A Church for Starving Artists

I asked this question over the weekend:

Is there a way to keep congregations from congratulating themselves for their assorted Mission Projects – especially in the holiday season – when the giving is sometimes (often?) for themselves?

Several years ago, I delivered the gloves, socks, and mittens to our local shelter which had adorned our “Giving Tree” in the church parlor.  People had bedecked the tree with cute pink acrylic gloves and packages of Costco socks.  Not many fleece-lined men’s sizes really, but lots of children’s items.  When I got to the shelter and was guided to the Donations Room, I saw that it was already full.  “Yeah, the donations have far outpaced our need,” the volunteer shared.  “Most of these items were given last year. Too many people buy cheap, child-sized gloves and  socks without realizing that most of our residents are large adult men who need heavy-duty socks and gloves.”

Why don’t donors know this?  Because we haven’t asked.  We like to leap in to help without understanding exactly what is needed.

Several Advents ago, we decided to collect gift cards for those in need rather than buy them presents.  You know the usual drill:  notes on trees or bulletin boards say something like, “8 Year Old Girl.  Size Medium.  Likes Dolls.”  And then someone collects all the presents for The Needy Family and delivers them.  The problem with this begins with humiliation and ends with gifts that don’t fit the recipient – and not only in terms of  sizing.  Imagine that you are a parent that aches over the fact that you can’t afford to replace your child’s too-small shoes, and then strangers come in and Help You.  Yes, your daughter likes dolls, but she likes fashion dolls, not baby dolls – which is what has  been lovingly bought and wrapped for her because a kind church person imagined the dolls she might have liked long ago.

But this is not about what the kind church person wants.  This is about the people who have less than what they need.  This is not about congratulating ourselves on finding a deal on a woman’s sweater for A Needy Person that might not fit that woman’s body or style.

Yes, even homeless people get to have style.  Those who are struggling financially get to have dignity.

Sharing gift cards allows struggling parents to choose their own children’s gifts.  They know what their kids want and need. And then they get to bring those gifts home – whether home is a shelter, a small apartment, or a car.  (Note:  It’s important to use our brains when we give gift cards.  Chain restaurant gift cards might be appreciated.  A person living in a car would probably appreciate gas station cards.  Target and Grocery Store gift cards are always good.  Wii and Blockbuster cards are probably not so helpful if you live on the street.)

This article says more about wanting to help people but not understanding how to do it well.
“Gift cards are impersonal!” we say, but most of us have impersonal relationships with The Needy.  We don’t personally know them, so why pretend we do?  Or better still:  Have a personal relationship with a poor person. Truly be friends.  Walk alongside them.  Make their poverty your own.  This would be the genuinely God-like way to spend Christmas.   It’s what God did.

Thanks to BSE for this image and to the B52s for putting a tune in our heads.

I haven’t written a blog post in over a week – except for the ones in my head – because the days have been long and when I get home at night I honestly want to curl up with a glass of wine and watch Revenge.  There, I said it.

 At the risk of regurgitating Every Big Idea that’s run through my mind, here are some of my Questions of the Week:

• What happens when a pastor no longer believes in God?  Or what if he/she believes in God but theology has become so mysterious that articulating clear doctrines of faith seems almost idolatrous?
• What happens when dying churches refuse to let go?  Do you just come in and shout, “Enough!”
• How can we get churches to stop having Stewardship Campaigns and start talking about faith and money?
• What do we do for older pastors who still have mortgages and can’t retire?
• Is there a way to keep congregations from congratulating themselves for their assorted Mission Projects – especially in the holiday season – when the giving is sometimes (often?) for themselves?

 These are some of the questions I ask after some busy days in one middle judicatory of the institutional church.

Note:  All of us serving in professional ministry will leave our current call – either by our own death, the death of the church, firing, or moving to a new call.  It’s good to prepare for this.

I’m a fan of Exit Interviews.  It’s essential – and fun – to reflect on what worked, what didn’t work, what mistakes were made. 

I never had an exit interview after 22 years in the church I loved,  but it wasn’t because we didn’t try.  The schedules were tight and then I moved to Illinois.  That’s just how it went.

I was part of the exit interview this past week for a wise and accomplished pastor in the PCUSA.  We talked about what worked, what didn’t work, and what mistakes were made.  We pondered his and the congregation’s future.  We remembered that – in his first years following a long-term pastor – it’s wasn’t easy.  And it won’t be easy for the pastor that follows him.

And then we asked him to sign a covenent saying – among other things – that

• he would not officiate at wedding, funerals, and baptisms after his retirement
• he would not offer pastoral care to the congregation after his retirement
• he would maintain friendships but not engage in conversations that involve congregational matters after he retires.

It was not easy for him to sign this covenant.  In fact, he seemed a little miffed.

It’s come to this:  that we have to sign agreements NOT to serve our former congregations.  This particular pastor admitted that it would rip him up inside to know that a former parishioner had died, was suffering, enjoyed a divine victory and he would not be able to respond.

I totally get this.

The spouse of one of my former parishioners died suddenly this week and I am a bit of a wreck.  The church is in very good hands.  The grieving family is in very good hands.  But it rips me up inside not to be able to comfort the widow and her children.  I baptized one of their kids.  The other was in confirmation with my own children.  It’s not easy, but it’s the right thing to do in terms of that congregation learning how to love and follow a new leader.

I feel for the retired pastor whose spouse and children have not retired.  I feel for the pastor who – after 20+ years in a community – retires and suddenly has no faith community.  I feel for the congregation that still feels connected to their last pastor. 

In a healthy church, everybody is a grownup and relationships remain unimpaired.  But it’s important to maintain good boundaries, and especially to remember that the church is not about the pastor.  It’s about Jesus.

And so we feel sorrow and we grieve former relationships.  But – after new relationships have been nurtured and solidified – old friends can once again share good memories of a ministry that brought goodness and growth.  At least, this is my hope.

When I was a child, our church building was My Third Place after home and school.  I was in that building every Sunday morning for about three hours and again in the evening for youth group or confirmation.  In the summers I was there for camp and Vacation Bible School.  I loved the playground.  I loved the front yard.  Eventually my wedding pictures were taken there.

These days, living in a new time zone, I’m still in search of my Third Place – the place where I’ll spend most of my time after home and the office.  I really miss not having that familiar hangout where people know my name and I can sit and stare into space or write or have casual conversations.  I miss Busboys.  I miss the staff of the Shirlington Caribou.  I miss my secret Starbucks hideout in Georgetown.  I will find my Third Place; I just haven’t found it yet.

Sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined the term “Third Place” in his book The Great Good Place: Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community.  While there are still communities in the United States where a church building is still the Third Place for the majority of the townspeople, others find more community in neighborhood barber shops or cozy breweries or local gyms. 

We who love the church and grew up in the church must remember that, increasingly, we are the minority.  Many people not only did not grow up in a church, but it would not occur to them to walk through sanctuary doors in search of community.  Many of us church people are in denial about this. 

I always marvel at the outdoor banners that churches post to advertise their carol sings and chili dinners, hoping that strangers will join them.  At least in the congregation I once served, it was rare –  if ever – that a stranger joined us unless he/she was the guest of a member.  Most people walking from the bus stop to the Starbucks down the block would never consider coming inside to check out what was going on in our church building.  And it wasn’t because we didn’t try.  It’s just that a church building  is not the first place some of our brothers and sisters would expect authentic fellowship.

For a long time now, my heart has yearned for those people who are Not Yet With Us.   I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about them.  They are spiritual souls in search of peace and redemption and purpose.  But they are in coffee shops, soccer fields, or shopping malls on Sunday mornings.  And so – like Jesus – we go to them. 

One of the considerations for the 21st Century Church – like the First Century Church – is that we must be missional  – out in the world in those Third Places.  Or maybe we can create Third Places that are new gathering places for the church.  Many of our newest seminary graduates are ready to serve in these venues, and I – for one – long for th0se venues too.

Jesus was a counterintuitive genius: 

• The last will be first and the first will be last.
• Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.
• Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
• On the sabbath his disciples were hungry and they plucked heads of grain to eat.
• Jesus stretched out his hand and touched the leper.

We, on the other hand, are somewhat addicted to the habitual, the sensible, the standard operating procedure.  This is why we continue to staff governing boards with Church Pillars and plan the same events every season.  While – in this season – typical congregations will hang the greens and Christmas carol and organize children’s pageants, some counterintuitive congregations will forgo the usual worship service on Sunday, December 25th and ask people to stay home with their loved ones praying with personalized home liturgies.  Others will suggest that – instead of gathering for Christmas Eve in the sanctuary – they gather in livingrooms with non-Christian neighbors for prayer and singing.

My New Year’s Resolution (it’s never too early): To cultivate a culture of counterintuitiveness in the church. 

The Presbytery I serve owes a scary amount of money.  THE DEBT.  I heard about THE DEBT prior to moving here and I’ve noticed that many people see everything that happens in the church through the lens of THE DEBT. 

I’m done with this – after only 3 months on the job.  Yes, there is debt but has anybody noticed WHY we have debt?  This particular Presbytery chose to Do The Right Thing some years ago, which involved taking on a debt for the redemptive purposes.  It was a matter of justice and holiness.  It was an effort made to heal what was broken.  Debt was accepted for the sake of the weak and hurt.  And we probably would have taken on even more debt if anybody thought it might help.

Here’s another counterintuitive idea:  I would love to see the angriest pastor on “the right” and the angriest pastor on “the left” covenant with each other to hang out once a week in 2011 to pray for each other, to hear about each others’ pets and hobbies and loved ones. 

Here’s another counterintuitive idea:  Sell your church building – especially if it’s a drain on your financial resources.  Meet in a comfortable Third Place (more about Third Place Ministry tomorrow) and set up a church incubator space for multiple church staffs and other non-profits to use through the week for screen time, study, conversation.

Other counterintuitive ideas?

Continue reading →

Tomorrow morning, I set out to drive over several rivers (Calumet, Kankakee, St. Joseph, Ohio, Allegheny, Monongahela, Potomac) and through many woods to spend Thanksgiving in Virginia.  I’m bringing five pies and a sweet potato casserole (for Thursday) plus two containers of frozen soup, a spinach lasagna, and pumpkin-walnut muffins (for before Thursday.)  Can’t wait.

I am enormously thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.  No more fresh posts this week.

Have you ever been in a large meeting – church or secular – and the group is approving an institutional policy and your eyes start to glaze over as you read it?

A person or committee has written it, there is often a first reading, tweaks are made, details are discussed, questions are asked, and then the community finally votes it up or down.  At least this is how it’s supposed to work. 

Often, it actually goes like this:  the policy is written, nobody really reads it a first or a second time, nobody asks questions, people vote without really knowing what they are voting for. 

We might seriously want a Safe Boundaries in the Church Policy or an Administrative Leave Policy, or even a Bringing Our Pets to Work Policy.  But either the details bore us or we basically trust that what’s in there is good stuff.

And then, perhaps, we are surprised about the repercussions down the road.  Because we didn’t really know what we were saying “yes” to. 

I don’t think this happened last Saturday.

On November 19, an institution near to my heart approved a policy that Changes Everything – at least in terms of ecclesiology – in our particular midst.

The Presbytery of Chicago said “yes” to the new Policy Guidelines for Worshipping Fellowships, Pre-NCD Worshipping Fellowships, ad New Congregation Developments.  (I’ll include a link when the approved version is available digitally.)  It’s 16+ page permission-giving document which  acknowledges that traditional membership doesn’t work for all new communities, that some congregations are born organically, and that the leader might be called something other than pastor.  He/she might be called an evangelist, a convener, a mission worker.  It’s not that there are no rules about starting new churches.  It’s just that the rules are flexible enough to work in a 21st Century culture.

I’m so thankful.

A colleague was telling me that – since their sanctuary exchanged their wooden pews for moveable chairs –  there’s more moving around in worship.  It’s almost as if people felt invisibly chained to the straight-backed, sturdy benches of a traditional worship space.  Maybe we are thinking that because the pews are immovable, we are too.

A well-know Emerging Church leader tells the story of talking with a church lady about the possibly of moving the pews in her church sanctuary and she said, “Unfortunately, the pews can’t move.”  He immediately took a screwdriver out of his pocket, unscrewed the pew from the floor, and said, “Sure they can.”

Some people worship sitting on pews.  Others worship sitting in chairs.  And still others worship sitting on sofas.  (We can also worship walking around, bending over a child or a garden, lying beside a loved one but that’s for a different post.)

I’m convinced that one of the most soul-sucking misconceptions of the formerly mainline church in the U.S. is the notion that there is only one way to worship.  For example, I filled in one Christmas Eve for a church whose pastor was away and – as I officiated over communion – the communion servers looked terrified.  Their backs were to the congregation during The Words of Institution and so I could see their pained facial expressions.  After worship, I asked if they were okay, and they told me that they’d been afraid I would be angry with them for not standing where they usual stood for communion in that sanctuary.  They had accomodated me and where I was standing, which was not where their pastor always stood for communion. 

I was the one unfamiliar with their customs.  I was the one “standing in the wrong place.”  I was the one who was a guest for Christmas Eve.  But they were afraid I would be angry – as if there was one and only one way to do communion.

How in the world did we get this way?  Is it really more worshipful to sit in rows, facing forward staring at the backs of people’s heads,  and not moving until the final “Amen”?  In other (growing) churches throughout the world, people come and go during worship, folks move around.  They might even dance.  Our issues involve more than being the infamous “frozen chosen.”  We have a way of being the worshipping church that shuts down spontaneity – even if that spontaneity involves getting up to check on a crying child or getting a cup of water. 

As a person who grew up sitting in church pews and rather enjoying it, we need to remember that the first gathering places for followers of Jesus had no pews.  It will be interesting to see how long it takes for us to evolve away from them for good.

Most institutional churches have policies about how much a pastor can be in relationship with former parishioners.  In my new job, I’ve seen several of these policies.  They range from “the former pastor can send a Christmas card” (and that’s about it) to “the former pastor can worship in his/her former church with the permission of the current pastor.”

I’ve known relationships between former pastors and parishes being very connected and healthy.  And I’ve witnessed former pastors sabotaging the ministry of the current church leader.

Facebook has altered the issue of maintaining friendships after a pastor moves along or retires.  Do we de-friend all our FB friends when we leave?  Or do we continue to be friends who refrain from talking about the particulars of the congregation. 

Appropriate:  Pictures of the kids, Shared news stories, Weather, Life milestones

Not appropriate:  Sermon critiques, Church gossip, Pastoral care, Promises to come back even years later to officiate at weddings and funerals.

So, here are my questions:

– Is it okay to be friends with church members who left the congregation even before I left (i.e. people who moved to the Midwest years before  I left with whom I’ve remained friends.)?  I’d say yes.

– Is it okay to wish former members Happy Birthday on Facebook?  I think so.

– Is it okay – when a parishioner asks me to come back to baptize their baby – to say, ‘I’d love to, but we have to ask the new pastor.’?   Nope.  This forces the new pastor either to be a bad guy or to rubber stamp what’s been decided.

– Is it okay to drop in for worship unannounced, ask if I could co-lead worship the Sunday I’ll be back for the holidays, make pastoral care phone calls, or ask parishioners to share church gossip with me?  Never, never, never, and never.

The bottom line in terms of these relationships seems to be:  what’s best for the congregation.  It’s not about me and what I want. 

What’s tricky is the pastor’s family.  My kids have grown up in one church.  They have friends and mentors there.  Should they not get to stay in touch with those friends?  Should they stop worshipping with that congregation even though they still live in the neighborhood? 

I’ve watched pastors’ wives sit on the third pew with their arms crossed and their faces pained.  I knew one spouse who sat on the Nominating Committee to choose her husband’s successor.  It’s a weird dynamic.  Why should she leave “her church” filled with all her friends?  Maybe she shouldn’t.  Or maybe she really should. 

All these scenarios and possibilities require healthy pastors who don’t make it about them.  The bottom line:  Are we most concerned with nourishing and building up the reign of God?   Or are we most concerned with maintaining our personal power or need for attention?

What’s your wisdom on this?