A Church for Starving Artists

“If ministry is to be relational, we need to be good at relationships.”

I wish I could remember where I heard this recently.

Good churches have that wonderful Land-of-Misfit-Toys quality and even the pastor might be an odd duck.  But professional ministers need solid skills in making connections with people – even the difficult ones.  Even the strange ones.

Over the years I’ve worked with struggling pastors whose parishioners suggest that maybe their pastor should actually be a professor.  When you’re dealing with people in the throes of their illnesses, their defeats, and their deepest sorrows, poor bedside manner can be disastrous.  Offering an academic comment – or an uncomfortable presence – is not what people need in the midst of brokenness.

And seminaries generally do not teach emotional intelligence.

As we prepare people for professional ministry, it’s often my responsibility to remind seminarians that one can excel in every academic course, pass every denominational exam, and fulfill every practical requirement but never be ordained.  Because this is not a certification process as much as it’s a call process, there must be an ineffable spark.  A curiosity about what God is doing.  An interest in other people’s lives.  We can learn these things, but we have to want to learn them.

When I hear someone tell me that they want to be a pastor “because I’d like to be called a ‘Reverend’” I appreciate their sheer honesty.  Every pastor might secretly think this too, but that’s not what most say out loud.  It’s true that we pastors want to be important, but it’s also true that this is not what ministry is all about.

Eugene Peterson said in this conversation with Krista Tippett:  Ministry gives you a huge scope for honesty.  It’s sacreligious to tell people in pain simply to “buck up” and move on.  Jesus teaches us to be with each other in pain.

And this requires some relational gifts.  Some of those skills are simple:  Say please and thank you.  Listen well.  Be present.  Try to see everyone through the eyes of Christ.

An effective Church in the 21st Century is relational and I’m talking about both clergy and non-clergy here.  We work on our relationships with God, with each other, with mission partners, with the broken, with other congregations, with people of other faiths and people with no faith.  No longer is ministry primarily about programs and hierarchies and regulations and writing checks to needy people in faraway places.  It’s about following what Jesus did.

Image source.

What would you do to make more money?

I previously shared my encounter with a new friend who apparently supplements his income by selling illegal substances.  During the course of our conversation, he said that he was an investment banker, a day trader, and a landscaping business owner.  None of those things were true.

As it turns out, my new friend mows lawns for someone else’s landscaping business and sells cocaine.  He told me that his mother sells real estate (true) and his father is retired from the NBA (not true.)  He initially made up stories about his occupation and financial status because he didn’t want me to judge him.

Coming off of Labor Day, I’ve been thinking about what people do for money and what they would do for financial security.  Over the weekend I read about:

• How Millennials can retire by age 40. (Pro tip:  it assumes you have no student loans and can save 15% of your current income and you start at age 22.)
• How people who cannot move often take well-paying jobs in spite of the certain consequences of serious health dangers.
• Which well-paying jobs you can land in 2018 without a college degree. (Note: “without a college degree” is deceptive because these positions do require certifications and – perhaps – an associates degree.  Also “well-paying’ might mean 40k which will not go far in many communities.)
• Amway.  This is the company that has made the family of Betsy DeVos rich and the family of the woman who cleans our home dream of being rich.

I am well-paid for the work I (joyfully get to) do, but it was not always so.  I earned a hot $12k annually fresh out of seminary and qualified to get surplus government cheese.  For five years.

My spouse and I split one FT job at the Presbytery’s minimum salary when our children were young – something we chose so that one of us could be home with them.  It was a choice that was good for our family but hard.  It meant we couldn’t afford some things we would have liked to have given our children.  But we were still privileged enough to get an annual vacation (thank you dead parents.)  And I will be forever proud of our ability to pay for three sets of braces.

Many people have the conversation:  How can we bring in more money?  This conversation often evolves into “How can we spend less money?”  And many people who are having this conversation are the ones who serve our communities every day:  teachers, first responders, clerks, civil servants.  It will probably never be true that those who keep us safe, who teach our children, who organize our lives will ever be paid what they deserve.

Capitalism – at it’s best – is a benevolent system.  Yes, businesses exist to make money, but they also exist for the common good: to offer services, to provide products.  Capitalism – at it’s worst – abuses people and perpetuates poverty.

As people of faith, we have a responsibility to talk about economic injustice in our nation.  Many of us have the power to pay people well for the work they do.  Many of us have the power to open doors for others to get hired.  Many of us have the power to be able to speak up for others.

Few of us like to talk about money in terms of what we earn, what we donate, and what we spend.

What would we do for money?  And what would we do to help others earn a living?  It’s a spiritual issue and an important conversation for us to have together.

Image is Almighty Dollar by Donald and Era Farnsworth.

This is a post in favor of electing unicorns in the midterm elections.

Much has been said this week about the late John McCain’s relationships across the political aisle.  Even in death, he is making the point that we need to have authentic connections with people with whom we disagree.  His pallbearers are a bevy of people you wouldn’t expect to hang out together:

• Actor and left leaning activist Warren Beatty
• Former Vice President and Democrat Joe Biden
• Businessman, Former New York City Mayor and Political Independent Michael Bloomberg
• Former Secretary of Defense and Republican (who served in a Democratic Administration) William Cohen
• Former Senator and Democrat from Wisconsin Russ Feingold
• Former Senator and Democrat from Colorado Gary Hart
• Former Pennsylvania Governor, Secretary of Homeland Security  and Republican Tom Ridge
• McCain’s former Chief of Staff Mark Salter
• Founder and President of FedEx, Marine Veteran, and former McCain Presidential Campaign Chairman Fred Smith
• Current Senator and Democrat from Rhode Island Sheldon Whitehouse
• Vice chairman of Open Russia and Chairman of the Boris Nemtsov Foundation for Freedom Vladimir Kara-Murza
• Republican Event Planner Carla Eudy
• Businessman Stephen Dart
• Former McCain Presidential Campaign Manager Richard Davis.
• Former Senator and Republican from Texas Phil Gramm

That makes five Democrats, six Republicans, one Independent, a woman (we often don’t get picked to be pallbearers) and a Russian dissident.  There are co-workers and work rivals.  There are business people and at least one fellow veteran.  The singular thing all these people have in common is that they were all in some way special to John McCain.

It’s quite possible that – after all the tributes and anecdotes and final words of unity surrounding the death of Senator McCain – Congress and the rest of us will go back to name-calling and choosing politics over patriotism.

Bridge Builders are apparently not cool anymore.  In fact, Bridge Builders are often criticized even by their own people.  Exhibit A:  Many Republicans called McCain a RINO.

And yet I’m hoping that unicorns – those brave souls who choose to work with “the other side” – will prevail.  (Vote for your local unicorn.)

“You have to put up with things the way they are.”

• What if the price for getting a good job in your community is pollution of the local water sources?
• What if new industrial jobs require an upshot in cancer rates?
• What if being married to a husband who can provide a nice home means putting up with his bad temper?
• What if living in an area with minimal gun regulations results in increased levels of accidental gun deaths?

Again, I’m loving Strangers in Their Own Land by Arlie Russell Hochschild as I try to understand our nation’s political/religious divide.  (Note to Washington, DC people:  Dr. Hochschild will be at Kramer Books next week.)

Community Organizers are known for working towards a world as it should be, not the world as it is.  The Louisianans interviewed by Dr. Hochschild are suspicious of Community Organizers as a whole and the divide strikes me as a theological one.

There are Christians who believe that no matter what happens in this life – environmental disasters, cancer, domestic violence, gun violence – it’s okay because everything will be perfect in heaven.

And there are other Christians who believe that we are called to seek God’s will “on earth as it is in heaven.”  In other words, we will fight pollution, cancer, domestic abuse, and senseless gun deaths because we believe that God calls us to make this earth a little bit more like heaven here and now.

Throughout Arlie Hochschild’s book, those she interviews and befriends people who say, “That’s just the way it is.”  Racism, Sexism, Crime, Climate Change, Poverty?  That’s just the way it is.  Pollution is the price for capitalism.  Accidental deaths are the price for a the government minding its own business.

One acquaintance of Hochschild’s – in a dinner table debate with a neighbor arguing about a local pipeline leak – said, “You want everything to be perfect, for companies to make no mistakes, and we can’t live like that.”

I wonder if that’s a simplistic difference between conservatives and liberals:

• Some of us believe “that’s just the way the world is” and we put up with unheavenly things because God will bring perfect justice in the next life.
• And some of us believe “that we must work towards the world as it should be” choosing not to put up with unheavenly things because God calls us to seek justice on earth.  And perfect justice will happen in the next life.

Still grappling with understanding how my Christian siblings could vote for someone who seems like the anti-thesis of Jesus.  And perhaps they are still grappling with me.  It would be lovely to talk about these things with each other openly and respectfully.

Image source.  Again – thanks TW.

Quick stats about clergy in my denomination and beyond:

• The median age for all USA pastors in 2017 was 57.
• 75% of all PCUSA pastors serving congregations today will be eligible for retirement over the next ten years.
• 230 new pastors were ordained in my denomination in 2017, 15 more than in 2016.

I would like to think that most pastors are about seeking authentic calls instead of climbing ladders.  But the truth is that those called to small rural congregations will be compensated much less than those called to large suburban or urban congregations.  Sometimes we can’t afford to take even authentic calls when the salary will not cover our expenses.

I know fewer pastors who admit to climbing the ecclesiastical ladder these days although it probably still happens.  I have one clergy friend who has intentionally served successively smaller and smaller congregations because he was following the Spirit’s nudging.  He is a great leader and he has the financial security to be able to seek smaller and smaller church positions which pay less and less.

And then there are other pastors whose choices are limited and climbing the ladder is not an option.  For example:

• Women of color have an especially difficult time being called to serve as pastors anywhere.  Neither congregations where everybody looks like them nor congregations where nobody looks like them are quick to give these talented pastors a chance.
• Some clergy are tethered to a specific geographic area because of a spouse’s job.
• LGBTQ pastors are often rejected because congregations “aren’t ready for this.”

And many 60-something (and often 70-something) pastors are delaying retirement.

Yesterday I wrote a post about resentment that happens when “undeserving people cut in line” in terms of job opportunities.  The same thing happens in churches.

As Baby Boomers are (finally) retiring, I hear congregations say they are looking for Millennial pastors – completely bypassing those in the generation between the two.

I know many qualified white straight male pastors who have stood in line for the opportunity to be called to their dream church only to find that the Pastor Nominating Committee is hoping to call a white female or a Person of Color. “It’s hard to be a white male pastor,” one clergy person said to me recently.  Actually, it’s not that hard.  It’s just that being a straight white male is not enough anymore.

My practice is to ask Pastor Nominating Committees to stop thinking “check list” when seeking a new leader.  Stop looking for a person of a specific generation, a specific gender, a specific skin-color, a specific number of years as a “head of staff,” a specific marital status, etc. etc. and discern a real person with an authentic call whom God has gifted for your congregation’s particular needs and hopes.  You might be surprised whom God is lifting up.

In spite of comments that “some people are cutting in line” in Church World,  I know too many women, too many LGBTQ leaders, too many People of Color who have graciously stood in line, waiting their turn to be noticed –  much less called to serve – for long years.

Those of us who have been fortunate enough to be called to something akin to our dream jobs have the responsibility to open doors for those still standing in line.  If possible, we need to make the way clear for our colleagues who seek their dream jobs too.  Especially for those of us who will be retiring sooner than later, we owe it to the generations after us to encourage congregations to seek the pastor with the right gifts rather than the pastor who seems to have the right look.  #NoMorePulpitCandy

Image from Garrett Evangelical Seminary graduation.

To be the “Line Leader” in elementary school was a big deal for our kids. It gave them what felt like absolute power to – keep their classmates in line – literally. The pride on their faces while leading their friends to the library or to the gym was obvious.  If you were lucky, you got to be Line Leader for the whole week.

And because nobody has a sense of justice like a second or third grader, no one dared to cut in line on their watch.

When adults cut in line, the result could be a shrug or a punch, depending on the context.  There are some very angry people in the DMV line.  Not so much to board a Southwest flight unless you think you can jump into the A line with your sad C boarding pass.

According to a book I highly recommend –  Strangers in their Own Land by Arlie Russell Hochschild – there is a different kind of cutting in line with deep existential ramifications for our nation. (Thanks TW.)

Cutting in line – in terms of life opportunities – results in deep anger and mourning – especially for the American Right.  Hochschild – a San Francisco sociologist – spent five years in the Louisiana bayou befriending  “arch-conservative” residents, and she found that one person’s social movement to bring equality to minorities and women is another person’s experience of having “other people” cut in line.  Especially during the 1960s and 1970s a number of cultural shifts “shuffled the order.”

“During this era a long of parade of the underprivileged came forward to talk of their mistreatment – blacks who has fled a Jim Crow South, underpaid Latino field workers, Japanese internment camp victims, ill-treated Native Americans, immigrants from all over.  Then came the women’s movement.  Then gays and lesbians spoke out against their oppression.  Environmentalists argued the cause of forest animals without forests.  The endangered brown pelican, flapping its long, oily wings, had now taken its place in line.”

If you are a low to medium income white male who has worked hard all his life, you might feel like your place in line is being threatened by a long list of others – with “others” being the operative word.  (Note:  These days, several middle class and upper middle class men have told me they feel that their place in line is being threatened too.)

Our nation was created for white straight males.  But things are increasingly different now.  In the words of Arlie Russell Hochschild:

“All these social movements left one group standing in line: the older, white male, especially if such a man worked in a field that didn’t particularly help the planet.  He was – or was soon becoming – a minority too.”

It will be a while before white straight males indeed become a minority.  But it feels more imminent for our Tea Party neighbors, and it helps explain how we got to such a divided place.  The only way to bridge the divide is to do what Hochschild did:  intentionally connect with people who disagree with us.

Images of a 1950s school class of white boys in the front of the line (top) and the book by Arlie Russell Hochschild.  I liked this book better than Hillbilly Elegy.

Tomorrow:  Cutting in Line – Church Version.

When I made my first appointment to see a therapist in my new city, I was informed that – because of the location of the therapy offices – I might run into Presbyterian colleagues.  I replied that I not only welcomed that, but I’d be willing to put a bumper sticker on my car that said “I’m here to see a therapist.”

Actually, I’m kidding about the bumper sticker, but I’m serious about normalizing therapy.  Why do I see a therapist?

• It helps to process things that I can’t talk about with my colleagues (because boundaries.)
• I want to discern my life patterns and figure them out with a wise person.
• When I’m really busy, it’s easy to lose perspective.
• Sometimes I’m overwhelmed.
• I just started a new position in a new city away from family and old friends.  I should probably talk about that with a professional.

I have had a therapist everywhere I’ve lived since college – through deaths, break ups, births, and job shifts.  It makes me a healthier person.  And it’s different from coaching or spiritual direction – although I need those things too.

Whether we are clergy people, mail carriers, electricians, educators, senators or stay-at-home parents, life can be busy/crushing/soul-sucking/wonderful.  I, for one, need to process all that.  How about you?

Image of a t-shirt you can buy here.  

I was born, raised and educated in Chapel Hill, NC.  I walked by, sat by, and have taken photographs by “Silent Sam” countless times.  I knew the tale about this statue of a Confederate soldier with a rifle but no cartridges who only fired his gun “when a – presumably female – virgin walked by.”  Hilarious.

And I’m not a fan of destroying property.

But this “silent” statue was actually screaming White Supremacy.  Most of us just couldn’t hear it.

Imagine hearing – out loud – this speech on June 2, 1913 by the Davie Poplar in McCorkle place off Franklin Street, 48 years after the Civil War spoken by UNC trustee and Confederate Army veteran Julian Carr:

One hundred yards from where we stand, less than ninety days perhaps after my return from Appomattox, I horse-whipped a negro wench until her skirts hung in shreds, because upon the streets of this quiet village she had publicly insulted and maligned a Southern lady, and then rushed for protection to these University buildings where was stationed a garrison of 100 Federal soldiers. I performed the pleasing duty in the immediate presence of the entire garrison, and for thirty nights afterwards slept with a double-barrel shot gun under my head.

Lord have mercy.  Christ have mercy. Lord have mercy.

I didn’t know that history because I was never curious enough to find out.  In fact, I’m not even sure I was aware that “Silent Sam” depicted a Confederate States soldier.  I never noticed the details.  I never had to notice because it didn’t hurt me.

Today it hurts me.  I was stunned that – at the very least – there wasn’t an accompanying plaque explaining the vile history of this statue, but then, why in the world would anyone – except a current day white supremacist – allow such a statue to remain on the campus of a distinguished university if they knew about this dedication speech?  (The whole speech can be read here.)

A good book to read about Confederate statues is Mitch Landrieu’s In the Shadow of Statues: A White Southerner Confronts History.  It changed my heart about this issue.

White Supremacy is alive and well – in my own heart too.  I hate the destruction but I get it.  We can do better and it begins by White People doing our homework and listening for the screams.

Image of a toppled Silent Sam.

The ugly polarization between Blue and Red voters in the United States makes my stomach hurt.  I take it very personally when I hear that someone “thinks Trump is doing a good job” in light of what I consider to be his dehumanizing comments and abject cruelty towards people in need.

It’s so personal that it physically hurts.  A vote for Trump, in my mind, was a vote against my daughter in law who is brown, my family who are LGBTQ and my friends who have fled terrorism.  It doesn’t make sense to me – if you also love my daughter in law and the rest of my family, and my friends – that you would think someone who has castigated each of them or people like them is “doing a good job.”

But that’s me. And because I attach religious and moral ties to politics, it’s easy for me to be self-righteous.

So what’s the answer as I now serve in a Church Mid-Council with thousands of people on each side of the political divide who all call themselves disciples of Jesus Christ?  I pray for wisdom and I look for groups like this one.

We need to learn to talk with each other.

When I was a pastor in Northern Virginia concerned with what I considered to be the mean-spirited tone of this periodical, I contacted their editor and asked to be connected with one of their supporters in my geographic area so that we might become prayer partners and drink coffee together and try to understand each other.  The person on the phone told me that “I can’t think of anybody on our side who would want to talk with you.”  Ouch.

I appreciate the hard work of understanding our political foes.  Is there anybody out there who is willing to join me to trying to understand?

Video from the Better Angels website.  Thank you LK.

A cocaine dealer paid for my brunch yesterday.  

It had been a long day – a long week actually – and it was a good day to eat brunch out.  It’s fairly easy to get a seat at the bar even during the Sunday brunch rush at Zada Jane’s.

My lunch date had fallen through but I don’t mind eating alone. And when you go places alone people are more likely to talk to you.  Enter the coke dealer.

David (not his real name) was sitting beside me at the breakfast bar and he asked me to guess what he did for work.  He was a 30-something wearing a t-shirt and jeans and before I could guess, he blurted out that he was an investment banker.  His point was that we shouldn’t judge people by appearances which is also true for me.  (I made him guess what I do for a living and he thought I was an investment banker too.)

Actually, he was not an investment banker and neither am I.  Our server outed me as a Presbyterian pastor. (I am the resident chaplain at Zada Jane’s.)

David asked for prayer and girlfriend advice and he showed me photos of his kids.  I suggested he phone someone to help him get home and two guys soon came by. (David was drunk.) And then he said he wanted to pay for my brunch.

He pulled out a wad of cash “from last night’s party” and he told me that he’s actually a cocaine dealer “sometimes.”

And sometimes I find church in random places.

Image of the bar area of Zada Jane’s –  one of the best breakfasts in Charlotte. I previously wrote about Random Church here.