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There was a popular TV show in the 1980s called Family Ties about Boomer Parents and their Gen X firstborn.  Elyse and Steven are Democrats (Dad works for Public Television, for Pete’s sake) and their son – Alex P. Keaton – is a conservative Republican.  Sitcom hilarity subsequently ensued.

According to this recent article, from information first published in Psychological Science, researchers have determined that authoritarian parents tend to raise politically conservative children and egalitarian parents tend to raise politically liberal children.  In other words, Alex P. Keaton would be an anomaly.

We adults define “good children” in different ways.  Some of us define “good children” as being compliant and obedient.  Others of us define “good children” as being fearless and inquisitive.  Which temperament would you prefer to have in your real or imaginary children?

Conservative families tend to have more fearful children, according to this article.  Their children are more afraid of breaking the rules, getting into trouble, and being excluded if they go a different way.   Have you found this to be true in your family or in other families you know?

Liberal families tend to have more fearless children.  Their children are temperamentally more restless and focused on activities.  Have you found this to be true?

As I’ve shared before, there seem to be two basic parenting styles.  And while it’s really easy to peg people and their their children, I am amazed when parents raise children who see the world in a diametrically different way than they do.

Republican parents tend to raise Republican children.  Democratic parents tend to raise Democratic children.  Or do we?

For the past 20-some years, I have experienced what can only be called a Cosmic Sabbath, twice a year.  This is my way of explaining how I sometimes get sick during the busiest weeks of my working life.  It often happens Holy Week.

It happened this past week, just after I finished reading the exquisitely written Sabbath in the Suburbs.  Actually, I read it twice.  The second reading was especially inspirational in my role as a wife and mother, not to mention a person who is supposed to be professionally spiritual.

This is what I learned from a week of coughing, gargling, napping, and sultry whispers during which I missed several Very Important Meetings, Phone Calls, and Emails.  In hopes of surviving a week of the cruds, I channeled the amazing MAMD and others who reminded me that:

• I am not indispensable as much as I’d like to think I am.
• Floating Sabbaths (a Tuesday afternoon here, a Wednesday morning there) don’t work.
• Sabbath is not the same as “Family Time.”
• Doing things “Sabbathly” is such a good idea.
• Vick’s Vaporub is a miracle ointment.

At the risk of sounding Mourdockian, God has a way of slowing me down when I consciously or unconsciously act as if I’m All That.  But what makes this different from believing that overworking is “something God intended,” I realize that this is my choice.  A poor choice.

Why do we believe that not keeping the Sabbath is an okay commandment to ditch?

This is what I’d like to say to . . .

People on both sides who remove political signs from people’s yards:  Stop it.  What is wrong with you people?

Indiana Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock  who made that comment about it being part of God’s plan when someone gets pregnant because of rape:  This is terrible theology.  Not only is it  unorthodox, but it repels people from the God we worship.  God has given human beings free will which means that God’s finger is not on every trigger, every steering wheel, and every hand on the proverbial apple.  Stop it.  Read your Bible, sir.  God can use even evil for good.  But God is not responsible for all the evil

Seminary Curriculum Administrators:  Please teach our seminarians how to serve the 21st Century Church, even if it means messing with tenured professors’ lesson plans.  We don’t need any more seminary graduates trained in serving churches that no longer exist.  Please hire leaders who have actually been engaged in Missional Ministry, Making Disciples, Third Place Ministry, and Entrepreneurial Community-Building.  I can get you a list of people who know how to do this.  Please.

The Makers of Delsym Night Time Cough & Cold Medicine:  The worst is over.  We’re almost through this  cold.  Not sure if you were more helpful than soup and tea, but thank you for not tasting awful and doing your part.

Hoping to get back to the office today.

The downfall of the institutional church, in my humble opinion, has been the fact that we church people spend most of our time with other church people.    Big mistake.  We need some new habits if we hope to connect with “the nones.”

Easum & Brittain’s new book is about how we must staff churches in a world where one in five people self-identify as having no religious affiliation. The facts show that fewer and fewer church members are “coming to church” so how can we expect never-churched people to come through our doors?

And because I’m sick and don’t have the energy to do much more than quote people, consider this from Easum & Brittain:

Because people no longer come to church on their own, the church must spend most of its time, energy, and money filtering people out into the community.  The measurement of effectiveness shifts from ‘how many in worship?’ to ‘how much difference is the church making in its efforts to transform the city?’

The question ‘What is God doing in our community that we can be a part of?‘ is replacing, ‘How can we get more people to come to church?’

Easum and Brittain would also say that the smaller a church, the more time the pastor must spend in the community – not in the church office.  Take note Personnel Committees!

We need to develop new work and staffing habits if we hope to reach out to “the nones.”  And before we reach out to them, we need to know why we are reaching out.  Clue:  it’s not to get them to join our church.

Excellent conversation starter, if you are hanging out with your church friends:  watch the most recent episode of The New Normal (The Godparent Trap, aired 10-23-12.)  How would your church relate to Bryan?

Image from the London Nun Run in 2009.

The most courageous pastors are prophets.  But most congregations don’t want their spiritual leaders to be prophets.   When people gather together for worship after a busy, stressful week, most of us would prefer to be comforted, cheered, and congratulated, not nudged, challenged, and held accountable.

Nevertheless God has called those of us in professional ministry to be brave – even if it ticks people off and threatens our personal and professional lives.

It’s not easy being a courageous pastor especially if:

1. We are dependent on the paycheck we receive from the very congregation we risk offending when we proclaim the Word of God in love.
2. We serve a church that does not respect our authority or trust our vision.

What does a courageous pastor look like?

• A courageous pastor is more afraid of God than his/her congregation.
• A courageous pastor is an equal opportunity offender.  (We don’t always side with the Republicans, the Democrats, the new members, the long-standing members, the rich, the poor, the most active members, the least active members, etc. etc.)
• A courageous pastor preaches the Word of God, even if it confounds and offends everybody.
• A courageous pastor stands up to bullies, even if the bullies are the biggest contributors,  hold the historical power, and will do ungodly things that we – as the pastors – cannot and will no do ourselves in retaliation.

Every single pastor will deal with bullies if she/he stays in professional ministry long enough, and this experience is excellent for our prayer lives.

My own personal experience with bullies a few years ago is what made me more fearless because I learned that, even when people believed the worst about me after some serious defamation, God was faithful.   We follow a Prophet – and Savior – who was rejected to the point of death.  And – still –  love won.

Being courageous is dangerous.  But courageous congregations are lead by courageous leaders, and they are the ones who will actually transform the world in the name of Jesus.

Image of the prophet Jeremiah by Chagall.  (Notice how haggard he looks.)

I would love to say that most of our institutional spiritual communities are very brave, but I’m not sure I believe that.  (That’s Southern Speak for I don’t believe that.)  It’s understandable that most of our congregations – especially those under a membership of 150 –  find themselves in survival/scared mode.

God makes us brave.  A sure awareness of the Holy Spirit fills us, not only with a peace that passes all understanding, but also with a confidence beyond all understanding.  And these are the perfect days to call on God to make our congregations courageous.

This is what a courageous church looks like:

• They call the Pastor that the Holy Spirit tells them to call, even if she/he doesn’t look like a) the typical pastor and/or b) the kind of pastor who has always served their congregation.  In other words:  No More Pulpit Candy.
• They have The Conversation about doing something drastic about their worship space:  remove pews?  shift seating arrangement?  sell the @&!x# building?
• They encourage/implore/require their pastor to spend more time in the community than in the church building.
• They come together ready to learn how to be deployed to serve a broken community, rather than gathering to be taken care of   themselves.
• They stick their lives into other people’s crazy.  They are willing to sit with the chemo patient, eat lunch with the homeless person, listen to the illiterate child learn to read, go with the arrested kid to the police station.
• The last things on their minds are:  I need a nice venue for my funeral/my daughter’s wedding/my grandchild’s baptism.

What else would you add to this list on a lovely Monday morning?

Image is of the building where one of the most courageous churches I know gathers for worship in Chicago.

Let’s talk about greeting cards.

Every church has at least one lady who sends greeting cards to church members.  Birthday cards. Get well cards. I’m-praying-for-you cards.  We sometimes call this a card ministry.  But I wonder how effective this is as pastoral care for a 21st Century Church. As I leave a conference about offering pastoral care to caregivers, some of us were talking yesterday about the dear ladies who send the cards.  For a certain generation, sending a card is one of the most thoughtful gestures of affection.  To other generations, it’s not at all meaningful, especially when it comes with a platitudinous blurb or just a signature. My grandmother always sent me a birthday letter about the day I was born and I have dozens of them.  They are almost identical as she sent the same tale every year. Those are precious letters, written thoughtfully and with some effort especially in her older years. SBC used to get a card from a church lady for his birthday, but she didn’t have his name right. Ever. I’m sure she meant for the cards to be a meaningful gesture, but they struck SBC as a inauthentic.  She didn’t even know his actual name. One older lady I know was hurt when her daughter didn’t send a birthday card to her.  The daughter had taken her mother out to dinner and given her flowers.  But there was no card.  Fail. A guy told me yesterday that people under the age of 40 find greeting cards to be a fake form of showing real care – unless the card contains a personal note or a check.  This seems to be a generational preference.  What seems thoughtful to some seems inauthentic to others. Having said this, we all need to send Thank You notes – real, handwritten, heartfelt thank you notes. Do it for your grandmother.

I thought the Disaster Alert Phone App would be good for my prayer life.

Just one click and I’d have access to all kinds of prayer-worthy crises from floods to earthquakes to tropic storms to fires.  As I write this, there are three earthquake watches, five tropical storm alerts and two hurricane warnings in The Top Ten Disaster Alerts.

Actually, this App stresses me out instead of moving me to prayer.  I already have enough disasters on my prayer list.  In fact, I am a magnet for disaster news . . .

which is why I’m at this Conference on Compassion Fatigue Prevention & Resiliency – for personal as well as professional reasons.  We hope to upgrade the Pastoral Care to Pastors in our Presbytery.  But I also need to learn these skills personally.

Before I left my last congregation in Virginia to join HH, who’d been called to serve a church in Chicagoland, a parishioner asked me what I’d be doing next and these words almost burst out of my mouth:

“I am exhausted.  I just need a break.”

I didn’t mean to shock her but she appeared a little shocked as if she was thinking, “What does she have to be so exhausted about?”  It’s not like I was a pastor in Katrina-ravaged New Orleans or earthquake-destroyed Port Au Prince.

The truth is that the unrelenting nature of professional ministry is what makes the profession hard.  It’s like being the pinball in a spiritual arcade, and even we pastors are disciplined in taking a Sabbath, it’s just one day off with a different set of demands. Compassion fatigue is a real issue for pastors – and others – especially when we are not inoculated against it.

Pastors are among the most isolated people in the world, according to the Presbyterian Disaster Relief trainers meeting with us this week.  In the 1950s, professional ministry was considered the healthiest profession in the U.S. and now it’s considered among the least healthy.  Clergy have an extremely high incidence of obesity, depression, alcoholism, and high blood pressure.  All empathetic people – whether we are teachers, doctors, social workers, or fire fighters – tend to be good at pastoral care, but we are also more at risk for Compassion Fatigue which – if left unattended – can lead to all manner of inappropriate behavior.

A friend of mine tells me that her family has a motto:  Don’t put your hand in the crazy.  Clergy people  have intentionally chosen to put our whole selves in the crazy.  It’s called incarnational ministry.

But if we don’t build resilience or strengthen our refueling tools, we will feel like toast.

I’m writing from Epworth By the Sea in Georgia at the Presbyterian Pastoral Care Network, and feeling a bit like a Pharisee.  The point of this conference is to discuss the pastoral care of our pastors and their families and I’m  a big fan of pastoral care for pastors and their families.

On the one hand:

We were asked last night to share an example of a pastor we know who has received stellar pastoral care and one woman could not think of a single example.  She has personally never been honored for her service (almost 30 years) by the churches she’s served.  She has never had a colleague reach out to her in times of stress.  My hope is that she would initiate her own circles of care.  But –  honestly people –  we need to appreciate our pastors and support their families.

On the other hand:

As I hear conversations about the stresses of pastors – and believe me I know about those stresses – I’m cognizant  that everybody seems to have this kind of anxiety these days.  Forgive me, pastors, but who doesn’t have overwhelming stress today?  Is it true that many are receiving every drop of attention from us and there’s nothing left for our own self-care?  Or are only a handful of people getting the spiritual support they need?

I’ve witnessed many congregations doing a terrible job of thanking their pastors.  This is Pastor Appreciation Month – a recognition initiated by the Focus on the Family people – but worthwhile in terms of appreciating those who offer spiritual leadership.

But in a healthy church, the pastors are training others to be spiritual leaders.  Is the issue that we fail as pastors to equip others to serve as ministers?

There’s a lot of talk at this conference about “ministers” and “lay people” and this is the basic problem.  We are all called to be ministers.  The lay people are those with no training and no call to serve the offices of ministry (elders and deacons in the PCUSA tradition.)

There are whole congregations that do not give helpful pastoral care to its people.  A community is transformed when everyone is trained how to care for the lonely, the overwhelmed, the sick.  Yes, there are those without the capacity to care for others.  But most of us can learn the basics.

We all need pastoral care.  And everyone can be taught to offer it.

Between Chicago Ideas Week – which ended today – and my whirlwind visit to the NC State Fair and my Introduction to the New Beginnings program of the PCUSA, I’ve learned a couple things in the past several days.  As I head down to St. Simon’s Island, GA to learn about pastoral care networks, here are several  nuggets to consider.

What I learned from:

• Lauren Drain – It’s important to allow questions in our faith communities, and if our church doesn’t allow questions, look out.  TAKE AWAY FOR CHURCH: Church should be the one community in which it is always good to ask questions.  There are no stupid questions.  There are no faithless questions.  If our kids are not asking hard questions they aren’t paying attention.
• Leah Libresco – Even the most committed atheists can change their minds.   TAKE AWAY FOR CHURCH:  Answer those questions honestly and love lavishly and you never know what God will do.
• Julia Sweeney – Even a religious upbringing doesn’t guarantee lifelong faith in God. TAKE AWAY FOR CHURCH:  Love people even when they let go of God.
• Kiel Murray – Collaboration & brutally honest feedback sparks the best from us.  TAKE AWAY FOR CHURCH:  We need to trust each other enough to be held and to hold others accountable.  We need to be able to say, “Your sermons are not growing disciples, this Peach Festival is not reaching the neighbors, our Bible Studies have become gossip sessions.”
• Karen Tenkhoff – Research is essential.  If they are making a movie about scuba diving, for example, everyone from the screenwriters to the editors to the gaffers go scuba diving.  TAKE AWAY FOR CHURCH:  Everyone needs to be on the same page working towards the same goal – from the music director to the sexton to the clerk of session to the pastor.  If the goal is disciple-making, then everything each individual does should be about disciple-making.
• Brian Bowen Smith – “I don’t just look at the subject of my photographs; Context is everything.”  Are we in a studio?  At the beach? In an airplane hangar?  TAKE AWAY FOR CHURCH: The way we work is impacted by our context (aka missional or incarnational church.)  If we serve in a biker community, it’s different from serving in a country club community.
• Brandon Boyd – “Art is creative problem solving.”  TAKE AWAY FOR CHURCH: Instead of bemoaning the issues we face, why not approach them creatively?  Parking problems?  Partner with the Tattoo Parlor with plenty of parking.  Huge building with too many pews?  How about taking out the back 30 pews and create a space for an art gallery or children’s play area or an expanded hospitality center.
• Scott Belsky – Creativity x Organization = Impact.  TAKE AWAY FOR CHURCH.  We need both 1) creative leaders (those with great ideas) and 2) organized leaders (those who make the trains run on time) to have an impact in our community.  Dreamers need doers.  Doers need dreamers.
• Susan Meier, Our New Beginnings Consultant – We used to believe that Trying Harder would move churches ahead.  Now we know that Doing More doesn’t necessarily help.  What’s needed involves doing a Completely New Thing.  TAKE AWAY FOR CHURCH:  Amen.
• NC State Fair – An experience is enhanced by sensory treats.  The Smells (Fried Dough, Bar-B-Que, Caramel Apples, Chickens, Donkeys), the Sights (Pig Races, Tractors, Mega-sized Pumpkins), the Textures (Cotton Candy, Straw, Pottery),the  Sounds (Carnies Calling Us to Play Whack-a-Mole, Screaming Roller Coaster Riders, Cows Mooing), and the Tastes (ham biscuits, fried Snickers Bars.) TAKE AWAY FOR CHURCH:  God has created too many sensory experiences for us to bore people with bland worship.

May you learn amazing things this week.