A Church for Starving Artists

I very carefully say, “Yes.” Poor leadership is a form of clergy misconduct.

Please hear me out.

We are all sadly aware of clergy and other religious workers who have been caught committing financial or sexual misconduct. As a Mid-Council leader in the Presbyterian Church USA (i.e. I’m not a Bishop) I don’t have the power to fire pastors. When sexual and financial misconduct has clearly occurred, we have policies to bring charges against that pastor.

But what if the issue is simply poor leadership? “We like our pastor as a person but they are not a strong leader.” I hear that sometimes.

Important note: This not the same as “I don’t like our pastor’s preaching” or “I find the pastor’s personality to be cold.” This is about:

• Pastors who do everything themselves rather than train others.
• Pastors who need to be the smartest person in every room.
• Pastors who have no energy/do nothing but sit in their offices and what are they doing in there?
• Pastors whose energy is overpowering/they aren’t curious about the ideas of others/they don’t listen.
• Pastors who never initiate conversations about vision, legacy, or impact on the neighborhood.
• Pastors who – basically – don’t like people.
• Pastors who don’t think you are talking about them when constructive criticisms are shared.
• Pastors who blame others.
• Pastors who are defensive and fragile.
• Pastors who are wholly unaware of how ineffective they are/ have no self-awareness.
• Pastors who fear their congregants more than they fear God.

There. I said it. In my denomination it’s hard to move a pastor who doesn’t want to move unless a crime is committed. A pastor who needs to move but doesn’t can diminish a congregation to a point of no return in terms of bouncing back from an ineffective ministry to a thriving ministry. This is a form of misconduct.

I’ve shared before about the time a pastor in his 60s serving a dying congregation told me that he had calculated that the year he turned 70, the congregation would run out of money, so he was going to be okay. My response: Get behind me satan.

What do we do about these leaders?

What do we do when our pastor needs to improve their preaching but they won’t go to a preaching refresher course?

What do we do when our pastors need to control their anger/ bone up on their empathy/learn how to collaborate and they will not consider counseling or coaching?

What do we do when our pastor is no longer a good fit?

I wish I knew. What are your ideas?

Image is from The Apprentice Academy.

Yes, people are lonely. The U.S. Surgeon General calls it a serious health threat.

We all know about the troubled humans who randomly engage in gun violence. “He was a loner,” we hear the neighbors say. The shooter in the assassination attempt Saturday is said to have been bullied by classmates in high school according to this profile. Although he wasn’t friendless, the only thing worse than social isolation is being bullied while being socially isolated.

Dr. Robert Putnam, famed author of Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (2000) was interviewed recently by Lulu Garcia-Navarro here. It made me think – of course – about church. Why is the Church failing to connect people? Why do people feel unsafe in – rather than drawn to – Church? If people are so lonely and there are congregations all over, why aren’t our sanctuaries packed with people seeking friends every weekend?

We all know why.

• People talk only to those they already know on Sunday mornings. God help the ones who don’t look like or act like the majority demographic in the congregation.
• Most people do not see church as a safe place. We have the reputation of being a haven for pedophiles, a trap for queer people, and – sometimes – as too exclusive, too cliquey, too judgey, too much trouble.
• It’s boring. The sermons leave us uninspired. The music is lifeless. They only want our money.

Putnam says there are two kinds of social capital: bonding and bridging.

Most of us – if we are fortunate – have people with whom we have bonded: childhood friends, college friends, work friends, longtime neighbors, family who are like BFFs, BFFs who are like family. They tend to be like us in multiple ways. They are like home to us.

They get us. They know us. They most likely look like us, sound like us, act like us, think like us. Our encounters are fairly effortless. We tend to vote the same way.

I believe that what makes The Church thrive is a culture of bridging – or connecting people who would not ordinarily know each other or spend time together. This is impossible if our church has a culture of stranger danger or racial biases or age discrimination or my-way-or-the-highway-ness or a high stink eye quotient when people “misbehave.” They want “new people” but not if they have their own ideas. They want “young families” but only if they sit quietly.

I believe Mark Elsden when he says that 100,000 churches will close over the next 30 years in the USA. Mark is referring to the property that will be on the market. I’d rather focus on the community that’s lost. Imagine how our culture might shift if 100,000 congregations were more about bridging gaps than bonding together like an exclusive club.

Bonding is good. Bonding is essential in human life. And it’s not enough in terms of building community. Imagine if our congregations were communities in which different kinds of people bonded together because they followed the radical ways of Jesus.

Jesus built bridges between himself and Samaritans, lepers, tax collectors, heathens, the poor, the rich, the foreigner, the beggar, the unclean, the demon possessed, the powerful and the powerless. Imagine a church that authentically creates those same bridges in the name of Jesus.

Show me a bridge-building congregation and I’ll show you a thriving church. There are no exceptions.

Image of the Queshuachaca rope bridge in Peru. It was created by hand and continues to be re-woven regularly to preserve its capacity to connect people over the rushing Apurimac River.

Thanks to the genius of Mark Elsden and other creative pastoral leaders throughout many denominations, Affordable Housing on Church Property is an increasingly interesting idea, especially if our congregations are serious about serving their neighbors.

• “In the next thirty years, one hundred thousand churches in the USA will shut their doors for good” according to Mark Elsden in Gone for Good?: Negotiating the Coming Wave of Church Property Transition.
• “6.8 million more affordable housing units are needed for extremely low income families” according to The National Low Income Housing Coalition.
• As police officers, school teachers, and even pastors find it difficult to find affordable housing in increasingly unaffordable locations, it is not unusual to find such professionals driving Ubers, waiting tables, or picking up part-time retail positions in order to cover their rents and mortgages. The City of Charlotte, NC is planning to create a Teacher Village to help retain teachers who make notoriously low salaries.

In the Presbytery where I live, six congregations are considering or already in the process of building affordable housing on church property. Check out this article.*

If we are serious about serving our neighbors, if we are authentically committed to addressing what breaks God’s heart in our communities, consider using unused or underused church property to provide affordable housing for those in need of safe, clean homes.

Important note:

• Building affordable housing on church property is NOT for your congregation if you are doing this “to get people to join your church.” Lose that expectation right away. This kind of project is not about getting new members. It’s about serving strangers who will – most likely – never join our congregations. That’s not why we do it.

• Building affordable housing on church property is NOT for your congregation if you judge all who need affordable housing as if they are gang members or drug dealers. Affordable Housing is certainly needed by the formerly incarcerated and others in transition. It’s also needed by retired veterans, firefighters, child care workers, young adults aging out of foster care, refugees, seniors, and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Imagine the expansion of your mission impact if you had people right next door for whom you could be a community of support.

• Building affordable housing on church property is NOT for your congregation if you are a “get off my lawn” kind of neighbor. If our chief concern is selfish (“what if our parking is impacted?“) we need to admit that we are simply not willing to serve people who need more than a can of soup. If we are not willing to be inconvenienced a bit so that other families have a safe place to live, that’s a spiritual issue.

Once upon a time, my denomination built hospitals and universities because the community needed them. And now our communities need affordable housing. We can address this. Or not. (I hope we will!)

Image of The Waypoint at Fairlington Presbyterian Church in Alexandria, Virginia – one of my favorite congregations – for households whose income is at or below 60% of the area median income (AMI).

*If you hit a pay wall, share your email address in the comments and I’ll send it to you.

I’ve just spent several days – mostly inside – with hundreds of Presbyterians in Salt Lake City. And while the business was often grueling, we were in privileged spaces with plenty of water and air conditioning. And while we deliberated and prayed and sang in the comfort of hotel ballrooms, outside in the world wars continued and fires burned and hurricanes terrorized and greed prevailed.

Nevertheless there is beauty in this world. The beauty is in the people who serve to make earth a little more like heaven. God’s people. And after a restful weekend, the work begins again.

Image is a small mosaic of some of the beautiful people at General Assembly who spend their lives serving others in the image of Christ. I took their photos saying “I’m taking pictures of beautiful people. May I take your photo?” They make life better. There were countless beautiful people at General Assembly.

More than once, I’ve spoken with colleagues in my generation and slightly older/younger who were contacted by a Retreat Committee or a Program Leader about an upcoming event their organization was planning for – say – next year. Conversations have gone like this:

Caller: Hi (seasoned leader!) ________ Conference Center/Our Congregation/Our Presbytery/Our Denomination is planning a retreat next summer and we were wondering . . .

Seasoned Leader (in their heads): Oh good. They’re going to ask me to keynote this thing.

Caller: . . . if you could recommend a younger leader to be our keynote speaker.

Ouch.

Also YAY.

I am a 60-something leader who knows many gifted 60-something and 50-something (and even 70-something) colleagues with proven records in leading talks, retreats, and workshops. You probably know them. They have written books and articles. They have led officer trainings and national conferences.

I speak from a privileged space in that I – too – have been asked to do a lot of cool things. And yet, I’m finding that – for myself – I am less likely to attend an event if the leaders are in my generation – or a contiguous generation. I need mentoring from fresh voices.

Using my privilege for good includes recommending people who are less known when someone asks for suggestions. Or if they ask me to lead a thing, this is a good time to offer other names.

A colleague was asking me recently, “What do we (seasoned leaders) do if we are no longer “in demand”? Where is our place? What is our purpose?“

Answer: We open doors, recommend, and introduce new leaders to People in Power, especially lifting up those who have been overlooked: People of Color, Queer People, Rural People, Differently Abled People, Differently Brilliant People.

Friends of a Certain Age: we have a really fun and satisfying opportunity here and let’s not miss it. Unfortunately, we will indeed miss it if:

• We insist on being in charge/in the spotlight past our time.
• We don’t know any younger visionary/entrepreneurial leaders – especially those who do not look like or think like we do.
• We don’t keep up with the writings/podcasts/talks of new generations of thinkers.

There are few things more fulfilling than mentoring (either subversively or overtly) new leaders.

My denomination’s General Assembly is happening now both online and in Salt Lake City through July 4. For those of you watching or participating: look for the young leaders. Notice them. Listen to them. Get to know them. We will be richer because of their ideas and voices.

Image of Basima Abdulrahman, Emmanuel Jal, Rizky Ashar Murdiono, Amelia Telford, Samaira Mehta, Gwendolyn Myers, Harry Myo Lin, and Beatrice Fihn who were leaders in the 2019 Davos World Economic Forum Meeting. At the risk of omitting other amazing leaders, I also recommend you get to know Ashley McFaul-Erwin, Andy Morgan, Matt Conner, Phanta Lansden, Natalily Kyremes-Parks, Zeena Regis, Kate Murphy, Liz Ward, Claudia Aguilar Rubalcava, and Noura Eid.

Also – please feel free to add more fresh leaders we should all know in the comments. Thanks.

How well do your congregational leaders receive input from a variety of perspectives?

Very few people self-identify as a tyrant. Pastors seeking new calls often describe themselves as being “collaborative” even when they are actually better described as “bossy.”

Very few of us admit to being clueless about something. We tell ourselves that we are “quick studies” or we have “transferrable skills.”

Imagine a world in which we asked for input without fear of losing power or control or self-esteem.

We all know examples of toxic mission when a mission team visits a community of “the poor” without having first received input from that community about their needs. The mission team decides to build a barn when no barn is needed and then they congratulate themselves for a job well done. And then the next mission team comes along and have the sense to ask the community, “What can we do for you? What do you need?” and they are asked to take down the barn that was erected in the middle of a field where they grow beans.

I regularly hear stories about wasted time and wasted money because there was no input from the stakeholders.

The President of the NY City Public Library system is not a librarian. My hope is that he would consult with seasoned librarians before he makes expensive decisions.

Michael D. Brown (“Brownie”) famously served as the Judges and Stewards Commissioner for the International Arabian Horse Association before he was appointed to high ranking positions within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in 2001. It didn’t go well.

The President of the American Red Cross has previous experience as a business school professor, investments executive and a telecommunications leader, but no previous experience with disasters or blood. Nevertheless, she sounds wise enough to surround herself with emergency relief experts.

Countless public school boards across the United States include no public school teachers. A particularly foolish idea.

This is not to say that people with no direct experience in an activity or industry should never take a role in that field. The hope is that all of us are authentically collaborative, asking for input from those with information that we might not have.

• When considering a staff model for a church or presbytery, ask those who are already on staff.
• When writing a job description for an educator, have other educators look it over, along with parents, youth, and the pastor.
• When discerning a new mission endeavor for your neighborhood, find out what the neighborhood needs. This is not about creating a mission for someone to do as a pet project. (i.e. What breaks God’s heart in your neighborhood? We need to talk to the neighbors to find out.)

A helpful person once contacted me – a cold call – about his willingness to create an elementary school on a church campus. He wanted me to suggest congregations he might contact. Red flags:

• His own congregation didn’t want to start an elementary school even though he has this great idea for bringing young families into a church.
• He has never been a teacher or even served a church with a school.
• He didn’t know if this was a need in his or any other community.
• He continued to believe myths about “bringing young families into the church.”
• He was a lone ranger.

Sometimes the Holy Spirit sparks ideas in us. And we need input from the community about the feasibility, wisdom, and integrity. In my denomination we elect officers, for example,

 “who have been called by God through the voice of the church“

In other words, we can’t wake up one morning and believe that we are called to be the Queen of All Things . . . unless we are receiving lots of input from others that – yes – this seems to be our calling. It’s good to have leaders who don’t need to be the smartest person in the room. It’s good to have input from other smart people.

For God so loved the world, God didn’t send a committee. Friendly reminder that we are not Jesus/the Savior. We need a team.

This post is dedicated to those standing for Co-Moderator of the 226th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church USA at next week’s meeting in Salt Lake City. We don’t “run” for this office. We merely “stand” and see what God says through the voice of the church. Bless each of these candidates.

Our family has decided that moving is one of life’s worst experiences. A recent moving disaster in our family included lost keys and a ticket for parking the U-Haul illegally.

Of course keys can be replaced and tickets can be paid for, unless they can’t because there’s no money to cover those expenses. This story shared by A Roof Above in Charlotte explains why what we consider to be an inconvenience is a poor person’s personal doom loop.

Halston Fisher, a single dad living in North Carolina, got a speeding ticket in 2009. He was driving 58 mph in a 45 mph zone. The ticket was for $288.00. I could personally cover a $288 ticket and so could you – most likely – but it would take Mr. Fisher 12 years to get back on track because of that one ticket.

(Note: It’s true he was responsible for speeding. It’s also true that I am also guilty of speeding on occasion. And maybe you occasionally have a lead foot as well.)

Back to Mr. Fisher.

Because he couldn’t afford to pay the $288 . . .

• His driver’s license was suspended. And because his driver’s license was suspended . . .
• He lost his job which required driving. And because he lost his job and couldn’t find another job that didn’t require driving . . .
• His financial situation became more dire, especially as a single parent. And because he needed child care to look for a job, he drove the kids to child care without a license. And when he drove without a license . . .
• He was caught for driving without a license and given another ticket. (Note: The Wilson Center for Science and Justice at Duke Law School reports that three out of four people caught driving with a suspended license do not want to break the law, but they need to drive their kids to school, to the doctor, to work.) And because he continued to need to drive so that he could work . . .
• He got more tickets for driving without a license. And because he continued to drive in order to work . . .
• The amount of money owed because an impossible amount to pay off.

Finally – and God bless these people – Mr. Fisher received help from a pro bono legal services program which helped him pay off what he owed and get his license back. Again, all of this took 12 years. What would take most of us a few minutes took this man 12 years.

I share this because the North Carolina General Assembly (and perhaps your own state or regional legislature) is now considering bills that would end driver’s license suspensions for court debt. This would hold people accountable for traffic offenses but stop adding punishment for simply being poor.

North Carolinians – please contact your state legislator and ask them to vote for House Bill 888. (Yes I am being political.) Don’t know your state legislator? You can find them here.

Fighting poverty instead of the poor is what Jesus talked about. And we are called to follow Jesus.

Happy Monday.

Thank you Joe Hamby.

She’s certainly caused a stir. One side mocks her and calls her the ultimate Karen. The other side condemns her critics and threatens revenge in her defense. She and her neighbors communicate via flags. Flag-on-flag altercations.

It’s so easy to make our comments claiming allegiance to the Pride flag or the Sacred Heart of Jesus flag or any other flag we’d like to imagine. Shame. Distress. Snarky Comments. Secret Recordings.

I certainly have opinions in terms of my own flag preferences but we have got to stop demonizing each other. It’s so easy. It’s so divisive. It nurtures schadenfreude and shrinks splagchnizomai.

Instead of hating each other’s guts we are called to love each other’s guts. That’s what Jesus said.

Σαμαρίτης δέ τις ὁδεύων ἦλθεν κατ᾽ αὐτὸν καὶ ἰδὼν ἐσπλαγχνίσθη
But a Samaritan, as he journeyed, came to where he was; and when he saw him, he had compassion Gospel of Luke 10:33.

The Koine Greek word for compassion is splagchnizomai which is so fun to say and so hard to do. It shows up in the Gospels 12 times: 3 in Jesus’ parables, 4 in miraculous feeding stories, 4 in healing stories, and 1 in which Jesus send out disciples to serve people without a shepherd. It means love from the guts.

I know faithful Christians on the left feather of the left wing and on the right feather of the right wing (although we on one side or the other call our theological opposites faithless if not utterly heretical.) It only divides us further to demonize each other especially when Jesus gives us multiple examples of loving someone deeply in our innermost organs even if they are strangers, enemies, or people who annoy us to the point of name-calling on Threads or X.

There are people who stir my insides to the point of rage. One spiritual discipline is to try to see such people through the eyes of Jesus. And frankly, it’s incredibly annoying.

Oh Martha-Ann, Martha-Ann. You are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.

We need to be like Mary even in a Martha-Ann world. Do I agree with Martha-Ann? Nope. Am I supposed to love her anyway? Yep.

*Many of us, especially in the fields of education, law, medicine, and professional ministry, refer to what we do for our livelihood as a “calling.” If we support ourselves financially by doing something we feel “called” to do, then we are privileged indeed. Many people have “jobs” that pay the bills but these sources of income do nothing for their souls. This post is specifically for those seeking new calls.

On any given day, I know dozens of people seeking a new call which in professional ministry means a new position in a church/hospital/college/non-profit/school. A new “calling” seems to mean that we are switching vocations all together: from nursing to professional ministry, for example. (Note: I say “professional ministry” instead of “ministry” because Cindy Bolbach reminded me on a regular basis that we are all called to ministry whether we are painters, surgeons, or toll takers.)

I am fortunate in that I have had a sense that every “call” I’ve had since ordination felt right for that time and season.

I’ve been a rural church pastor, an urban/suburban pastor, and what’s called a “Mid-Council Leader” in two different Presbyteries. I would say that each position has felt – intuitively – like something God wanted me to do even though there were plusses and minuses to each position:

• Rural Solo Pastor – I gave up privacy, anonymity, and city life for gorgeous scenery, knowing everybody in town, and a lifetime of memorable stories (e.g. the ventriloquist funeral director, learning how to hypnotize a chicken, leading worship in a circus tent at the county fair with the bearded lady and the Flying Mariotti Brothers.)
• Urban/Suburban Pastor – I gave up small town relationships and easy access to Vermont for living in the shadow of Our Nation’s Capital and a congregation of transient people who moved in and out of the area based on elections and military assignments. And there were even more stories (which I cannot share here #SecurityClearances)
• Mid-Council Leader – I gave up children shouting “Pastor Jan! Pastor Jan!” when they saw me in the grocery store. I gave up regularly baptizing babies and writing them letters to open on their 10th birthday. I gave up preaching to the same congregation every week. But I slept better knowing I didn’t have to raise money for a new church roof or write a brand new sermon every week. I gained being the pastor to pastors, but not to every pastor because I also would have to share hard things like “it’s time to retire” or “we know you’ve been embezzling money.”

All of us want “the perfect call” – one that feeds us spiritually and pays us well and involves a modest commute and seems mostly healthy and includes people who are open to the moving of the Holy Spirit alongside us. Bonus points for a culture of encouragement and grace and good humor.

While I hope for all of those seeking a new call to find “the perfect” one, it’s most likely not out there. A new call might even feel perfect but then we learn that the church pillar is actually kind of mean and the same people who said they were all about changing the world for good in the name of Jesus actually want the pastor to change the world while they watch.

And so what about the “good enough” call?

What about asking God if this position might be the one even if the pay is not what you’d hoped for and there are too few children and the musician seems unadventurous? But . . . there’s something about the people that seems interesting and wonderful. And there’s a woman on the Search Committee who reminds you of your lovely second grade teacher. And there’s a lot of laughter. And even though you never dreamed you’d live in that part of the world, there’s something drawing you to ponder living in that part of the world.

Like I said, feeling “called” is an enormous privilege. And quite often God surprises us.

“There are things worth fighting for although I wish there was another way to do it than to try to kill each other. We’ll learn one of these days, but I won’t be around for that.”  Walter Stitt, age 99, who fought on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944

The tributes to veterans who fought on D-Day 80 years ago have have been so beautiful and powerful, especially because the time is coming when the D-Day veterans will no longer be with us.

And I hope – as we in the United States vote this November – that we will consider the words of both the veterans and heads of state at these ceremonies when we enter the voting booth. In our divided nation, it feels unifying to hear words against tyranny and for characteristics like honor, sacrifice, and freedom.

We sometimes disagree what it means to be free. Does freedom include control over our own bodies? Does freedom include personal purchases of military weapons? Does freedom include keeping a certain demographic out of our neighborhoods? Does freedom include shouting incendiary words into a megaphone?

Today I was especially proud to be an American as I witnessed over 100 immigrants become citizens of the United States. They hailed from Ukraine and Russia, Eritrea and Ghana, Turkey and Uzbekistan, Philippines and Vietnam. Honduras and Haiti. Every corner of the planet.

Children were invited to lead us all in the Pledge of Allegiance. Representatives from the League of Women Voters assisted new citizens as they registered to vote. Photos were taken in front of American flags and banners that proclaimed “Today I Am An American.”

One of those new citizens is a friend who is a leader in one of our congregations in the Presbytery of Charlotte and I could not be happier that he is not only my brother in Christ and my neighbor, but that we now share the same kind of passport and the same liberties and privileges. The American passport is considered one of the most valuable in the world. “People treat you with more respect when you carry an American passport,” my friend shared over lunch after the ceremony.

I wish every native-born American could attend one of these naturalization ceremonies. I wish every aspiration of the U.S. Constitution was attainable for all people. I wish all people treated each other with respect no matter what passport they held. I wish there was a way to defend what we believe in without trying to kill each other.

Today I am an American and I’m feeling particularly patriotic. And we have a lot of work to do. Yes to honor, sacrifice and freedom. No to dishonor, selfishness and authoritarianism. Please vote in November.

Image of new American Pastor Amisi who was born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and is now a citizen of the United States of America.