A Church for Starving Artists

I wonder if there are statistics on which profession is most likely to receive anonymous letters. Show me a Pastor who’s never received an anonymous letter and I’ll show you a Pastor who either 1) serves a congregation/institution that wholly consists of the most spiritually mature people in the world or 2) that Pastor never says/does anything that challenges the parish culture.

Yes, politicians of every stripe regular receive anonymous threats. And some pastors have received such threats:

• “I wouldn’t be alone in the church building if I were you.“
• “I’m going to spend the rest of my life ruining your reputation.”

Those are my personal favorites.

But there have been many anonymous letters through the years. No threats exactly, but anonymous complaints about me. Anonymous complaints about one of the Pastors in our Presbytery. Anonymous comments about everything from last week’s bulletin cover to an action of the denomination. Obviously I’d rather sit down and talk with frustrated/angry people face to face.

Some say we should simply ignore anonymous communications. Toss them. Delete them.

I’m a fan of reading them out loud in public to the congregation if they occurred in a church context.

Let’s get both the frustrations and the spiritual immaturity out in the open. I call it spiritual immaturity because anonymous correspondence is the tool of bullies and cowards and the spiritually weak. There are some ostensibly upstanding church leaders who succumb to anonymous protests. It’s not irredeemable, but it’s heartbreaking.

I know a pastor who was receiving regular anonymous notes with those weird cut-out letters from magazines like on a bad horror movie. One day, the pastor’s spouse cracked up laughing when she read the latest anonymous note, because the magazine’s address label had not been removed. It was clear who sent the letter and it was from a church officer. The pastor invited the church officer into his study that week, and shared that he had been receiving anonymous letters and – shockingly – the anonymous sender had somehow used a magazine with the officer’s address label.

Pastor: “I’m so sorry that someone has tampered with your mail and used your magazine to send this divisive mail.” The Pastor asked the officer to join him in prayer for the anonymous writer/magazine thief, praying that the sender’s heart would be changed. The officer didn’t show up for worship for several weeks after that. But when he did return, he shared with the Pastor that he was in touch with the anonymous sender and that guy would not be back. The officer then proceeded to be one of the congregation’s most faithful leaders.

If you happen to be reading this and you think sending anonymous letters is the way to address conflicts/remove a Pastor/express displeasure, please know that sending anonymous letters is the action of a spiritually weak and immature person. You can do better.

If you receive an anonymous letter, please pray for the sender. What you have there is a person who needs our compassion. They have lost perspective. They would rather cause enmity than find answers. They might one day be a reason why a congregation has had to close because – assuming the Pastor leaves, the church cannot find another healthy Pastor willing to serve them.

For what it’s worth, I received another anonymous letter this week. The author took the time to put a stamp on the typed letter and then place it through the mail slot at the Presbytery Office. No postmark. Dude – I toss those.

Imagine that you are home after a meeting where one person yelled “shut up” to another person and it was revealed that threatening notes are being left anonymously for a person on the paid staff and someone in the meeting left early in tears. Do I dare add that it was a church meeting?

We get used to certain behaviors if they are allowed to continue long enough. If those behaviors continue for years and no one is ever held accountable, they become norms. And after they’ve become norms, it’s interesting to notice what happens when a new person enters the system and the new person says something like, “What the heck is going on here?” “This is not how Christians act.”

Chances are that we attack the new person.

On any given day, I meet with church people who wonder why “nobody” wants to join their church/serve as an officer/volunteer for a project when I wonder why anybody would when I witness the behaviors church people don’t notice any more: bullying behavior, lack of grace, inauthentic hospitality, a lack of curiosity about people who don’t look or speak as we do.

One of my favorite congregations around here shared with me that they hadn’t had a visitor who wasn’t related to a church member for over 30 years. As a rural church, they simply don’t get visitors. No one is moving into their part of the county. It’s not surprising that any new pastor coming into that community would need to navigate ever so gently how to share that some of their long-time behaviors might make baby Jesus weep.

Note to congregations who do have a steady stream (or at least a trickle) of new people coming into your church as visitors or new neighbors: do a self assessment imagining yourselves as “new.”

• Do we tell families with children that “the childcare is down that hall” or do we walk them to the childcare and help them with their coats?
• Do ushers greet people in the parking lot with big umbrellas on rainy days to help people get inside?
• Do we offer coffee to the woman living in her car in the church parking lot and invite her to come in if she’d like? And then do we offer to sit with her? And maybe invite her to lunch?

And I’m not even talking about how our budget priorities, staffing priorities or mission priorities expand (or ignore) our call to work towards the Reign of God.

We are not fine as The Church of Jesus Christ if we have forgotten that the person we deeply dislike or the leader we criticize behind their back or the stranger we ignore are children of God worthy of respect and compassion. We are not fine if our congregation refuses to stand up to bad behavior. We are not fine if no one stands up to bullies.

If you’ve ever been part of a church that exemplifies the love of Jesus well, you know how life-giving it is. It’s the kind of community that supports us in times of trouble and forgives us in times of failure. They don’t just bring us casseroles (or Grub Hub cards in 2023) but they actually do pray for and with us.

I’m fine – very fine – when I know that Church is being Church as God intends us to be.

Image from the blog of Kenny G with permission. Source.

Our children tell us that the best gift we can give them is a clutter-free inheritance. We are working on it.

HH and I live in an apartment after living in three houses for the first 33 years of our married life. We have downsized but we also had a storage unit until last week and so we having been tossing things once again. I have parted with my deviled egg plate and about ten tablecloths.

My least favorite boxes to cut open are marked “papers to go through.” Help me Jesus.

While some of the papers are easily tossed into the recycling, some are treasures – at least for one last memory before letting them go:

• A 1989 W-2 form reminding me that I once shared a single $22,000 salary with my co-pastor. We had an infant and were living in one of the most expensive cities in the country. (And now I know why random parishioners left groceries on our front porch.)
• A lovely note from a parishioner in the box of an engraved sterling silver napkin ring given to our newborn that said, “For when you grow up and use a napkin.”
• An encouraging letter from the youth pastor to our then-high school daughter during exam week.

A retired clergywoman once decorated her church study with photographs of each of the babies and young children she had ever baptized during the course of her ministry. I wonder now what she did with all those framed photos. How do you toss photos of babies, even babies whose names you don’t remember?

I learned today that the local Habitat for Humanity ReStore will take all the theology, history, and exegetical books we no longer need, so if you live in the Charlotte area and long to read Phyllis Trible, Phyllis Tickle or Phyllis Bird, there will be some great deals in the local ReStore soon. Slowly, slowly we are clearing out our theological library so that our children won’t have to do it.

Friends, the lessons I’m learning are informative for the local church too.

What does your church need to toss? Do we really need a copy of every worship bulletin since the fire of 1934? Is it okay to give away the self-portrait of the third pastor’s second wife that’s been hanging in the church library for 25 years? And is it time to stop doing the Fall Fun Fair since everybody hates doing it except the couple who’s run it since they joined in 1985?

What are the practices that feed souls? The pastor’s personal letters for baptized babies to open on their 10th birthday. The Christmas Eve Candlelighting Service. The saved written testimonies of long-passed church members about how their faith carried them through the Battle of Iwo Jima or the liberation of Dachau. The oral testimonies by younger members about surviving the loss of a child or enduring the end of a marriage or recovering after a near-fatal illness. We need to keep these.

Dr. Yolanda Pierce says that the difference between trash and treasure is that treasure carries a story. And stories give our lives meaning. If we look at our church calendars and schedules and storage closets, which things give meaning and which simply weigh us down?

There is a lot to be said for traveling lightly through this world, keeping the treasures and relinquishing all the rest.

Some vocations require the sharing of bad news. Consider what it’s like to be . . .

• An oncologist
• An admissions director
• A mold remediation specialist
• A pastor

Wait? A Pastor? Sorry, but yes. If we take seriously matters of calling and gifts, we sometimes have to share news that’s hard to hear.

Among the hard news I’ve had to share in my ministry:

• “I’m sorry but we have to let you go because we can’t afford your position.”
• “I’m sorry but we have to let you go because it’s not a good fit.”
• “I’m sorry but we have to let you go because the charges against you are serious.”
• “We need you to step away from the Diaconate.”
• “We need you to step away from the Board of Elders.”
• “We need you to step away from this pastoral call.”
• “You don’t seem to like children so maybe being a Sunday School teacher is not a good match for your strengths.”
• “If you wear a Spiderman outfit to your interview, it probably won’t go well.” (The details on this one are changed for the sake of confidentiality.)

I am a Gabriel wannabe in that I LOVE to share good news. But the truth is that my role – especially now – is to share not-so-happy-news on a regular basis. At least in the beginning it doesn’t feel good to the hearer, but I pray for the right words that convey the truth in love.

Sometimes I get to share the hard news because the Personnel Chairperson or the Pastor just can’t do it. But here’s the thing: the ability to have difficult conversations is the mark of a healthy relationship.

I once had to fire a staff member who was also a friend and I remember begging God to give me the right words. I started by saying, “I need to tell you something very difficult.” To be perfectly honest, it didn’t help her to hear the hard part (“We need to let you go . . . “) but it helped me start the conversation.

I have found that if we share hard news as early as possible (do not withhold hard news hoping it will go away) and we share it with compassion and clarity, it helps everyone move forward. Maybe the hard news is not “personal” but it feels personal. And it will feel both personal and humiliating if it’s heard via the grapevine and not from a supervisor/spiritual leader/friend.

Basically sharing hard news is easiest if there is trust between the sharer and the receiver. I’ve heard seminarians say, “How dare you tell me I’m not called to professional ministry when I know God has called me.” Truly we could be way off in walking alongside someone preparing for ministry. But when they cannot pass ordination exams and their psych assessment indicates complex issues and their professors express concerns and their supervised ministry mentor is worried, then it’s time to talk. If we have a trusting relationship, then sharing hard things is easier. It still hurts, but at least we know we are loved.

A note to all pastors and all church leaders: there are times when you will have to share hard things for the sake of the Gospel. This is why it’s essential to let people know we love them no matter what.

I’m deeply self-conscious about reading this book in public today.

The air is thick with tension after the terrorist attack by Hamas in Israel over the weekend. My friends and family include rabbis and the Jewish faithful, Christian Zionists, Palestinian Christians, Muslims and every kind of secular human. Reading this book would not please some of the people I care about on any given day, and now it’s worse:

The (Hamas) militants infiltrated 22 Israeli towns and army bases and took civilians and soldiers hostages, many of whom they brought back to Gaza. At least 700 Israelis had been reported dead by officials as of Sunday. Andrés R. Martínez and Emma Bubola for The New York Times 10-9-23

It happened on Simchat Torah and the Supernova Festival in the Negev desert was one of the targets killing concert goers in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Yes this is terrorism. And also there has been terrorism on every side for as long as anyone can remember. The freshness of the latest attacks do not negate the decades of attacks on the innocent.

And so I read Mitri Raheb’s book today – with its provocative title – knowing that the whole premise of the book – that there can be no justice in the Middle East as long as settler colonization exists – pierces souls in a different ways.

Terrorism can never be theologically or historically justified. And . . . and when indigenous people lose their land and heritage, they often fight back. When the vulnerable are pushed around long enough, they fight back. When injustice crushes generations of people because of their skin color or heritage or religious beliefs, they fight back.

What happened in Israel Saturday was unspeakably evil. And we who live on colonized land must acknowledge our part in this evil.

This is not exactly a colorful Columbus Day Parade blog post, is it? But it’s true. We who believe in the message of Jesus, for example, are called to repent of our participation in anything that destroys other children of God. Our Jewish siblings have Yom Kippur. Our Muslim siblings have Ashura. We Christians have Lent and Good Friday. But we need to acknowledge our complicity every day.

We American Christians are naive in our understanding of what’s happening in the Middle East. And we American Christians are naive in our understanding of what happened to the First Nations where we live. We can do better. We have to at least try to understand each other.

May God bring mercy and peace, and make us agents of that mercy and peace.

Image of Mitri Raheb’s new book. Dr. Raheb is a Lutheran Christian pastor in Bethlehem.

These are tools for Ministry:

• Church Buildings
• Steeples
• Bells
• Cemeteries
• Membership Rolls
• Bylaws
• Constitutions
• Classrooms
• Playgrounds
• Institutional Kitchens
• Pews
• Baptismal Fonts
• Communion Tables
• Crosses
• Bibles (!)
• Letterhead
• Offering Apps
• Coffee Makers
• Church Signs
• Musical Instruments
• Choir and Clergy Robes
• Church Screens
• Church Bulletins
• Bible Studies
• Vacation Bible School
• Lecture Series
• Church Staff (!)
• Degrees and Certifications

This is Ministry:

• Feeding People (in every way)
• Comforting the Sick and Grieving
• Protecting the Vulnerable
• Celebrating Resurrection and Recovery
• Forgiving Our Enemies
• Forgiving Ourselves
• Housing the Unhoused
• Relieving the Overwhelmed
• Loving the Unloveable
• Visiting the Imprisoned
• Nurturing the Spiritually Curious

Obviously neither is a comprehensive list.

In the five weeks since I returned from Sabbatical, I have noticed once again that church conflicts happen when we confuse Ministry with Tools for Ministry. Imagine caring as much about serving our neighbors as we worry about what they wear to church. Imagine spending as much time befriending the lonely as we spend arguing about whether or not to replace the sanctuary carpet.

I’ll ask it again: did Jesus die for this? Yes, if it’s people. No, if it’s stuff. Have a wonderful weekend.

Most Pastors are our own gatekeepers in terms of our time. Most of us don’t have an executive assistant who fields our calls and manages our schedules.

As a Pastor in a mid-council context (I work with 92 congregations) there are over 27,000 parishioners in the Presbytery I serve. Here’s a question I’m pondering these days: who gets a slice of our time?

Ostensibly any member of any of our congregations can contact me or other members of our staff for any reason. My cell phone number is in the Presbytery Directory. And among the phone messages I’ve received over the years:

• I’m not happy about the new fence on our church property, and the pastors and elders won’t listen to me.
• Our organist lost his temper last Sunday.
• I’m new to the area and want to join a Presbyterian Church but nobody speaks to me when I attend their worship services.
• Our confirmation class is using a curriculum that offends me.
• I would like to schedule a time we can meet to talk about supporting Ukraine.
• My husband’s grave needs to be weeded. Can you help me?
• I have an idea for our congregation. Can we meet for coffee?

Who gets a slice of my time? Who gets a slice of your time? There are certain things we can do to create healthy boundaries in terms of our schedules:

• I remind people on my email signatures and voice mail messages that Friday is my Sabbath and I don’t do Church work on Fridays.
• I try to head off unnecessary conversations by inserting, “Let me stop you right there. Thanks for calling but this is an issue for your congregational leaders . . .”
• When someone from a different Presbytery contacts me for help finding a pastor, I direct them to their own Presbytery leaders.
• I’m starting to use Calendly which has a handy spot for people to include a reason they want to chat. (“Can we get together to talk?” is not enough information.)

Church Sage Bruce Reyes-Chow is working on a new curriculum for boundary training for leaders and I encourage you to check it out. Boundary training is certainly about preventing sexual and financial misconduct, and it’s also about allowing at least 48 hours to respond to an email before re-sending or refraining from sending 500 word text messages.

So here are my questions:

• Is this a bigger issue for women? In talking with other professional women, it’s common for our clients/patients/parishioners to see us as girlfriends which subsequently means we are available for all kinds of important and not-so-important conversations.
• Is this a generational issue? Are younger Pastors more likely to be contacted with grievances/needs because they are making necessary but uncomfortable shifts in how we do church? Are older church members still expecting their Pastors to have designated “office hours” when they can drop by without an appointment?
• Is this basically a trust issue? Let’s say a congregation is experiencing conflict and measures are being taken to mediate that conflict. The leaders of that congregation and the leaders of the Presbytery are working on the issues, but the average parishioner (who doesn’t have a leadership role) doesn’t trust that anything is happening. Or parishioners simply don’t believe their Pastors are working hard enough because they don’t see what they do all week.

Who gets a slice of our time? So many of our Pastors are exhausted. So many of our Parishioners are exhausted. We spend much of our precious time dealing with issues that distract us from the real work of the Church because it’s easier to argue about paint colors than develop spiritual maturity.

Did Jesus die for this? If the answer is “yes” then that’s where I will focus my time. What about you?

Every single person reading this can list what’s wrong with The Church – as a global institution, as a particular congregation, as the First Century attempt to connect as the Followers of Jesus. It’s human nature to focus on bad news perhaps. And when things are going well, we are not as lavish with words of joy as we are weighed down by words of sorrow. (When I was a hospital chaplain, nobody ever called me when a baby was born healthy.)

But since returning from sabbatical, I’ve had several days when Church has been the life-giving, life-changing, putting-a-spring-in-my-step community that God created it to be. Remember when Jesus said:

“Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have good news brought to them.” Luke 8:22

When Church is good, it’s great. When we see evidence of selflessness and generosity, when congregations vote unanimously to do the right thing, when neighborhoods are inspired by the vision of a congregation to serve the vulnerable, when loving people rise up to conquer hate . . . these are the things of an effective ministry.

Where I live and work, there are congregations organizing to provide affordable housing, people actively seeking reparations for those who’ve been cheated, whole neighborhoods coming together to support immigrants, and people paying attention when God calls them to take risks. Thanks be to the One who continues to create and speak and move.

How is your community of faith:

• bringing meaning,
• serving neighbors,
• getting people excited,
• giving you energy,
• making children laugh,
• giving you life,
• offering comfort,
• filling your cup,
• connecting people?

This is how we worship God.

Harvard Business Review has published not one but two articles on Psychological Safety in the workplace over the past 9 months here and here. If you are fortunate enough to have a healthy paid and volunteer staff in your office – or for my context – in your church, count yourselves most fortunate. And it’s way more fun to work in an organization where there is good-humor, joy, and safety.

Laura Delizonna defines “psychological safety” as:

The belief that you won’t be punished when you make a mistake. Studies show that psychological safety allows for taking moderate risks, speaking your mind, being creative, and sticking your neck out without fear of having it cut off 

• The liturgist forgets to announce a hymn.
• The confirmation teacher tries a new strategy that doesn’t work.
• The sermon series is a bust.
• The stewardship chairperson is slow to get letters out.

If people trust each other in an organization, simple fails don’t matter much. It’s easier to be forgiving and gracious when the staff gets along well and have each other’s backs.

But when trust is lagging – especially when congregations are anxious after COVID or some other cultural transition – it can be tempting to attack those who make mistakes. And a lack of grace is contagious.

I’m seeing lots of trust issues post-COVID and maybe they’ve been there all along. And helping a congregation move from rampant suspicion to deep trust is a long process that might involve more heartache before it gets better.

But it can get better.

Amy Gallo identifies the importance of learning as a tool for creating trust.

• What did we learn when we moved from daily Vacation Bible School to evening once-a-week Vacation Bible School?
• What did we learn when we tried shifting the Annual Chili Dinner from October to August?
• What did we learn when volunteers filled in for the church secretary last July?

Why is psychological safety important? Gallo writes this:

First, psychological safety leads to team members feeling more engaged and motivated, because they feel that their contributions matter and that they’re able to speak up without fear of retribution. Second, it can lead to better decision-making, as people feel more comfortable voicing their opinions and concerns, which often leads to a more diverse range of perspectives being heard and considered. Third, it can foster a culture of continuous learning and improvement, as team members feel comfortable sharing their mistakes and learning from them.

I can imagine someone reading this with dread because they know that there is no psychological safety where you work. I’m so sorry. I’ve been there. It can get better.

If you are the boss, please consider taking the lead on fostering a culture where failure is an opportunity to learn. If you are not the boss, consider approaching your supervisor – perhaps with another staff member – and share that you’d love to work together to bolster a culture of serving together better. And how can you do that as a team?

It is an underrated joy to work on a team that makes each individual better for the sake of a healthier institution. And the whole reason to have a healthier institution when we are in a church context is to expand the reign of God and make earth a bit more like heaven. (I know because I work on that team now.)

Image from Amy Edmonson’s book The Fearless Organization.

Confession: I talk too much. I give unnecessary details. I repeat myself. I interrupt people. I have a story for everything. I’m trying to do better.

“Talk less. Smile More” Aaron Burr in Hamilton

After a three month sabbatical with lots of quiet time, the hardest thing about re-entry is that there are too many words.

• Meetings are unnecessarily long because too many unnecessary words are spoken.
• People dealing with conflict need to share stories, grievances, and explanations.
• Congregations notoriously prefer dealing with policies and procedures than doing real-life “Jesus died for this” ministry.

I’ve been to many, many meetings since September 4th. There have been so many words that I return home late every night without the energy to share my day with HH. I whisper, “I can’t talk.”

Many of us talk too much for countless reasons from our own insecurities to infatuation with our own voices to neurodivergence. I have some thoughts on this:

• Use bullet points. (Lots of text without much spacing makes some of our eyes glaze over.)
• Be concise. Tell me in a sentence what you need. I’ll try to do the same.
• Use parliamentary procedure (or some other form of ordering a meeting.) No you can’t just insert a comment while someone else is speaking. No you cannot have the floor if you came to observe a meeting.
• Respect people’s time. I might be retired and have all the time in the world, but I need to notice that you have kids to pick up from school or another meeting on your schedule.

What I’m not saying: we need to privilege efficiency over relationships. No. The great thing about using fewer words is that we can focus on the relationships.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Talk less. Smile more. Always ask: Did Jesus die for this?