A Church for Starving Artists

When FBC first visited the college where he would eventually matriculate, we were touring a dorm during his Junior-in-High-School visit and this happened:

Upper Classperson Tour Guide: The RAs are really cool. Your boyfriend or girlfriend can stay over and it’s no problem.

Me: Um. I’m the Mom & I’m standing right here.

On another occasion, TBC & I were shopping for jeans & this happened her senior year of high school:

Hollister Employee: Hi! Take a look at our low cut jeans! They look really good!

(After realizing I was invisible:)

Me: Um. Hi. I’m the Mom.

At some point, we became the Ever-Present-Yet-Unimportant Parent. Yes, we moms are often the ones who labor for hours and hours to give birth to our beloved children. Or we joyously adopt precious daughters and sons, making enormous financial and personal sacrifices to welcome them. Dads try to figure out how to be sensitive new age guys.

We endure sleeplessness, minivans, homework meltdowns, forgotten-until-bedtime assignments from science projects to tomorrow-we-wear-something-yellow. It’s not easy, ladies and gentlemen.

Yesterday, our last child graduated from college and the Dean of her College said that the journey of the child necessarily becomes the journey of the parent.

I know this to be true.

There is a difference between 1) usurping our children’s lives as our own and 2) experiencing a child’s journey as our own. Our children’s lives are not our lives but I can tell you – with everything that is in me- that I know parents whose children have endured leukemia, depression, addiction, ADHD, gender dysphoria, and a basic lack of ambition, and their journeys become our own. It’s not that we want to live our children’s lives. It’s that we love them so much that their pains become our own.

I write this as an immensely grateful parent.

I have been thanked by graduation speakers (“Please thank your parents”) and I’m here to say that nobody cares about the parents at college graduations – really – except that we have really been invested in this thing. And we cannot ignore the fact that many others have made our children extraordinary, if we are honest.

It’s hokey to say that our children are raised by a village, etc. And yet, it’s true. And so I thank you.

You know who you are. Our last child child graduated from college yesterday. And there is no way we can thank you. But thank you.

Image of the Best Parents Ever (& their FBC)

About 23 years ago, I was the mother of two boys under the age of three, and during their nap time, I was cleaning out a closet. Specifically, I was boxing up their infant wear.

An overwhelming feeling came over me that somebody was missing. And a year later, we were the parents of three kids under age four.

It had not occurred to us that this meant we would have three kids in college at the same time – at least for one year, just as there was a year when all three were all in high school at the same time. Whew.

A couple random thoughts on this momentous weekend when TBC graduates from college:

• We are unspeakably blessed. I did nothing to deserve the ability to get pregnant easily (when I wanted to) or give birth to healthy children who lived to adulthood.
• I won the genetic lottery, not to mention the privilege lottery, the citizenship lottery, and the romance lottery. Again, I did nothing to deserve this. We’re talking about lavish grace/good fortune.
• I’m a big fan of having kids close together, if that’s possible/you plan more than one child. If they are close in age, they all like the same books and the same games at the same time- easy. Yes, you have multiple car seats and lots of diapers. But you’re just as busy with three as with one.
• Just because they are about the same size, it doesn’t mean they will like the same things. We allowed each of our three to pick one sport and one arts activity at a time, and so – yes, this meant that there was a potential for six different activities per week, but they got to choose. I’m glad we did it that way.
• As Double PKs (Preachers’ Kids) they needed each other when exposed to every manner of human turpitude. My kids can handle things beyond their years.

The bottom line is that I’ve learned so and I’m immensely grateful. Happy Graduation to our last & TBC.

Image of Gildersleeve Hall – named for PK Basil Gildersleeve – where TBC lived that first year of college.

In the past 24 hours, about six people have said to me, “You are a busy lady” – or something like that. It usually happens when I’ve been playing phone tag with someone and we finally connect. Or I have an appointment out of the office and someone comes 15 minutes early to my office and expects me to be waiting for them, but I arrive 5 minutes later, still a few minutes before we  are scheduled to meet. Or someone stops by with no appointment and asks if I have ten minutes to talk about something (which might actually take thirty minutes) and when I say “No, I’ve got a meeting in 3 minutes,” he/she says:

“Wow, you’re so busy.”

How would you respond?

• “Yes, I am.“
• “I’ve always got time for you.”
• “We’re all pretty busy.”

It makes me wonder:

• Do I give off the appearance of being harried or crazed or wiped out or so-incredibly-important-that-I-have-no-time-for-you? (I don’t think so, but – faithful friends – please do me a favor and let me know if I’m sending “I’m constantly overwhelmed” vibes.)
• Do people expect that we (my colleagues and I) are just hanging out waiting for someone to call or show up?
• Do men get these comments as often as women? (i.e. Is there a subconscious expectation that female employees should always be available to help?)

I’m about as busy as everyone around me seems to be. But how would you respond to comments like this?  Just curious.

“Crazy” is considered a slur in many circles these days, and yet it’s a word used often to describe everyday life:

• “My schedule is crazy.”
• “Those kids are driving me crazy.”
• “Are you crazy?”

Some people even believe that Christians – and other people of faith – are a little crazy to believe in God, miracles, the power of prayer, etc. Others say there’s merely a fine line between ecstatic spiritual devotion and brain disorders.

But the truth is that any seasoned pastor has witnessed serious mental illness in parish life. A professional therapist once sent me this book so I might understand a borderline parishioner who was hurting and hurtful, while mayhem ensued in our congregation.

Our spiritual communities are comprised of people with addictions, schizophrenia, depression, phobias, and combinations of all the above. They serve alongside us as elders and deacons, teachers and choir members, office volunteers and nursery workers. [To be fair, some pastors also suffer with serious mental disabilities, but the hope is that they will be removed from professional ministry – at least temporarily – to ensure healthier congregations. It’s hard to shepherd God’s people if the shepherd is lost and sick.]

Do we prepare future pastors how to spot behavior that can perpetuate dysfunction and create havoc in a church system? I haven’t seen such classes, but maybe you have.

I know from experience that the best laid plans for mission and ministry can be sabotaged by just one person who wrestles with serious insecurities much less demons. And small congregations with limited members seem especially susceptible. If small churches are struggling to keep members, they will tolerate unhealthy behaviors for a long time.

Pastors out there:

• Did you get any seminary training in identifying mental illness?
• Did you receive strategies in working with difficult people whose difficulties might be connected to brain diseases?

Yes – many of us received Clinical Pastoral Education, perhaps even in a mental health facility, but what about basic training in dealing with bullies, liars, saboteurs, and passive-aggressors?

Congregations increasingly include such folks, and it would help to have the beginning of a clue how to identify those who need a special kind of pastoral care. Ideas?

Image from last week’s episode of Mad Men. Sadly, Michael Ginsberg is truly mad.

There are women and girls here in Chicago at risk at this very moment. The same is true for your community, no matter where you are.

Some wonder why the Nigerian Schoolgirls have attracted such attention in light of the fact that crimes against schoolgirls happen every day in every nation.

• Was it because having our own daughters/sisters/young friends our empathy quotient has ratcheted up?
• Was it because teenagers in school uniforms (or in this case, in their night clothes) seem particularly innocent?
• Was it because Boko Haram threatened to sell these girls for $12 to potential “husbands”?

Boys and men are also at risk throughout the world, but it’s different for girls. As Susan Brownmiller wrote in 1993, human history changed forever when ancient men realized that they could overpower ancient women by raping them. By sheer force, most men could control most women physically.

21 years later, Jimmy Carter has written another book that essentially states that the world’s violence, poverty, and dysfunction can be traced to the fact that women and girls are treated as lesser human beings than men. Read his new book, especially if you are a person of faith.

We people of faith have often been taught – erroneously – that God created men to be more valuable than women, just as some generations once were taught that God created light skinned people to be more valuable than dark skinned people. Holy Scripture has been used -erroneously – to support such notions.

Beyond praying for the Nigerian schoolgirls, we can educate ourselves on the realities of being a female in this world and work to make earth as it is in heaven.

In most of the world men control women legally, politically, and economically. And while our ovaries make most of us women physically at a disadvantage from most men, God did not intend for men to subjugate and overpower us.

Read this book.
This is a good read too.

Monica Lewinsky is a real person. She has feelings.  She has the right to have a job, a life.  I recommend this article in the most recent issue of Vanity Fair.

It’s been culturally okay to shame her, to peg her, to make jokes about her.  I’ve done it.

Of course she made some foolish choices almost 20 years ago.  And unless she cures cancer or solves the Mideast Crisis, she will be forever known as “that woman” who had an inappropriate relationship with a President of the United States.

What if we were best known for the worst thing we ever did?

As a pastor, I’m privy to all manner of imperfection, and – pastor or not – you are too.  We daily witness global ugliness as well as domestic disappointment in friends from whom we expected better.

How do we get beyond holding onto the worst in people?  How do we forgive those  who want to be forgiven? How do we forgive even those who who don’t accept responsibility for causing human pain?

I know that I don’t want to be best known – and never forgiven – for the worst thing I’ve ever done.  I don’t even want you to know what it is.

Can we imagine being a community that actually gives people a fresh start?  Can we imagine being that kind of church?

Image of Monica Lewinsky.

While talking to TBC today, I said words that I’ve been pondering for a couple of days now, but I could finally speak them out loud:

TBC: Are you having a good day, Mom?

Me: I think I’m as happy today as I’ve ever been in my whole life.

Don’t get me wrong. I still semi-hate Mothers’ Day and have ever since Mom died in 1988 after an eight year adventure with breast cancer. Those were some dark years, hidden well by my perky personality but any of my parishioners could tell you that I easily choked up in the years after her death. The sadness was barely below the surface.

My life’s narrative evolved into this:

I had a baby (FBC) and my mom died when FBC was eight weeks old. I had another baby (SBC) and my dad died when SBC was four months old. Then I had another baby (TBC) and nobody died (but we joked that my in-laws looked worried.) The truth is that I was sad for about ten years. Pathetically, cataclysmically, drooling-on-myself sad. And then one day I read this book and something clicked. I didn’t want to die anymore.

Being a mom is hard. Not being a mom is hard. Losing a mom is hard. Wishing your mom would get lost is hard.

The bottom line is that I – for some gracious reason – have been breathtakingly fortunate. Today, on the cusp of the end of 20 years of public primary, secondary, and higher education, our three kids are all employed and – best of all – alive. They like each others’ company. They are good human beings. They make a mother (and a father) proud. They know that God created them to make a difference.

Because I’m happy today, the world is different. Once I couldn’t think about mothers without weeping over the loss of my own. But there is hope. There is always hope.

So Happy Mothers’ Day. Or – even better: hang on if this has been a terrible day, especially if it had anything to do with being a mother or not being a mother or having a mother or not having a mother. The season is still Eastertide and resurrection is always a possibility. Always.

Peace to those who are sad today. And know that – while we are not promised happiness – it’s possible.

People care more about kidnapped school girls being sold into slavery than they care about institutional church dynamics.

This is the best news I’ve received in decades.

I write a churchy blog.  Even when it’s not overtly about church, it’s about church.  Through the years, some of my most popular posts have been about parenting, dating, politics, and one about a Middle School performance of The Wizard of Oz that was picked up by a newspaper.  But if you believe that everything is spiritual (as I do) and if your believe that the spiritual life is best lived out in community (as I do) then – at least for someone like me – everything is about church. Not the institutional/pipe organ/steeple/Sunday School/pulpit/’special music’/Vacation Bible School/diaconate/flower guild/stained glass window/narthex/chalice & patin/chancel/choir robes church.

But the prayer partners/midnight crisis/heartbroken/drug addled/crushed spirit/dead inside/hoping against hope/peace-that-passes-all-understanding/”I totally get you”/”I don’t get you at all but I’m not leaving you” church.

This is the church that Jesus lived and died and lives again for.  This is the church that came together over the past couple days to choose the names of kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls and commit to pray for them until they come home.  Some of the thousands (!) who responded to my previous blog post via WordPress, Twitter, and Facebook do not even believe in God, but they still agreed to hold ‘their girl’ in thought.

My friends, this is the real church.  It’s full of skeptics, diversity, and a desire to Do Something.

Maybe all we can do is pray for the messiest, most horrible, most complicated, seemingly hopeless situations.  But we do it together en masse.  And the bottom line is that we care more about the most vulnerable people in our community than we care about sermon series and leadership organization.

And that’s what I learned the day my little blog had 20,000+ hits.

Image source.

I picked Sicker Abdul. 

Her last name means “servant” in Arabic and I hope her first name is not a reflective of her first days on the earth.  She’s been identified as a Christian.  I don’t know her age.

She is one of the 180 girls named yesterday as among the students kidnapped from their school in Chibok, Nigeria on April 14th by Boko Haram.  Although 276 girls are still reported missing, we only have 180 names.  You can read more about the situation here.

The  kidnappers are reportedly selling these girls for about $12 each to potential “husbands.”

Praying for 180 girls by name – much less 276 girls – is overwhelming to me and my pathetic commitment to prayer. But I can pray for one Nigerian schoolgirl.  And I am asking you to pray for just one girl as well.

Please choose one name – one girl  – and pray for her until she is found.

I picked Sicker Abdul.  She’s my girl.

Who will you pick?

If it helps to hold you accountable, I invite you to share your choice in the comment section of this post.  Thank you.

Deborah ​Abge, Awa ​Abge, Hauwa ​Yirma, Asabe ​Manu, Mwa ​Malam Pogu, Patiant ​Dzakwa, Saraya ​Mal Stover, Mary ​Dauda, Gloria ​Mainta, Hanatu ​Ishaku Gloria ​Dama, Tabitha ​Pogu, Maifa ​Dama, Ruth ​Kollo, Esther ​Usman, Awa ​James, Anthonia Yahonna, Kume ​Mutah, Aisha ​Ezekial, Nguba ​Buba, Kwanta ​Simon, Kummai ​Aboku, Esther ​Markus, Hana ​Stephen, Rifkatu ​Amos, Rebecca ​Mallum, Blessing ​Abana, Ladi ​Wadai, Tabitha ​Hyelampa, Ruth ​Ngladar, Safiya ​Abdu, Na’omi ​Yahonna, Solomi ​Titus, Rhoda ​John, Rebecca ​Kabu, Christy ​Yahi, Rebecca ​Luka, Laraba ​John, Saratu ​Markus, Mary ​Usman, Debora ​Yahonna, Naomi ​Zakaria, Hanatu ​Musa, Hauwa ​Tella, Juliana ​Yakubu, Suzana ​Yakubu, Saraya ​Paul, Jummai ​Paul, Mary ​Sule, Jummai ​John, Yanke ​Shittima, Muli ​Waligam, Fatima ​Tabji, Eli ​Joseph, Saratu ​Emmanuel, Deborah Peter, Rahila ​Bitrus, Luggwa ​Sanda, Kauna ​Lalai, Lydia ​Emmar, Laraba ​Maman, Hauwa ​Isuwa, Confort ​Habila, Hauwa ​Abdu, Hauwa ​Balti, Yana ​Joshua, Laraba ​Paul, Saraya ​Amos, Glory ​Yaga, Na’omi ​Bitrus, Godiya ​Bitrus, Awa ​Bitrus, Na’omi ​Luka, Maryamu Lawan, Tabitha ​Silas, Mary ​Yahona, Ladi ​Joel, Rejoice ​Sanki, Luggwa ​Samuel, Comfort ​Amos, Saraya ​Samuel, Sicker ​Abdul, Talata ​Daniel.
Rejoice ​Musa, Deborah ​Abari, Salomi ​Pogu, Mary ​Amor, Ruth ​Joshua, Esther ​John, Esther ​Ayuba, Maryamu Yakubu, Zara ​Ishaku, Maryamu Wavi, Lydia ​Habila, Laraba ​Yahonna, Na’omi ​Bitrus, Rahila ​Yahanna, Ruth ​Lawan, Ladi ​Paul, Mary ​Paul, Esther ​Joshua, Helen ​Musa, Margret Watsai, Deborah Jafaru, Filo ​Dauda, Febi ​Haruna, Ruth ​Ishaku, Racheal Nkeki, Rifkatu Soloman, Mairama Yahaya, Saratu ​Dauda, Jinkai ​Yama, Margret Shettima, Yana ​Yidau, Grace ​Paul, Amina ​Ali, Palmata Musa, Awagana Musa, Pindar ​Nuhu, Yana ​Pogu, Saraya ​Musa, Hauwa ​Joseph, Hauwa ​Kwakwi, Hauwa ​Musa, Maryamu Musa, Maimuna Usman, Rebeca Joseph, Liyatu ​Habitu, Rifkatu Yakubu, Naomi ​Philimon, Deborah Abbas, Ladi ​Ibrahim, Asabe ​Ali, Maryamu Bulama, Ruth ​Amos, Mary ​Ali, Abigail Bukar, Deborah Amos, Saraya ​Yanga, Kauna ​Luka, Christiana Bitrus, Yana ​Bukar, Hauwa ​Peter, Hadiza ​Yakubu, Lydia ​Simon, Ruth ​Bitrus, Mary ​Yakubu, Lugwa ​Mutah, Muwa ​Daniel, Hanatu ​Nuhu, Monica Enoch, Margret Yama, Docas ​Yakubu, Rhoda ​Peter, Rifkatu Galang, Saratu ​Ayuba, Naomi ​Adamu, Hauwa ​Ishaya, Rahap ​Ibrahim, Deborah Soloman, Hauwa ​Mutah, Hauwa ​Takai, Serah ​Samuel, Aishatu Musa, Aishatu Grema, Hauwa ​Nkeki, Hamsatu Abubakar, Mairama Abubakar, Hauwa ​Wule, Ihyi ​Abdu, Hasana Adamu, Rakiya ​Kwamtah, Halima ​Gamba, Aisha ​Lawan, Kabu ​Malla, Yayi ​Abana, Falta ​Lawan, and Kwadugu Manu.

Image source.

My denomination defines “solo pastor” as one who does not supervise other pastors on a church staff.  He/she might supervise organists, educators, office administrators and sextons, but – at least according to the PCUSA – he/she is not a “Senior Pastor” or “Head of Staff.”  In other words, a solo sings alone.

Increasingly, there are more and more “solo pastors.”  (Attention Multi-Pastor Congregations:  this might be your future.)

According to 2012 PCUSA statistics:

• About 3100 congregations have less than 50 members
• About 2400 congregations have 50-100 members
• About 2200 congregations have 100-200 members

Of all those congregations with 200 members or less:

• About 3200 of the churches have an installed (‘permanent’) pastor
• About 2600 of the churches have a temporary pastor (temporary supply, stated supply, interim, supply preacher)
• Almost 2000 of the churches have no pastor at all (so they rely on guest preachers each Sunday and a neighboring pastor moderates their Board of Elders)

In other words, there are quite a few solo pastors out there, and as several congregations are downsizing their staffs due to financial issues, the numbers of solo pastors will increase in the coming years.

There are many congregations in rural areas without pastors, I believe, because while the work of a solo pastor is similar in both rural and not-so-rural areas of the country, the rural pastor has no place to “get away” and refresh where he/she can be anonymous and truly free, unlike the pastor who can head to the other side of town and have a cup of coffee without running into a parishioner who wants to chat.  (Long sentence, but agonizingly true.)

I’ve been a solo pastor in both a small rural church and a medium-sized suburban church, and I can tell you that – in addition to preaching (every Sunday), teaching Bible studies/confirmation/new members classes, supervising paid and volunteer staff, writing liturgy, moderating Session, administrating, recruiting/training leaders, leading youth group, offering premarital, prebaptism, & general counseling, and assisting strangers who come through the doors in need of rent/food/gasoline/social services – my tasks also occasionally included:

• turning on the heat/AC
• locking/unlocking doors
• vacuuming floors
• taking out trash/recycling
• typing bulletins
• copying & folding bulletins
• dealing with plumbers/roofers/electricians
• catching vermin (ask me about Possum Protective Services)
• filling the baptism water pitcher and setting up communion

Obviously, most of those tasks are done on an emergency basis only, and other paid/volunteer church staff perform those tasks.  But my point is that A Solo Pastor works very hard.  I would argue that it’s harder to be a solo pastor than a multi-pastoral staff pastor, if for no other reason than loneliness.

I remember visiting Riverside Church in NYC during my haven’t-learned-to-delegate years just after ordination, and my life was changed forever when I noticed that one team of volunteers unlocked doors, and another team welcoming worshippers, and another team passed out bulletins.  I almost burst into tears.  I usually did every one of those things on a given Sunday – plus the other stuff.

It was quite possible to have a life and be a solo pastor in the 1950s church because:

• There were scores of women who “didn’t work” during the day and they happily volunteered to do everything from running the Sunday School to organizing mission projects.
• There was less counseling and working with transients because people kept their addiction/abuse/mental health/relationship issues to themselves.  (In towns where everyone was related to everyone else, you didn’t dare share your problems with anyone but family.)
• There were fewer program expectations.
• The culture was homogeneous and already “churchy.”  We didn’t have to translate Western Church World to guests who had never been taught the language.

Unlike the work load for a 1950s solo pastor, the work load for a 21st Century solo pastor is not sustainable.  Especially for pastors of small churches who – contractually – work only 10 or 20 hours a week, they are most likely getting paid for only half the work they do.  It’s impossible to write a sermon, lead worship, prepare for and officiate at a funeral or wedding, lead a Bible study, and answer phone calls/emails in 20 hours, much less 10.

I saw a job description for a “PT Interim Pastor” recently that included 30 pastoral duties expected of the pastor each week.  Impossible.

In spite of the dreadful way this all sounds, I see this phenomenon of Lots of Work/Too Little Time to be Good News.  We are forced to be not only a different church in the 21st Century; we are forced to be more like the First Century Church.

According to scripture, the pastor’s task is to equip others for ministry. (Ephesians 4:11-12)  This is quite time-consuming in and of itself, so it involves a huge culture shift.  But what if . . .

• The solo pastor took a season to spend more time teaching others to pray out loud, write & deliver homilies, offer basic pastoral care than doing these tasks herself/himself?  (Call your Presbytery or a consultant for help with this.)
• The solo pastor relinquished traditional preaching once/month to allow a different kind of sermon?  (Examples: an elder shares a snippet of her faith story or a community leader (police officer, guidance counselor) shares what he does all week?  This informs the congregation of possible needs in the community. Invite the music leaders to lead in singing songs that speak to a particular theological doctrine)?
• The solo pastor connected with other pastors (not currently serving congregations) to take on – for a season – the confirmation class or a Bible study or training the Deacons or  . . .?

Yes, all these ideas are also labor intensive, but we have got to let go of some of our solo-pastor tasks.  And – ATTENTION PARISHIONERS – we must allow our pastors to relinquish many of the tasks we have previously expected of them.

Let. Them. Go.

Let the tasks go that we’ve taken on which do not need to happen (or if they are necessary, someone else will pick them up.)  Let the people go who have unreasonable expectations of their pastor.  Let our own pastoral addictions to perfection go.

The future church will have more solo pastors and more PT/bivocational pastors.  And the shift begins now (or yesterday.)