A Church for Starving Artists

It used to be true that the pastor was the best educated person in town. We Presbyterians were all about that – historically – and our educational requirements for ordination reflected the desire to academically prepare pastors well. We were known for exegeting scripture, understanding church history, and teaching theology. One of us signed the Declaration of Independence. Another founded Princeton.

I remember one of my childhood pastors telling me – after I myself became a pastor – how hard it was to serve my home church in Chapel Hill, NC – a university town. Yes, the pastors were always very bright. But so were the parishioners. “An elder might be the head of the botany department and he assumed that he was an authority on everything,” I was told. These kinds of elders were sometimes a pain in the neck to work alongside, I was told.

But what if we – as pastors – appreciated the experts among us? Imagine if we turned to the construction workers, the bankers, the chefs, the librarians in our congregations, and then we partnered with them to serve our people and others. What it we pastors acknowledged that we cannot possibly do it all or know it all? What if we considered our parishioners to be colleagues in ministry. Imagine.

When I was a parish pastor, working with a computer science wizard, he often identified me to others as his boss. And then I would add that he was also my boss. He added immeasurably to the ministry happening in our congregation.

About once a month, we would have a tech day when he would share with me all the cool things he’d learned in the past month about social media or office machinery. And I might teach him how to do a Hebrew word study online.

This is the future of ministry. We are all in this together. The bakers in our community have much to contribute to the community. The barristas, the lawyers, the pediatricians, the anthropology professors, the middle school Spanish teachers – all have a ministry in the realm of God.

Here’s a special word to the small church pastors who Do Everything: Stop it. There are people in your congregation who can school you on all kinds of things. Let that happen.

The 21st Century Church realizes that we are connectional in terms of sharing gifts as well as nurturing relationships. And . . . the pastor can’t be the smartest person in the room.

Warholized image of William Tennant, Presbyterian Pastor and one of the founders of Princeton University.

It’s a naive person who believes that working in a church is all fluffy clouds and puppies.  I once worked with a church secretary who left “a stressful job” to work in our church office, imagining it would be all-peace-all-the-time.

She imagined wrong.

One of the phenomena of working in an institutional church is that some people believe they can be utterly crankitudinous human beings  – or worse – and everyone else believes we have to put up with it in the name of holy peacekeeping.

Occasionally pastors are the target of gossip, misinformation, and slander.  People yell at us or leave nasty notes.  I once had a hymnal thrown at me after an Ash Wednesday service.

But we pastors must be grown ups.

I’m not saying that pastors have to be doormats.  But we are charged with being spiritual leaders and training others to be spiritual leaders.  We are the last people who get to be @*#0!%s in our churches.  Even if we don’t like our people, we are expected to love them.  It’s not easy.

A friendly reminder to my pastor friends dealing mean people this week.

An article about a  ten year old lecture by Walter Brueggemann has gone semi-viral this week and it’s worth a second . . . and even a twentieth look.

We are pegged early and often as individuals with certain characteristics (clumsy, funny, shy, loud, cheap, ‘the smart one,’ ‘the screw up’) and it’s tough to shake the scripts.  Churches also live by narratives that we’ve told themselves or that others have passed down through the years.  Most of those scripts are either negative or false:

“We’ve never had any money.”

“Everybody wears mink.”  (Seriously, I heard this one recently.)

“We are a neighborhood church.”

“We do so much mission work!”

After a day-long gathering of the Commission on Preparation for Ministry yesterday – which, for you non-Presbyterians out there, is the group that oversees those in the process of becoming  professional ministers – it occurs to me that scripts play a huge role in both those who are discerning their life’s calling and those of us who serve as gatekeepers/cheerleaders in that process.  Often the scripts feed off each other:

Seminarian: “I have always been good with people.”  + CPM: “You need to work on your bedside manner” = Seminarian: “CPM is making me jump through unnecessary hoops.”

See what I mean?

It could also go like this:

Seminarian:  “I’m not a good public speaker.” + CPM:  “You have become a really good preacher.” = Seminarian:  “Whoa, maybe God really has called me to do this.”

Our hope is that the latter is the more prevalent script, but sadly that’s not how it goes.  And then the script/gossip is perpetuated:  “The CPM process is basically ecclesiastical hazing.”

How are scripts changed?

Both for individuals and for institutions, it requires authentic and compassionate analysis which is not always easy (e.g. “I really am kind of a jerk.”)  And yet, the cool thing about God and redemption and all that is the possibility that things can change.  This is my hope.

I don’t understand how cool phone apps work, especially the ones that can locate wall studs behind sheet rock and turn off the stove. But I know how cool churches work.

By cool churches, I’m not talking about screens and drums and coffee shops. I’m talking about churches that make a difference in the context in which they live:

– the churches that escort kids from school to the after school program in their building’s basement in a dangerous neighborhood

– the churches that welcome the homeless for breakfast every morning

– the churches that offer free legal clinics for the poor a couple morning’s a week

– the churches that host elder day care for local residents.

Imagine if, for every spiritual, social, physical, and emotional issue there was a church for that. So many of our congregations have lost our purpose and we can’t remember why we exist. Too few of our churches have a clear grasp of what breaks God’s heart in our communities. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

If we are willing, we can be this church- or at least something a little closer to it.

As a young twenty-something single pastor, I was asked to head up the Singles Ministry in the Presbytery because . . . I was single.  Was I interested in Singles Ministry?  Not particularly.  But “being one,” I must know “what they like.”

I honestly count on gay friends to be my go-to people for gay-centric questions.  I ask Muslim friends fundamental questions about Islam as if they all believe the same thing.

Here’s the problem:  expecting individual people to be the voice of their generation, race, orientation, etc. presumes there is actually a single perspective/culture for each.

While enjoying my All Church All The Time Lifestyle, I recently asked twenty-something TBC her perspective on what it would take to shift the church in such a way that Millennials would find meaningful community.  She recoiled at the question.

“I can only speak for myself, really,” she wisely responded.

I have heard and read for years that Millennials, for example, are entitled and uncommitted, but – frankly – the Millennials I know are hardworking and willing to make sacrifices to reach their goals.  It also bugs me when people of a certain generation/gender/orientation/race/religion speak for their own demographic as if they have cornered the market on the characteristics and aspirations of everyone in their cohort, whether they are real or fictional characters.

The answer to connecting with each other seems to be more about authenticity (being who we really happen to be while allowing others to be who they really happen to be) than about creating programs  “that singles will like” or planting a church “that GBLTQ people will like” or  reaching out to “young families” by making assumptions about what “they all want.”

What if we honestly connected with people by asking them about their lives, their stories, their fears?  Before we started programs, before we planted churches, before we redeveloped establish churches, what if we simply connected with people we already know and people we meet in our daily living?  What if we stopped making assumptions about each other based on age, race, religion, etc. and simply connected as individuals?

Fun exercise: read through the Gospels and list all the demographics that Jesus encountered.

If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill’, and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?  (James 2:15-16)

They’re calling Chicago Chiberia and Antarcditka as I write this, with record-breaking temperatures out here:  15 below zero, not counting wind chill yesterday.

What makes me happy and cozy (snow outside, warmth inside) means stress and humiliation for others (no heat + burst water pipes + power outages = moving everyone to a warming center) not to mention what it means for people are not paid on “snow days” when their offices and businesses are closed.

I’m struck by the fact that 100% of the PADS sites*  in my South Suburban Chicago area are church buildings.  This means that Every Night of the Week, houses of worship are open to welcome homeless men, women, and children for meals and a safe, warm place to sleep.  Some of these church buildings have laundry rooms and showers.

This, my friends, is why churches have buildings.  They are tools for ministry.

While many castigate the efficacy of Institutional Church and/or Mainline Denominations, the congregations that offer their space in our area include two Evangelical Lutheran congregations, three Community Churches, two Presbyterian Church (USA) congregations, a Mennonite congregation, an Episcopal congregation, five Roman Catholic congregations, and a United Methodist congregation.   Those who stay overnight are considered and treated as favored guests.

Imagine a world in which everyone who – not only steps foot in a church space but encounters a follower of Jesus (thus creating Church Space)  – experiences “warming.”  Physical bodies are warmed  – but also spirits are warmed, cold hearts experience a little heat, compassion is ignited, a fire is lit under the indifferent.

Imagine the church being a warming center beyond setting up coffee pots and cots.  Sweet.

*PADS = Public Action to Deliver is a shelter program

Image source here.  Interesting story.

As I prepared to preach about the magi yesterday, I found a little bottle of frankincense and myrrh in my robe pocket, left there since Epiphany 2013.  It smells heavenly.

Reza Aslan reminds us that the priests in the Temple slit the throats of animals while sweet-smelling incense smoldered, in hopes of masking the stench.  In the background common men could catch the whiff of  roasting lamb that the priests would enjoy later, on God’s behalf.

I get the sense that God not only likes sweet smells but I imagine that God  – being God – also smells quite good.  The sour smell of death is beyond God.  The stink of rot is beneath God.

One person’s hardwood mulch is another’s Chanel No. 5. What smells wonderful to a carpenter perhaps smells musty to a ballerina.

But there is something holy about certain smells that still have the power to take us someplace lofty and lovely:  angel food cake takes me to Grandmother Ethel’s kitchen, a new can of Play-Doh takes me to our children’s preschool years, sawdust takes me to the NC State Fair.

I believe in a God who smells good.  Like frankincense and myrrh.  Like baby’s skin.  Like freshly cut grass.   But God has entered a world that often stinks.  And our job is to enter that stinky world too:

“For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.”   2 Corinthians 2:15

Happy Epiphany.

Future Gifts are my new favorite thing:

• Tickets to an event that’s not happening for several months.
• 75% off Christmas items for next year.

I’m telling the story again tomorrow about the silver-plated tray I got for Christmas when I was eight years old from one of my cousins (i.e. his mother my Aunt Frances) when we Edmiston cousins drew names for Christmas. It was the only silver-plated tray I received that year.

My sermon tomorrow is about the magi’s gifts which were future-oriented much like gifting an 8 year old with a silver-plated tray. Of course I would need that tray in the future for parties not yet imagined.

The incubation period for Jesus’ baby gifts was about 33 years. For me, it took less than twenty to use that special tray. And who – in anybody’s wildest dreams in 1964 – ever thought it would be used by the receiver – not only for fancy parties but also for a sermon?

New Year’s resolutions are future-oriented: the resolution to exercise brings future health, the resolution to practice more financial discipline brings the gift of calm if somebody needs an infusion of cash.

Spiritual disciplines work the same way. We learn scripture that might come in handy while lying on a gurney. We remember a sermon that calms us on a dark night.

How great is it that the gifts of the magi can still be touched and smelled. I wish all our gatherings tomorrow included frankincense burning beside a jar of myrrh and a little pile of gold shavings.

Image source (plus bonus image of silver tray from Aunt Frances.)

PS This is my 500th post on WordPress. Still sad about the 1500 posts I lost on Blogger when the cosmos forced me to re-boot my life in 2011. Nevertheless TBTG.

[Note:  I’m not great at keeping resolutions solo, so my hope is that we – as spiritual communities  – might be able to keep them together.  Holding each other accountable is an essential feature of a healthy church.]

Church is not about us.  It’s not about me.  It’s not about you.  Here is a little self-exam for both clergy and non-clergy alike as we try to change attitudes and church culture in 2014:

1. Now that Advent’s over, there’s a team charged with replacing old church Advent and Christmas decorations.  You donated the star that’s been on top of the tree for as long as anyone can remember.  You are:

A) Quietly upset that people would disrespect your generous donation by getting rid of “your star.”  That star came from your grandmother.

B) Telling anyone who will listen The Story of Your Star and how it came from Macy’s in the 1940s.

C) Unconcerned about the star.  (The truth is that you gave it to the church because you didn’t need it but didn’t want to throw it out.)

2.  The Worship Team wants more participation during Sunday worship.  As the “Worship Coordinator” you feel:

A) Threatened that – apparently – they don’t like how you’ve been leading worship.

B) Dread at the thought of having to work with others on worship every week.  It’s so much easier to do it yourself.  Are those volunteers even professionally trained?

C) Thrilled at the thought of equipping others to read scripture, pray prayers, offer liturgical arts, and preach.  The church will be so much better off after you move on in a few years.

3.  You are the (popular) former Pastor, former Choir Director, former Board Chair, former Youth Director. (Take your pick.)  You’ve retired or moved on, and you are no longer part of the church except in an honorary, historical way.  But when the congregation’s 75th anniversary comes up, you assume you will have an essential role in the celebration.  You:

A) Contact current key leaders informing them, quietly, that you will be happy to take a role in the festivities.

B) Call the current person in your previous position and invite yourself to assist him/her.

C) Attend if you are invited and thank everyone for a lovely time.

I confess that I offer this little quiz selfishly – as if it’s all about me – because when church people remember that it’s not about us, it makes my own job a bit easier.  So I’m sorry about that.

But if we truly love our congregations and want them to thrive so that it looks on earth as it is in heaven, we will let go of our personal preferences, tastes, and need for attention.  Let’s resolve to be ecclesiastically healthier in 2014.

I’m a late bloomer so much of what I “discover” is old news to most people.  Still, here are some choice discoveries that have changed my particular life in 2013:

• Brene Brown.  She is one of my pastors.
• John Green.  How a 36 year old man channels the mind of teenagers is a mystery and a blessing.
• There is a flashlight app for the iPhone.  (Like I said, I’m a late bloomer.)  No more walking home in the dark.
• Fear is genetic.  And yet, we are not slaves to our genes.
• The best pastors are emotionally intelligent human beings.  (Again: duh.)  You can be a brilliant theologian, a savvy entrepreneur, and a poetic speaker and writer. But if you are spiritually immature, smug, and/or excessively needy, professional ministry is probably not going to work out for you.
• Many perfectly excellent pastors are broken by toxic churches.  (I actually knew this years ago, but I’m still shocked about it.)
• Netflix series are 1)awesome and 2) best enjoyed via binge-watching.
• (From the brilliant mind of HH)  Wild Goose is an event.  Camping is an event.  It’s hard to enjoy two events at the same time, which is why HH and I choose to stay here during Wild Goose.  Hope to see you there in 2014.
• Brussel sprouts are not as disgusting as once believed.

Feel free to share your own discoveries.  And have a Happy New Year!