Category Archives: Uncategorized

Please Tell Me You’ve Heard This Before

Occasionally I’m asked to teach church officers, seminarians, and other leaders about The 21st Century Church.  Although my little road show gets tweaked each time I prepare to share it again, I am waiting for the day when everyone tells me that they already know that stuff.

Last weekend, after sharing what I know at a Presbytery retreat, I asked for a show of hands:

Who has already heard all this before?

Only two people raised their hands.  One was at a previous event where I shared the same material.  The other was a seminarian who learned about these postmodern shifts in seminary – thanks be to God.

What I share is neither original nor earth-shatteringly fresh.  My material comes from historians (Diana Butler Bass, Phyllis Tickle), friends (Carol Howard Merritt, Mary Ann McKibbon Dana, Bruce Reyes-Chow, Matt Pritchard), assorted other rock stars (Brian McLaren, Steve Knight, Troy Bronsink, Amy Moffitt, Theresa Cho, Mike Stavland, Mike Croghan, Shane Claiborne) and the staggering stats from the Church Leadership Connection of the PCUSA.

I talk about missional ecclesiology, relationship over membership, radical hospitality.  That sort of thing.

My hope is that this talk will be utterly boring because it’s old news.  I long for people to tell me that “everybody in church already knows this stuff.” So far, that’s not the case.

A very kind man recently challenged one of my ideas:  Many of our church buildings share space with community groups like AA or Scouts.  I suggested that – rather than be mere landlords – we get to know the people who come into our church buildings for their meetings.  I shared that – in my previous congregation – we took a random week out of the year and opened up a makeshift coffee shop in the lobby every night for a week.  We offered free lattes and mochas to everyone coming through our doors for everything from 12-Step groups to computer training classes.  We wanted to get to know who they were, share free coffee drinks, and make a connection.  What else did they need?  How was our space serving them?  How could we help in new ways?

The very kind man told me that my idea wouldn’t help in his church – where they offer their space to Boy Scouts – because the Scouts are already active members of various churches in the area.  Then I suggested that it doesn’t matter that they are members of other churches.  The point is not to recruit new members.  The point is to make connections and create community.  Even when our conversation was over, the very kind man didn’t seem to understand what I was talking about.

We don’t reach out into the community, make connections, serve our neighbors because we are trying to recruit new church members.  We do it because we love people and want to share the compassion and hospitality of Jesus.  We want to create community.

My hope is that a day will come when those of us in the institutional church will relinquish the practices and habits of the 1950s church (it’s about membership!) and reclaim the practices and habits of the first disciples of Jesus (it’s about sharing Christ-like compassion!)  And there are a couple of other things we might need to change.

Read This Book

ImageThroughout my childhood, our family revered a particular Pastor’s Family who were family friends.  They were Perfect.  The father was left a legacy of warm pastoral leadership wherever he went.  The mother raised a large family alone with a gracious smile.  The kids were lively and fun.  We learned later that the Perfect Pastor’s Family experienced all the frustrations, brokenness, and burdens as everyone else.  Either we didn’t want to see it or they didn’t want to disclose it.

Katherine Willis Pershey has disclosed one normal pastor’s family experiences in the first years of ministry.

Everybody has a Call Story – even if you are a secular person and don’t articulate your story as such. All of us in professional ministry – especially clergywomen – have stories to share beyond our Call to Ministry Story.  The juicier stories are actually about what happened after we followed that Call.  Katherine’s version involves real life struggles that will inform anyone who wants to know “what it’s really like” out there in the parish. Or at least at the pastor’s house.

Her version involves addiction, marital struggles, and the exhaustion that comes with juggling relationships and work.  This is an especially excellent read for seminarians, young clergywomen, and anyone who longs for a rich life in the throes of real life.  Read it.

I’m the Weak Sister

Friends – It’s been a week with no time to write much more than emails.  Even my blog posts went by the wayside.

Look out for a book review asap on Katherine Willis Pershey’s excellent Any Day, A Beautiful Change .  Really, you should read it this weekend.

Peggy, Joan, Tracy – And Marriage

For a long while I couldn’t watch Mad Men.  It was just too depressing.  (Fodder for a different blog post.)

But we started watching Season 5,  and the story arcs involving Peggy (the feisty –  if dowdy  – career woman who has never married) and Joan (the sultry secretary who married for security, then became a de facto single mom) are nothing less than brilliant.

And then along comes Tracy McMillan who has written a book for single women:     Why You Are Still Not Married. (ouch)  Maybe one answer is:  I don’t want to be married.

I write this as a married woman (25 years this August) even though – at the age of 30 – I was pretty sure I would never marry.  I was a happy single person and had unknowingly tapped my inner Peggy Olson in terms of doing what I wanted to do without a husband.  At 27, I was ordained and serving a congregation – twice engaged but never married.  At 28, I was kind of dying to get married – so lonely while serving a tiny church in a rural village.  At 29 I was wondering if I’d ever have a date again.  At 30 I freaked out a little – especially when someone at a cousin’s wedding reception asked me why I wasn’t married yet.

Do you have some kind of personality disorder?” she asked as my champagne glass moved perilously close to her face,  before my sister gently placed her own hand on top of my champagne glass, as if to say, “Don’t bother.”

A year later, I was married.  It was honestly shocking how quickly my life shifted. By my fifth wedding anniversary, there would be three children.  And now, twenty five years into this, I like having someone to wake up to and share a life with.  But I think it would also be fine if I’d never married.  Maybe.  Who can really say?

Between the 1960s and the 2010s, marriage in the 21st Century has shifted considerably.  Check out Mark Regnerus’ marriage and divorce stats here.  We’ve all seen this on Facebook as a response to criticism of gay marriage as a threat to traditional marriage.

Back to the pain of watching Mad Men and reading Tracy McMillan’s commentary on marriage:  there is no wholeness in these people.  Married or single, gay or straight, we are created to live in shalom – wholeness and peace.

Just as the Early Church was known for treating women and children in a counter-culturally compassionate way, the challenge continues in the 21st Century Church.  Tracy McMillan’s article/book is unnecessary if the church successfully encourages women to be the people they were created to be.

Remembering the Dead – and What It All Means

I don’t come from a military family.  My dad was preparing to go to Korea but that conflict ended before he was sent to Seoul.  One of my uncles was a WWII vet but he returned home without injury.

I’ve served parishioners who returned from war as heroes and were buried in Arlington National Cemetery as old men.  Other friends returned with PTSD and they don’t talk about it.

The last member of my family to die in a war was my great-great grandfather Samuel Robert Edmiston who died on September 17, 1862 at Antietam – and he was fighting against the United States.  So Memorial Day does not have intimate bearing on my soul, in terms of having a close cousin or friend or brother who lost his life fighting for our country.

But Memorial Day has broad impact on us – as long as we remember why people have died fighting wars.  Just as MLK Day becomes merely a 3-day weekend if we forget the words and actions of Martin Luther King, Jr and other civil rights heroes, Memorial Day is about picnics and (finally) getting to wear white again, unless we remember that real people died for something greater than themselves.  And they had families and friends whose lives were altered forever.

Remembering them with thanks today.

To the Maiden Protesters

It stings – as both a pastor and a native of NC –  to have another story about a North Carolina pastor who has said some outrageous things.  A protest is planned at his church tomorrow – Pentecost Sunday.  My prayer is that the Holy Spirit will be poured out upon the congregation and their pastor as well as the protesters who will join them in Maiden, NC.

My fear is that people who disagree with the Rev. Worley will react with vengeance and the same kind of divisiveness that he preaches.  Rev. Mark Sandlin offers one good idea for fighting Worley’s words in a positive way.   But, nevertheless, I’d like to remove the wickedness from his “wickedly beautiful response” and offer merely a beautiful response.

Between 1000 and 2000 protesters are expected to meet at 9am at the Maiden Elementary School to march over to the Providence Road Baptist Church on Pentecost morning, and my hope is that they will resemble Jesus more than Rev. Worley.  I would love for them to sing hymns (“We are Singing for the Lord is our Light“) and offer hospitality.  Imagine  joyous people worshiping outside the church walls – as well as inside the church walls – and the “outsiders” are sharing lemonade, coffee, and prayers to those with whom they disagree.  It wouldn’t be easy to offer authentic hospitality but I believe this is part of what Jesus means when he calls us to carry our own crosses.  Loving our enemies is what God commands.

It won’t help for the Christians outside the walls to match the venom of those inside the walls.   Worley’s words are so offensive and ugly.  But please don’t match ugly for ugly.

Blessings on all who will gather in Maiden Sunday morning.  I pray you will express yourselves in the likeness of Christ.

A Few Things I Learned This Week

This is what I picked up serving God’s people in Chicagoland this week:

– “The best new church development pastors are in their 40s and the church plant is their third call.”  (From a New Beginnings consultant)

About a third of those preparing for professional ministry in the Presbytery I serve would like to start a new church as soon as possible.  (From my own observations staffing the Commission on Preparation for Ministry)

Sometimes the bus doesn’t arrive, no matter what the sign says. (From waiting for a bus for 45 minutes before walking to the train station.)

A lot of good people don’t know the difference between being Faithful Church People and being a disciple of Jesus.  (From reading comments shared in a recent local study.)

We can disagree and not hate each other.  (From this book.)

Thoughts?

Image Source.

I Can’t Wait for the Future

FBC wears this t-shirt which cracks me up.  The future we imagine might be full of cool new toys or it might involve something darker.  But part of our job as professional ministers involves telling the story of a different future. 

I’m not talking about a “hang-in-there-because-heaven-will-be-great-even-though-our-current-state-is-miserable” theology.  I’m talking about heaven on earth and what that might look like for our spiritual communities. 

Our staff is reading this book by Zaffron and Logan, and it teaches some of the same concepts as the PCUSA’s New BeginningsWhat is the future story of our community?  Are we stuck in a default future?

I’ve noticed that people get angry and/or frantic when I point out to them that their church is dying and probably will close in the next 3-5 years.  Note to self:  Don’t use a hammer when conveying this message. 

People don’t want to hear this news for complex reasons:  it’s critical of them and the way they do/have always done things; it’s overwhelming because they are too tired to make big changes; they don’t want to make big changes; they just want the church of their personal histories to be there – same as ever – when they die.  The congregations that make the leap from what they want the church to be to what God might want the church to be is a brave one.  It might be the ultimate in faithful discipleship.

I Worship Money

Columbia University graduate Gac Filipaj, Class of 2012
Source: AP

If we base what we really worship and trust on how much effort, how much thought, how much concern is expended on it with each breathing hour of each day, I must confess before you and the One who made me that I worship and trust money more than God.  I wish this was not true.

I talk with God a lot.  I praise God in the car on long drives and first thing each morning.  I spend my life trying to connect people to God.  But honestly, I worship money.  It’s The American Way.

As the mom of three young adults who’ve committed their lives to film, linguistics, and urban farming as opposed to “more profitable” employment endeavors, I totally get the relief that parents feel when their children are called to aeronautical engineering or brain surgery.  We want our kids to be able to support themselves and maybe even take an occasional vacation. And yet, it is – in the end – about a calling.  Some of us are called to the law and some are called to the dirt.  But we let money get in the way.

This interview between  Michel Norris and recent Columbia University graduate Gac Filipaj struck a nerve.  As an immigrant to this country, Mr. Filipaj has duly noted that most Americans are hugely concerned about money.  Yes, issues like student debt, unemployment, under-employment, fore closings overwhelm the news each day.  But many of us let money rule our hearts and goals to the point that our true selves get lost.

Gac Filipaj  – who worked his way through Columbia working as a janitor a la Good Will Hunting – majored in classics.  After Ms. Norris noted that majoring in classics is not exactly a lucrative course of study, Mr. Filipaj responded this way:

You were born in United States and you speak money first.  . .  I’m not doing it for the money.

What are we doing for the money?  And is it worth it?

Money is a good tool for sustaining ourselves and others, but it’s a terrible god.  If it rules us – and it rules many of us – life will sour,  sooner or later.  I haven’t heard any graduation speeches highlighting this particular truth, but – really – life is much sweeter when money doesn’t control us.

That’s easy for me to say when I am employed and able to cover my mortgage. Of course we need money to live.  But how can we help each other shift, even in slow ways, to a place where we make choices based on what feeds our souls?  Does it embarrass anyone else that “being American” means speaking the language of money first and foremost?

Are Your Closest Friends Your Church Friends?

I know someone who is recovering from surgery and she’s blessed with a wide assortment of generous friends who brought food, drove her to follow-ups, spent the night, bought her groceries, and entertained her cats.  One person lives half way across the country and dropped everything to come be with her.  Although she is part of a church community, nobody in her support network is in her church.  No Venn Diagram necessary.  They are completely separate entities.

I have another friend whose closest friends are exactly the same as her church friends.  When she moved, the church friends moved her.  When she was sick, the church friends brought soup.  When she was pregnant, the church friends threw a shower.  One of her first tasks as a new DC person was to find her tribe and she immediately went the church route.  Her best friends are her church friends.

The difference is clearly about relationship.  If you are part of a church in which people truly know each other, hang out together apart from Sundays, and can express their ugliest frustrations and doubts as well as their generic “prayer concerns” without being cast out or judged, then real friendship will ensue.

I remember a new church member – a while back – who, on the day she joined the congregation – said, “I have friends already.  I joined a church to figure out what I believe.”  It sounded strange to me.  Why wouldn’t you figure out what you believe with your friends?

Jesus modeled being friends with “the other” which implies that it’s not only okay, but it’s actually Christlike to have friends who don’t do church.  The hope is that people who don’t follow Jesus notice in our behavior what it looks like to follow Jesus.  Or something like that.

So what about your experience?  Are your closest friends part of your spiritual community?