A Church for Starving Artists

A few years ago, I was getting a physical when my doctor asked about one of her other patients – who also happened to be one of my parishioners.

Me:  (Lying on an examination table)

Doc:  How is N getting along?  Does she get out much after her surgery these days?

Me:  She’s okay.  (Thinking:  Really?  We’re talking about N?)

Maybe it was because my doctor was considering the two of us on the same team of N’s professional health care providers.  She handled physical health and I handled spiritual health.  Or maybe she simply had serious boundary issues.

I observe broken boundaries every day.  And honestly, I struggle with figuring out boundaries myself.  We make choices about boundaries all the time.

• Is your dentist also your parishioner?
• Is your spouse also your parishioner?
• Does your spiritual community include your lawyer?  Your plumber?  Your daughter’s French teacher?
• What should be the boundaries of a former pastor who has retired in the church neighborhood and has grandchildren in the Christmas pageant?
• What if a retired pastor’s spouse wants to stay in the congregation where her long-time friends are?

After leaving my first congregation in NY – where I served for five years fresh out of seminary – that congregation never saw me again.  That sounds really harsh, doesn’t it?  But it’s true.  I sent Christmas cards to a several people who also sent cards to me.  One parishioner occasionally visited us when she was traveling through to Florida at our new home in Virginia.

But this feels wrong.  I was told that when a pastor leaves, she leaves.  The same is true now that I’ve left my second church as well.  But what about genuine friendships?  What about the community my children have left behind?  And what about supporting the new pastor and letting him/her bond with the congregation without my interference?

I hear retired pastors talk about their former churches and it’s clear that they miss that life.  The preaching and teaching and officiating the sacraments.  I miss this too, even though I’m not retired from parish ministry.  I’ve just traded one church for 98.  It’s different, obviously, but I still get to enjoy a glimpse of life as a parish pastor.  But at what point – if ever – can I connect with old friends who are former parishioners again?  Maybe never?  What’s healthiest for the church?

As church culture continues to shift, along with the expansion of our digital culture, figuring out healthy boundaries will be an ongoing adventure.  Any wisdom from your experiences?

Image is Highways and Byways by Paul Klee (1929)

The movie Skyfall includes a reference to a Priest Hole.

I’d never heard of a Priest Hole (unless we’re talking about the mouth of a long-winded preacher) and so I looked it up after we got home.  Apparently during Reformation England when Roman Catholic priests were being hunted down and killed, secret rooms were built behind fireplaces and under floor boards to hide them from Protestant enforcers sent by Queen Elizabeth I.  Nicholas Owen was martyred and later canonized for designing many of these secret spaces.

Who doesn’t need a priest hole sometimes?

My work involves staffing the commission that shepherds seminarians into professional ministry, and we were talking yesterday about essential tips for new clergy.  Some tell new pastors to get a dog so you have an excuse to go home (to walk the dog) after a long meeting.  Some say that it’s essential to get exercise in the middle of the day to process the  unrelenting shifts from sacred (caring for people with intense emotional/spiritual issues) to banal (organizing the worship bulletin, picking Advent hymns.)  Some insist that – if you can possibly afford it – hire someone to clean your house so that you don’t have to dust and vacuum on your one day off.

What all these things have in common is escape.  Sometimes we need to escape, to hide, to protect ourselves.  Pondering this phenomenon, I wonder if the need to escape is only true for pastors and priests serving traditional institutional churches.

I have bi-vocational clergy friends who escape the vicissitudes of professional ministry by doing their other jobs: working construction or teaching piano or serving coffee.  And what about other kinds of professionals?  Teachers and health care workers and police officers and bankers?  Don’t they also need an escape?  Or do we clergy types believe our work is more stressful, more demanding, more draining?

Maybe we all need a priest hole where we can pray and celebrate whatever liturgy feeds our souls.  I suppose my priest hole is a coffee shop or my sofa when the house is empty.  What’s yours?

The image is a drawing of Saint Nicholas Owen at work designing a priest hole behind a fireplace.

I was sick for a couple weeks in October and it turned out fine.  Just a bad cold and a test for whooping cough (it was negative), but – while most people were patient and willing to step in to help – a couple of people became a little ticked off.  My illness inconvenienced people.  It slowed down a few projects and placed others on back burners.  I’m grateful that all is well and caught up now.

In my late 40s I was diagnosed with a rare gynecological cancer that involved surgery and twelve weeks of recovery, which was tricky because 1) I didn’t really want to share the details of my lady parts with parishioners and 2) some people were Not Happy With Me for being sick.  It meant I missed meetings and other church events, and  – essentially – couldn’t take care of their needs.

There are some well-known accounts of pastors dealing with illness:  Craig Barnes was treated for cancer when he first became Head of Staff at National Presbyterian Church, documented in his book When God Interrupts.    Some of us know pastors who have struggled with both temporary and terminal illness.  Like health professionals, pastors and priests are often terrible patients.  We like to be in control.  We like to be the helpers, if not the saviors (although, of course, we already have a Savior.)

A couple friends who have experienced being The Sick Pastor have shared tips to help their congregations minister to them.  It’s quite possible that these tips could be helpful for anyone who wants to care for friends struggling with illness:

• Give your pastor permission to be sick.  Let her take it easy.  Encourage him to follow up on all the therapy appointments.
• Offer to bring meals, pick up laundry, run errands, but also understand if he/she occasionally declines.  It’s overwhelming when a whole congregation tries to help.  Maybe one person could be the lead organizer and set up a schedule for everyone.
• When dropping off meals, make it quick.  Don’t use the opportunity to get a pastoral care appointment in while delivering your casserole.  In other words, don’t make this about you.
• Please don’t give advice on “a new doctor you’ve heard about” or “a new treatment you read about” unless specifically asked.
• Remember that pastors also have spiritual needs.

Sometimes the pastor doesn’t get well and sometimes he/she does.  It’s especially traumatic when a person who is called to preach has an illness that takes away the ability to speak, when a pastor who reads or listens to prepare for teaching becomes blind or deaf.  Be gentle with pastors dealing with these layers of loss.

Pastors and priests get sick just like everybody else.  And these are good opportunities who remember who we are and whose we are.

This post is dedicated to GFW.

Image source.

I’m thankful.  Praying for peace for all families this Thanksgiving.

Image is from Thanksgiving 2009 in Arlington, VA

An old friend preached a fiery sermon after his wife’s cancer diagnosis – fiery in that he expressed his anger, his fear, his doubts.  It was a powerful message that was met with two basic responses from the congregation:

• Group A –  (aka The Loud Group) “What kind of pastor would tell us he has doubts after everything he’s preached about God?”
• Group B – (aka The Quiet Group) “Finally somebody besides me has doubts.”  “Finally, a pastor who doesn’t preach platitudes.” 

One of the divides in the 21st Century Christian Community involves A) believers who express certainty about their faith and theology and B) believers who freely express their doubts and openly talk about the gritty, earthy side of faith and life.  Peter Rollins speaks to this and I, for one, am grateful for his ministry of speaking the hard truth that we are broken, unknowing, and unknown.  Check out this conversation with him on Living Compass.

Real faith comes with doubts and shaking fists.  For that I’m thankful.

I’ve been on the job as the Interim Associate Executive Presbyter (i.e. Denominational Middle Judicatory Staffer) for exactly 1 year, 2 months, and 24 days.  Maybe this job sounds deadly boring to you, but I kind of love it.   And  this Thanksgiving Week, I’m especially grateful for:

• Churches that defy all odds and do something completely fresh.
• Church members who get that we are called to wear aprons, not bibs.
• Pastors who protect their days off and the members who support them.
• My closest colleagues who make me feel like I can do this.
• The doorbell at the Presbytery office that plays random tunes we apparently cannot control (e.g. Happy Birthday to You, Take Me Out to the Ball Game, Jingle Bells.)  It makes me laugh in the middle of the day when a visitor rings the bell and we randomly hear “My Country Tis of Thee” or “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.“)

I’m also grateful for the losses we endure – church closings, pastors moving on, letting staff go – because those are maybe the only ways we will shift and change. New seasons are good, even if they look absolutely terrifying.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

Image is about what can grow even out of ashes.

Hidden in every new idea are the seeds of its demise.

This is one of the lessons from the book The Evolution of Useful Things by Petroski, and it’s as good a lesson for non-profit organizations as it is for industry:

• It used to be true that plastic bottles were a life-changing shift from glass bottles.  No breakage, etc.  But then the very plastic that was so resilient became an environmental problem.
• It used to be true that the Big Mac clamshell packaging was considered ingenious.  Big Mac stayed in tact.  The grease was absorbed in the polystyrene.  There was a handy side to hold fries.  But this packaging became “an environmental nightmare” by the late 1980s.
• It used to be true that video stores were handy means of renting movies.  Then Netflix mailed movies to your house.  Now we don’t even need the postal service.

The Church is slow at evolving.

• It used to be true that church women’s groups were formed as an outlet to promote the leadership and gifts of women because those women could not serve as official leaders of the church.  But today, most church boards (in congregations that allow the ordination of women) are predominantly female.   Note:  A very nice church lady once came to my office years ago complaining that “all the women leaders” were coming elders now so how was she supposed to get Circle Leaders?
• It used to be true that pews were created to seat worshippers in a way that made sense.  But now I see pastors with screwdrivers lurking around the sanctuary wondering . . .
• It used to be true that Pastors stood in pulpits to preach both for symbolism and acoustics.  But now, some pastors find it more intimate and authentic to step away from the pulpit.

We can expect all the cool things we now laud as new and fresh (screens?) to evolve as well, and we would be wise to let that happen with minimal drama.

It’s okay.  Evolution is good.

Image of the inside of St. Barbara’s Church in Goreme, Cappadocia in Turkey where the priest stood to lead worship in the 11th Century.

One of the regrets after leaving my last call was that I never had an Exit Interview.  It just never happened, probably because schedules simply became too hectic.  And then I was gone, off to live in The Prairie State.

We have lots of opportunities in the world to debrief and dissect.  Doctors have M&M Meetings to chart out new disease outbreaks, and the point is to keep those outbreaks at bay.  Our Presbytery Staff meets for a  Debrief after Assembly meetings to correct missteps and analyze what worked and what didn’t work.  The point is to improve as we go to the next Assembly meeting.  Wise Conference Planners review the evaluations from conference participants and then keep notes to pass along to the next team of planners.

One of the reasons we get stuck in the way we are the church together is because we make the same mistakes – often for decades.  We run the same programs – the Annual Ham Dinner, Vacation Bible School, the Advent Bible Study – each year whether they were successful or not.  I would define “success” this way:

• Community Life is bolstered by spending quality time together, serving together, enjoying each other.
• Spiritual growth results from the community-building and theological study.
• Outreach into the community is positive and obvious.

Why would we continue to keep the same customs each year if they aren’t fruitful?  Or maybe they are fruitful for only a handful of people while the neighbors haven’t even noticed the church is there.

With Thanksgiving around the corner, I remember that my mom used to keep a notebook with years of menus from assorted holiday dinners. In The Notebook, she would write down that year’s menu, who was present at the feast, what people liked and didn’t like, and what she would do differently next year.  And then she did it differently next year.

We can talk about what the church used to look like, what the Next Church will look like.  But until we make concrete changes, nothing much will change.

No pastor accepts a call to professional ministry to get rich.  But, of course,  money pays for life’s necessities and extras, and we need it to live.  

Part of my work involves overseeing the Terms of Call that spell out what congregations agree to pay their pastors in terms of salary and benefits.  I’ve sadly found that it’s rare – if not unheard of – for congregations to be generous with their pastors without some people in the congregation protesting.

First of all, there are very few congregations that could genuinely be called generous to their pastors and other church staffers.  Many small church pastors are paid the minimum required salary and – if there is an annual raise at all – it tends to be only a cost of living adjustment.  Many small churches would like to pay their pastors more, but cannot afford to do so.  Or they don’t think they can.

What I’ve seen and heard:

• Churches hiring a pastor, not because they’ve discerned that he/she has been called by God to lead them, but because he/she is the only one who can live in their manse/rectory which saves the congregation money.
• Churches hiring married co-pastors to share a single position – each working half-time, but bragging openly that they will get more than “two for the price of one.”
• Churches calling very part time pastors (1/2 time, 1/4 time) but expecting them to work full time, and resenting them if they try to set boundaries.
• Churches that refuse to give sabbaticals to their pastors, even after 10, 15, 20 years of ministry.

With all of these situations, some education and interpretation is needed.  In fact, of the marks of a healthy 21st Century Church is the ongoing education of church leaders – beyond the pastor.  The elders, deacons, and support staff all need continuing education.  Some of that education is about what a pastor actually does or should be doing.

• First, everybody needs to remember that successful ministry begins and ends with the Holy Spirit.  Search Committees must pray for their future pastors (it’s fun to realize that this future mystery pastor is walking around somewhere right now), pray for clarity, wisdom, and insight, and recognize that God is guiding the process – or should be.  Just as churches should not be unduly influenced by a potential pastor’s charm and good looks, churches should also not be influenced by the fact that a certain pastor might save them money (by living in the manse, arriving with a personal trust fund, etc.)
• If we call a part-time pastor, we must – especially – respect and encourage limits to the pastor’s time.  A 10 hour/week pastor (barely) has time to write and preach a sermon, plan and lead worship, and moderate a monthly meeting.  No emergency visits.  No teaching classes.  A 25 hour/week pastor can preach, lead worship, teach a Bible study and do hospital calls (if nobody dies and the boiler doesn’t break down.)  But there’s no time for general pastoral care, premarital counseling, training the ushers, etc.  Even at 50 hours/ week a pastor cannot get everything done.  A solid full time pastor – even one that takes a regular day off – works a lot, doing  a broad array of duties from the holy to the banal.
• Because of the nature of pastoral work, we have got to give our pastors a sabbatical.  Three.  Whole.  Months.  Every.  Six.  Years.  (Some congregations offer a sabbatical more often than every six years.)  If you don’t think you can spare your pastor for three months, your church officers are not doing their jobs.  Even the poorest congregation can work something out.  There are grants!  And for those of you say, “I don’t get a sabbatical from my bank/plumbing company/dental practice/auto repair shop.  Why should we pay our pastor for taking a three month long vacation?!”   First of all, maybe you should get a sabbatical from your work.  And secondly, teaching pastors need space for further learning without the distractions of the regular duties of professional ministry.  Those who refuse their pastors a sabbatical clearly have no idea what it means to be a parish pastor and the toll it takes on a person emotionally, physically, and spiritually.  And thirdly, a sabbatical not only refreshes the pastor so that he/she can return to benefit the church, but the congregation has the opportunity to take a sabbatical too, in that they can explore something new for their church.

There are some thoughtful churches out there who offer an extra week of vacation when pastors have family emergencies.  They remember their pastor’s ordination date and the anniversary of their pastor’s arrival.  They give little bonuses for an especially good job in special situations.  They tell their pastor what she/he does well and they love their pastor enough to share constructive criticism.  They partner with their pastors to do the work of ministry, rather than assume that “it’s the pastor’s job” to fill the pews and balance the budget.

The adage “you get what you pay for” is not necessarily true for church staffs.  I know pastors who devote their highest devotion and greatest creativity to their churches and are among the lowest paid pastors in their presbyteries.  But we have got to end the practice of attempting to get a pastor on the cheap.  Believe me, when the pastor is happy and healthy, the congregation is happy and healthy.

Churches tell me they want to grow and they can’t understand why they aren’t growing.  They see themselves as “friendly.”  They are “welcoming.”  They specialize in “hospitality.”

Or do they?  Do we?  There are a lot of good church people out there who are sabotaging our ministry as people who model our lives after Jesus.

For example, try this simple test if real life scenarios:

Situation #1:  A church in a major city is located along the path of a large, long-planned citizen protest against what they consider to be corporate abuse.  The protest is to occur on a Sunday morning just as the church  gathers for worship.  Does the church:

a.  Cancel worship because traffic will prevent the members to get to their church building, and they don’t want protesters coming into their building?

b.  Increase the insurance on their church building in case the protesters are unruly and damage their building as they march by?

c. Serve water bottles and coffee along the parade route, while inviting protesters to come in for prayer, to use the restrooms, to rest in the sanctuary.

Situation #2: During coffee time after worship, a group of middle school boys from the neighborhood shows up asking if they can use the church gym for 30 minutes.  Does the Elder of the Day:

a.  Answer a quick, “No”  adding “And that’s that” ?

b. Remind the boys that they are not welcomed there.  They aren’t even members and neither are their parents.

c.  Offer to chaparone their game for 30 minutes while coffee hour is being cleared up?

Situation #3:  A parishioner is in the hospital for a holiday weekend and the pastor takes communion into his room, to be in solidarity with the congregation which celebrated communion that morning in worship.  The parishioner shares a room with another patient who is lying awake in the next bed.  The pastor offers communion to her parishioner and then asks the other patient if he would like communion as well.

a.  The parishioner explains to the pastor that “We wouldn’t want to embarrass Mr. X by assuming he would want communion.”

b.  The parishioner signals to the pastor that she’s his pastor.  “Please do not disturb him,” the parishioner says to his pastor.  “You’re here for me, right?”

c. The parishioner introduces his roommate to his pastor and invites the roommate to share communion with them, if he wishes.

I would love to tell you that hospitality won out in all these stories, but that wasn’t the case.  I don’t mean to offend the church people I love, but we are all guilty of being unwelcoming, unloving, judgmental souls. And eventually, this will kill the institutional church as we know it.

Every day God presents us with people to include, welcome, and serve.  But more times than not, we miss this completely.  And we wonder why our faith communities are not growing.