A Church for Starving Artists

[Note: This is my sole post this week as I am participating in a conference of Mid-Council leaders. See you next week.]

Telling the truth is not for the fainthearted. It’s so easy to lie. Lying helps us avoid conflict. Lying keeps us from having to explain things.

Sarah Niles – the actor who plays Dr. Sharon Fieldstone on Ted Lasso – was interviewed by Brene Brown last week and it’s worth a listen here. In both the podcast and in the show, Niles/Fieldstone is all about truthtelling.

The older I get, the more truthtelling factors into my ministry, my parenting, my humanity. Again – it’s so easy to lie.

For example, consider this scenario:

There’s a longtime church member who has presided over The Women’s Group for years and she has never been asked to serve as an Elder of her congregation – for good reasons about which she is unaware. She has always wanted to be an Elder but she has never been nominated and she wants to know why.

The reason is that her personality is harsh and she is not a good listener. She insists on her own way and – if only she had noticed – it’s been hard finding other women willing to work with her in The Women’s Group. She wants to talk with you – the pastor – on why she is never chosen to be an Elder. Your options for answering her might be these:

A) “We are looking for more men to serve as Elders and we are trying to recruit them first.”

B) “You do such a good job with The Women’s Group and we need you there more.”

C) “You have obvious gifts for getting things done, which is essential in many situations. What we are looking for in our Elders include spiritual gifts like listening well and equipping others to be leaders. Those are not your strongest gifts.” (Ouch. But this is the only true answer.)

In a world in which many of us have been taught that “we can do anything” the truth is that we can’t. Not everyone has the gifts to be a spiritual leader. Not everyone has the gifts to be a professional musician. Not everyone has the gifts to work effectively with preschoolers.

It’s okay. But if we’ve grown up to believe that if we can see it, we can be it, the truth hurts. And yet it’s important for us to be in relationships in which someone will tell us the truth – lovingly.

If Dr. Sharon Fieldstone told me something I would believe it. It’s not that she always offers feel good advice. In fact, she never gives feel good advice because that’s not her job. It’s not her job to give advice at all. Instead she says things like:

“That must have been hard” (regarding a painful childhood experience)

“I understand why you’re angry” (regarding an event that would anger any normal human being)

She asks questions that help people sort out their truth. “Are you good at your job?” she inquires of Ted Lasso.

Church people notoriously avoid conflict – which is interesting if we consider Jesus’ story and his interactions with Pharisees and Roman leaders. He spoke the God’s truth to them – literally – and they didn’t like it.

And our congregations suffer because we conflate niceness and goodness. Jesus was good. He was not particularly nice. And when we speak the truth – even in love – many people in our congregations don’t like it. We are being too political.

Speaking the truth is essential for spiritual growth though.

• When I hear that only 20% of the membership makes an annual pledge to support their church financially, there are difficult truths to say out loud about that.

• When I hear leaders share in the parking lot what they were not willing to say around the meeting table, there are difficult truths to say out loud about that.

• When I hear pastors bully their parishioners or parishioners bully their pastors, there are difficult truths to say out loud about that.

Thriving congregations and leaders speak the truth in love because it’s about what God wants and not what we want. It’s about spiritual maturity and authentic relationships. Susan Beaumont, who is leading the conference I’m attending this week, says that “leading with presence” means being “grounded in the true self, embracing a sense of wonder, and open to the leading of the Divine.“

Yes. You too can observe a master of helping people find their true self if you watch Season 2 of Ted Lasso. Or just watch how Jesus did it.

Image of the actor Sarah Niles who plays the role of Dr. Sharon Fieldstone exceedingly well in Ted Lasso. Source.

If you want to talk about Part 2 of Yancey Strickler’s book:

Time: Sep 30, 2021 12:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82510465313…Meeting ID: 825 1046 5313Passcode: 874504

There are probably many people out there who believe I am headed for eternal damnation. But probably most people who know me don’t ponder this one way or another.

I have reached the point that it doesn’t matter to me what (most) people believe about my life – or afterlife. I’m grateful that God continues to reveal things to me that crack open what Jesus has taught us and every day’s a school day when it comes to what we can learn from the historians, prophets, and poets of the Bible. It doesn’t matter if you think my theology is mistaken or my politics are wrong or my lifestyle is a wasteland of caffeine and Apple TV. But if you love me and you “know” I’m going to hell, it hurts.

I think about LGBTQA+ Christians who live with this each day. There are people in their lives – some of whom are in their families of origin or even their chosen families – who believe they are condemned by God. I think of “agitators” who are trying to speak up and speak out about injustices in the world and they are written off as “faithless.” Certainly there are Republican Christians who can’t imagine how a person can be Christian and vote for Democrats. And there are Democratic Christians who can’t imagine how a person can be Christian and vote for Republicans. And there are the Christians who have mental check-lists about other people who call themselves believers, but they don’t follow the check list (so they are probably not really believers.)

Jesus said, “‘Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (The Gospel of Matthew 10:34) Ouch.

There are some with whom we will never be at peace perhaps because they clearly judge us instead of love us for who we are and what God is leading us to be and do. (I can hear the retort now: “God is actually not the one leading you to be a _________ and do _________.)

My dad used to say, “Just love ’em.” Just love ’em when they get on your last nerve. Just love ’em when they ignore you. Just love ’em when they hurt you.

It’s really hard to do when they have condemned you and you happen to want them in your life anyway in hopes they will one day understand. And in the meantime, we pray for the capacity to love honestly and graciously even those who are certain we are spending eternity in fire.

The bottom line is that God is God and we are not.

Image of Mary fighting Satan from The Book of Hours creating in about 1240. (The British Library, London.)

Although we all need electricity, HVAC, and water, they aren’t fun expenses. The same goes for church properties. It’s more fun to know that our financial donations are going to building a hospital in Honduras or sending kids to camp rather than replacing the carpet in the church parlor or increasing the Pastor’s salary . . .

. . . unless we see all our donations as an investment in the future of God’s reign on earth.

At last week’s gathering to talk about Yancey Stricklers book This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World * someone said simply, “investment is a good word.” Yes. It’s a good word and it better expresses why we share our financial offerings with our congregations (and other non-profits.)

We are making an investment in people, in projects, in tools for ministry for the sake of making earth a little more like heaven to the glory of God.

• PEOPLE – We want the best possible people on staff who will equip others to teach, lead, sing, visit, and make community happen. We want them to know we appreciate them, especially during a pandemic.
• PROJECTS – We want to love God and our neighbors as ourselves by feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, serving the poor, sharing what Jesus said. We hope to love as lavishly as God loves us.
• TOOLS – The only reason to have a church building is to use it as a tool for ministry and it needs to be safe, clean, and open. Better to keep our tools in good shape now rather than having to replace them later at a much higher cost.)

Likewise, our Presbytery (the mid-councils in my denomination) invest in congregations so that they can provide effective ministry. We grant funds for churches to buy freezers (so that their food pantry can provide meat and cheese.) We grant funds for churches to start after-school programs (so that neighborhood kids have a safe place to do their homework and play.) We grant funds for churches to upgrade their microphones, screens, and technological capacity (so that they can offer hybrid worship.) Important qualification: we only invest money in congregations who invest in their communities and beyond.

Investment is a good word. As the 2022 budgeting process begins in the coming weeks/months, how does your congregation hope to invest in the future?

*The second and last Yancey Strickler conversation is this Thursday at noon ET. Join us!  https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82510465313?pwd=UDhvVWhQd1dMRmF3U2V3cGFvc1BMQT09

Meeting ID: 825 1046 5313
Passcode: 874504

Maybe we’ll never get over it.

That time a family member betrayed us. That time a business partner cheated us. That time a political leader made the decision to abandon a whole demographic of people. That time The Church disappointed us.

It’s easier when there’s been acknowledgment, confession, justice. Sometimes that’s not possible.

As I talk with people about the divide in our nation, we always seem to return to the notion of “getting over it.” I’ve noticed that the people who most easily want to move on are the ones who enjoy the most privilege. Why can’t Black and Brown people get over slavery? Why can’t women get over misogyny? Why can’t Native Americans get over losing their land?

It’s easier to think those things if our ancestors were never enslaved or subjected to certain laws because of the color of our skin. It’s easier if we’ve never been denied a job or been leered at by a colleague. It’s easier if we have inherited property.

How do we shift our mentality from “I deserve all this and others don’t” to “I’m grateful for what I have and others deserve this too”? I don’t know but it divides us every day.

I continue to have hope that The Church can teach and model a different way to live our lives because of Jesus. And I hope I never get over that.

Nobody told me in seminary how much time would be spent recruiting, training, and supervising staff when I was a parish pastor.

Within Church World, there are certain administrators, musicians, worship and arts leaders, youth minister, and educators who are known to be Amazing. They are creative, efficient, positive, and fun to work with. And they are highly valued and rare.

So is it cool to poach a stellar youth minister from another congregation in town? Is it okay to check out the website of a partner church – known for great music – and contact their musician with an offer?

Things to consider:

• Churches don’t own their staff members. Staff members can come and go as they wish, and who can blame them for leaving one position to accept another more lucrative, more interesting position?
• All spiritual communities – especially those in the same denomination – are on the same team in terms of our mission and purpose – more or less. All (healthy) houses of worship exist to serve God, worship together, learn together, serve the neighborhood together. Our relationships with each other impact the effectiveness of our ministry and how we model to the world how believers treat each other. And so if I contact your church administrator and offer him a position in our “bigger and better” congregation, I am hurting our relationship. The least you could do is have a conversation with me about your interest in hiring someone on our staff.

Headhunters exist to find great employees and some large congregations indeed hire them to find The Right Pastor. God can work through headhunters.

But it’s different with most church staff members. Many are part-time. Many have relationships with a wide variety of church volunteers with whom they serve. If they are looking for new employment, there are Employment Opening sites. But when a Big Church Pastor lures the Small Church Pastor’s business manager who wasn’t looking to move, it feels icky. A little too 2 Samuel 12.

On the subject of poaching church members, we need to be happy when congregants can connect with God at a different church if they can’t connect in ours any longer. This is what we want, right? For people to be in a deeper relationship with God?

But if you lure members of other churches with unsolicited hospital visits and dropping off homemade bread at their door because you heard that they were not happy in their current church, you are a little devious.

This is all about healthy relationships. If we are in doubt about the right way to recruit staff members or welcome new members, it’s good to ask if anything we are doing might be damaging our relationship with our neighbors in faith. The hope is that we are all living in good faith.

I will probably regret this.

There are so many of you who’ve expressed an interest in talking about This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World that I’m (foolishly) putting the links here online. I’ve lost all track of the people who want to participate as names have come to me from a variety of means. The first Zoom conversation will be:

Wednesday, September 22 at Noon ET – Conversation about Part 1 – How We Got Here
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85327109379?pwd=cUYwb04zeWhyTTBPNnkxSGFqVDhPUT09
Meeting ID: 853 2710 9379
Passcode: 677602

I’ll share the second link for the Thursday, September 30 at the first gathering. Since this is just me doing this because I really like this book, we won’t have breakout groups. This won’t be an in-depth book discussion. It’s my hope that something will spark in your life that makes the world a better place.

Please read the book whether you join us or not.

Someone once said to me, “Slavery is complicated.” Actually there is nothing complicated about slavery. Many families in both the North and the South became wealthy because of unpaid labor in the first 100 years of this nation’s establishment and those unpaid laborers were enslaved because of their heritage and skin color.

Enslaved African-American were held against their will. They were not considered fully human. In fact they were considered only 3/5s of a person by the U.S. Government in 1787.

And if they escaped from their slaveholders to the “free North” they and those who assisted them could be arrested, according to the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. (Nothing’s new under the sun.)

And most importantly, slaveholders were more interested in their own economic survival – and wealth -than the fact that they believed they could actually own other human beings who were created in God’s Image.

Slavery is not complicated.

Please feel free to challenge me on this. When the Bible speaks of slavery, it’s not what was happening with the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

But history is indeed complicated.

I don’t do weddings at former plantations. It’s like celebrating at a prison camp and even though it might be a pretty prison camp, it’s still the site of violence and darkness. And so I walked down the long, luscious driveway of a “farm” in Albemarle County, Virginia to officiate at the wedding of a special couple in my life, my heart sank. “This is a former plantation that held enslaved people,” I thought to myself. The wedding invitation called the venue a farm. The owners call it a farm.

I’ve been doing some research. The property includes slave graves haphazardly located around the property. And the owners also say that they’ve found a tunnel under the outbuildings which was used by The Underground Railroad. Those on this beautiful “farm” both enslaved human beings and helped enslaved human beings. Both things could be true. It also could be true that the owners didn’t actually find a tunnel but it makes it more palatable to tell people their home was part of The Underground Railroad. In my research about other UR locations in Virginia, their home is not mentioned.

My point is that learning our history- however difficult- is important. But let’s not stop there.

Responding to our history – whether it involves our own family tree or the property on which we live – shows that we want to repair the breach. It signifies that we recognize the humanity of those who were not considered fully human in the past. It means we are committed to seeing all people as God’s Children.

It was a beautiful wedding. We pray for a future that’s beautiful for all people.

Image of the Estouteville Farm in Albemarle County, Virginia.

It used to be true that the earth was flat. Then it was true that the earth was round. Now it’s true that the earth is rather egg-shaped and seems to be on the verge of being hard-boiled. As my grandmother used to say, “It’s amazing what the LORD has let us learn” and much of that knowledge involves scientific progress.

It’s also true that we seek scientific confirmation for what we already believe.

It used to be “true” that women would collapse and die if they tried to run 800 meters, much less a marathon. In 1928, the International Olympic Committee actually banned women from running more than 200 meters in competition. And so when Joan Benoit ran the women’s marathon in 2:24:52 in 1984, it was a relief to see her successfully win the Olympic Gold Medal without collapsing or dying. In fact, she glowed with health.

With all the erroneous information being shared about what Critical Race Theory is, what we believe about race is all over the place – in spite of what the science says. For that matter, we seem to be all over the place when it comes to science in general. (No, the Covid vaccine doesn’t lead to sterility, blindness, or governmental mind control.)

What has been disproven by science regarding race is still believed by – perhaps – the majority of white people. I encourage you to watch Race: The Power of an Illusion which was part of our training yesterday. For the entire history of the United States and much of the world, we have been taught that science “proves” that “the white race” is the most advanced demographic of human beings. Science has actually proven this to be a lie.

Race is a construct created to perpetuate this lie. It’s not true that people with black skin are better athletes than people with pale skin. It’s not true that people with light skin are better students than people with dark skin. I learned yesterday that it’s not even true that people with black skin are the only humans susceptable to the sickle cell trait. It’s about geography. People with light colored skin are also susceptable to the trait if they happen to live in equatorial Africa because the trait is a genetic protection against malaria.

It’s amazing what the LORD has let us learn. And this God who created us and continues to create us expects us to use our minds to understand that part of God’s creative mastery is expressed in human differences. There are women who can run marathons and there are people with black skin who are mathematical geniuses and there are men who are gentle caregivers and there are white people who have the sickle cell trait and there are brown people who are musical savants. The world God made is colorful and multifarious. This makes a huge difference in how we relate to each other as human beings. Judging each other based on scientifically disproven “facts” only tears us apart.

Also, please get a Covid vaccine if you can.

Image of Joan Benoit who won the Gold Medal at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. It was the first time women were allowed to compete in a marathon event for the Olympics. Source

I continue to relish in First Presbyterian Church of Charlotte’s 200th Anniversary Celebration last Sunday. Yes, the music and sermon and liturgy were all inspiring and perfect. And there was something else: obvious kindness shown between members and guests and volunteers and staff.

This is a must-read article from The Atlantic if you are in a relationship with a partner/husband/wife and also if you happen to be part of a church community. It’s not like church relationships are the same as marriage, but many of us crave a spiritual community that feels like home, just like many of us crave a partner that feels like home.

This pandemic has made some tempers shorter and it sometimes shows up in church.

Kind: The music from last Sunday isn’t usually my favorite but it was so joyful!

Not Kind: The music from last Sunday was an embarrassment. Since when are we trying to be The Grand Ole Opry?

The Atlantic article examines the differences between marriages that work and marriages that don’t work, and kindness plays a role. (Again, read the article.) And the points made can also be said about congregations.

• Do we bring a spirit of kindness and generosity to our congregation or do we bring a spirit of hostility? (For non-churchy readers: yes some of us in churches can be very cranky as a way of life.)
• Do we appreciate each other? The person who has never been thanked after 15 years of setting up for coffee hour might become resentful.
• Are we generous in giving leaders the benefit of the doubt or are we scanning the room for mistakes leaders might be making?
• Do our church members feel cared for and validated for their gifts or are we mostly concerned that they “stay active” and “keep pledging.”

The term “acts of kindness” has become banal, but these are the times – when the future feels uncertain and anxieties are on the rise – when kindness makes the difference between a thriving congregation and a dying one.