A Church for Starving Artists

I will be 65 years old next week (and will try not to talk it incessantly because I think about it incessantly.)

Being 65 makes me eligible for Medicare and marks fifteen years since I could join AARP. I could say so many things about aging here but I won’t.

Instead, I want to talk about clergy retirement.

I’ve written a bit on 60-somethings in our congregations and some of those posts have hurt my colleagues feelings.  That was not my intention.  It is my intention as an institutional church person to devote my life to helping congregations thrive and expand the reign of God and make disciples of all nations.

As I did when I was a pastor serving a congregation, I have a small group of people I trust to tell me the truth.  One of their primary responsibilities these days is to tell me when it’s time to retire and I am confident they will do this. 

In my denomination, it’s lucrative to retire when you are 70 years old if you are vested in our pension system.  And it’s also true that churches do not tend to call new pastors who are 60+ in age.  

So, here’s what sometimes happens:  A pastor is – say – 62 and wants to retire at 70 but that pastor has lost energy and the desire to learn new things.  There is no steam left to shift the culture of that congregation.

This is especially dangerous in these days as we discern what the Post-Pandemic Church will look like.  A struggling congregation cannot survive 2 to 10 years of leadership under a pastor who will not or cannot pivot to serve a Post-Pandemic Church.

As I discern these things personally, I am begging my Boomer colleagues to talk about these things with the LORD:

1. Am I one of the first to say ‘yes’ when elders and deacons present fresh ideas for our congregation to consider?  
2. Am I excited about Sunday mornings? Sunday evenings? Tuesday afternoons doing my ministry?
3. Have I surrounded myself with people who help me dismantle doing things “the way we’ve always done it?” for the sake of the Gospel?
4. Am I willing to learn from younger leaders?
5. Do I feel hope for the future of our congregation?

If you answer “no” to any of these questions, please consider retirement in the next year, my beloved 60-something colleagues.

The truth is that it’s not about age.  It’s about energy, intelligence, imagination, and love.  And yet if you find yourself at a place where your energy is depleted, your desire to learn is negative, your imagination has leveled out, and you don’t love ministry the way you used to love it – please, for the love of God – retire this year.

I don’t mean to offend, but our churches will suffer to the point of no return without hopeful, dynamic, servant leadership.  We need pastors who are pumped to move our congregations into the future with impactful ministry in the name of Jesus Christ.

P.S. If you don’t know that this is a post for you, ask around.  Ask your colleagues, your family, and those trusted parishioners who are not ‘yes people.’ Listen to what God is telling you in prayer.

Courageous people do dangerous things.  They speak the truth when it could get them in trouble.  They step in when the weak are being bullied.  They put themselves in situations that others avoid.

Jesus did all these things.

We could say he was an instigator, but actually he was showing us what God’s love looks like  – speaking the truth, stepping in, putting himself in tricky situations.  He wasn’t putting himself in danger for the danger’s sake.  He was doing it for love’s sake.

Talking to a foreign woman in public.  Refuting the powerful Pharisees in public. Touching a leper in public.  His was a public ministry and it was often dangerous.

Our congregations do dangerous things too, but sometimes they are the wrong kind.  It’s very dangerous for a church to:

• Keep the same leaders in the same roles for decades.
• Conflate confidentiality and secrets.
• Allow bullies to go unchallenged.
• Grant one or two families more power than others.
• Confuse “spiritual practices” like observing Lent with “traditions” like eating breakfast with the Easter bunny.  (Both can be meaningful but they aren’t the same thing.)
• Let pastors surround themselves with ‘Yes People.’
• Refrain from doing a regular financial audit of the books.

These might be common occurrences in our churches, but the danger is that they create unhealthy congregations that – subsequently – spend more time untangling messes than doing ministry.

It’s so much more fun to do authentic ministry that changes people’s lives than to think we are doing ministry, but actually we are busying ourselves with power struggles and conflict. Nobody wants that.

Authentic ministry can be dangerous too.  We run the danger of changing unhealthy systems.  We run the danger of stepping on the toes of the powerful.  We run the danger of changing our brand from Pretty Church to Land of Misfit Toys Church. 

It’s deep faith in Jesus that makes us care more about being faithful than being fearful.  He lived in danger for much of his life and yet he remains the Light of the World, the Good Shepherd, the Bread of Life – and so much more.

Love wins. 

I don’t know Jennifer Banks, but I agree with her:

You know “spiritual but not religious”? Well, I often wonder about that other, less discussed category “religious but not spiritual.”

The pandemic is creating even more “spiritual but not religious” people from what I’m reading, but I worry about the religious ones who are not very spiritual.  (Note: we made them that way, Church.)

We in the Church have taught people who wanted to know Jesus the importance of serving on committees (especially the dreaded Property Committee.) We have taught them that church attendance is more important that daily discipleship.  We have taught them that acting like we have it all together is the way to present ourselves instead of acknowledging that we are hot messes in need of a Savior.

See what I mean.  It reminds me of the apostle Paul’s sermon at the Areopagus:

“Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way.” Acts 17:22

But God was unknown to them.

I hate to admit this, but I’ve seen this in our congregations.  Elders can tell you how much a new boiler costs, but they don’t know how to pray with church members.  Deacons know where to find the tableclothes but they have never been taught how to pray by someone’s bedside.  Youth leaders know fun things to do with shaving cream and plungers and plastic flamingos but they are lost when kids ask about Jesus.

Again – we have created this issue.  We who have been more concerned about bolstering an institution (and therefore our careers and power) more than expanding God’s reign have allowed this to happen.

But this is what resurrection is all about.  To paraphrase Jesus:

The blind stop focusing on the building and start seeing the people, and the lame walk out of the building into the neighborhood to serve.  The lepers are cleansed and welcomed and they go out healing and welcoming others. And the deaf hear the voice of God and not the voices of gossipers, and the lifeless congregations are resurrected.  Oh, and the poor have good tidings preached to them.

Lent is a great time to ponder whether we are more religious about institutional church things or more religious about our devotion to God.  One of these is more spiritual.

The quote at the top is from a tweet yesterday by Jennifer Banks who is Senior Executive Editor of Yale Press.

It’s taken me over a week to write this post.

Darryl Gaston was neither “just a barber” or “just an elder” or “just a community leader.”  To describe him that way is an affront to his Maker.

Darryl was one of those people who lived out his baptismal vows to the point of changing the world.

He died suddenly on February 20 and the only joy in that moment was that it was sudden and painless – at least for him. Leaving suddenly is traumatic for those we leave behind, but he was spared a difficult ending of this life.

His years were a testimony to what is needed in the world.

Please read this and this and this.  

One of things they don’t teach you in seminary is how to prepare for the constant losses: the deaths of beloved parishoniers, the abrupt departures of angry church members, the slow departures of parishioners who no longer feel connected.  It’s enough to give a pastor abandonment issues.

It felt like a gut punch the night Darryl died.  His little church is without their pastor.  (Darryl was a ruling elder trained to serve as a Commissioned Local Pastor.) 

I write this to remind myself and anyone reading this that we are not  “just” anything.  We are so much more than one thing although our primary identifier might be Pastor or Mother or Christian.  God equips us to shine in every part of our lives if we will only pay attention, but few of us do this well.  Darryl Gaston did it very well.  

Please continue to hold this family and congregation in prayer.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it;
  Prone to leave the God I love:
Take my heart, oh, take and seal it
  Seal it for Thy courts above.*

Years ago, I spent every Wednesday morning in a women’s prayer group from 6 am to 7 am.  It started during Lent but we kept it going for several years every Wednesday.

We met in person and the only rule was that the coffee had to be ready.  Some women wore full make up and panty hose because they’d go straight to the office from there. Others wore pj pants and sweatshirts with messy hair buns.  We simply drank coffee and shared our prayer requests and prayed together.  That was the agenda.

You’d think this group of committed lady pray-ers would be stress-free in that we easily turned over all our troubles to the LORD.  But we were often Stress Storms with our babies and illnesses and work loads.  There was a season when each of us was especially overwhelmed and someone brought in a guided meditation recording to help us focus on letting our stresses float away.  We closed our eyes and breathed deeply while the guide helped us envision a new perspective.  This was a gist of the meditation that slowly proceeded for 10 minutes or so until we were supposed to finish with lighter souls:

We are standing in a beautiful field.  The sky is blue.  The air is fresh. (Breathe deeply)

There is a colorful hot air balloon tethered to stakes in the ground in front of us. (Still breathing deeply)

The basket of the balloon is empty (still breathing) and one by one, we place our cares in the basket until the basket of the balloon is full.

Now that the basket is full, we slowly but deliberately untie the balloon from the stakes and watch it slowly, slowly get released into the blue sky . . .

This is when several of us opened our eyes at the same time and said “Wait!  Stop the balloon.  I’m in the basket!”

We have a hard time separating from our stresses, even if we are Praying People.  I don’t have quick answers about how to remedy this except to say that it takes practice and a commitment to pray intentionally every day.  I am prone to lift up hit-and-run prayers throughout the day, but what I really need is a chunk of time – like 20 minutes – to get to the point of feeling like I’ve actually released my life to God.

Prone to wander, LORD I feel it.  Trying to do better today in the thick of Zoom Call life.

*Lyrics from Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing by Robert Robinson (1758)

Let’s say that I live in Texas and I’ve been “attending” a virtual service at the church in NC that I found during the pandemic.  Sometimes I’m at worship live and sometimes I watch the recording.  I attend their Wednesday night Bible study because I love the teacher and have gotten to know some of the others.  Two of them move to NC to Texas.  I’ve been sending them money via Givelify.  What’s to keep me from joining this congregation?

Friends I have been answering this question often these days.  Pastors ask me, “Can people we’ve met during COVID join our congregation if they live in another state or country?”

I spoke with a pastor yesterday – a really gifted pastor by the way – who, when asked how things are going during the pandemic, told me that:

• The church’s giving is stronger than expected.
• About 20% of the people participating in their virtual worship service live in countries besides the United States.

Hello.  Welcome to the post-pandemic Church.

This congregation whose pastor I talked with yesterday is not large by Big Steeple standards.  Pre-COVID worship in the pews ranged from 75 to 125. Like most of our congregations they expect to be back in the pews eventually, and online worship will also continue for the people who prefer it for whatever reason.  Maybe they prefer it because they live in Texas.  Or in France.

What I’m not saying here is that a church has to have world class technological skills or large numbers or a huge evangelism budget to welcome people who live faraway.

What I’m saying is that churches simply need to be offering what people are seeking: authentic and Spirit-filled worship, stirring theological conversations, honest prayer groups, real community. 

Here’s what I’m seeing:

• It’s much easier to enter a community by tuning into Facebook Live or YouTube than it is to get dressed and cross the threshold of an unfamiliar church building.  Especially if you have rarely or never been part of a church, especially if you are a person of another faith or no faith, it’s so much easier to come as you are if you can literally “come as you are” – pjs, sweat pants, dirty hair, eating a Pop Tart.
• Those seeking a Bible study on the Psalms or a book study on anti-racism, or group of LGBTQ Christians might be disappointed that own church doesn’t offer this kind of thing, but they can find what they seek via social media in other congregations.
• Financial contributions are up for churches making the effort to serve creatively during this pandemic.  The easier a church can make it to give, the better. Also, if church makes it known that there are specific financial needs, people are more likely to share what they can.

God is going to amaze us in the post-pandemic church.

Can someone in Texas join a church in N.C.?  I would say yes.  I would rather have 25 committed church members living in 25 different states who are hungry to serve as disciples of Jesus wherever they are than have 25 members living near the church building who nominally participate in worship and mission.

And I don’t think it’s just me.

About the image: Imagine mapping where your congregation lives and finding that membership is everywhere.  Yes, we’ve always had members who live out of town perhaps, but now they can be with us regularly.

Sometimes I joke about the stress of a particular situation by saying, “That took a year of my life.” Turns out it’s not a joke.

The National Center for Health Statistics reported last week that life expectancy in the USA dropped by one full year in the first six months of 2020.  

Remember the first six months of 2020?  COVID. Shootings. More COVID. More shootings.  A lot more COVID. The killing of George Floyd and subequent protests in more than 2000 cities in all 50 states. More COVID.

No wonder we lost a year of life expectancy. It was stressful.  We hoarded Clorox wipes, for the love of God.

In my own circle of humans, three people have died in the past week and not one of them reached the average life expectancy of 77.8 years.  One was 59. One was 66.  And one was 74.

We probably all know people living well into their 90s.  This is amazing even though we rarely consider it amazing any more.

The days of our life are seventy years, or perhaps eighty, if we are strong; even then their span is only toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away. Psalm 90:10

During this pandemic, a common question I’ve heard is “What’s giving you life?”  And a follow-up question is “What’s diminishing your life?”  And because I am a Church Person and I think about these things in an ecclesiastical context, I have to ask:

• What’s giving your congregation life?
• What’s diminishing your congregation’s life?

Those are real questions and I’m not even going to suggest possible answers.  There is something in your church that’s invigorating your congregation and there’s something in your church that sucking the life out of your congregation.  We need to get rid of what’s killing our ability to do ministry and lift up what’s expanding our ability to do ministry.

It would be a good thing to ask your leaders these questions – maybe confidentially on individual index cards.  These are the kinds of hard conversations – or joyfilled conversations – that will determine where God allows us to go after this pandemic is truly over.

Image of what diminishes my life (i.e. Closed churches that would still be thriving if they had focused on something besides institutional survival) and something that gives me life (i.e. Organizations like The Bulb in Charlotte that distribute fresh vegetables and fruits to the hungry in Charlotte, NC. Five Charlotte congregations are among the Bulb market sites.)

Some people call it The Emergency Fund.  My money squad* calls it the MASH Fund (money – to spend – after stuff happens.)  Some churches call it The Building Fund.  Some call it The Endowment. 

Financial planners suggest that individuals and organizations (like churches) have a pot of money set aside for special circumstances like an unforeseen snow emergency while living in Texas when your pipes burst and this happens.

HH and I had to spend a chunk of our MASH Fund after my shoulder surgery – which I hated because I’d rather spend it on something fun like a post-pandemic vacation – but the beauty part is that we didn’t have to go into debt.  The fact that we have really good insurance and still had thousands of dollars of medical bills is the topic for another post.

But my shoulder is an investment.  I need it and am grateful for all it will allow me to do in the future.

Congregations with investments and a pot of money to use for emergencies don’t like to touch that money.  We don’t like to use those Rainy Day Funds even when it’s pouring out there.  And now – during what we hope is the end of the pandemic – congregations fear that those funds will be needed to help rebuild post-COVID.

So here’s what I believe we need in a post-COVID world:

1. Shame-free financial education and coaching for individuals in our congregations.  Debt is killing our people and we aren’t talking about it much less equipping people to get rid of it.  This is a spiritual issue, my friends, and we cannot use our money as a tool for expanding the reign of God if we are struggling paycheck to paycheck.  The Bible is filled with shame stories and Jesus came to release us from our shame.  
2. Congregations investing in their own shoulders. Delayed building maintenance will result in much more expensive projects in the future. (e.g. it’s less expensive to repair a hole in the roof than the whole roof.)  
3. An assessment of the best financial investments for our community.  (Note that I didn’t say the best financial investments for our church.)  Please do not spend another dollar on your church building if you are not using your church building as a tool for ministry.

The only reason to have a church building is to use it as a tool for ministry.  If your church building (during non-COVID times) is empty most of the week, you are not using it as a tool for ministry.  If you are renting your church space to other organizations, you are not using it as a tool for ministry.  (You are a landlord.  Big difference.)  I know, I know – you are providing a service to other ministries.  But you are not “ministry partners” if the only transactions you share involve a rent check and a key.

It’s pouring y’all.  It’s time to invest in our community.

If your congregation has a pile of money set aside for “the future” please know that the future is now.  There are neighbors who need housing now.  There are children who need safe places to hang out now.  There are hungry people, broken people, isolated people who need the Church to step up now.

When our mindset is service in the name of Jesus Christ rather than institutional survival, the rainbow in the distance becomes clear.  This is God’s promise – that healing will come.  Do we believe this or not?

Happy First Monday in Lent.

*Although it’s more of a life practice than a Lenten practice, I meet regularly with a team of women who support each other as we try to use our money better for the sake of the world.  One of our goals is to promote wealth for women of color.  Email me if you want to know more about this.

Stony the road we trod
Bitter the chastening rod
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died
Yet with a steady beat
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?

At our last Presbytery meeting via Zoom, the final hymn was Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing and someone noted that they needed the words. (The lyrics were not provided on the screen.) A quick-moving pastor pasted them to the Zoom Chat.

Most White People do not know the words to this song known as The Black National Anthem – or at least we don’t know the words to all three verses. It’s a beautiful hymn first written as a poem by James Weldon Johnson to celebrate Abraham Lincoln’s Birthday at The Stanton School in 1900. Booker T. Washington was a special guest that day and Mr. Johnson was the school principal.  

We often sang that hymn when I was a pastor outside Our Nation’s Capital but to be perfectly honest, I felt uncomfortable singing it.  My personal history and the history of my White ancestors doesn’t include chastening rods and the death of hope.  I’m not saying that my ancient forebearers had it easy settling land in Virginia and then North Carolina.  I’m saying that they were never in chains brought to Virginia and North Carolina against their will.

This is the same feeling I get when I sing We Shall Overcome alongside Black siblings.  Although Pete Seeger made it famous, the song was written by the Rev. Dr. Charles Tindley, a Methodist Episcopal pastor whose father was enslaved before emancipation.

We shall overcome
We shall overcome
We shall overcome, some day

My own White privilege has made the need to “overcome” less pressing than most people.  There is no comparison between what I’ve had to overcome compared to Black and Indigenous People, and other People of Color.  Yes, we there a collective urgency to overcome systemic racism, sexism, and poverty and yet as I’ve stood on church steps or in sanctuaries singing this historic song, I am aware of the irony of someone like me belting out the lyrics alongside friends who can’t get a fair mortgage rate or the same healthcare I’ve always had because of the color of their skin.

Some songs do not belong to us.  I’m not saying that non-Christians should refrain from singing Amazing Grace.  I’m not saying that it’s wrong to join in when Jewish friends are dancing to Hava Nagila although it would feel strange to sing it at a Christian or Muslim wedding.  

Avoiding the appropriation of someone else’s culture has changed the way we dress our children for Halloween and how we accessorize ourselves as adults (no Black face ever, no wearing somebody’s Purple Heart medal as jewelry, no using a sacred Native American stone as a coffee table.)  Appreciating other cultures is complicated in that we can acknowledge other cultures without usurping them.

Not every song, not every fashion choice, not every home decorating idea is for me . . . unless I do the serious work of making myself aware of the history and culture behind those choices.  If we honor each other, if we seek to understand each other, if we respect each other then not only are our lives enriched, but our connections to each other are strengthened.

This is the role of the Church, my friends.  Look at how Jesus crossed boundaries to befriend those of other cultures and faiths.  Read the gospel stories through that lens, and then praise Jesus for giving us the charge to expand the colorful, story-filled reign of God by loving people whose experiences are not like our own.

Painting of James Weldon Johnson by Laura Wheeler Waring in the National Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC (1943)

I know people who have chosen their new car based on the number and location of the cup holders. The first time I saw HH I was really attracted to the way he wore a white button-down shirt. In my first post-seminary home, I remember loving the staircase railing.

For our newest home, it was the window. I walked into an empty apartment and saw the window and immediately imagined our Christmas tree there. It would be a good place for Spense to watch other dogs and their people on the sidewalk below.  It would be a great place to sit and begin the morning with our first cups of coffee.

Something random yet particular often draws us in.

Today is Ash Wednesday and there are already many comments out there about how we’ve been in a season of Lent since mid-March 2020.  Do we really need to consider that “to dust we will return” when it’s felt dusty for 12 months now? Isolation has a way of forcing us to think about things we would otherwise be too busy to ponder.

But here’s my thinking: if you are a person of faith, something drew you to God once upon a time.  Maybe you were in trouble and there was nobody else to help.  Maybe someone you love was in trouble and you cried out on their behalf.  Maybe something was so profoundly beautiful that you knew there was a Divine Creator.

What first drew you to God?

Was it fear? Family ties? Ineffable joy? Pain? I was introduced to God by my parents and extended family in the Church.  I was drawn to God because of loneliness and pain.

Lent is a lonely time and the pandemic has made the world lonelier and more isolating, so yes, it feels like we’ve been in a season of Lent for the last twelve months.  And yet it’s also a time when we strive to be more attuned to where God is all around us.  This is how we are moved spiritually.

I see a lovely window and imagine what that window offers.  I see a handsome man in a white button-down and he seemed interesting. (Handsome Man became Handsome Husband – HH.)  I could imagine walking down the staircase in my first manse to welcome guests at the front door.

The pandemic cannot take away our imagination.  Everyday there is something ordinary that can lead to extraordinary moments.  A window, a shirt, a staircase.

Today may God remind us that we are indeed dust and to dust we will return.  And there is beauty in the dust and the light and the wind and the noise and the quiet.

Image of the window in our dining room overlooking the world outside our doors.