A Church for Starving Artists

During coffee with a colleague yesterday, it occurred to me that the words, “We’ve got you” are among the three most important words in human relationships.

• We’ve got you if you’re afraid to come out.
• We’ve got you if you lose your job.
• We’ve got you if the pain is incapacitating.
• We’ve got you if you’ve been betrayed.
• We’ve got you if you’re hungry.
• We’ve got you if you need help with your kids.

Please be a “we’ve got you” person or school or church.

In a nutshell, the organization suffers. Sometimes the organization closes.

As I’ve shared before, I remember a church staffer who admitted that she would be crushed if the church didn’t suffer a little bit (or a lot) when she left. My response.

Especially in a small congregation, it’s tempting for pastors to do it themselves. The volunteer pool is limited in size. “Nobody else will do it if I don’t do it.”

If the leader stops doing it – whether we are talking about the pastor or (when there’s no pastor) the committed volunteers who do everything from unlocking the building to paying for the new boiler – one of two things will happen:

1. Someone else will step up if it’s really important.
2. Nobody will step up and it doesn’t happen.

We pastors usually want our congregations to thrive as best they can. As a solo pastor, I often overdid it. If congregations I served didn’t have the capacity to offer multiple adult classes, for example, I offered them all myself – something for young parents, something for people who don’t drive at night, something for professionals who don’t get off work until after 7 pm. It’s unsustainable.

I know a pastor who – during COVID – offered every worship option: online worship, outdoor worship. regular worship in the sanctuary with or without masks. This was a congregation of less than 15 participants. Believe me, people will never appreciate this kind of commitment until after that leader leaves. And even then they still might not appreciate it.

Paul wrote to the people of Ephesus:

The gifts (Jesus) gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry,

Leaders: our role is not to do all the ministry. Our role is to equip others to do the ministry. If nobody wants to be equipped, if they don’t have the time, if they are just too tired – it’s time to close that church. And the church will close not because the Presbytery/the bishop has closed their church.

The church closes because – through the years – they have chosen to close their church. They chose to close their church when they:

• Used funds to prop up an institution rather than serve people. (They’ve used money primarily for their building upkeep, their cemetery, themselves.)
• Assumed that mission and programming is about “getting new members” rather than serving their neighbors without expecting something in return.
• Privileged rules over relationships, by legislating what people should be doing in the first place based on their relationship with Christ and each other.
• Going cheap in terms of personnel and other resources.
• Expected the church to cater to their own needs and preferences.

Jesus didn’t die for cemetery maintenance, new member campaigns, dress codes, single ply toilet paper (it’s so much cheaper!), favorite hymns, pew cushions, or the copy machine. Jesus died for you and me and exhausted leaders and cranky members and my-way-or-the-highway pastors and that homeless guy who smells terrible and the Christian nationalist who is so confused and that stupid Putin. This I know.

Image of Cinderella unravelling (played by Lily James in the 2015 film)

Here is my conundrum and I hope you concur with my basic assumptions:

• Professional Ministers, most of whom have graduate school degrees and many of whom have educational debt, deserve a liveable wage.
• All people deserve to have spiritual community and support.
• Christian Congregations committed to “making disciples of all nations” and serving “the least of these” require at least one paid leader because a thriving congregation requires someone devoted to administration, worship and educational leadership, pastoral care, and community engagement. Volunteers cannot sustain such responsibilities without financial support when they also have their own employment and families – unless they have trust funds.

Where I live and serve . . .

“an individual must make an annual salary of at least $101,338 — or an hourly wage of $48.72 — to achieve a comfortable lifestyle as defined in this study. That breaks down to nearly $50,700 going toward needs, about $30,400 toward wants and close to $20,300 toward debt/savings” according to the March 2024 Charlotte Business Journal.

These are the figures for the Metro Charlotte area and – frankly – they seem high. I also serve Presbyterian Churches in rural counties. It would cost much less to live in Richmond County, Stanly County, Anson County or Montgomery County – the rural counties on the East side of our Presbytery.

You would not be surprised to learn that our required minimum salary to pay pastors is much less than $101,338 annually. The minimum in the Charlotte Metro area is $60,711 and $56,604 in the rural counties. And if a church cannot afford a full time pastor, they can contract a pastor for $20/hour for pastors serving in rural congregations and $23/hour for those serving in the urban or suburban congregations.

No. One. Can. Afford. To. Live. On. These. Wages. Without. Serious. Financial. Insecurity. And our Presbytery minimums do not take into account whether or not their Pastor has dependents. Unfortunately, in my denomination (the PCUSA) it will soon cost more in terms of required benefits for those installed pastors with dependents.

So what happens if a congregation cannot afford an “installed” full-time pastor? Well, they could call a contracted part-time pastor. But what happens if a church cannot afford a contracted part-time pastor (at $20/hour or $23/hour)? Here’s what happens:

• Retired pastors (or others who can afford to work with very little compensation) serve those small congregations – and this is a decision to close the church most likely. A part-time contracted pastor cannot possibly lead a congregation to a point where they can shift to become a thriving church again. And devoted volunteers cannot sustain their ministry for long. They get tired.
• Multiple small churches can choose to share one pastor and pay what they can in hopes of building a package their pastor can live on.
• The church can close and make way for a new ministry to be born using funds from the sale or repurposing of their property.
• Churches can go week-by-week with a different Pastor every week.

These are fighting words, especially for a church in denial about their reality. Overhead countless times: “I just want my church to stay open until my funeral.”

With all due respect, closing a church could be the most meaningful, most faithful, most life-giving choice a congregation can make if it means that their legacy can be something new, serving people whose needs have not been addressed. Imagine the joy in knowing that – although we don’t know where our funeral might happen – we die knowing that people have affordable housing, affordable childcare, affordable medical clinics, affordable arts education . . . and a different kind of church for future generations

Thoughts?

Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me, for you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.” Matthew 16:23

As many of us continue to grieve the murder of Sonya Massey after she called 911 from her home in Springfield, Illinois, the moments before her death continue to be analyzed in hopes of making sense out of the senseless. Jenisha Watts writes in The Atlantic about those moments before an officer shot Ms. Massey dead in her home:

In Massey’s kitchen, a pot of water boils on the stove. (Deputy) Grayson orders her to take it off the flame. Massey puts on her oven mitts before lifting the pot. It seems to occur to the officers only now that the water—meant for cooking pasta, maybe, or rice—must be hot.

One of the officers backs away. Massey seems confused; she asks where he’s going. He tells her he doesn’t want to get hit by boiling water. Then she says: “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.”

“Huh?” “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.”

To the officers, this seems bizarre—understandably. But I’ve heard the phrase before, mainly because I have family members and friends who call on Jesus for all sorts of different reasons.

Some Christians call upon Jesus as a basic response as in “Jesus wept” or “Help me Jesus.” And some Christians respond to something dangerous or wrong by saying “I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.“

I live in the South. Springfield, Illinois is not the South, but maybe our roots are similar. We also say, “Bless your heart” and “Let me hug your neck.”

And sometime – especially in professional ministry – I say, “Get behind me, Satan.” Jesus said that to one of his followers – Peter – when Peter challenged a truth that Jesus was explaining. Yes. Sometimes the only response to hearing something crazy or deeply wrong is “Get behind me, Satan.”

Here are real life times I have said it in Church World:

• When a sixty-something pastor told me that he had calculated how much money was left in the church endowment so that he would retire the month they ran out of money.
• When an elder proudly told me that he had “saved me from embarrassment” when – after I served him (a White man) and his hospital roommate (a Black man) communion on Easter, the roommate asked about our church because he might like to visit, and the White elder said to the Black man “oh we don’t allow Black people in our church.”
• When a new Pastor closed a Friday night safe space in the church building for LGBTQA+ teens because “we don’t want to promote homosexuality.”
• When a Presbyterian Session refused to baptize the infant child of a queer couple who were active church members.
• When a church refused communion to a woman who had divorced her abusive husband.

Get. Behind. Me. Satan.

We are horribly good at setting our minds on human things instead of divine things. Jesus – the Divine One – has commanded us to serve the most vulnerable, the most vilified, the loneliest, the accused, the banished. Not to do this is unholy.

Jesus wept. Help me Jesus. I rebuke you in the name of Jesus.

Get behind me Satan.

Image is Get Thee Behind Me, Satan by Ilya Repin (1895)

“Her humanity was invisible to him.” Jenisha Watts in The Atlantic

Sometimes nothing much happens in a given week.  We go along with our basic routines of chores and errands and meetings.  We awaken and go about the day and then we go to sleep and do it all over again the next day.

And sometimes everything happens in a week.

Last Sunday, a lifelong politician who started as a New Castle County Councilman in Delaware and will finish as the 46th President of the United States made an announcement that turned a regular week into a consequential week. 

It was a week that propelled a woman of Jamaican and Indian ancestry who started her own political career as an Alameda County district attorney in California into the weighty role of leading Democratic Party Candidate for President of the United States. 

And this was also the week when “The Worst Police-Shooting Video Ever” was released. In the words of The Atlantic Senior Editor Jenisha Watts, there is no great movement behind Ms. Massey, perhaps because “the same week the footage of (Sonya) Massey’s killing was released, we saw Kamala Harris take the mantle of the Democratic Party.”

“One Black woman has the chance to win the most powerful position in the world, while at the same time, another Black woman, even at her most vulnerable, wearing her nightclothes and headscarf, is perceived as a threat – and shot to death in her kitchen.”

“Her humanity was invisible” to the man who swore at her and then shot her in the face. 

What. Is. Wrong. With. Us? 

Our failures as human beings have everything to do with the fact that we do not see each other’s humanity. 

Aggressive comments about childfree women, unspeakable violence against Palestinians, heartless measures against refugees and asylum seekers at our borders, vile acts of anti-Semitism, turning on former friends for the sake of political favor.  These are examples of failing to see each other’s humanity.  I am stunned that God allows the earth to keep turning.

And at the end of this tumultuous week, a baby girl was born on this same earth weighing in at 8 pounds, 7 ounces.  20 inches long.  Gray eyes and black hair.  I’m her Grand Jan.

Our prayer is that she will be a friend to strangers and a neighbor to those in need, that she will love “the least of these” as Jesus taught, that she will relish her West European and South Asian ancestry and see those of other ancestries through curious rather than judgmental eyes, that her self worth will be based on knowing that she is a child of God.

And I deeply hope she will grow up in a world that always sees her humanity.

Image of Sonya Massey. There’s a Go Fund Me for her teenage children here.

I very carefully say, “Yes.” Poor leadership is a form of clergy misconduct.

Please hear me out.

We are all sadly aware of clergy and other religious workers who have been caught committing financial or sexual misconduct. As a Mid-Council leader in the Presbyterian Church USA (i.e. I’m not a Bishop) I don’t have the power to fire pastors. When sexual and financial misconduct has clearly occurred, we have policies to bring charges against that pastor.

But what if the issue is simply poor leadership? “We like our pastor as a person but they are not a strong leader.” I hear that sometimes.

Important note: This not the same as “I don’t like our pastor’s preaching” or “I find the pastor’s personality to be cold.” This is about:

• Pastors who do everything themselves rather than train others.
• Pastors who need to be the smartest person in every room.
• Pastors who have no energy/do nothing but sit in their offices and what are they doing in there?
• Pastors whose energy is overpowering/they aren’t curious about the ideas of others/they don’t listen.
• Pastors who never initiate conversations about vision, legacy, or impact on the neighborhood.
• Pastors who – basically – don’t like people.
• Pastors who don’t think you are talking about them when constructive criticisms are shared.
• Pastors who blame others.
• Pastors who are defensive and fragile.
• Pastors who are wholly unaware of how ineffective they are/ have no self-awareness.
• Pastors who fear their congregants more than they fear God.

There. I said it. In my denomination it’s hard to move a pastor who doesn’t want to move unless a crime is committed. A pastor who needs to move but doesn’t can diminish a congregation to a point of no return in terms of bouncing back from an ineffective ministry to a thriving ministry. This is a form of misconduct.

I’ve shared before about the time a pastor in his 60s serving a dying congregation told me that he had calculated that the year he turned 70, the congregation would run out of money, so he was going to be okay. My response: Get behind me satan.

What do we do about these leaders?

What do we do when our pastor needs to improve their preaching but they won’t go to a preaching refresher course?

What do we do when our pastors need to control their anger/ bone up on their empathy/learn how to collaborate and they will not consider counseling or coaching?

What do we do when our pastor is no longer a good fit?

I wish I knew. What are your ideas?

Image is from The Apprentice Academy.

Yes, people are lonely. The U.S. Surgeon General calls it a serious health threat.

We all know about the troubled humans who randomly engage in gun violence. “He was a loner,” we hear the neighbors say. The shooter in the assassination attempt Saturday is said to have been bullied by classmates in high school according to this profile. Although he wasn’t friendless, the only thing worse than social isolation is being bullied while being socially isolated.

Dr. Robert Putnam, famed author of Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (2000) was interviewed recently by Lulu Garcia-Navarro here. It made me think – of course – about church. Why is the Church failing to connect people? Why do people feel unsafe in – rather than drawn to – Church? If people are so lonely and there are congregations all over, why aren’t our sanctuaries packed with people seeking friends every weekend?

We all know why.

• People talk only to those they already know on Sunday mornings. God help the ones who don’t look like or act like the majority demographic in the congregation.
• Most people do not see church as a safe place. We have the reputation of being a haven for pedophiles, a trap for queer people, and – sometimes – as too exclusive, too cliquey, too judgey, too much trouble.
• It’s boring. The sermons leave us uninspired. The music is lifeless. They only want our money.

Putnam says there are two kinds of social capital: bonding and bridging.

Most of us – if we are fortunate – have people with whom we have bonded: childhood friends, college friends, work friends, longtime neighbors, family who are like BFFs, BFFs who are like family. They tend to be like us in multiple ways. They are like home to us.

They get us. They know us. They most likely look like us, sound like us, act like us, think like us. Our encounters are fairly effortless. We tend to vote the same way.

I believe that what makes The Church thrive is a culture of bridging – or connecting people who would not ordinarily know each other or spend time together. This is impossible if our church has a culture of stranger danger or racial biases or age discrimination or my-way-or-the-highway-ness or a high stink eye quotient when people “misbehave.” They want “new people” but not if they have their own ideas. They want “young families” but only if they sit quietly.

I believe Mark Elsden when he says that 100,000 churches will close over the next 30 years in the USA. Mark is referring to the property that will be on the market. I’d rather focus on the community that’s lost. Imagine how our culture might shift if 100,000 congregations were more about bridging gaps than bonding together like an exclusive club.

Bonding is good. Bonding is essential in human life. And it’s not enough in terms of building community. Imagine if our congregations were communities in which different kinds of people bonded together because they followed the radical ways of Jesus.

Jesus built bridges between himself and Samaritans, lepers, tax collectors, heathens, the poor, the rich, the foreigner, the beggar, the unclean, the demon possessed, the powerful and the powerless. Imagine a church that authentically creates those same bridges in the name of Jesus.

Show me a bridge-building congregation and I’ll show you a thriving church. There are no exceptions.

Image of the Queshuachaca rope bridge in Peru. It was created by hand and continues to be re-woven regularly to preserve its capacity to connect people over the rushing Apurimac River.

Thanks to the genius of Mark Elsden and other creative pastoral leaders throughout many denominations, Affordable Housing on Church Property is an increasingly interesting idea, especially if our congregations are serious about serving their neighbors.

• “In the next thirty years, one hundred thousand churches in the USA will shut their doors for good” according to Mark Elsden in Gone for Good?: Negotiating the Coming Wave of Church Property Transition.
• “6.8 million more affordable housing units are needed for extremely low income families” according to The National Low Income Housing Coalition.
• As police officers, school teachers, and even pastors find it difficult to find affordable housing in increasingly unaffordable locations, it is not unusual to find such professionals driving Ubers, waiting tables, or picking up part-time retail positions in order to cover their rents and mortgages. The City of Charlotte, NC is planning to create a Teacher Village to help retain teachers who make notoriously low salaries.

In the Presbytery where I live, six congregations are considering or already in the process of building affordable housing on church property. Check out this article.*

If we are serious about serving our neighbors, if we are authentically committed to addressing what breaks God’s heart in our communities, consider using unused or underused church property to provide affordable housing for those in need of safe, clean homes.

Important note:

• Building affordable housing on church property is NOT for your congregation if you are doing this “to get people to join your church.” Lose that expectation right away. This kind of project is not about getting new members. It’s about serving strangers who will – most likely – never join our congregations. That’s not why we do it.

• Building affordable housing on church property is NOT for your congregation if you judge all who need affordable housing as if they are gang members or drug dealers. Affordable Housing is certainly needed by the formerly incarcerated and others in transition. It’s also needed by retired veterans, firefighters, child care workers, young adults aging out of foster care, refugees, seniors, and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Imagine the expansion of your mission impact if you had people right next door for whom you could be a community of support.

• Building affordable housing on church property is NOT for your congregation if you are a “get off my lawn” kind of neighbor. If our chief concern is selfish (“what if our parking is impacted?“) we need to admit that we are simply not willing to serve people who need more than a can of soup. If we are not willing to be inconvenienced a bit so that other families have a safe place to live, that’s a spiritual issue.

Once upon a time, my denomination built hospitals and universities because the community needed them. And now our communities need affordable housing. We can address this. Or not. (I hope we will!)

Image of The Waypoint at Fairlington Presbyterian Church in Alexandria, Virginia – one of my favorite congregations – for households whose income is at or below 60% of the area median income (AMI).

*If you hit a pay wall, share your email address in the comments and I’ll send it to you.

I’ve just spent several days – mostly inside – with hundreds of Presbyterians in Salt Lake City. And while the business was often grueling, we were in privileged spaces with plenty of water and air conditioning. And while we deliberated and prayed and sang in the comfort of hotel ballrooms, outside in the world wars continued and fires burned and hurricanes terrorized and greed prevailed.

Nevertheless there is beauty in this world. The beauty is in the people who serve to make earth a little more like heaven. God’s people. And after a restful weekend, the work begins again.

Image is a small mosaic of some of the beautiful people at General Assembly who spend their lives serving others in the image of Christ. I took their photos saying “I’m taking pictures of beautiful people. May I take your photo?” They make life better. There were countless beautiful people at General Assembly.

More than once, I’ve spoken with colleagues in my generation and slightly older/younger who were contacted by a Retreat Committee or a Program Leader about an upcoming event their organization was planning for – say – next year. Conversations have gone like this:

Caller: Hi (seasoned leader!) ________ Conference Center/Our Congregation/Our Presbytery/Our Denomination is planning a retreat next summer and we were wondering . . .

Seasoned Leader (in their heads): Oh good. They’re going to ask me to keynote this thing.

Caller: . . . if you could recommend a younger leader to be our keynote speaker.

Ouch.

Also YAY.

I am a 60-something leader who knows many gifted 60-something and 50-something (and even 70-something) colleagues with proven records in leading talks, retreats, and workshops. You probably know them. They have written books and articles. They have led officer trainings and national conferences.

I speak from a privileged space in that I – too – have been asked to do a lot of cool things. And yet, I’m finding that – for myself – I am less likely to attend an event if the leaders are in my generation – or a contiguous generation. I need mentoring from fresh voices.

Using my privilege for good includes recommending people who are less known when someone asks for suggestions. Or if they ask me to lead a thing, this is a good time to offer other names.

A colleague was asking me recently, “What do we (seasoned leaders) do if we are no longer “in demand”? Where is our place? What is our purpose?“

Answer: We open doors, recommend, and introduce new leaders to People in Power, especially lifting up those who have been overlooked: People of Color, Queer People, Rural People, Differently Abled People, Differently Brilliant People.

Friends of a Certain Age: we have a really fun and satisfying opportunity here and let’s not miss it. Unfortunately, we will indeed miss it if:

• We insist on being in charge/in the spotlight past our time.
• We don’t know any younger visionary/entrepreneurial leaders – especially those who do not look like or think like we do.
• We don’t keep up with the writings/podcasts/talks of new generations of thinkers.

There are few things more fulfilling than mentoring (either subversively or overtly) new leaders.

My denomination’s General Assembly is happening now both online and in Salt Lake City through July 4. For those of you watching or participating: look for the young leaders. Notice them. Listen to them. Get to know them. We will be richer because of their ideas and voices.

Image of Basima Abdulrahman, Emmanuel Jal, Rizky Ashar Murdiono, Amelia Telford, Samaira Mehta, Gwendolyn Myers, Harry Myo Lin, and Beatrice Fihn who were leaders in the 2019 Davos World Economic Forum Meeting. At the risk of omitting other amazing leaders, I also recommend you get to know Ashley McFaul-Erwin, Andy Morgan, Matt Conner, Phanta Lansden, Natalily Kyremes-Parks, Zeena Regis, Kate Murphy, Liz Ward, Claudia Aguilar Rubalcava, and Noura Eid.

Also – please feel free to add more fresh leaders we should all know in the comments. Thanks.