A Church for Starving Artists

As I write this, there are 60 wildfires in the Western United States, 185 mph winds in the Carribean, and thousands flooded out in Houston.

I love the Good News Stories that come from tragedy but there seem to be many more ugly stories of injustice (Michael Bennett is arrested for being black in Las Vegas), greed (John C. Martin becomes a billionaire by charging $1000/pill for the Hep C drug Sovaldi in 2014) and cruelty (the repeal of DACA.) Sometimes I wonder why God hasn’t lost all patience.

It’s bad theology to say that Hurricane Irma is punishment for the specific sins of Antiguans or Puerto Ricans or Floridians.  God doesn’t work like that. Remember that time Jesus said:

“… he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.” Matthew 5:45

My wonderment over why God doesn’t just zap us and be done with it ends quickly when I realize that we have been given an unprecedented opportunity not to be @&&*#!^s in these difficult days.

Here are my Top 10 suggestions for being human while so many of our neighbors are starving, drowning, burning, bleeding to death, or taking their own lives in utter despair:

1. Take time to notice that not everybody’s lives are going as well as our own.  Be attuned to those sitting at the next desk/seat on the train/table.
2. Be late for that next meeting if it means helping a stranger in trouble.  I love this story about the bus driver – risking his own job – who ensured a little girl wouldn’t be late for her first day of school.
3. Be kind.  Let the next driver through.  Say thank you to the cashier.
4. Send money to help victims of natural disasters.  I like this one.  Pick one you like.
5. Don’t believe everything people say about other people. When you hear rumors (this is especially for you, Church People) ask questions.  Challenge gossip.
6. Expect the best of people.  Maybe that person is distracted not because she is ditzy but because she just found out her mother is sick.  Maybe he’s struggling at work not because he’s incompetent at his job but because he’s worried about his son’s addiction.
7. Do not make assumptions based on age, skin color, accent, gender, educational level, or dress. Come on, people!
8.  Stop for a few moments every couple of hours and breathe deeply.  The world doesn’t spin on our axis.
9. Thank God (or whatever you believe in) that you and your loved ones are alive.  Some of us know that life can end in an instant.
10. Consider at least one piece of art every single day.  It might be a flower.  It might be a goldfish.  It might be a public sculpture in your town.  It might be your beloved’s face.  Stare at it and suck in that beauty.

Please be a human being today.  It’s why we exist.
Image of Mattress Mack McIngvale, owner of Gallery Furniture in Houston. He used his showrooms to shelter victims of Hurricane Harvey in the past weeks and after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

As far as I know, no one in my family was ever a member of the KKK. (Extended Family:  If you know differently, please let me know.)  What is true is that my ancestors owned at least one slave.  My ancestors were not wealthy people but they kept at least one human being as a piece of property that was actually passed from one generation to another according to the last will and testament of someone in my family tree.

I wish this was not true but it is.  And if I dug deeper, I would surely find even more difficult information about my family because we tend to keep difficult information secret.  We are brag about the war heroes and the achievers.  We hide the cowards and the rounders.

You know that moment when something you always believed to be true turns out not to be true?

• M & Ms actually do melt in your hands.
• President Washington never wore wooden dentures.
• Slave owners did not treat their slaves like family.

Clearly, one of these things is more serious than the others.  It’s time to consider serious things in our country.

In these days when people who look like me publicly chant “Jews will not replace us” with tiki torches and other people who look like me say that Black Lives Matter is a terrrorist organization, I am committing time and money to educate myself on the history of African Americans in this country.  Education must lead to action, or else it’s merely a selfish endeavor.

What I am learning is difficult.  What I have believed to be true about our country (“If you work hard, you can be successful in America.”  “All people are created equal.”) is not necessarily true, especially if your skin is not the color of my skin.

After reading everything I could get my hands on about Emmett Till and the Underground Railroad and slavery in my home state of North Carolina, I spent Friday morning at the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, DC and then I spent Sunday morning at the Whitney Plantation in Wallace, LA.  Both visits changed my life for good.

You may have heard about the NMAAHC which is about to celebrate it’s first anniversary.  But the Whitney Plantation (no relation to the New York Whitneys) is the only plantation in the United States devoted wholly to the life of the enslaved people who lived and died there.  My little tour group included a couple from London, a couple from Denmark, and a couple from India.  It’s curious that international travelers would venture to this out-of-the-way spot in rural Louisiana while only a single American made the trip.  I’m assuming this was an anomaly for our particular tour group.

Here’s the thing:  Slavery was evil not only because we (White People) perpetuated a system that dehumanized God’s children.  But it’s was also evil because myths continue to this day that continue to dehumanize people. The images from the Whitney Plantation’s memorials tell the true story of life as an enslaved person.  If we open our eyes today to the inequalities between “white neighborhoods” and “black neighborhoods” in certain cities or the stats on incarcerated African Americans compared to census data of African Americans, we cannot help but be mortified and ashamed – especially if we call ourselves people who take God’s commandments seriously.

I know that it’s easier to share fun family photos and lighthearted feel-good stories, but we are at a crucial time in our nation’s history.  We see examples of people helping their neighbors in Houston and it feels good, doesn’t it?  But there are everyday moments when we are called to notice those hampered by systemic injustice all around us.

“Everyday’s a school day,” my friend AAM says.  Sometimes we learn difficult but true things.  And as another friend said long ago, “The truth will set us free.”

Images from The Whitney Plantation in Wallace, Louisiana.  The sculptures are by Woodrow Nash.

There’s the kind of discernment that matches a pastor with a position that is so clearly right.  Spiritual Leader and Spiritually Led grapple and thrive together with mutual respect and support.  Stuff gets done.  Positive impact is obvious.  Conflict brings growth.  Jesus dances.

And then there is the kind of discernment that matches a pastor with a position that is all wrong. Maybe it looked right. Maybe it even felt right – at least for a while. But the Spiritual Leader and the Spiritually Led struggled with power issues, reality issues, and personality issues.  People got hurt. Negativity flourished.  Conflict was never resolved.  Jesus wept.

Yesterday’s post was about discerning our call to ministry. Today’s – at the suggestion of a smart person I admire – is about why some calls go terribly wrong.

Is it like a rushed marriage?  (I thought he was so fun but then I realized he was addicted to fun.)  Does it happen when we ignore red flags?  (It was a little weird that she was always borrowing money from me, but I thought she was just carefree.)  BSE always used to say:  It’s better to be alone than to wish you were.  The same is true for churches and other institutional ministries:  It’s better to have no pastor/no call than to wish you didn’t.

Here are some common mistakes in the Calls-Gone-Wrong department:

• Committees lie to Pastoral Candidates.  Maybe First Presbyterian Church on the Hill doesn’t even have the money for a full-time pastor but they want one so badly that they just call a pastor anyway, only to have to admit a couple months down the road that they can’t make payroll.  Maybe the Pastor Search Committee really doesn’t want someone to come in and “bring change” but it sounded good on their position description.  Maybe the church’s understanding of themselves is aspirational rather than realistic.(“We love diversity!“) Maybe there are actually 50 people in worship on an average Sunday morning when their paperwork says that their average attendance is 150.
• Pastors lie to themselves.  Maybe Pastor Naomi liked the idea of being the Head of Staff of a large church and it sure would make her parents proud, but actually – in her heart – she knows she’s happier in a small or medium sized congregation.  Maybe Pastor Ezekiel is so anxious to be ordained that he tells a search committee that he loves youth work when actually he does not.
• Committees are more interested in pleasing their congregations than pleasing God.  They tell an impatient congregation that they “are sure they will be calling the new pastor by Easter.”  God laughs at this pronouncement.
• Congregations had unresolved guilt/sorrow/anger that nobody addressed after the last pastor left.  New pastor didn’t have a chance. Maybe the Interim Pastor didn’t do her job, or there was no transition at all.
• Pastor has unresolved guilt/sorrow/anger that wasn’t addressed before taking a new call.  The church didn’t have a chance.  The pastor forgot that Church is for broken people and therapy is our friend.
• Everybody forgot to ask God what kind of person God was calling to lead them.  God wanted someone creative and different from anything they’ve ever had before.  The church called the proverbial Guy-With-A-Tie who has no idea how to be a 21st Century spiritual leader.  God led them to call a Woman of Color or a Gay Man or an Immigrant Pastor. But they were afraid what people might think.  
• Somebody made this call about something other than mission and ministry.  Examples: Pastor A seeks call near the coast because he wants to retire there. Pastor B seeks call near his grandchildren. Pastor C seeks call in the church that comes with a palatial manse. Note: sometimes we are indeed called to places with convenient personal benefits. But not always. Call is first and foremost about God.
• Somebody was desperate.  No explanation needed.

A time comes in even the best calls when moving on is necessary and good. But that moment when a church or a pastor realizes that This Match was a Big Mistake makes people and organizations splinter in pain.  We can avoid this.

This post is dedicated to all Pastoral Search Committees and to all those seeking new calls to professional ministry.  

Ah, discernment.  It doesn’t happen (at least to me) via Owl Post or a Josephian dream.  Usually it’s a gut feeling:  I read a position description and one of the following things happens:

• I have a viscerally negative reaction. (That’s a Big No.)
• I am intrigued but not convinced it’s a remotely good match. (That’s a Maybe.)
• I immediately start fantacizing about what I would do first.  (That’s a Yes but it could also turn out to be a quick flame out.)

I remember the following sensations when discerning previous calls to professional ministry:

• First Call – I loved the interview and during the tour of the manse, I pictured where I’d put the Christmas Tree.  That seemed to be a sign and it led to a wonderful first call experience.
• Second Call – When HH and I prayed in the church parking lot before and after the interview, such calm came over me that it felt right.  Some of the interview questions had been a little odd (“Would I change my name?”) but I sensed a healthy challenge.
• Third Call:  Although it felt alarming even to apply for a position that – just months earlier – would have made me want to throw up a little in my mouth, it turned out to be a wonderful ministry.
• Fourth Call:  X marks the spot.  I am pondering what’s next along with scores of my colleagues.

How do you discern calls from God?  It’s a question that others have tried to answer or help us all answer.  Reading the Psalms helps too.

Is discerning a call another example of privilege?  People with the most pressing financial needs cannot wait for a gut feeling.

Does God call us to something particular (this exact position in that exact state)? Or does God call us towards a general path?

I love this process but it’s also unnerving.  The unknown is not my favorite place to be, but learning to sit with God and breathe is an excellent spiritual tool.

Image source here.

Is there anything you can imagine standing up for in public? Anything you would march for or protest against in public?

Would you march for food for hungry children?  Better schools for your own neighborhood?  Better schools for somebody else’s neighborhood? New equipment for local fire fighters?

I hope so.

Some of us have seen protesters and marchers on television, but we haven’t participated ourselves.  Others of us have participated in countless events.

Yesterday about 3000 clergy from a variety of faiths and traditions marched in Our Nation’s Capital from the Martin Luther King Jr Memorial to the Department of Justice for holy justice in terms of health care, voting rights, affordable housing and an array of other issues.  It was the 54th anniversary of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” address on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

Marching can be fun.  You see old friends and make new friends.  Protests inspire the participants with extraordinary speeches and music.  But then  – too often – the marchers go home and nothing changes.

This sadly reminds me of Church.  In Church, we gather for Bible studies and book studies and discussion groups.  We listen to sermons and we participate in stirring liturgy.  And then we go home smarter and better informed, but nothing really changes.

This might just be a sin.

The reason for revving people up, for expanding our knowledge and broadening our perspective is to equip the saints for ministry.  If no fruits come from our gathering, we have wasted our time.

My hope for the post-Ministers March for Justice participants yesterday is that we will go home to write our members of Congress, to connect with an organization that offers hands-on work on specific justice issues, to share information with others, to make a concrete difference that impacts someone’s life.

It’s not enough to march.  It’s a start, but we are called to invest our inspiration and knowledge in something that transforms the world for good.  Some of us do this in the name of Jesus Christ.

Photo by the Rev. Alice Rose Tewell from yesterday’s Ministers March for Justice.

Death is a date in the calendar, but grief is the calendar.  John Pavlovitz in a January 2017 blog post on grief

That first anniversary, the first birthday, the first Christmas are all grief milestones that we dread but optimistically anticipate because it means we survived.  We did it.

But then comes the kicker:  it can be worse after the first anniversary, the first birthday, the first Christmas because “grief is the calendar.”

My mom died at the age of 55. Today she would have been 84. Sometimes I feel embarrassed that the grief still feels raw. What’s wrong with me? Did I not find answers during that 1990 “surviving loss” conference at Montreat?  (Yay.  I survived.)

My parents were both gone before I was 35 years old, just as I was giving birth to their grandchildren and trying to figure out the whole home/work life balance that my mother had juggled so well throughout my life.  I had given up any expectation that I, too, could prepare a homecooked pot roast with three vegetables and dessert while getting everybody to church on Sunday mornings. Being the pastor was not the same as being the Sunday School teacher or the nursery volunteer. But how did she do it?  (Note: The fact that she didn’t live long enough to tell me might be a clue.)

I miss her every day.  She would have loved her grandchildren with a fierce devotion.  It still annoys me when people say, “She is watching them from heaven” when there are graduations and weddings and kids going to graduate school in other countries.  Actually, I would have preferred to watch her watch them.

Mom was my biggest fan.  And who doesn’t need an unconditionally devoted cheerleader when the world sometimes tells you that you are not enough?

So the calendar continues to impale me in deep places.  But tonight I will relish eating dinner with two of her favorite grandchildren and one of her favorite grandchildren-in-law at one of my happy places.  #FlourlessChocolateWaffle

Image of my mom and her FBC.  Post written in loving memory of Peggy McDonald who was a really good mom.

Bonus article on the Rothko Chapel here.  “We need lonely places, but it helps to know that they’re lonely for everyone. We all have mothers, and we all lose them, though never in the same way.”

Dan Price of Gravity Payments (a credit card processing company based in Seattle) is one of my heroes.  Three years ago, he made it company policy that the minimum wage in his organization would be 70,000 annually – which is a liveable income in Seattle.

“He didn’t intend to change the world” according to this article, but other companies paid attention.  When we treat our colleagues well, the organization benefits too.

Why?  You know why:

1. People perform better when they are appreciated.
2. People enjoy working with teams of trustworthy, encouraging, generous colleagues and supervisors, and happy staff = happy organization.
3. It’s easier to hire  people when the office has the reputation for being a healthy place.
4. Retention rates are high in happy organizations.

Although it’s self-serving, paying staff members generously (in salaries or benefits) might just increase profits as it has done for Gravity, Pharmalogics Recruiting, and Tower Paddleboards. (Read the article.)

For non-profits, money is often tight – yes – but there are other ways a church or denominational staff might know they are appreciated:  grant bonus days off, throw a surprise appreciation luncheon, give a small gift card after an especially difficult project or season.

If you find yourself on a Church or denominational Personnel Committee, ask yourselves:

• Do we know what’s going on for the staff members we oversee?
• What do they love about their work?
• What’s driving them crazy?
• What’s each staff member’s favorite beverage/ice cream?
• Do we respond promptly when they have requests?
• Are we keeping them in the loop?
• When was the last time we said “thank you”?

Occasionally we in the Church take our best people for granted. Yes, we seek to hire and be servant leaders.  But the One whom we ultimately serve was quite lavish with the love.

Image of Gravity CEO and White Jesus lookalike Dan Price.

I’m suspicious of any article that claims that Boomers love this or Gen Xers hate that.  I know Millennials who appreciate a nice napkin in spite of what Business Week says. 

There are solid reasons why younger generations are not buying houses, diamonds, or NFL tickets.  Craft cocktails might indeed be pushing beer out of favor. But this list also speaks to why Millennials are not as interested in joining the local church.

According to the Business Week article, “millennials are killing” these institutions (and there are church implications):

• “Breastaurants” like Hooters. “The number of Hooters locations in the US has dropped by more than 7% from 2012 to 2016.”  Could this mean that Millennials expect equality for women in ways that older generations have not?
• Casual Dining Restaurants like Applebee’s. “Millennial consumers are more attracted than their elders to cooking at home, ordering delivery from restaurants, and eating quickly, in fast-casual or quick-serve restaurants.”  Could this mean that Millennials prefer quick in-and-out gatherings or intimate (like home) gatherings?
• Bars of Soap. “Almost half (48%) of all US consumers believe bar soaps are covered in germs after use, a feeling that is particularly strong among consumers aged 18-24 (60%).  I have no idea what this means re: Millennials and the Church.  Pump soap in church bathrooms?  If only it were that easy.
• Fabric Softener.  “According to Downy maker Procter & Gamble’s head of global fabric care, millennials ‘don’t even know what the product is for.’”  Millennials who didn’t grow up in church also do not know what baptism, communion, or coffee fellowship is for.
• Gym Memberships. “While millennials like to workout, they’re ditching gyms in favor of class-centric centers.”  Spontaneity is key. Trying a class here and there rather than “joining” is a better fit.

Am I nuts to believe that Millennials still like breakfast cereal?

We in The Institutional Church are wed to many features that are decreasingly comfortable or meaningful or important to younger generations.  Are we willing to adapt how we are the Church for the sake of sharing the message of Jesus with those who are no longer (or never have been) with us?  I hope so.

I love everything about this post by Casey Thompson. 

Evaluation is not just a way to gauge the effectiveness of a ministry so that it might be tweaked toward perfection. Evaluation actually subverts the forms of our ministry. It actually returns us to the theological question at the heart of vocation, a question so fundamental that we start asking first graders so they’ll have enough practice answering it by the time it becomes pressing for them: “What do you want to do when you grow up?” How do you want to spend your time?

I remember sharing the following answers when asked as a child, a teenager, and an adult  “What I Did I Want to Be When I Grew Up?“:

• An explorer
• A writer
• An architect
• An athletic director
• A tour guide
• A hospital chaplain (because I was too scared to say “a pastor”)

The extraordinary thing is that I’ve done all those things in one way or another. (Hello professional ministry.)

In my professional life, I’ve both administered personnel reviews and been reviewed by others.  Among the worst personnel reviews I’ve observed or heard in over 30 years of professional ministry have included these general perspectives:

1. You don’t do things like I do them, so you are incompetent.
2. You don’t read my mind.  Why not?
3. I just don’t like you.  Please go away.
4. You are threatening me.  Please go away.
5. I could do your job much better than you can.
6. I need you to take the fall for that.
7. We can’t afford our current staff, so plan to do your job and those other jobs, but we won’t be paying you any more salary.
8. Things aren’t going well.  It must be your fault.
9. We don’t exactly know what you do, but we assume you are not doing it.
10. Because that one (powerful /cranky/scary) person is not happy with you, none of us are happy with you.

What I love about Casey Thompson’s post is the ingenious proposition that “evaluation actually subverts the forms of our ministry.”  Instead of grading by traditional metrics (Hmm.  Financial giving is down? Clearly you are not doing your job)  there is conversation about whether or not this is what you wanted to do when you grew up, if this is how you are called to spend your time.

It’s a variation on the question:  Did Jesus die for this?

• Healing broken people, pointing out life’s awesomeness, plotting resurrection, connecting with the Holy:  yes.
• Picking paint colors, arguing about money, keeping an institution alive:  no.

Here are some great questions to consider in the next personnel evaluation you are doing/receiving:

• What gives you life about your work?
• What keeps you from doing your best, most positive work?
• How do you partner with others?  (Consider this with each person on our staff.)
• How does this work play to your strengths?
• What is soul-sucking/playing to your weaknesses?
• How are we supporting you and what could we do to support you more fully?
• How is your work bolstering trust and hope in our organization?

I would love to be asked these questions.

As I look to my own future, I am pondering what God is calling me to do next professionally.  It’s common for the Moderator (or Co-Moderator) of my denomination’s General Assembly to move on to a new call after the Moderatorial term ends and I’m starting now.  Things I still hope to do when I grow up?

• Explore – what is God doing around here?
• Write – process what God might be doing in ways that might resonate with others
• Design structures – consider adaptive, transitional, healthy, safe structures to serve as tools for future ministries
• Direct athletics – oversee the games and call them when necessary
• Be a tour guide – point out cool features that some don’t notice right away; tell stories
• Sit alongside broken people – because others have sat with me in mine.

I covet your prayers as I discern what’s next.  But in the meantime, let’s be more intentional in how we help others discern what they will do as they grow up too.

Image from the Jobs Page of the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.  The art is Pleasure is Freedom by Favianna Rodriguez (2016)

 ‘We have never seen anything like this before!’  Mark 2:12

Photos don’t do it justice.

HH and I drove five hours through the night Sunday and Monday to Carbondale, IL to see the total solar eclipse of 2017  – which, by cosmic favor, will also be blessed to have the total solar eclipse in its sky in 2024 as well.  

It took 13 hours to get home. Thirteen. Hours. But it was worth it.

It’s rare when we see something that we can’t sufficiently describe – unless we are Annie Dillard.  And it’s even rarer when we see something we’ve never ever seen before.  Those are the holiest of moments:  the first seconds of a child’s life, the last seconds of a beloved parents or spouse’s life, a total solar eclipse which light both high in the sky and all around the souls observing it.

I have never seen anything like that before.  A day later, I realize I need to process it a bit more.  It was as if I was in the presence of something holy. Especially when we see so many ordinary and unholy things, it takes a while – at least for me – to fully grasp it when I’ve seen something so extraordinary.

It’s not something I could fully imagine before yesterday, but it was so cool that I’d like to see it again.  Sign me up for Carbondale 2024.

Human Beings are longing for this kind of holy moment, I believe, even if we can’t put our finger on this deep desire.  We are so distracted or exhausted or depressed that we forget that Holy is something we can experience.

Strangers wander into church buildings occasionally hoping against hope that they will experience a connection or a cosmic breakthrough because they might just die without it.  But we can’t make those moments happen.  (Exhibit A:  The Darjeeling Limited.)

I have no idea what it was like for a bunch of people to witness a paralytic man being lowered through the roof (i.e. was it even okay to put a hole in somebody’s roof even for the sake of the Gospel?) much less observing him walk for the first time.  But I believe with all my heart that if we expect such miracles, they happen more often in our presence.

Preparing to experience awe is not something I do everyday.  But I’d like to do it more often.  What I’ve seen in Jesus’ Church over my life has included some breathtakingly holy moments.

Maybe preparing God’s people to experience awe is one of the things we are called to do more often.  And when we expect awe, we experience more of it.

PS – My appliance repair professional was just here to fix our icemaker and we just had an awe-filled conversation about his childhood.  I think I’ll just go have a little cry and pray now.  God is unspeakably good.

Image is from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale taken yesterday.