Five Resolutions for the New Year

1. I resolve to develop a new habit that takes me out of my familiar work pattern.

It's too easy for ministry to fall into predictable patterns, only to be occasionally interrupted by an unexpected crisis. My resolution seeks to find more positive surprises in ministry by shaking up the established routine. I might make pastoral visits in the morning, not the afternoon; or take Mondays off instead of Fridays; or make a point of sitting on the steps in front of the church for at least two hours a week to interact with whoever walks by. Anything that opens space
for the Spirit to move in new and unexpected ways.

2. I resolve to find a new way to be a sheep, and not a shepherd.

In ministry, we become accustomed to leading. It is our job, after all. Almost any time we're involved in a church activity, people are looking to us to be in charge. Which sometimes means that we forget how to follow. We forget what it means to be the sheep we are expecting others to be. My resolution, therefore, is to find one activity where I am just a face in the crowd. Perhaps I'll volunteer to be an assistant Little League coach, or will join an online Bible study. Anything where I can just show up and follow along.

3. I resolve to dialogue more with those of a different political perspective than mine.

These days, it seems that the left and right sides of the political spectrum live in completely different worlds. It's quite possible for us to never talk with anyone outside of our own partisan bubble, or to only do so by hurling anger and insults. In the past couple of years, I have developed a few relationships on Facebook where I can have civil conversations across the political divide. It can get passionate, but we strive to keep it respectful. And most importantly, we seek not just to "win" the argument, but to find some sort of common ground that can move the conversation forward. My resolution is to intentionally develop several more of these relationships, as I believe they are the key to our nation overcoming this partisan warfare that is having so many detrimental effects.

4. Instead of helping people in need, I resolve to connect people that help people in need.

In every community, there are plenty of people who are working in various ways to do compassionate ministries. Usually, the challenge is not getting people motivated to help, but in coordinating those who are already trying to do something. This is an urgent need in my town, so I am resolving to spend my outreach efforts in 2014 on working with the Ministerial Association and other civic groups to come up with some sort of directory of services. I hope this coordinating effort will point out some of the holes in our area's safety net - which can then be addressed.

5. I resolve to revive an old area of interest that represents my youthful ideals.

 It is inevitable that as we grow older, some of our strongly held beliefs about life are tempered by the realities of actually living life. But sometimes in our path toward wisdom and maturity, we can get sidetracked into jaded cynicism. Which is why, as we move throughout our adult lives, it is important to occasionally resurrect some of those forgotten passions.

Soon after I was ordained, I developed a strong interest in writing about consumerism and the needs for Christians to live disciplined lifestyles that promote economic and environmental justice. It was the culmination of an ethic that I had been developing throughout my time in college and seminary. I published a blog and even a short series of magazines on the subject - but it seemed it was not the right time for the church to hear the message.

2014, however, might find a more receptive faith culture. So, as my final and most exciting resolution, I am going to revive my work in a new and updated format. My first step will be to republish some of my old work on this blog - and then to evaluate what has and has not changed in the last decade. It should be fun!


Have a Happy New Year, y'all!

Unhelpful Myth #1: The Church Is Dying

(No one disputes the fact that Christianity in America is declining numerically. Enough has been written about this already, and I don't have anything to add to the conversation except to point out some unhelpful myths that this shrinking reality is producing. These myths are causing undue anxiety and are preventing us from embracing the wonderful new things God is bringing out of this situation.) 

Myth #1: The Church is Dying.

All we have to do is take a look at national trends in membership, or how young people occupy our pews so sparsely compared to gray hairs, or how few baptisms we're performing compared to funerals - and it seems logical to predict that the once-great Protestant church in America will be no more in 50 years or so.

But if we broaden our historical view and reject the impulse to compare today's church to the "glory days" of 1960. And if we take an approach that is more Biblical than business-like in how it defines success, then we will see that despite the steadily declining numbers, the church is far from dying.

From it's very beginning, the story of God's people is about growing and contracting. It's a steady pattern of great numerical strength in one era, followed by a difficult time of winnowing and transition, followed by startling new growth in the next era. Surely we are not the first people in that long history to feel the burden of being called to faithfulness in a time when God is shrinking us. Surely we are not the first to feel the grief of something great coming to an end, and then to transfer that grief to think that God's people and perhaps even God himself are dying.

But we can take great comfort and hope that this is not the first time we have faced decline, and that The Holy Spirit will surely bring us back in a way that is both surprising and glorious. Just ask the great prophets of the Old Testament who lived through the loneliness and isolation of exile, but somehow mustered the hope to write the beautiful words that pointed toward the coming of Christ. Surely, their faith and hope can convince us that our difficult period is not about the church dying, but rather about it getting smaller and then reemerging as something new.

But if we are convinced we are dying, and if we succumb to the anxiousness that precedes anticipated death, then we will not be receptive to new things. Our eyes will be dimmed, and our hearts will focus only on what we are losing, not on what can now be gained.

It's just as Isaiah 43:18-19 proclaims:

"Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing: now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert."

Moving Beyond "Us vs. Them"

 

In the 1980’s, a catchy ad campaign emerged from a beer company. The premise was simple. Two groups of people would shout back and forth the two features of the beer the company wanted us to remember:

“Tastes great!”

 “Less filling!” 

“Tastes great!”

“Less filling!”

As the campaign gained steam, the debate began to spontaneously emerge at sporting events. A couple of people would start the shouting, and it would spread like wildfire until it was half of the stadium versus the other half:

“Tastes great!”

“Less filling!”

“Tastes great!”

Less filling!”

The willingness of so many people to jump into the debate was a brilliant source of free advertising, and also a good lesson in crowd psychology. Many of the folks who were shouting never drank that brand of beer and had no actual opinion on the two choices set before them. It was just something fun to do at the ballgame. The debate could have been Mickey Mouse vs. Donald Duck, and people would have joined in just as gleefully.

The point is this: People are drawn to a clear “us vs. them” argument, and will readily conform to the two choices that are presented  – even when those choices are not very relevant or useful. It happens all the time in our national politics.

Conservative vs. liberal. Democrat vs. Republican. Socialism vs. free market. Gun control vs. gun rights. Pro-life vs. pro-choice.  Pro-Israel vs. Pro-Palestine. And so on and so forth. Every election, every issue, and every movement is forced into an oversimplified “us vs. them” duality where people can make their choice as easily as they decided whether to shout “Tastes great!” or “Less filling!” It’s a process which engages and inflames the American people against one another, but which does no justice to the amazingly complicated political and cultural landscape we find ourselves inhabiting.

As a result, we end up shouting at one another about which party is to blame for a manufactured government shutdown; or over a proposed gun control law that will do nothing to address our real problems with violence;  or over a new health care law that leaves untouched the fundamental structures of a broken system. And we eagerly jump into these largely irrelevant debates using the simple categories that are presented to us:

“Tastes great!”

“Less filling!”

“Tastes great!”

“Less filling!”

Unfortunately, it’s not much different in the church. As Christians move into a 21^st-century reality that is complicated, uncertain, and somewhat frightening, we find ourselves falling into the same types of “us vs. them” struggles.

Many of these struggles revolve around the “liberal vs. conservative” division that has defined the last few centuries of Protestant history. Most recently, this conflict has erupted around the issue of LGBT ordination, and its reality is a complicated mix of theological, cultural, political, and historical forces.

There are a lot more than two ways to think about the issue, depending on one’s context and personal experience. A conversation that is helpful and moves the issue forward will be sensitive to the multiplicity of perspectives and will not devolve an “us vs. them” shouting match.

Too easily, however, the conversation is about “those who love gays vs. those who hate gays,” or “those who believe in the Bible vs. those who don’t.” It’s a reductionism that inhibits the discovery of creative solutions, and it is reflected in the way church governing bodies tend to discuss issues - with a “for” microphone on one side and an “against” microphone on the other.

“Tastes great!”

“Less filling!”

“Tastes great!”

“Less filling!”

But beyond the hot-button political issues such as LGBT rights, the church falls into the “us vs. them” mentality on topics of the general future of the church, topics for which a simplistic duality is the least helpful way to think about things. Here’s an example:

In the last year, an emotional debate has erupted in the Presbyterian Church (USA) about changes being made to the medical and pension plans offered to clergy. The Board of Pensions, in response to rising medical costs and other pressures, announced that it would be ending the practice of fully covering all dependents. Essentially, this meant that younger clergy and smaller churches would be shouldering the burden of the changes. After an intense and focused outcry, the Board modified its change, reducing some of the additional burden, but not all of it.

What was telling about the controversy was not the details of the proposed changes, however.  It was the nature of the debate that ensued. It got quite polarized and quite ugly as insults like “uncaring, out of touch, and whiners” were hurled back and forth. Is was a clear reflection of the larger generational conflict happening in our culture.

And even though I strongly believe the changes are unfair to younger clergy, I am also disappointed that the conversation devolved into an “us vs. them” dynamic. There are many complicating factors to the Presbyterian pension situation, and there are multiple points of view that all have valid contributions to make.

Perhaps if we could set aside the compulsion to divide into warring factions, we would find that the ultimate answer to our pension woes is not found in an “us vs. them” debate about how we tinker with the current system. Perhaps we are being called to set aside the dualities that color our perceptions, and to seek to create together a very different sort of system. But because we are so programmed to line up on opposite sides of the river and throw rocks at one another, it is often difficult to get past the two simplistic categories that first present themselves.

“Tastes great!”

“Less filling!”

“Tastes great!”

“Less filling!”

It’s a lot of fun to do this at a baseball game.  But many of us have long since grown weary of trying to move forward in our nation and in the church in this fashion. There is another way.

             

Bivocational Ministry: Let's Think Twice

I'll admit my bias up front. My father has been a full-time minister all his life, and it looks like I will do the same. Which means that, except for one very difficult year when I tried to be a professional musician, I will never know any reality except financial dependence on the church. In some ways, this explains my uneasiness with all the talk lately about bivocational ministry.

Bivocational ministry is simply when a pastor holds a job outside the church to help pay the bills. It's not a new concept, and in fact it's been the norm for most of Protestant history. But it is a new and scary concept to many in today's mainline churches. We've grown accustomed to career clergy and to paying them well enough to be the sole support for middle class families.

As economic stagnation and the decline of the church in America have become realities, this assumption of professional clergy is changing. Many congregations that once afforded a well-paid full-time minister are now going the bivocational route. Others are joining up with neighboring churches for a "yoked" parish that usually pays the bare minimum to an overworked minister. What this means is that fewer pastors can now afford to support a middle class family.

But that's not necessarily a bad thing. As I have discussed this issue with my friends and colleagues, there have been strong points made both for and against the shift to bivocational ministry. So I will try to set my personal bias aside, and present an even-handed look at the pros and cons.

Pro: Resources once used for salary and benefits for the pastor can now be shifted to ministries. If I went to half my salary and no benefits, it would save my church about $40,000 - no small chunk of change!

Con: At least in the wealthier denominations like my PCUSA, lack of resources is not the issue. Regional and national governing bodies could, if they desired, make sure that all but the smallest churches have full-time clergy. The fact that many small churches are struggling to afford a pastor is more a reflection of our polity and our attitudes than our poverty. One could even make the argument that the church is reflecting society with issues of stratification of wealth.

Pro: Bivocational ministry reduces the gap between clergy and laity. One of the central problem of the 20th-century church is that it became clergy-centric. Ministers gained too much power and influence, while the people in the pews became passive and disinterested. Having a minister who is out there in the world scratching for a living like everyone else puts us on a more level playing field, and it allows for greater investment of lay people in leading the church.

Con: A minister who is not financially dependent on his position will tend to favor the job he depends on. For example, what happens when there needs to be a funeral on a Tuesday, but the minister can't get away from his day job? More to the point, will a minister trying to split her loyalties between family, church, and her other job be able to bring as much energy and passion on a daily basis as one who is fully committed to the church? Will the sermon be an afterthought thrown together on a Saturday afternoon, instead of something wrestled with and refined over a week full of pastoring?

Pro: Not being financially dependent on ministry removes much of the temptation toward careerism. One of the most salient criticisms of pastors is that they care more about "climbing the ladder" and landing a big-steeple church than serving God. A bivocational minister can joyfully serve whatever congregation they are called to without having to balance tough decisions about family financial needs.

Con: Being a pastor who has to balance those financial needs is an important part of spiritual growth. The people in the pews constantly wrestle with questions of faith, financial insecurity, and how to balance the selfish desire for career success with how to live a Christian life. Why should pastors be exempted from the temptation of careerism? As pastors struggle with it, they can better minister to parishioners who struggle with it.

Pro: Congregations have different expectations of full-time pastors. Every full-time minister has felt the pressure to perform in a certain way because the church invests so much in them. Pastors that earn a modest part-time salary enjoy more freedom to speak prophetically and to lead in ways that church members might not desire.

Con: Being financially dependent on the congregation gives the pastor accountability. There are many unpleasant aspects of ministry that can easily be discounted if one doesn't feel that pressure of, "This is my job, I have to do it." Full-time accountability also helps balance the power between clergy and laity, as that financial tether is sometimes the only thing that prevents a pastor from heading in a direction that the church might not be ready for.

There are more pros and cons, but those are the ones I feel are most relevant. We need to carefully consider these points before we go too much further down this road.

My central concern is that bivocational is becoming a trend because of economic reasons, not missional ones, and that we are not carefully considering the consequences. These decisions are being made at the congregational level as churches struggle with the painful reality of budgets that no longer allow for the cost of a full-time pastor. Letting go of this is often more difficult than the decision to close the doors altogether, and we shouldn't take lightly what this shift does to the psychology of a congregation.

I hope we can be more intentional at the higher levels of the church to decide with intention whether bivocational ministry is what is best for the body in the long run.

A More Intentional Online Community

As I emerge from my annual Twitter rant about how skewed our celebration of Labor Day has become, I am struck by the example of the Clapham Circle. Working about 200 years ago in England, they were a close-knit group of social justice activists led by William Wilberforce.

The Clapham Circle lived in close community about six miles outside of London, and they lived and breathed efforts to improve the lives of the poor and oppressed. They achieved the end of the British Slave trade, better conditions for the working class, and even the first animal humane society.

As I consider their amazing accomplishments, I wonder if justice-minded people of faith today need to emulate their commitment to community - to intentional, comprehensive community that goes deeper than sharing a common cause. 

There are countless organizations working for the poor and the working class today, and those that are focused on local issues seem to be quite successful. This is because these groups don't just talk about the issues together. They go to church together. They raise their families together. They are with one another for baptisms, weddings, and funerals. In short, their lives are shared in all dimensions, not just on political and social activism.

There are also countless networks and groups working for justice on the larger issues, as the Clapham Circld did. But in my experience, these groups are more fractured and haphazard. There are conferences to attend, and online conversations to join - but the wholistic closeness of the local group is not there. At times, it can be hard to tell who is really part of a community and who is not, and even how to define the parameters and goals of online groups that form in such undefined ways.

Several times, I have seen plans for ambitious justice movements get hatched in such communities, only to find they never come to fruition because of overriding commitments in our local communities. Certainly this barrier to launching effective campaigns such as the Clapham Circle did has existed throughout history - but it seems the nature of online communication is intensifying the challenge. Perhaps a little more intentionality to organize will help us get over this hump.

Obviously, living in the same geographic space and making forays into the nearby halls of power is no longer the way to organize for justice - or maybe it still is? Who knows? But we are in new territory here, and we need to find ways to foster that wholistic sharing of our lives - not just our social and political convictions.

How that is best done, I cannot say. There are some online groups who are being intentional about taking their fellowship to a more personal level, who are beginning to act more like a church family than a professional organization. My hope is that we can continue to build our relationships beyond where they are today, and that we can think creatively and purposefully about this powerful new tool for connecting that we possess.

Talk With Your Children About Racism, Poverty, and Dr. King

When I was in the third grade, I sat next to an African American girl. I can't remember her name, but I remember very clearly the day she didn't show up for class. We all assumed she was sick, but about three hours into the day she suddenly appeared at the door, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"What's going on?" the teacher asked.

"I missed the bus, and I had to walk to school!" the girl stammered, choking back the sobs.

At this, the teacher quickly called for the office, and an aide came and took the girl away. About an hour later, she returned and took her seat next to me. She was no longer in tears, but obviously still upset. She sat quietly for the rest of the day, and no one in the class - including the teacher - said another word about what had happened.

Only as I grew older did I put the pieces together:

This girl was one of the students bussed from the inner city of Greenville, SC out to the suburbs where I lived. Her walk was about 6-8 miles on busy city streets. Think about that for a second.
And think about why a scared 8-yr old decided to make that journey instead of going home or to a neighbor's house. These days, I can understand the social realities that frame this story, and I can see that deep-seated issues of poverty and racism contributed to the circumstances that led to her dangerous decision.

That incident happened 20 years after The March on Washington and Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" speech, and in some ways it indicates improvement. My elementary school in the Deep South was integrated, after all. But in other ways, it indicates how far we have to go with education and awareness - even today.

Looking back on that day, it strikes me that the white kids had no idea what had happened. We didn't know how far away she lived, and we didn't think to ask why we weren't being bussed into her neighborhood instead. We didn't know that she had been taken to see a social worker, and that she had gone into state custody the minute school was out. Most importantly, we didn't consider that our sheltered suburban upper middle class lives were not the lives that some of the kids in our class were living.

Perhaps this is where we can turn a corner on the racism and the classism that is so persistent in our culture. Perhaps we need to give children the opportunity to understand and process the social realities around them, instead of presenting the world as some fairy tale bubble of abundance and equality to get burst at age 15, or 25, or 45, or never.

I was fortunate that I grew up in a family where social issues were common topics at the dinner table. But even I grew up with a level of naivete and ignorance about the problems being endured by the kid who sat right next to me - a naivete that can translate all to easily into adult attitudes of callousness and denial about poverty and race.

So tonight, I am going to gather my two boys - ages 7 and 8 - and watch the "I Have A Dream" speech with them. The whole speech. And then, I'm going to ask questions and listen, and help them get a better understanding of the reality many of their classmates in our desperately poor rural county in Virginia are facing. I encourage us all to do the same. 

It's Not About Us, Part 3 - Beyond the Institutions

In a recent evangelism meeting at my church, I tried to explain the concept of "third places." Most people have three places in their lives where they spend most of their time - home (first place), work (second place), and whatever their third place is. It can be a bowling alley, a pub, the YMCA - anywhere they spend a significant amount of time and find fellowship and a sense of belonging.

I encouraged each person at the meeting to think about their own third places (other than church) and the opportunities that might exist there for sharing the good news in a non-threatening way. Describing the youth baseball and soccer fields where most of the young families in my community spend time, I mused on the possibilities to reach people who either had lapsed from their faith or had never been part of a church.

The eyes in the room lit up as folks considered the potential. Immediately the comments emerged: "I always thought we had so few kids in worship because we don't have any kids in this town. But they are obviously out there." "That would be great if we could get some of them to come here on Sunday." "Imagine all those kids coming forward for the children's sermon!"

I tried not to sigh audibly. I had just spent 10 minutes describing some of the successful "New Worshiping Communities" of the Presbyterian denomination's new initiative.  It seeks to create non-traditional ministries that don't center around a Sunday service or the church building.

They had been enthused by the stories of a coffee shop that hosts Bible studies and raises funds for mission; a pub ministry that gets skeptical 20-somethings to talk about faith; and a running club that creates Christian fellowship among folks who aren't otherwise coming to church. "Why," I thought to myself, "can't these people think beyond their own institutional survival and see the bigger picture?"

But before I got too exasperated, I remembered that my thinking on this matter has only recently changed. Until about a year ago, I would have responded to such an opportunity with the same focus on boosting our own worship attendance and membership. My involvement on a regional-level committee has allowed me to explore the concept of evangelism in a deeper way. Before then, I too would have seen all these great new ministries out in communities as merely a means to an end - not as legitimate new churches in and of themselves.

So the challenge for traditional churches like mine is this: How do we encourage folks to think more deeply about the changing times and the need for adaptive strategies? How do we help one another move past those reflexive responses that measure 21st century ministries by 20th century standards?

Most importantly, how do we remind one another that the call to share the good news is a call for us to sacrifice ourselves and our preferences for the larger sake of the Gospel; to understand that the preservation of the institutions we love is not the ultimate point; to realize that in so many ways, "it's not about us."