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This post is not about game theory which I don’t understand.  But it’s about games and fun and church.

Me (to the new pastor of my home church):  So how’s it going?

New Pastor:  I’m having a blast.  This is so much fun.

Me:  ?!

It’s embarrassing to say this, but – until that moment – I had not considered that church life could be fun.  I was in my 30s.

Honestly, my life in the church had occasionally been fun but my Calvinist upbringing swiftly stuffed that response, reminding me that Following Jesus Is Totally Serious Or It Doesn’t Count.

My generation generalization tends to be this:

• Younger generations want spiritual activities to be both meaningful and fun.
• Older generations expect spiritual activities to be meaningful.  Fun = a lack of seriousness

I am all for serious fun with a spiritual twist.  And I’m kind of old.  But I find that some wonderful people don’t realize that following Jesus can involve great joy.  And fun.

Maybe it’s a cheap ploy for ecclesiastical gain, but I’ve found it both meaningful and joyous to make a game out of certain moments in ministry:

• To encourage attendance at a congregational meeting, I once invited  10 people to pledge $100 each if we could get 100 people at our small church’s annual meeting.  If 100 people attended, the $1000 would be contributed to a favorite mission project in our neighborhood.  Counting babies and toddlers, we got the 100.  And it was fun.
• A group of church people once love-bombed a local playground on a really hot day handing out free Popcicles on a random Saturday afternoon.  Really fun.
• When we heard that the local high school had an emergency fire drill on a cold day (the chemistry lab was on fire) a couple of us from the church staff took huge coffee urns to the school and handed out free hot chocolate to everybody.  They loved it and gave us “thank you” poinsettias.  Fun.

What fun things are you doing in church these days?  It’s okay if you believe that monitoring meeting minutes is fun.

Note from Jan:  In my ongoing hope that both congregations and core leaders  will be teachable followers of Christ, I’ve asked my friend Larissa Kwong Abazia to share her experiences as one searching for a new call in a new city.

 I’ve recently started interviewing for ministry positions and felt I was prepared for the onslaught of what I deem “inappropriate questions” from churches.  As a 30-something woman of color, I am familiar with comments that pose doubts about my age or experience, ability to minister to people older than me, slotting me right into youth ministry roles, assuming that hiring me will automatically grow the young adult population, or blatant misunderstandings surrounding race.  I’ve learned to take them as par for the course, as sad as it may seem in the life of the Church.  I was not ready, however, for questions surrounding my role as a mother.

Every single interview (Did you read that?  EVERY SINGLE INTERVIEW) that I have had in the past several months has included some form of the question, “How do you feel about going back to work?” or “What will your son do once you start working?”

At first, I found myself justifying my desire to go back to work, laid out daycare plans, and the ways that my husband and I would juggle the weekly schedule.  Then I gave more guarded answers by acknowledging the concern behind the question and returning to my ministry experience as someone who likes balancing a lot of things at once.  Finally, I worked to briefly reassure them of a healthy work/life balance and redirected the interview to my call to ministry.  I confess that I have yet to find an answer that I am comfortable with even though I have been asked countless times.

I have no doubt that such questions will continue to come throughout my career and I will have to become at expert at answering both pastorally and candidly.  For now, I have arrived at an even deeper concern for our hiring process for female clergy.

For those who are seeking a pastor, here are some friendly notes that you might want to take into consideration:

• It is illegal to ask a woman (or anyone for that matter) if they are married, have children or plan to have children, or any other personal questions.  I’ve also been asked about my plans for daycare and how I will juggle my potential work schedule; if those aren’t illegal, they certainly are poor form.
• If you’re going to ask a question of a female candidate, first ask yourself if you would request that information from every other interviewee.  If not, then perhaps you should consider not asking at all.
• Asking a female candidate, “How do you feel about working while raising your children?” feeds into decades of pressure on women to feel as though they have to do it all.  I’m guessing if a woman has applied to your church, she has already considered this…otherwise why would she have submitted her resume in the first place?!  Give her the benefit of the doubt, bite your tongue, ask about the unique gifts she brings to your congregation, and uncover the ways you can do ministry together.
• It seems as though the underlying concern in such questions is a distrust that a woman can care for her congregation if she is also a mother (and therefore caring for her family).  Perhaps, then, congregations should consider if they are asking for too much time and energy from their leaders that won’t allow them to maintain healthy boundaries outside of the church.  We aren’t parents of, but partners in ministry with our congregations.  It’s long overdue that we begin thinking about the ways we support our clergy, male and female, in their calls in ways that allow them to be whole people both inside and outside of the church walls.

I wish that people who are conventionally supposed to love each other would say to each other, when they fight, “Please – a little less love, and a little more common decency.”  Kurt Vonnegut in the Prologue to Slapstick

Vonnegut’s novel is about the story of the last President of the United States and it’s kind of ridiculous, but – on this inauguration day – I was thinking about common decency.

Imagine if we treated The Other with common decency.  Forget about “love.”  Figuring out how to love others is confusing sometimes.  (Tough love? Sacrificial love? True love?)

What about mere common decency for the other political party, the other races, the other nations, the other sexual orientations, the other classes, the other faiths?  Or – even better – what if we who claim to be followers of Jesus aimed for uncommon decency?

The One we aspire to follow touched the untouchable, spoke with the unspeakably estranged, and forgiving the unforgivable.  He showed uncommon decency.

I would like to imagine the United States being the nation – perhaps the only nation –  that shows uncommon decency to others:  no torture, no political blackmail, no cruelty to enemies.  Yes, this is a simplistic way to look at global governing, but I have a dream.

It’s happening.  January in the Presbytery Office means pastors are slowly and quietly sharing their plans that this is the year they will be retiring.

Baby Boomer Pastors are retiring in increasingly huge numbers and the consequences will be very interesting.

Generally speaking, there are pastors retiring from tiny churches and those congregations may not survive the transition.  There are also pastors retiring from larger congregations who have had the resources to continue to be 1950s churches  and they may want to call “a young pastor” (meaning younger than 50) who wants to bring them into the 21st Century, and it will be a tricky transition.  There are medium sized churches who will also call younger pastors and that could be even trickier – or easier if these same medium-sized churches have already recognized the cultural reasons why they can no longer afford an associate pastor.

Attention all pastors under the age of 50, and especially those of you under the age of 40:

• You will need to learn how to finesse the shift between 20th and 21st Century Church or
• You will need to plant new churches.

A friend of mine was recently told by a PNC that he was “too creative” to be their pastor.  Actually, he is emergent/fresh/missional/social media savvy, and – yes – creative.  Too creative?  Maybe for them.  Actually, they are a wonderful congregation with enormous potential to be a haven of ministry, but the changes they’ll need to make to ascend on the Church Life Cycle are too scary to fully accept quite yet.

These are tumultuous changes, but God does awesome things with waves.  We need to get ready.

From Jan:  It was MaryAnn who inspired me to write this blog for the past eight years.  Please check out her own blog – The Blue Room.

From MaryAnn:  Jan is a great friend, an alum of my Writing Revs group, and an inspiring church leader and thinker. So it’s great fun to blog swap with her today. Jan asked me to write some thoughts about how to encourage Sabbath in our church communities… a topic that’s near and dear to my heart.

One of my favorite people – a lifelong church lady – was ruing the fact recently that church people can be incredibly mean.  I was surprised to hear her make this admission so matter-of-fact-ly.  After a lifetime of Circle meetings, Bible studies, worship services, elder meetings, and potluck dinners, she admitted that she had heard her share of stunningly ugly comments from her Christian brothers and sisters.  Yep.

The original Mean Girls were probably church ladies.  And some of the worst bullies I’ve ever met were Church Men.

What in the world is up with this?

My ears (and probably yours if you’ve spent much time in church world) have heard:

• Church leaders yell – and even swear – at their pastors and then pounce if the pastor responds in self-defense.  Choice memory:  “You call yourself a @X*% minister?  How dare you speak to me like that?“
• Elders criticize their pastors in board meetings as if they are not sitting right there.  Choice memory:  “Everybody knows that (the pastor) is not a leader.”
• Worshippers sipping coffee after worship whispering about the pastor.  Choice memory:  “We have the votes to oppose her vacation.“

Some people are so desensitized to gossip and criticism that they don’t realize how outrageously rude and mean they sound.  Some people come to church gatherings directly from offices and homes with cultures of coarse language and they forget (or never knew) that this is not the way most followers of Jesus speak to each other.

The meanness is less about the actual words than the ugliness behind the words:  the cattiness, the power grabbiness, the selfishness, the fear.  It’s no wonder that Jesus needs new PR.

How do we respond to bullies?

We actually respond.

So many times, I hear mean words in church meetings and no one challenges the speaker.  Nobody corrects the liar.  Nobody defies the troublemaker.

I’m not ready to retort:  You brood of vipers!  But we might try responding this way:

• Joe/Jane, why would you talk that way? You owe our pastor an apology.
• We were not made to talk to each other like that.  Can we agree to speak respectfully to each other?
• That has not been my experience with ___.  But either way, that’s not how we should be talking about each other.

A former pastor of a church I served was our guest preacher one weekend and after worship, a couple hosted him and his wife, along with several other couples out for brunch.  The next morning – on Monday, before he and his wife drove back to their retirement home –  he stopped by the church study to share that, during the brunch, the hosting couple had verbally shredded me and my husband over a lovely Sunday buffet.

“What did the others say?” I asked.  And he said, “That was what was most disturbing thing.  Not a single person spoke up to end the gossip or defend you.”

The very least we can do is to speak to and about each other in a way that doesn’t make people question what kind of God we claim to follow.

I wrote last September about the importance of being a teachable pastor.  Lately
I’ve been thinking about teachable congregations.

A growing church is a teachable church:

• It’s curious about the world and the Creator of the world
• It wants to grow in faith and service, and
• It wants to connect with God and others, including people who might be considered The Other.

There is so much we all need to learn to be a 21st Century Church.  It does not help when:

1. Leaders schedule workshops and classes on topics that interest almost nobody.   I recently saw a flyer about an upcoming leadership training event in a small congregation that will be offering workshops on Soteriology (Really?  Do people a) know what soteriology is? and b) consider salvation to be a primary daily issue?  Actually, I could make a case for salvation as a daily issue, but this didn’t sound like that kind of workshop), Re-writing Church Bylaws (you’re killing me), and Different Curricula for Pre-Schoolers (although the church has only two pre-schoolers.)  Honestly, I suspect that very few people will be attending this event although a lot of time will go into preparing for it.
2. Leaders schedule workshops and classes at times that don’t work for most people.  Some people don’t go out on winter evenings.  Some can’t do Tuesday morning classes.  Some find Sunday mornings to be tricky.  When and where gatherings are offered depends on the culture of our community and the demographics of our people.
3. Leaders don’t pay attention to what their people really want to learn.  Maybe they don’t want to learn how to re-write the church by-laws but they’d love to know what to do when a friend is diagnosed with cancer.  Maybe they don’t need a theological lecture on predestination, but they’d like to know how to pray out loud with somebody.

In my humble opinion, church people need to learn:

• What a 21st Century Pastor does (and doesn’t do.)
• How to pray with a friend or stranger (without cracking a Bible over their heads/scaring them.)
• How to shift from obsessing with church stats (attendance numbers, etc.) to loving our neighbors
• What does loving our neighbor look like (and what does is not look like?)

What’s really tricky is when we in the church believe we already know how to be the church.

We’ve been at it for so long that – of course – we know how to care for a new mom or welcome an unfamiliar guest or offer hospitality to an enemy.

But every day of my life, I hear people tell me how friendly their church is, only to worship with a congregation and have not a single person speak to me (especially when I’m in the pews rather than the pulpit.)  Every week, I watch parishioners ignore people who don’t look like they look.  Every day we hear of people (“the nones”) who have been turned off by Christians rather than loved/shown mercy by them.

These are some of the things that a teachable church needs to learn – those daily “how to live a Jesus-shaped life” practices.

I am not in Memphis right now.  

Although I’d registered, it didn’t work out, but I’m heartened to know that:

1. My ticket is being used by a young pastor who will meet amazing people and hear Phyllis Tickle up close and personal.  I expect him to return to Chicago on fire.
2. My friends in Memphis are plotting The Great Commission and new ways to love The Other, and subsequently the reign of God will expand.

Instead of being with my Emergence Church friends, I spent the day retreating with people in my Presbytery who have passion for New Church Development, Immigrant Church Plants, Multicultural Ministry, and Fresh Ideas.  It fed my soul, and not a moment too soon.

Too many of our churches spend their precious time worried about attendance, buildings, and cash.  Too many say that “they love each other” but then they gossip about each other in the parking lot or on “the prayer chain.”  Too many of our churches would not be missed by their communities if they disappeared tomorrow.  These churches are comprised of fine people, many of them committed to following Jesus, but they misunderstand what that means.  It’s my calling to serve these people, but it’s a little draining.

All of us have work that drains us.  Here’s to work that feeds our souls.

PS  Check out #EC13 on Twitter for Memphis updates.

People in our Presbytery who want to begin the process towards ordination to the office of Teaching Elder aka Pastor aka Minister of the Word and Sacrament start their official journey in my office.  They share their sense of call, receive a packet of forms to complete at home, and hear me tell them that – no matter what happens – they are called to ministry.  Maybe not this ministry, but ministry nonetheless.

All kinds of people come through my door, and I’m struck – especially – not by the variety of ages or experiences, nor by the number of women or the number of men seeking ordination.

I am struck by style.

There was a time when people came for this preliminary interview dressed  like business professionals.  They wore suits as if I was interviewing them for a banking job.

Increasingly these future pastors come through my doors dress like they are catching a plane for Peru.  Their dress is Casual Hipster or maybe Funky Professor.

I’ve heard comments that people should dress to visit me as if they were headed to a job interview (hence the suit.)  But what I love about the variety of dress is that it reflects the kind of church these folks will serve.  People in suits will most likely seek calls in establishment churches.  People in jeans will most likely seek calls in alternative churches.  I love this.

Not all new pastors are hipster.  Not all will have tats and piercings.  But not all of them – even the Presbyterian ones – will wear suits either.

Season 3 Episode 1 of Downton Abbey was such a hit that some Pharisee posted on  Facebook (probably facetiously) “Why is everybody talking about some new Downtown Arby’s?

Indeed.

The real “Downton Abbey” is Highclere Castle, a fifty bedroom residence that costs an unspeakable fortune to maintain.  As Lord Grantham wrings his hands over the financial crisis that could result in losing his historic home, the conversations  about cultural shifts and unwieldy buildings reminded me of countless conversations I’ve had with church people worried over the possibility of losing their historic church homes.

There are the people who equate their church with their building and there are other people who do not fear giving up a fabulous but expensive church building.  And it’s not necessarily a generational issue.  Lady Mary (in her 20s) will do almost anything to keep Downton Abbey.  Isobel Crawley (in her 60s) finds change exciting.  And then we have the older ladies:

Countess Violet (Maggie Smith): “You Americans never understand the importance of tradition.”
Martha Levinson (Shirley MacLaine): “Yes we do, we just don’t give it power over us. History and tradition took Europe into a world war. Maybe you should think about letting go of its hand.”

Like many of our historic church buildings, Highclere Castle was designed by a

famous architect, is appointed with marble floors and Gothic turrets, and brings to mind  a different time when top hats were an essential part of a man’s wardrobe and women didn’t leave home without wearing white gloves.  Many of our historic American church buildings were financed by the closest thing we have to royalty: the titans of business.  Carnegie, Armour, Pullman, Roosevelt, Flagler, and many others all contributed lavishly to the building of Protestant church buildings incorporating the artistry of world-renowned painters, sculptors, and designers.

But this is not what we worship, right?  Gorgeous things are so seductive.  Who doesn’t want to sit ensconced in exquisite architecture with breathtaking vistas?  But these things are not God.  Our life’s purpose is not to maintain beautiful buildings.  It’s to do beautiful acts of love.

While our buildings can be effective tools for ministry, they can also keep us from doing our work as spiritual people.