A Church for Starving Artists

“This isn’t about sex,” Sen. Claire McCaskill,  but about “crimes of domination and violence.”

I am semi-speechless about the reports of sexual violence against women in our military. And yet, while it might be hard to talk about, it’s not so hard to write about it.  As Senator McCaskill said, it’s not about sex.  Some of the boys are not happy that the girls have joined their ranks.  The same thing happened to clergywomen years ago.

Women were first ordained to professional ministry in my denomination in 1956 and, if you want some crazy stories, talk to a woman who has been ordained for 50 years or more.  I have a friend who is among the Matriarchs of my clergywomen colleagues and she reports that there was never (she said never) a church meeting, a church retreat, or a church conference when a male colleague did not try to make a pass at her, invite her to have a liaison, or crack an inappropriate “joke.”  By the time I was ordained, it didn’t happen every time I went to a church event, but it happened often enough.

It was assumed – among some men – that if we (women) were there, then we (women) were ostensibly available.  It was not about sex.  It was about control and domination.

Those days are (usually) over, but our sisters in the military apparently have to deal with this currently and exponentially – especially considering that their commanding officers might be the offenders.  Military culture – like church culture – is hierarchical.  Reporting a “superior officer” might result in punishment for the accuser.

We have a part to play as regular citizens in this military misconduct mess.  We can share our outrage.  We can talk with our military friends and family members.  But mostly, we can train our sons that women are not objects to be dominated.  Women are not objects to be controlled – even in hierarchical systems.

To our daughters, we can teach them that they are created in God’s image just like the guys.  We are more than our private parts.   We were not created to live in a man’s shadow.

God bless the women who speak up at their own peril.  And may we pay attention to this issue.  We pay their salaries.

Image is The Intervention of the Sabine Women by Jacques-Louis David (1799)

I was aghast – years ago – to learn that one of our Sunday School teachers had ditched the curriculum and was teaching “good manners” to her students: five older elementary students, two of whom were her own children.  Her own children, of course, didn’t need this training but the teacher was certain that the other three did need this version of “Christian Education.”  They were were classless lowlifes, in her estimation,  since they hailed from lower middle class families, had single moms and mixed racial heritages.  She was literally teaching them which fork to use – bringing her own implements from home as teaching tools.

She was quickly relieved of her duties, although she never really got why her efforts “to civilize” those kids was a problem.  Sigh.

What I’ve witnessed over and over again as a Presbytery staffer who worships in a different congregation every Sunday is that we actually do need to teach social skills to both adults and children in our churches.  Not good manners, exactly, but graciousness.

In the almost two years since I’ve been on the job in our Presbytery, I have experienced these moments:

• A person literally yanked my bulletin out of my hands after worship saying, “Time to recycle and get out of here!“
• No one speaking to me, even when I asked questions about upcoming programs.
• No one passing the peace with me.
• No one handing me a bulletin or even sharing a hymnbook when I was trying to follow the worship service without a bulletin.
• Trying to find coffee hour.
• Finally finding the space where coffee hour was being hosted only to find no more coffee.  (I had briefly stopped in the ladies’ room on my way there.)
• Regulars referring to “Peggy” and “George” during prayer concerns as in “Peggy got out of the hospital” and “George is back” as if everybody knows these people and what we are talking about.
• Elders serving coffee to everyone around the table except me (the interloper from Presbytery.)

I have also experienced authentic graciousness:

• People who have taken me to coffee hour themselves.
• Members who have invited me – a stranger in their congregation – out to brunch after worship.
• Ladies who have made a fresh pot of coffee just for me.
• Gentlemen who have shared their umbrellas with me in the parking lot.

We followers of Jesus are in the grace business: offering it, teaching it, sharing it.  Grace could be defined as mercy, charm, or fluidity.

But we are also in the graciousness business: showing compassion, making people comfortable, being kind.  Grace and graciousness are similar words, but they are also different.

Can you honestly say that your congregation – as a whole – is gracious to each other and to guests?  Or does your church fail to look anything like Jesus in the way you treat each other?  And how can we train our people to be more gracious in the image of Christ, especially when we believe good manners has something to do with forks?

Fork by Vietri.

Many of our congregations have renters in their buildings who help them pay the bills.  Some of those congregations are under the impression that the mission of the renters = the mission of the church.  This is not necessary so.

I once served a church who started a computer training program for undereducated adults. They set up their own 501c3 but they were a mission of our church.  They never paid rent.  We were not using them to help support the church.  The church chose to support them because they helped the neighbors in extraordinary ways.

We have countless churches today who rent space to everyone from non-profit offices to Girl Scouts to training classes to other (often immigrant) congregations, and then they claim the mission of those organizations as one of their own mission projects.  The truth is that they have no relationship with those organizations except that they help pay for the utilities or salaries.

Churches that pay for their ministries via renters are dying congregations.  Yes, that’s a sweeping generalization, but I believe it’s true.  It’s one thing to discern a need in the neighborhood and then serve that need by establishing a non-profit.  It’s quite another thing to find renters (even if we call them “partners”) who help pay the mortgage/utlities with whom we have no real relationship much less a partnership.

Mainline congregations have property.  We might not have growing churches, viable ministries, healthy communities, or equipped congregations for a 21st Century mission, but we have real estate.  And often that property has faulty heating and dated plumbing.  The location might or might not be in an enviable location.  But we need help to keep those properties.

What is the future of spiritual communities with large buildings?  Often they are historic spaces.  Sometimes they are merely dated spaces in failing neighborhoods.  Even if there are active congregations still using those spaces, the neighbors often believe that those churches are closed.

Are we willing to let go of those buildings?  Can we acknowledge that we can no longer sustain those spaces?  Is it a mistake to sell the buildings?

I’d love to know what you think?  Does your congregation rent space to other organizations?  And do you know each other?

Image Source.

The wonderful JBL recently mentioned to me the benefits of pastors being Acquainted With Grief.

I have clergy friends who have lost parents at a young age.  They’ve lost children and siblings and best friends and spouses.   If I may be so bold, I believe that the best pastors are those who are indeed acquainted with grief.  We who have lost The Most Important People In Our Lives are not “lucky” but we have access to something powerful and holy.  We have said goodbye to people we didn’t think we could live without.  It continues to be a daily slog.

This is not something we can aspire to have.  But those of us who have experienced the loss of someone  – or several someones –  who have left a tremendous gap, are better pastors for it.  We are automatically in a club no one wants to join.  But it makes us better pastors.

This post is dedicated to my friends who’ve recently been diagnosed with cancer, lost parents to cancer, have children with cancer.  You know who you are.

Image is Depressed Man by Van Gogh.

The Ubiquitous Church Parlor

Our book group just read Brene Brown’s Daring Greatly and  – as I do with everything from Cooking Light magazine to Tillich, I read through the lens of Church World.

Peter Drucker apparently once said, “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”  In other words, we can make all the strategic plans in the world, but if those plans mess with our organization’s culture, the plans will never work . . . unless we change the culture.

We need pastors who know how to change a congregation’s culture – albeit lovingly, pastorally, patiently, firmly.  But it’s essential for a congregation’s future to make such changes as we move into a post-Christian season.  Too few of our pastors know how to do this.

I love Brene Brown’s Ten Questions For Figuring Out An Organization’s Culture – again from Daring Greatly – and I have added common answers to her questions from churches I have known and loved.

Q1:  What behaviors are rewarded?  Punished?  Rewarded: Singing tenor in the choir.  Punished:  Changing the menu for the long-established Annual Global Mission Dinner.

Q2:  Where and how are people actually spending their resources (time, money, attention)?  On soccer fields (for the kids) and golf courses (for the adults).  At the office.  In minivans and SUVs.

Q3:  What rules and expectations are followed, enforced, ignored?  Followed:  Casual Fridays dress code.  Enforced: No smoking.  Ignored:  Coffee cups in the sanctuary.

Q4:  Do people feel safe and supported talking about how they feel and asking for what they need?  If they are under 35.

Q5:  What are the sacred cows?  Who is most likely to tip them?  Who stands the cows back up?  Sacred cow:  The parlor.  Suspected Tipsters:  Members under age 40 with kids.  Cow restorers:  Church Ladies.

Q6:  What stories are legend and what values do they convey?  Remember when the pews were packed?  But now we have the wrong pastor/choir director/organ/elders.

Q7:  What happens when someone fails, disappoints, or makes a mistake?  We sometimes eat them.

Q8:  How is vulnerability (uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure) perceived?  As naive and too Oprah-esque.

Q9: How prevalent are shame and blame and how are they showing up?  It’s the Presbytery’s fault.

Q10: What’s the collective tolerance for discomfort?  Is the discomfort of learning, trying new things, and giving and receiving feedback normalized, or is there a high premium put on comfort (and how does that look)?  Why is The Presbytery/the new pastor/the new music director telling us what to do?  There was nothing wrong with the way we wanted to do it.

Every week of my life I visit congregations full of truly wonderful people who are faithful but fearful.  They fear uncertainty.  They see the world around them changing.  But many of them love God and want to serve in the name of Jesus.  And this is why I stay in the institutional church.

Many of my friends decry the institutional church and all the ridiculousness of it.  But – in spite of all that is ridiculous – I know really great people who want to be the church for a new season.  They just don’t know how.  And it’s scary making the necessary shifts in an uncertain world.  But about these things I am certain:

• There will always be a church.  It just might not look like it has in the last century.
• Denominations will be altered in significant ways.  But even non-denominational churches will have partnerships with other churches.
• Everybody will continue to crave community.  Everybody wants to belong.
• Jesus is Lord.

Do you and/or your pastoral leaders know how to shift the culture?  What would you need to make this shift?

There’s a breed of pastors who have committed to serving churches between “permanent pastors.”  A good interim pastor is like gold. 

Good interim pastors help congregations come to terms with their recent (and sometimes distant) past.  They prepare the way for the next pastor, so that that he/she can hit the ground running, rather than deal with a difficult staff member or gnawing issue.

But today, we need at least a few Interim Pastors who know how to teach 21st Century Church culture to their interim churches.  For example:

• A pastor has just left after 20 years and the church had still been functioning as a 1980s church.  They have never heard of the shifts in church culture.  They are still of the mind that ‘if we build it, they will come.’  They need an interim who will prepare them to call a pastor who can lead them in a post-Christian culture.
• After attempting to jolt a dying church with new energy, the pastor is moving along. Her congregation rejected all ideas to reach out into the neighborhood.  A core group of long-time members rejected the notion that the church will never be as it was in the 1970s.   Now they need an interim who can help them assess their future story:  What’s next for them?  Should they call an established pastor who will look like their former pastors?  Or do they want to try again with another visionary pastor?  Are they at the point when they basically need a chaplain?  The answer to these questions require knowledge of missional church, conversations about Belonging-Behaving-Believing, etc.

We need transitional pastors who can also offer redevelopment consultation – not to do the redevelopment necessarily, but to help a church discern if they really want to make the shifts to keep their ministry going and thriving.

Not every congregation needs this.  Some congregations still need traditional interim pastors who have serious work to do, to be sure.  But there are increasingly congregations who need an interim/consultant who helps them – forgive me for this word – survive. 

Thoughts?

Image Source.

As we prepare to buy a house in our new hometown, the number crunchers tell us that our local property taxes will be approximately the same as our actual mortgage.  Yikes.

HH and I are blessed with two jobs in an economy that guarantees no jobs – especially for a couple of English majors with graduate degrees in something as unmarketable as “Divinity.”  And so – with our two jobs – we can afford to live here and pay our taxes.  And we will do so happily.

Among the comments I’ve heard from helpful acquaintances:

• The taxes are high because the schools are really good.  But you don’t have kids in the schools.  Why would you live there?
• You know your gas taxes are the highest in the country, right? (Actually we are third, behind California and NY.)

All of us pay taxes on things we don’t like (e.g. war.)

All of us pay taxes on things we find helpful (e.g. snow plowing, street lights.)

Tax collectors were hated in First Century Palestine and we are not happy with them in this Century either. And of course nobody likes irresponsible spending and waste.  But what if we considered the paying of our taxes as a spiritual practice?  For the most part, our taxes take care of us and our neighbors.

In today’s political divide, can we who call ourselves followers of Jesus agree that this is one way that we – as a larger community – can care for each other?  I am happy to pay taxes that serve the greater good.  You?

Today is my first Sabbath in a while, in terms of having “nothing” to do.  It is glorious.

Part of the joy of Sabbath involves remembering: 

• Remembering all I’ve been able to do this week and not worrying about what didn’t get done.
• Remembering the week’s funniest stories.  It’s one of the bonuses of my job.
• Remembering where I was this time last Friday and then remembering that God still resurrects people.
• Remembering that God resurrects people even when we don’t get to witness it on this side.

The Message of the Day comes from my colleague DL who has witnessed resurrection first hand.  As people ask him what they can do for him, his response preaches:

1. Pray for A’s recovery.
2. Learn CPR.  There may be a moment in your life when nothing you have ever done is more important than this.
3. Take a dance class.

The Lord of the Dance deserves all of these tributes and more.  Now go enjoy the holiday weekend.

I wrote yesterday about “dancing with the ones who brought us” – my metaphor for moving cooperatively with the church entities that oversee our ministry.  In my case, that middle judicatory is called The Presbytery.

Presbyteries  – in my tradition – support congregations, help them in times of crises, celebrate with them in times of joy.  We grant money for special church projects, assist pastors in financial trouble, offer pastoral support to pastors, and shepherd congregations in pastoral transition.  But sometimes we screw up.

Someone rightfully suggested yesterday that Presbyteries (and Bishops, District Superintendents, etc.) need to be transparent, honest, and supportive – and sometimes we are not.  Part of this is a result of living in a litigious culture.  Examples:

• A pastor is incompetent and needs to go, but he threatens to sue if he is fired.  And we make the mistake of fearing this pastor more than God.
• A church leader is falsely accused of misconduct and – while never formally charged much less found guilty – the Presbytery is so terrified of being sued by somebody that we fail to support this innocent leader.
• A congregation is never told why a pastor has left their church because the pastor has asked that the truth not be told.  The truth is that the pastor is suicidal or addicted or going through an ugly divorce or sick with a brain tumor.  But The Presbytery simply says that “the pastor had to leave” because that pastor has threatened legal action if the truth comes out.  Rumors abound, but we can’t share the truth.

In addition, Presbyteries and other overseeing leaders drop the ball occasionally.  We inadvertently give erroneous information to Pastor Search Committees which slows down their process.  We lose forms.  We abuse our power – such as it is – because we are weak and immature.  We insist on procedures that make no sense.

I am fortunate to work in a healthy church institution – or at least it’s as healthy as any I’ve known – but we still make mistakes.  We forget that relationships are more important that regulations.  We show favoritism.  We are clumsy.

And we will try to do better.

Image of Elaine Benes dancing.

My life’s work is often associated with everything from The Death Star to “The (oppressive) Man.”

So  . . . I was grateful to witness a recent conversation  in which The Presbytery (for you institutional church geeks, that’s the Middle Judicatory of my denomination) was actually credited – not blamed – for something good.  In reviewing a particular church’s history at a church meeting, someone who didn’t know what he was talking about had blamed The Presbytery for the way a previous pastor had been treated.  But a sage of the congregation said that – actually – it was The Presbytery who had helped the elders resolve a difficult situation while respecting the wishes of the pastor.  (He had left his parish abruptly because he was sick with AIDS.  It was the late 1980s.)

I find that it’s easy and common for congregations and individuals in our congregations to blame The Presbytery for everything from why it takes so long to be ordained to why they can’t call the pastor they really want, even if the desired pastor is a (take your pick:) trouble-maker, serial adulterer,  criminal, bully.  Trust is at a new low, and yet, I’d like to share some of “the secrets” of the Presbytery (and why we are considered mean/out-of-touch/untrustworthy.)

• The Presbytery won’t let a church begin the process to call a new pastor.  Perceived reason why:  We “want their building.”  We “can make money off of them by putting condos on their land.” We don’t care about them.  We want their church to die. Real reason why:  They don’t have enough money to pay their utility bills much less pay for a pastor.  Or They have serious issues that need to be resolved before bringing a new pastor in.
• The Presbytery is asking a candidate for ordination to slow down his/her ordination process. Perceived reason why:  They were essentially hazed during their own processes, so now they are hazing me.  They are bullies.  They are inferior pastors/elders themselves misusing their power to control my life.  They are nit-pickers.  Real reasons why:  You turned your papers in late/with numerous typos/after obviously writing them on a bus on the way to the meeting.  You act like you are unteachable and all pastors must be life-long learners. You have issues after your family of origin died in a fiery crash and you have avoided counseling.  You roll your eyes at us when we ask honest questions about theology.  You act defensive as if we are challenging your theology when we are actually making sure you can articulate what you believe clearly – because some day a ten year old might ask you what The Trinity is all about.
• The Presbytery won’t give money to help us.  Perceived reasons why: Because you are a conservative congregation/a liberal congregation/a small congregation/ a rural congregation/ an urban congregation.  Because The Presbytery pays big bucks to support their staff.  Real reasons why:  Several of our partner churches give zero money to shared mission giving and so we don’t have the funds to help you as we would like.  It’s up to churches to at least try to raise most of the money for their own mission and building projects.  You want to use the money to install a new church sign and a new sign won’t change the culture of your congregation – which is what’s really needed.

I could go on and on, but the bottom line is that some of our churches and church leaders refuse to dance with the ones who brought them along.  When a suspicious elder recently asked me, “What are your intentions for our church?” I said, “We want you to make disciples of every person in this neighborhood.  We want you to thrive and grow and help broken people.  We want you to be a haven of hope in this community.”

We also want:

• The best trained, healthiest pastors on the planet.
• The best equipped disciples possible, so that God’s kingdom would come on earth as it is in heaven.
• Lively, thriving, faithfully mature congregations that bless the city and beyond.

Sometimes this is not what our congregations and leaders seem to want in their heart of hearts.

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