A Church for Starving Artists

It used to be true that seminaries taught students to develop our Preaching Voice.  They were not talking about a preacher’s poetic or hermeneutical style. They were talking about one’s literal voice.

Some seminaries went as far as teaching how to gaze upward, hold hands firmly in the air, make a Power Stance, and – in some cases – eliminate all traces of “distracting accents.”  It was not unusual for someone to speak one way in a pulpit and another way in regular conversation.

Yuck.

Maybe this still happens in some 21st Century seminaries.  But while fewer people are interested in listening to traditional sermons (according to assorted church attendance studies), live storytelling slams and radio shows are booming in popularity.  I, for one, listen to This American Life, StoryCorps, Radiolab, and The Moth podcasts faithfully every week, and I’m not the only one.

They have become the sermons that inform my life and stir me spiritually.

Ira Glass – called “the most influential speaker” here utters kind of a nasally, imperfect sound.  The great Sarah Vowell has a playful voice with which she speaks hugely informative and entertaining tales about U.S. history.   They do not sound like polished (insert certain famous-ish seminary name here) graduates, but I could listen to either of them all day.

This excellent article speaks to why 20th Century Preaching is not as well-received in these days of “slangy approachability” and “confessional tones.”

So imagine this:  a trained professional pastor (if we must have one) sets up a real person’s story with The Story from scripture.  If I’m the preacher, I read from one of Paul’s letters or a Minor Prophet’s warnings or a poetic Wisdom piece or one of Jesus’ parables.  And then someone tells “a true story told live” in The Moth‘s parlance.

I’m in.  How about you?

Ira Glass says it best:  “Any story hits you harder if the person delivering it doesn’t sound like a news robot but, in fact, sounds like a real person having the reactions a real person would.”  Amen.

PS – Ira Glass?  Sarah Vowell?  Yes.  I am a stereotype.

In cancer news yesterday, bacon was compared to tobacco and asbestos.

Lord have mercy.  Christ have mercy.  Lord have mercy.

“The (Lancet) conclusion puts processed meats in the same category of cancer risk as tobacco smoking and asbestos,” says the World Health Organization – but, the International Agency for Research on Cancer helpfully adds that “this does not mean that they are equally dangerous.”  Good to know.

For the record, a lot of things we love are known carcinogens:  sunshine, pickles, aloe vera, and Crème fraîche.  Some carcinogens are obviously worse than others, and it’s clear that eating mounds of salami every day is a terrible idea.

We’ve “always” known that bacon is bad for us.  But bacon is also an established hipster staple, not to mention essential for creating the perfect sandwich.  What are bacon-lovers to do?

And is this a spiritual question?

Our Jewish and Muslim sisters and brothers may say, “We told you so” or rather – God told us so according to the Hebrew Scriptures and the Quran (via the prophets.)  We Christians believe that Jesus offers a new law that sets us free from “the old law” (although tell that to our Christian kinfolk who cling to some of the abomination passages in Leviticus.)  Many of us have been eating pork with reckless abandon all our lives – especially on Christian holidays.

And what do our vegetarian sisters and brothers say to all this – especially if their dietary choices are faith-based?

Do we embrace:

• Live and let live?  (You can eat pork bellies, but I don’t have to.)
• Everything in moderation? (A favorite of people who like candy and porn.)
• Let’s tax bacon like Bloomberg tried to tax Big Gulps in NYC?
• My body is a temple and therefore no more bacon will pass my lips?

All of us clearly fall short of the glory of God, so  – bacon or no bacon –  we will not always get it right.  But here’s my quandary as a pastor to pastors:  can we figure out a way to have healthy conversations with each other about other things that are “bad for us” and bad for our people (i.e. “stumbling blocks“) like . . . adultery, alcoholism, eating our feelings, overworking, having a savior complex, being financially irresponsible, and lying to ourselves?

These are the issues that hurt more people that bacon consumption, if you ask me.  And I say this as a person who hates cancer a lot.

Image of the popular and delicious Flight of Bacon at Bakin’ & Eggs – 3120 North Lincoln Avenue in Chicago.

. . . and neither can you.

I just finished Becoming Nicole – which is an excellent story and resource about a transgender child and her family.   As I read it, I remembered that there are certain people in this world whom I cannot serve as pastor. A character in the book  – who is a brother in Christ, by the way  – wrote these words on his organization’s website, as quoted by author Amy Ellis Nutt:

Ten year old boys should not even be thinking about whether they are a boy or a girl.  This entire issue is totally absurd.  If the medical profession can’t figure this out then the medical profession needs it’s head examined . . . I promise you this, the (Christian Civic) League is a friend to common sense . . . Like John the Baptist everyday we come to work and speak truth to power.  Some choose to repent and change course while others (King Herod) take another path. 

Well, there you have it.

I think this man’s editorial is 1) ignorant and 2) hateful.

Imagine this person being in your congregation.  It happens.  Sometimes there are people in our spiritual community who make us a little crazy, to the point that we can’t/don’t want to talk with them much less be the church with them.

There was such a person in a congregation I once served.   I prayed that I would see her as Jesus sees her.  I prayed that our hardened hearts would melt a bit.  I talked with spiritual mentors about how to serve her better. I tried to connect over lemon bars.

But it wasn’t happening.  Frankly, she was mean.  She was mean to me.  She was mean to her closest friends behind their backs.  She clearly didn’t consider me to be her spiritual leader no matter how hard I tried.

It finally occurred to me that it was okay that I couldn’t be her pastor.  I can’t be everyone’s pastor.

Sometimes the best we can do is hope that somebody can be her pastor.   For example, I recently spent time with another (mean) person who was giving his pastor a difficult time. He was obstinate, self-centered, crotchety, and ridiculous – sort of like me sometimes.  I asked to hear his story and he mentioned a small town in N.C. – which of course made me smile.  That was our connection.  He knew that I disagreed with him, but – for a moment – I could be his pastor when his real pastor could not.

This is what God does.

Now back to Amy Ellis Nutt’s book.  Please read it and share it.  My deep hope is that someone will be the right pastor for people who fear or do not understand transgender folks and that someone will be the right pastor for the transgender kid out there who feels alone.  Now, go buy the book.

It occurs to me that all my Midwest friends are pastors, seminarians, pastor spouses, or the children of pastors.  Yes, this is true.

I love my clergy/clergy-related friends and yet it also occurs to me that I need friends who are not church people.  Voila:  the Kellogg Non-Profit Management classes.

After my fourth Kellogg non-profit management class, I am filled with joy over the dessert that is People-Who-Do-Non-Profit-Work-Who-Are-Not-Clergy.  I took a class this week here (shameless plug) that – as I was sitting at my classroom desk – I wished all my creative colleagues could attend.

Imagine a group of non-profit leaders from the fields of law enforcement, education, art history, health care, finance, and peacemaking  from five nations plus the United States all talking about things like crucible experiences and “error blindness” correction and failure management and orthodoxy assessment.  I’m reminded of Nadia Bolz Weber sharing that her connection with cross training partners helped her remain sane-ish.  It’s crucial for emotional and theological reasons to have friends with no connection to The Church.

And so I wholeheartedly encourage you to seek out non-profit dreamers and leaders who are Not Like You.  It’s a privilege, a feast, and a soul-saving practice to compare notes with people who work in other nonprofits. I heartily recommend this.

I was talking with a stranger at a party and we were exchanging stories about all kinds of things – our kids, what we did as kids, what we do now.

Some of the stories were from my collection of personal classics:  taking our kids out of school to attend epic movie openings, that time I sneaked out of the house the night the Western Sizzler burned down.  Some of the stories were about my current work which often involves working the system to help congregations and pastors discern and act upon God’s calling.

“So you are a rule breaker,” my new friend said.  Actually, I’ve never thought of myself as a rule breaker.  On the contrary, I’m a good girl who follows (most of) the rules.  Or maybe I’m not.

Yesterday I attended another class with the Kellogg School Center of Nonprofit Management.  Note: Do yourself a favor and take one of these classes.  More about that later.

The brain candy this week is about innovation with professor Rob Wolcott who invited us to consider this:

What are the orthodoxies about how things must happen in your organization?

What would it look like to do the opposite?

For congregations “orthodoxies” have special weight because they are about God. God commands/demands/expects certain things.  The Bible tells me so.

And then there are the other orthodoxies that have more to do with custom than faith tradition:

• We always dress up for Sunday morning worship.
• We never drink coffee in the sanctuary.
• We always elect somebody from the ___ family to leadership positions.
• We never show film clips in worship.
• We always serve ham at the mission dinner.
• We never use real wine for communion.

I’m not saying we should dress down, slurp pew coffee, elect strangers to run things, replace sermons with movies, serve sushi, or tempt alcoholics, but I am saying that challenging what we’ve long considered to be the one and only way to do something is a good idea.  It’s not an easy idea to pitch sometimes, but it’s a good idea most of the time.

Counter-intuitive church is one of my favorite things.

So am I a ruler breaker?  Maybe.  But we all need to be challengers of the kind of “orthodoxies” that keep us stuck and out of touch.  Our institutional health depends on it.

Check this out.

As a single pastor, I was vaguely dating someone who attended worship one Sunday and a helpful/nosy parishioner about the age of my grandfather asked my semi-significant other:  “What are your intentions with our pastor?”  Oh, the joys of being The Single Pastor.

It occurs to me many years later that intentions are huge in life and ministry.  I marvel at the way my own twenty-something children are being intentional in their work and money decisions, while I had many years of just “letting things happen to me.”

I wonder, though, how much less intentional we are about our spiritual lives.

There are days when – honestly – I could leave The Church.  The so-not-important stuff seems to overwhelm the important stuff.  My ministry reveals that dark underbelly of humanity – only in spiritual communities which feels even darker. My job responsibilities involve getting called when somebody lies/cheats/plagiarizes/throws things.  (Really. I’ve been called when somebody threw things.)

But then I remember that being part of The Beloved Community involves being intentional:  I am going to be intentional about giving thanks, confessing my sins, reflecting on the sins of the universe (i.e. racism, sexism, greed, meanness) and discerning how I might live in a way that reflects the love of God.  I am going to be intentional about studying Scripture and telling the stories of my faith.  I am going to be intentional about singing what I believe.  I am going to be intentional about praying with and for people because it brings us closer to each other and to God.

I am pathetically lame at being a disciple of Jesus unless I make the commitment to be intentional.

I also wonder about our church people who cross the thresholds of countless church buildings on Sunday mornings and throughout the weekend because It’s What They Do/It’s What They Have Always Done, but there is no intentionality about this particular activity.  They/we sort of wander in and wander out.  A good experience means we saw some friends and got to sing a song we like.

What if we expected a profound experience?

What are our intentions when we gather as God’s people?  I believe that the answer to this question determines whether or not our faith communities will thrive in these changing days.

Image of the ceiling of the Chicago Cultural Center, mostly because I just like it.

Dear churches looking for pastors and other staff — sometimes the most convenient choice is not the best choice. This coming from someone who has been the convenient choice.  Bruce Reyes-Chow, Moderator of the 218th General Assembly, PCUSA

Now the Lord said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.  Genesis 12:1,2

In the 21st Century Church, we are all about permission-giving and getting out of the way so that God can do what God does.  It’s often been considered a clear sign when something is so easy:  the painless process, the unmistakable clarity, the obvious decision.  I’m a big fan of getting out of the way when everything is right.

But I’m also aware that we can confuse what’s right for what’s easy.

• “It’s easy to call our Transitional Pastor to become our Called Pastor since we already know her and like her.”
• “It’s easy to call our ready-to-be-ordained Director of Education to become our Pastor of Education because he wants to be here, the parents like him, the kids like him.”
• “It’s easy to contract with the retired pastor who lives across the street to help us with pastoral care because . . . he lives across the street.”

In all those situations, the easy solutions could in fact be the best choices.  Or they could be the wrong choices but we are too tired to dig deep and figure out what our congregation really needs and if – in fact – there’s a call.

I increasingly experience people who are limiting their calls for the sake of convenience.  Note:  some of us are tied to a specific geographic location because of family considerations:  the spouse whose job is based here and only here, the grandparent who is on the cusp of eternity, the child who finally has the right oncologist.

I would ask those who say that they cannot move to ask themselves:

• Is it that we can’t move or that we really like our house and our lives here?
• Is it that we can’t move or that we don’t want to move farther away from our grown kids or our parents?
• Is it that we can’t move or that we basically hate the thought of moving?

Again, some of us truly cannot move.  But I have special admiration for those who channel their inner Abram:  The Texans who move to Michigan.  The Mainers who accept calls to Arizona.  The Pacific Northwesterners who follow God’s call to Florida. Only God moves people to leave everything they’ve ever known and become strangers in a strange land.

It’s so much easier to accept a call that doesn’t require that much transition.

Image of The Ziggurat in Ur near modern day Nasiriya, Iraq – the birth place of Abram.

We’ve all seen the stats.

Pew tells us that in their 2013 study,  only 37% of church members claimed to attend worship every Sunday.  And we can assume that some of those “every Sunday” Christians report that they attend weekly, but actually they don’t.

Church attendance trends are troublesome to most of the pastors I know, but here’s something you might not realize:  some pastors are also jealous.  We would love to take some of those Sundays away from church too.

Most clergy I know get six Sundays off each year:  two for study leave and four for vacation.  Six. Sundays.

We, too, have children’s soccer games and grandma’s birthday party and groceries to buy and sleep to catch up on and wedding showers and tickets to the concert.

Friends who take sabbatical often find it difficult to transition back into the working-every-weekend routine.  I confess before you and the Almighty that one of the things I love about my work is that I have a bit more control over my weekends.  I preach almost every weekend for church transitions and other occasions.  Or I attend worship with – blessedly – no responsibilities (like yesterday) or I sleep in.  There – I said it.  Sometimes I stay home on Sunday mornings, especially if it’s been a busy week.

One of the primary reasons churches pay their pastors is to lead worship and other activities on The Lord’s Day.  Even tiny congregations with no other programming want to ensure that Somebody Preaches On Sunday.  Maybe they don’t have mission projects or small groups or even Bible studies, but – by golly – they have a preacher.

A few people still think it’s funny (and true) to say that “the preacher only works one day a week.”  The truth is that  the responsibilities of pastors have increased enormously in terms of community care and administrivia.  Most effective pastors not only minister to church members and friends, but they are also called upon to minister to strangers with every physical, mental, emotional, psycho-social, and economic health concern imaginable.

Seminarians considering professional ministry in church contexts are not only choosing to give up their weekends for the foreseeable future, but the realities of professional ministry will also require giving up most evenings and weekdays as well.  One stellar pastor I know recently announced to his congregation that he is giving up professional ministry to seek secular work – and not because he was an unsuccessful or unloved pastor.  He wants his weeknights back.  He wants his weekends back.  He wants to be the Dad on the sidelines at soccer games on Saturday or in the kitchen making Sunday pancakes.  He wants to be able to travel on weekends to see his extended family – sort of like everyone else.

I get this.  But I have an idea:  What if pastors were not expected to be worship every Sunday either?

I know some seasoned pastors who finagle one Sunday a month “off” and we all call them slackers (or geniuses.)  But what if we gave every pastor one Sunday a month off for self-care or family time or the ability to feed her/his own soul in another church’s worship gathering?   A rested/emotionally satisfied pastor = an effective pastor.

Other benefits:

• It enhances ministry to hear more than one voice in the pulpit.  Imagine hearing a seminarian, a retired pastor, a lay leader or an ordained ruling elder share a sermon or faith story.
• It teaches the congregation that the pastor is not The Professional Minister.  All baptized people are called to serve – maybe not to preach – but to serve in some way.  In my denomination, some ruling elders are indeed called to preach.
• It pushes the ordained clergy to fulfill the Biblical job description of a teacher/pastor according to Ephesians 4: 11-12.
• It reminds us that – in a thriving 21st Century Church – the Sunday morning worship service is not the sole portal into the community, nor even the most important.  Thriving congregations have multiple entry ways into the spiritual community (e.g. Monday Bible Study, Tuesday small groups, Wednesday Logos, Thursday Faith on Tap, Friday potluck, etc.)
• Worship becomes more about collaboration than performance.

Yes, this would shift “the way we’ve always done things” but – unless a church is on the cusp of closing – this would energize both pastors and congregations.

Quick answer:  Yes.

We professional ministers call ourselves Priests, Pastors, Preachers, and the ever popular Teaching Elders.   I also have friends who are called Conveners, Abbesses, and Vicars.  It’s possible that all these folks do essentially the same work.  So why different job titles?

Sometimes new worshiping communities choose a unique title for the leader because  traditional names carry baggage that turn people off.  And sometimes we are trying to be playful.

I know churches that seek out fun names to give the mundane some zip.  Coffee Hour Hosts become Ministers of Baked Goods.  Youth Leaders become Basic Trainers.

In denominational middle judicatories (I can almost see your eyes glaze over now) the leader used to be called General Presbyter or Executive Presbyter.  Today they might be called Congregational Consultants or Ministry Coordinators or Missional Presbyters or Pastor to Pastors.  Does this matter?  Possibly.

Sometimes we change job titles to clarify duties and vision.  Sometimes we do it to convey that things are fresh and new (whether they are or not.)

Today garbage collectors are called Recycling Operatives and school cafeteria workers are called Nourishment Consultants.  But I believe what we are called professionally makes a difference.  Sometimes it identifies our duties.  Sometimes it makes us feel important.  Sometimes it reflects a paradigm shift (hello Missional Consultant.)  Or a job title can have little bearing on what we really do.

In these days, it seems best to use job titles that are easily understandable for the least churchiest among us.  Most people don’t know what a “Commissioned Ruling Elder” is.  And as cool as it might sound “Kinetic Connector” is confusing for everybody.

I was once in a coffee shop wearing a collar after a morning funeral and someone approached me and said, “Are you like a priest?”  “Yes,” I said, “I am like a priest.” And that was enough for him to join me for a chat.  Clear and easy.

Image source.

If you divided up the people in your congregation/organization, how many would
be on The Apron List and how many would be on The Bib List?  The numbers could determine the level of exhaustion felt by your pastor.

• Lots of People Wearing Aprons = A Culture of Service
• Lots of People Wearing Bibs = A Culture of Being Served

This post is chock-full of old news.  But it bears repeating.

All of us have to wear bibs occasionally:  when we are babies, when we are sick, when we are eating lobster.  But many of our congregations are filled with people who almost always wear the proverbial bib.  This is regrettable.

Maybe we’ve made the mistake of teaching our people that church is an organization comprised mostly of victims, the needy, and the entitled.  (Where is the resurrection if we are stuck in those narratives?)

Maybe we’ve become so pastor-centric that nobody knows how to do anything but the person with the seminary degree – and the pastor has failed to realize that this is not effective leadership.

Maybe we have people who have served faithfully for decades in particular positions, but it’s more about them (the power!) than a call to service (the dirty work!)

Leadership is the single best predictor for success in ministry.  Pastors who know how to equip others for leadership will excel.

To be fair, many gifted pastors serve people who erroneously assume that it’s the pastor’s job to be the professional Christian.  That’s what we pay her for.

In wealthy communities, where people are used to hiring out everything from their housekeeping to their lawn mowing to their dog walking, church staff are often considered spiritual vendors.  We pay the pastor to marry, baptize and bury, to deliver pastoral care and a decent sermon.  They work for us.

Adventures in missing the point.

In all kinds of communities, there is a different kind of assumption that it’s
The Pastors Job to do all the preaching, teaching, praying, visiting, and caring. This kind of thinking will not only close down your church fairly quickly, but it’s not even Biblical according to this simple job description.

Great communities are filled with more people who wear aprons.  Maybe the aprons are real and maybe they are figurative.  I’m thinking about the homebound lady who phones other homebound parishioners for a daily check-in.  I’m thinking about the mom who helps another mom when one of the kids has a meltdown in Target.  I’m thinking about the person who naturally walks the church guest down the hall to the nursery or the person who reflexively wipes off the tables after a spill.

I actually wrote about this three years ago.  But now more than ever, we need leaders who know how to train others to lead – not as a grab for “power” but for an expression of gratitude.

Image is from Mad Men.  Halloween hint:  Don’t dress like a big baby for Halloween.  It’s sad.