• Call a specialized minister  – or preferably a team of ministers – to be  Curators/Conveners/Pastors to organize the ministries of this new spiritual community.
• Talk with the neighbors – preferably in a community organizing style of relational meetings – about what they want/need in their neighborhood.  (Note:  This is about the neighbors, not about what we want to do.)
• Create a haven in this neighborhood with any combination of services depending on the needs/hopes of the community:  after-school homework and tutoring, adult education, computer lab, prayer chapel, music lessons, childcare, financial counseling and education, spiritual direction, video/multi-media classes, Bible studies, sex education classes, basketball games, yoga, community garden, cooking classes, movie nights, psychological therapy, basic medical care, job counseling, enrichment classes for children. Whatever.
• Hire a full-time grant-writer to help find funding streams.
• Hire a staff to manage the assorted ministries offered, including a volunteer coordinator who recruits, trains, supervises, and honors the volunteers.
• Hire security.  We want this to be a very safe place.
• Offer regular prayer throughout the day.

What if we could do this?  We churches don’t believe we are rich, but we really are.  There are ways to do this if only we want to do it – and if God wants us to do it.

Image of the Marcus Garvey Elementary School in Chicago, one of the schools selected to close after this school year.

This weekend marks the beginning of the holiest week for Christians- and the busiest week for my church friends serving parishes.  Multiple bulletins to prepare.  Liturgies to create.  Sermons to write.  Palm fronds, Easter lilies, and plastic eggs.  Special Music.

Pressure’s on.

It’s The Big Week . . . for clergy and other church leaders.  But most of the population will experience next week in a different way.  Some have spring break plans.  Others will park themselves in front of a television and suddenly care about college basketball teams that meant nothing to them last week.

The truth is that most of the culture will not be as into Holy Week as church people.

So, here’s my question:  is the focus of our Holy Week swirl about event planning or connecting spiritually to God and each other?  Do we believe that Holy Week events will make disciples?  Or would our time be better spent serving neighbors who have no plans to come through the sanctuary doors on Palm Sunday or Maundy Thursday or Good Friday?

A friend of mine shared yesterday that his church – which meets in a building next to a public school with a high percentage of kids who receive a free or reduced price breakfast and lunch  – is handing out grocery bags filled with a week’s worth of groceries to each student to take home.  Every kids gets a bag so the free/reduced meal kids don’t feel embarrassed.  Their spring break is also next week so most of those kids won’t get their usual breakfast and lunch.

This is a church that spends more time on providing services to the neighbors than providing services to those within their own walls.  Gutsy.

May this be a truly holy week for us all.

I remember – almost 30 years ago – hearing for the first time about a pastor making $100,000 a year in cash salary.  It was a stunning revelation that this was even possible.  At the time, I was earning so little income as a rural pastor that I qualified for government assistance.

Many pastors – especially of churches larger than 500 souls – earn a six figure salary these days, at least in urban and suburban parts of the U.S.  According to The 2008 Compensation Handbook for Church Staff, Presbyterian pastors are among the best paid in the country.  Christianity Today reported several years ago that “Presbyterian senior pastors earned the most in our survey—their average salary plus housing/parsonage was $78,000—while Baptist senior pastors earned next to last—$67,000.”

We all know that nobody goes into professional ministry for the money. Nevertheless, we all appreciate a just salary that pays for our basic needs as well as some basics wants.  I am sinfully proud of the fact that HH and I could pay for braces for our three kids.  I am sinfully anxious that our kids have student loans to pay off.  It would have been great to be able to cover more of their college costs but I’m grateful we could give as much as we gave them.

Part of my current job involves receiving the “Terms of Call” for all the installed pastors of our Presbytery,  and I am struck by the disparity.  I have a hard time believing that the Senior Pastor of a large, wealthy church really works three times as hard as the solo pastor of a tiny church in a less affluent part of Chicagoland.  But that’s the numerical difference in their salaries.  One pastor makes the minimum and another makes three times that – even if they have similar gifts and years of service.

Again, according to Christianity Today “the biggest single factor in determining any pastor’s pay is the church’s income. And among churches with senior pastors, Presbyterian churches have the highest-reported church income, so some of that gets passed along to their senior pastors.”

Ideas for creating a fairer system have been tossed around for years to no avail.  It’s not up to Presbyteries – in my denomination – to set up these regulations, I believe.  It’s up to the congregations themselves.

Imagine if a congregation intentionally committed to paying their Senior Pastor and their Associate Pastors more proportionately.  Yes, experience and education matter.  But most Associate Pastors have almost as much responsibility as Senior Pastors.  It seem unjustifiable to pay a Senior Pastor twice as much – or more – than the Associate Pastor in multi-staff congregations.

It also seems unfair to pay a solo pastor – who does everything from preaching each Sunday to leading the youth group –  a fraction of what a Head of Staff makes, especially when that Head of Staff never has to worry about unlocking the doors every Sunday or recruiting teachers or training the ushers.

We have many pastors who – no matter how hard they work, how creatively they try to lead their people, or how gifted they are – will never make more than the minimum salary.

I have no answers.  Do you?

Image source here.

A particularly smart colleague pointed out to me – after yesterday’s post –  that a Big Church is not necessary a Rich Church.

The average sized church in the PCUSA these days is (!) 187 members.   Three-fourths (75 percent) have 200 or fewer members. Eight in ten (80 percent) have 250 or fewer members. More than half (53 percent) have 100 or fewer.  So what is a “big church”?  250 members?  600 hundred?  1000?  The Top Ten congregations have over 4000 members.  So can we assume they are “rich”?

They might be rich in participation and real estate, but do they have financial resources in the bank? Maybe not.

Here’s the crazy thing:  some of our largest churches don’t have the capacity to fund new endeavors.   And some of our Small Churches have quite a lot of money in their endowments.  It’s possible that our “richest” churches – by some definitions  – are indeed the “little churches.”

An important point that Shawna Bowman made yesterday, is that small and large churches need to learn from each other.  It’s true.

Capacity for ministry might involve financial capacity.  Or it could be human capacity (participation).  But we need . . . capacity  – for ministry.

Survivalist churches don’t have any capacity for growth, spiritual development, making disciples of all nations.  And many of our congregations seem to believe that we are in a zero sum game.  Nope.

We have the capacity to do amazing ministry.  How have we missed this?

Would you say your church is rich?  Why or why not?

The minimum salary for a full time pastor in our Presbytery is $42,764 cash annually,  which is not a lot for someone with a Masters Degree who works 50+ hours a week living in an urban area.  

Quite a few of our pastors make the minimum salary, no matter how much experience they have or how hard they work or how gifted they are.

This has a lot to do with the size of the active congregation.  If a church has 50 active members, each and every member would have to donate $1,152.52 a year just to have a FT pastor, covering the cash salary and required benefits.  A church with 30 members would require each member to give $1,919.20 to have a FT pastor.  Needless to say, these congregations generally do not have FT pastors.

And this is what would be needed just for the pastor’s salary – not all the other necessities like building upkeep, utilities, property and liability insurance, other staff salaries (music minister?  secretary?  custodian?), and – oh, right – resources to serve the neighbors.  Churches also need to purchase things like postage, curriculum, office supplies, etc.

So what will happen to all the little churches?

We know the usual answers:

• Many will be gone in 5-10 years after spending their last resources. 
• Some will merge with other congregations and survive a bit longer.
• Some will be brave enough to close before all their resources are gone and they will resurrect by using those resources to plant a new church.

I have another idea, but it involves a serious paradigm shift:  from “this is my church and about pleasing me/my needs” to “this is God’s church and about making disciples of all nations.”

What if large churches called an associate pastor whose primary job is to plant a new church in an under-served neighborhood?  That associate pastor would have the resources and staff support of a large, established congregation but would equip the saints in a new neighborhood, with new people.

Or a large church could call an associate pastor whose primary job is to redevelop a struggling church in need of fresh leadership and vision.  The smaller congregation would become a satellite of the larger congregation.

We Presbyterians call ourselves “a connectional church” but we are not as connected as we could be.  It’s not about sharing common rules and regulations.  It’s about sharing a common mission to show our neighbors what love looks like in the name of Jesus.  I can imagine a network made up of many small congregations, connected by anchor churches with the vision to exist for the transformation of our city and beyond.

So who’s up for a paradigm shift?

I would say yes but, then, I’m only speaking for myself.

I remember having a massage once on the free afternoon of a conference week – one of those holy getaways when I was seeking both spiritual and physical refreshment – and as my muscles were being kneaded and punched, I started crying.  Weeping really.  Actually, drooling.

It was right out of that scene in Broadcast News when Holly Hunter had her five minute cry – except mine was a little more pathetic.

Did you see this yesterday in the NY Times Magazine by Heather Havrilesky? It’s about the increased number of strong women characters on television – Leslie Knope, Nurse Jackie, Carrie Mathison – and how they appear strong but are actually very shaky in their own private moments:  

“the more astute and capable many of these women are,the more likely it is that they’re also completely nuts“

The best clergywomen I know can finesse pinball game-esque crises on any given day. They might be thrust into a morning staff meeting  only to be deflected  off into a hospital emergency, then launched quickly into a family crisis, bouncing off a phone call from angry Church Ladies to an evening meeting with the Deacons to the dining room table at home where a child’s science project is being created.  We hold it together.  We are impressively focused.  We. Get. It. Done.  But then we crawl into bed and weep.  Or we pour ourselves a drink.  Or we make an additional appointment with the therapist.  Or we double up on the practices our spiritual director suggested.

Yes, we are a little crazy.

I hesitate to use that term because I have friends with serious mental health issues.  And yet, all of us – I’m convinced – have mental health issues.  Or spiritual health issues.

We are smart.  We are accomplished.  We can officiate a funeral at 10, attend a Parent – Teacher Conference at noon, do premarital counseling at 2, start a sermon at 3:30, make dinner for the family at 5, run a load of laundry at 5:30, and head to another meeting at 7.  But then we collapse a little bit – either physically or emotionally.  Who can keep doing this?

Many women – teachers, dentists, lawyers, non-profit managers – find themselves in this situation.  We are smart.  We are accomplished.  But we need a  release from the pressure.  We become a little crazy.

A friend of mine shares that her mom always said, “Don’t stick your hand in the crazy.”  Clergywomen – among others – intentionally stick our hands in the crazy.  It’s what we do.

Image here.

It has begun.

March Madness is like Christmas if you love college basketball. And I grew up loving college basketball to the point that during a family vacation to the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts, HH and I practically wept as we stood among the Dean Smith, Bill Bradley, and Kareem Abdul Jabbar memorabilia.  Really.  It was holy.

So let’s talk about madness.

People are mad about the most interesting things.  Some of us go mad after a terrible loss.  A loved one dies and we find ourselves in the fetal position drooling and making dying animal sounds.  We suddenly crave Jello.  We listen to Billy Joel over and over again.  We can’t sleep.  We watch reruns of Gunsmoke. We. Have. Lost. Our. Minds.

Some of us go mad merely thinking about loss.  We worry about losing people we love.  We worry about losing a certain way of life. 

For churchy people, there is the phenomenon of losing our church culture.   Our church seems to be flailing and we become paralyzed.  We don’t know what to do.  Our beloved religious institutions seems to be floundering and it feels like we’re trying to stay above water during a tsunami.  And yet we are afraid to change things.

I know one mad church that owns multiple properties in a city with expensive real estate but they won’t even consider selling any of their properties.  They are saving that real estate “for a rainy day” but they don’t realize that the rains are torrential out there.

I know another mad church that finds itself at a turning point.  They are in the throes of finding a new head of staff, and the temptation to call a pastor just like their former pastors is overwhelming.  But what they need is a fresh leader with a 21st Century perspective.  They are mad enough to sabotage themselves.

People are mad about holidays.  Easter’s coming up and it needs to be fabulous for many of us who self-identify as Christian.  We want pageantry.  We want an excellent spiritual experience.  But we fail to note that every day should be Easter for followers of Jesus.  Resurrection is an everyday occurrence.

And so here we are:  entering the season of madness.

It’s not like the season of Lent.  It’s not like the season of Easter.  It’s the season of madness.

We change our schedules to watch our favorite teams.  We cheer on teams we couldn’t have cared less about last week.  (Go Lehigh!)  We wear school colors and some of us paint our faces.

Madness moves us to do strange things.  So, imagine what spiritual madness looks like.  What if we lived our lives following the way of Jesus  – without regard to earthly security, cultural norms, or basic self-centeredness?

It would look a little crazy.  And yet it would be amazing.

PS- Go Heels.