Tag Archives: Leadership

Race: The Newest Old Issue Confronting American Christian Life by Kevin Murriel

Several weeks ago I attended a conference in Houston, Texas that targeted ministry with large churches. Throughout the conference were presentations on technology, capitol campaigns, and “new age” ideas in ecclesiological innovation. Many left with concepts to take back to their congregations in hopes of implementation while others departed inspired with a rejuvenated energy for ministry. I, however, returned to Atlanta convinced that few recognized what was missing. There was no mention of the race problem we continue to face that affects American Christian life and the growth of our congregations.

Yes, I called it a “problem.” Problems are unresolved issues that stall progress. And needless to say, our inability as a country and as the Body of Christ to have productive conversations about the reality of racism is a problem. By race, I mean, our biologically engineered features (not to be confused with ethnicity) – the problem we often have with each other because of our color differences.

One of my confirmation classes experienced this problem first-hand. At their confirmation retreat two years ago, 35 black youth from an affluent Atlanta congregation were asked by a large group of white youth if their church was “ghetto”and if their hair was “real.” Where they were from and how prominent their parents were didn’t matter–only the difference in their skin color.

Because of the race problem, the nation now has to face itself in the way it did when Emmett Till was murdered in 1955. Ordering that the casket remain open at his funeral, Till’s mother wanted America to see that senseless killing as a result of racism is not just unjust, but evil. That no one regardless of their color should have their life end under such cruel circumstances.

Fast-forward 60 years and the nation now faces more media coverage of the killings of unarmed black men and women as well as the issue of racial profiling. Not that these things are new, they are just receiving more media coverage since the Travyon Martin case in 2012.

It is important to pause here and explain my intent. I am not a race baiter.  Neither do I believe that inciting rage is the way to productive discourse. Rather, I am a pastor who always seeks ways to unite God’s people regardless of the associated discomfort.

Race is an uncomfortable thing to discuss. It brings back memories for many who would prefer them remain in the closet in which they were locked. Some even ask if race matters at all.  It is the 21st century and by the way, we have a two-term black president, interracial families, minority-owned businesses and multi-cultural churches. Why is there a race conversation?

A recent New York Times article titled, “Racial Bias, Even When We Have Good Intentions,” cited a study conducted by Marianne Bertrand, an economist from the University of Chicago that highlighted the effect of race on job opportunities. Bertrand and her team mailed thousands of résumés to employers with job openings and measured which ones were selected for callbacks for interviews. But before sending them, they randomly used stereotypically African-American names (such as “Jamal”) on some and stereotypically white names (like “Brendan”) on others.

The same résumé was roughly 50 percent more likely to result in a callback for an interview if it had a “white” name–even though the résumés were statistically identical.

The conversation about race is important for the Church because it directly affects our parish–the world. And though every person has value, we each have intrinsic prejudices. Whether parents become nervous when a black kid shows up to a majority white youth group, or members of a primarily black congregation look suspiciously at a Latino man with tattoos who decides to attend worship, we often have the propensity to feel some kind of way towards the “other.”

So, where do we begin?

I contend that it begins with a desire to love all people and seeing the Kingdom of God as racially diverse. God did not create everyone to physically look the same so it is preposterous to think that God is White, Black, Hispanic, or any other race and only attends a certain “type”of church. Such a theology about God will keep the Church divided as it has for centuries.

One of my mentors, Dr. Gil Watson, is a white pastor serving one of the most prominent churches in United Methodism, located in the Buckhead area of Atlanta, Georgia. He is 40 years my elder and has been in ministry longer than I have been alive. We continue to see God, through our conversations, expand our understanding of each other and our calling as pastors. This relationship is intentional, and at times, uncomfortable for us both; and at the same time, one of the most rewarding experiences of our lives.

What he and I understand is that we are the Church–one, holy, apostolic, and universal–and our witness demands that we live in these intentional, uncomfortable relationships and lead the difficult conversations about the race problem. Society should not drive the Church; rather, the Church should be the influencer of society.

The race problem, however, does not have to remain. When reconciliation comes, such a problem is overcome. This will be the next subject in this series. So, stay tuned.

I Must Go by Michelle Bauer

To be a follower is not a valued characteristic in our culture, is it?  If someone asked us if we wanted our children to grow up to be followers or leaders, I’m guessing most of us would say leaders. When we hire or promote someone at work are we looking for leaders or followers? Businesses and even ministries offer people leadership training. But have you ever heard of a group that offers follower training? When we are giving life lessons to our children we say, “don’t be a follower.” It’s even something we say as sort of an insult: “that person is such a follower.”

I wonder if that’s why we have a hard time following Jesus.

Following requires us to give up control and submit to the leader. Who wants to do that?!  I prefer to do things my way, plot my own course and figure it out. Following slows us down. It requires us to proceed at another person’s pace or take the long way if that’s what they prefer.

As I’ve pondered discipleship over the last weeks, the word that keeps floating past is “follow”.  Discipleship can be a scary word. It sounds really intense and serious. But it really just means to learn from someone through a process of listening and doing.

About 12 years ago before our kids were born, my husband Chris talked me into taking scuba diving lessons with him. I’m not what you would call an adventurous person. I have no need to bungee jump or sky dive. Riding a bike is about as adventurous as I get. So this was a big stretch for me. But he was excited and wanted us to do this together. So, I agreed.

To learn to scuba dive you have to go through a pretty structured certification process. It starts with a text book, classroom lectures and even tests. That was right up my alley!

The next step is to handle the equipment, put together the gear, the regulator and air tanks. Chris and I were the only students in our class. So, we had a lot of opportunities to ask questions and get really comfortable with how everything worked.

Then one day, we had to actually get in the water.

The dive center had a little pool right in their building. It was the perfect place to practice because it felt contained – you could see the sides and there was no wildlife. The regulator is the thing that is connected to your air tank. When you put it in your mouth you are able to breathe normally. What I discovered pretty quickly, though, is that it is one thing to read in a book about how a regulator works but it’s something altogether different to put it in your mouth and start to breathe as you go under water.

Let’s just say I had a few false starts and sucked down about a half a tank of air before I finally got all the way under. But the instructor was really patient and kept saying things like, “this is really normal.”  He stayed close by and that gave me a lot of comfort.

When it was time to do our certification dive, we drove out to an abandoned quarry that had been flooded. We got all of our equipment on and walked into the water. It was a really smooth entry, mainly because we could go at our own pace. We went down to about 25 feet and swam around for a while. When we surfaced, we were certified divers.

A few months later, we went on vacation to Mexico and Chris signed us up to do a drift dive over a coral reef with a group. I was a little nervous – this wasn’t a quarry and there wasn’t an instructor present. We were on our own. We had to get on a boat, ride out into what felt like the middle of the ocean and were then forced out of the boat.  As we are getting on the boat, they made the announcement that we would be going to a depth of 80 feet and they asked if everyone had gone to that depth before. I looked at Chris and we began this conversation using our eyes, like married people do. My eyes said “we have not gone to 80 feet before.” And his eyes said, “if you tell them that, they might not let us dive.” I was ok with that; he was not.

Eighty feet sounded like a different planet to me at that point. There is a big difference between 25 and 80 feet, at least for a beginner. At 25 feet, you can see the surface of the water. That is comforting. At 25 feet you can get to the surface quickly if there is a problem with your air supply. At 80 feet you cannot see the surface and you have to ascend in stages or you could hurt your ears. You can’t just panic and pop to the surface.

The other thing that was making me nervous was a movie we had seen called “Open Water.” The plot of this movie revolves around a couple that had gone scuba diving while on vacation in another country, and when they resurfaced, the group and boat had left them on accident. They bobbed around in the water for a few hours and then they got eaten by sharks. Oh yeah – and the movie was based on a true story. So I had all of this running through my non-adventurous mind as we were riding to the dive site.

I have a very strong flight or fight instinct. Except my instinct is always towards flight. Now if there is some sort of emotional crisis, I’m your gal. But if I sense that I am in physical danger, I flee every time. I don’t wait around to take others with me or even warn of danger. I go.

That day we were doing a drift dive, which means that we weren’t diving to look at something and then surfacing all in one spot. Once we got to the bottom, the guy leading the group would find the current and we would ride it for a few miles to another location where the boat would pick us up. I saw all sorts of opportunities for danger in this plan – I could get separated from the group, get disoriented, look around and find myself alone in the ocean – at 80 feet.

As I’m descending to 80 feet I’m frantically strategizing how I’m going to get out of this alive. When you dive, you always dive in pairs. You are supposed to stay close to your buddy and check in periodically to make sure they are doing ok and to offer assistance if they need it. Well, we got to 80 feet and I abandoned my buddy which happened to be Chris. “For better or worse” doesn’t count at 80 feet.

Instead, I found the professional diver master who was leading the group and I stuck to him like glue. I figured if something happened I wanted him to be the one coming to my rescue. And I figured the tour operators wouldn’t leave him in the ocean. They would know he was missing and when they found him, they would find me too. I would have gone anywhere with this guy and nothing or no one was going to get in between us. I was going to follow any instruction he gave me immediately and completely. I really wanted to live. If I could have tethered myself to him, I would have.

And my plan worked! We survived the dive. I had gone from reading a textbook about diving to actually diving at 80 feet!

The Invitation – “Follow”

I was able to get from a book to the ocean through a process.

There are a lot of similarities between that process and the process of discipleship. Through the gospels, we see Jesus leading his disciples through a very similar process.

Jesus didn’t originate the discipleship model. In the New Testament world, if you wanted to learn something – a skill or a subject – you became someone’s disciple. Disciples didn’t attend a course or a seminar; they attached themselves to their teacher and followed them around for as long as it took to learn what they wanted to learn. A disciple went through a series of steps on their way to becoming experts themselves:

  1. They began by reading, watching and listening.
  2. They asked questions – why did you do this that way? Or you said this, what does it mean?
  3. Then they progressed to doing the thing they were learning, under the master’s supervision. If something didn’t go well they could ask for clarification or more teaching.
  4. Finally, the master sent them out on their own and expected them to operate independently of him or her. It was also understood at this point that they were able to teach others what they had learned.

Before a person began this process, though, they had to accept an invitation to become someone’s disciple. The gospels tell the story of how Jesus gathered and trained his original group of 12 disciples.  We learn through their stories what it means to leave the life you know in order to follow.

After Jesus’ baptism and time of temptation in the desert, he begins his formal ministry. His first project is to assemble a group of disciples. He doesn’t ask for applications and pick the people who have the best resumes or credentials. He doesn’t pick the people who everyone else would consider “disciple material.” He picks the guys that didn’t have a chance in the world of becoming anyone else’s disciple. They had jobs like fishing and tax collecting and leading rebellions. Let’s look at Jesus’ invitation to Peter and Andrew in Matthew chapter 4 verses 18-22.

Peter and Andrew and James and John respond to this amazing offer by immediately accepting. They didn’t weigh their options or seek advice. They literally dropped their nets, got out of their boats and walked away with Jesus.

These disciples demonstrated for us the first lesson of becoming a disciple. In order to accept an invitation to follow, we will have to leave something behind. These disciples left behind the tools of their trade – their boats and nets – their profession, their businesses, their investment, their father and their father’s plan for their lives.

Sometimes, the call is to literally walk away from your life as you know it. Other times, we are called to keep living our same lives but in a different way.  Sometimes this is the harder call, because the nets we leave behind are the unhealthy things we do to make our lives ok. We leave behind addictions, habits, passive-aggressive responses, temper tantrums, denial and a thousand other things we do to get through our days. To go back to your relationships and your work as someone who follows Jesus can be very challenging. But so can following Jesus while dragging around our old life.

At the end, 12 men accept Jesus’ invitation to follow him. And he proceeds to lead them through the process of teaching them everything they needed to know and do to be like him:

  1. They follow him from village to village and listen to him preach. They have front row seats as he heals the sick and casts out demons.
  2. They have lots of opportunities to ask questions – they draw him aside after he speaks in parables and ask what they mean.
  3. Then Jesus starts to give them jobs to do. He asks them to feed the 5,000 people who’ve gathered to hear him preach. They’ve watched him do miracles and now he wants to see what they’ve learned about how he operates.
  4. Finally, in Mark chapter six, he gives them authority and sends them out in groups of two to minister in villages. He sends them out to be fishers of men.

This is very much what our journey of discipleship should look like. Learning to be like and act like Jesus should be the primary focus of our lives. He asks us to learn how to do the life we already have like he would. What kind of a spouse would he be to my spouse? How would he parent my children? How would he do my job?  What kind of a student would he be? Too many times, though, we don’t let being a disciple sink that deep.

Often our discipleship is focused on steps 1 and 2 – learning about Jesus. Think back to my scuba diving experience. If I told you I was a scuba diver and then you found out I’d only read the book and listened to the lectures but had never been in the water, what would you think? You’d think my statement was a bit of a stretch wouldn’t you?  Why? Because reading about something and doing something are two different things.

A discipleship process that stops at listening to sermons or even reading the Bible is not complete.

Those things are very important but we must add the “doing” in steps 3 and 4 if we are to be disciples. We must move through the steps like the disciples did. We need to ask questions and figure out what we believe. We need to start participating in God’s work through service. Once we know enough and have experienced enough we need to get into the water and start doing it.

We can put the brakes on this process at any time. I could have taken all the written tests and decided that was far enough. No one was going to drag me into the pool. And Jesus did not drag any disciples along against their will. At every step we have the opportunity to accept his invitation to go farther.

This is where trust comes in. As we follow him, we learn that we can trust him. He doesn’t ask us to dive in the ocean until we are ready. And when we are ready, he dives down with us and lets us swim right up with him.

Dallas Willard, a Christian philosopher and  a pastor for many years, wrote and taught some amazing things about what it means to follow Jesus. He once said in an interview, “the only thing that transforms us spiritually is the action of following Christ.”  Knowledge and experiences of feeling God’s presence only transform us if we do something with them.

That kind of talk can make us nervous. We believe in grace, right? We believe we do not earn salvation by works, right?  Absolutely. But salvation is not the end; it is the beginning. At the moment of salvation we are saying to Jesus, “yes, we want to follow you.” And then we start following him.

In II Peter chapter one verse five, Peter (who is a graduate of Jesus’ discipleship program) encourages us to “make every effort to add to our faith.” God does not want us to go through life burdened with the thought that we have to earn our salvation. But he does expect us to put some muscle behind our faith. Discipleship happens when we choose to put into practice what we are learning and experiencing.

When we begin to serve and make disciples things get interesting. I was not once nervous sitting in the classroom learning about scuba diving. I said things like “how interesting!” and took notes – sort of like I do on Sunday mornings at church. What requires effort is what happens as I take what I learn on Sunday morning and put it into practice.

A few months ago, I heard a song about following Jesus: “I will go with Jesus where he leads, no matter the roughness of the road. I must go. I must go.”

The person leading worship taught it to us. This is a fun song to sing. It’s catchy! And it caught me all week long. Whenever I was at a crossroads – the moments you decide, am I going to do what I want or go where God is leading – I heard that song in my head. Then the song went from something fun to a matter of obedience.

That’s the roughness of the road. For many of us it is not martyrdom or losing all of our possessions as we flee to the mountains. It is those moments when we have to take what we are learning and choose to obey.

Discipleship sometimes takes us to places that are new and hard and not our normal. And it is in those places that we are compelled to follow Jesus. I dove at 25 feet like a normal sane person. But when I was led to 80 feet, I followed as if my life depended on it.  Jesus takes us to places where we are forced to follow as if our lives depend on it. These are the places where our natural skills and abilities just won’t cut it. These are places where we are inexperienced and unsure.

In the book of John we see a great example. In chapter 11 verse 16, Jesus has just gotten word that his friend Lazarus has died and he tells his disciples that the plan is to go to Bethany.  The disciples say to Jesus, “normally we’d be all about that, but if you’ll remember, Jesus, the last time you were in Bethany, your enemies tried to kill you.”  Jesus insists on going, and that’s when we get to verse 16.

Lots of people will say that Thomas is the Eeyore of the group. “Well, if we’re gonna die, let’s get it over with…” But I think Thomas is courageous. He actually thinks he’s going to die and yet he follows Jesus to Bethany! Why would he do that? Because he realizes that Jesus is Lord and that to follow him is the best thing he can do with his life – even if he loses it.

Not many of us will be asked to follow Jesus into physical death but there are a lot of things that feel like death – fighting addiction feels like death sometimes, and so does walking away from a damaging relationship, and loving someone who has wounded you and choosing peace when all you want to do is fight.

That’s what “no matter the roughness of the road” means.

The Commission – “Go!”

When Jesus invites you to become his disciple his desire is for you to complete this whole process. And he’s really honest about that. Let’s look again at Matthew 4:18.

When Jesus finds Peter and Andrew they are fishing because they are fishermen. What we “do” flows out of who we “are”.  Jesus’ invitation to these men is an invitation to change not only what they “do” but who they “are”.

In verse 19, Jesus tells them exactly what he wants to change them into – fishers of men. There is no bait and switch here. From the moment they are called to follow, Jesus is very clear about the purpose – in order that they might reach others with the good news. Every master wanted their teachings or their craft to live on after they were gone. They were deeply invested in the process of teaching others and then setting them loose to teach still more.

So, after three years of being his disciple, when Jesus tells them, “Go! Make new disciples,” they should not have been surprised at all. He was very clear from the beginning.

In Matthew 28:16 Jesus tells his disciples to go to a mountain outside of town and wait for him there. This passage is known as the Great Commission. To commission someone means to grant them authority to accomplish a task.  This is the disciples’ graduation and commissioning ceremony.

Jesus says to them, “I have taught you what you need to know, I give you my authority, now go and find your own disciples and teach them to make disciples and through this process we will reach the entire world.” And Jesus’ plan worked. The gospel started with 12 people on a mountain in the Middle East and that same gospel has spread around the world.

And yet, there is still work to be done. Has the good news reached your work place, your neighborhood, your school?

This was a command given first to the 12 disciples, but if we want to be disciples of Christ it is also a command for us today. It is not a suggested add-on for those who are super Christians or for pastors.

The purpose of God calling and forming you is to reach others.

Of course he reaches out to us because he loves us; but he also loves the person you are called to reach out to. His desire is for them too. You are here because someone obeyed God’s call to “Go!” It might have been your parents or a pastor or a friend. But we are all here as a result.

I never got the chance to dive again after that vacation. We started having our family and my certification lapsed. But I wonder if the next time I went to 80 feet it would have been as scary? Or the twentieth time? I’m guessing the more we follow Jesus into the deep water of telling our stories and calling others to follow, the less scary it becomes.

How do we know when we are ready to start making disciples?  I would never have considered myself ready to go to 80 feet. I could have read a thousand books about diving, but until I went to 80 feet I wouldn’t have thought I could do it.

We will never feel ready. And that’s ok. When we head out to make disciples we don’t have to know everything or have all the answers. We are called to share our stories and invite people to follow Jesus with us. If you have learned one thing about Jesus or had one experience of him – you are ready. Someone you know may need to hear that one thing that you have learned.

What are we supposed to teach those we are discipling? We are to teach others to follow Jesus.  The invitation we give to others is not to believe and observe. It is an invitation to follow and obey. 

Let’s go back and look at the Jesus’ discipleship process:

  1. Listen and watch
  2. Ask questions
  3. Serve
  4. Make disciples

Here’s where Jesus’ discipleship process and those of other New Testament scholars differ. By the time you got to step 4 it was expected that you would begin to operate independently of your master.

But look again at Matthew 28:20. Jesus tells the disciples “I am with you always.” We always have our instructor with us!  Jesus left his disciples on that mountain when he returned to heaven but he sent the Holy Spirit who is the constant presence of God in our lives. Jesus never sends us off on a solo mission. If he sends us to 80 feet, he is right there with us.  And he loves the idea of us following him so closely that we can reach out and grab onto him at any moment.

Do you see yourself in this process somewhere? Or maybe you see yourself in a couple of places all at once? It is possible to be at step 3 in one area of your life and back at step 1 in another.  I can be making disciples and yet back at the learning and observing step as God deals with me about a specific issue.

This is why the process of discipleship never ends. Our whole lives are to be marked by following. I have made a decision to follow Jesus. But there are parts of me that haven’t gotten the news yet. As soon as God calls me to follow in another area of my life, I must be ready to go.

Are you ready to follow Jesus wherever he leads you? Are you willing to let him take you to the place where you really need him? The place where you have to follow as if your life depends on it?

The song “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus” does not say, “I will follow Jesus perfectly” or “I’m not afraid to follow.” We will not follow perfectly and we will often follow Jesus afraid, like Thomas did.

But we must follow Jesus – no matter the roughness of the road.

What Does The Lord Require Of You? by Maxie Dunnam

It is printed on the wall of the Library of Congress, a scripture verse many learned in Sunday school. Some describe it as the definition of real religion. “He has told you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you?  To do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8) Those words are as valid today as they were 2,800 ago years ago when Micah wrote them.

Micah was a young contemporary of the prophets Isaiah, Hosea, and Amos in the Eighth Century B.C. There was a particular kinship between Micah and Amos when we think about justice. Both were products of the countryside. Being from rural Mississippi, I like to remind people of that. Amos’s penetrating word, “Let justice run down like waters and righteousness as an ever flowing stream,” (Amos 5:24) is a parallel proclamation to Micah’s, “He has told you, O man, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you?  To do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with you God.”

Most of us are wondering these days, when? When will “justice run down like waters, and righteousness as an overflowing stream?”

In April of l964, I moved from Gulfport, Mississippi to San Clemente, California, in large part because of the civil rights issue and the church’s unwillingness to be practically and prophetically involved.  Mississippi was burning in all sorts of ways. Sixteen months after arriving in California, August, 1965, the Watts riots broke out. California was burning.

Fifty years later, Baltimore is burning.

After all these years of civil rights legislation, war on poverty, war on drugs, and the coming of age of at least two generations, fire breaks out in Baltimore. It is not surprising that the response we see is either cynicism (that’s just the way it is), or a feeling of helpless hopelessness (there’s nothing I/we can do). Have we made any progress? is a normal question to ask.

I urge us to say no to cynicism and get beyond hopelessness; at least to move to a point of thinking seriously. To head us in that direction, consider the fact that at the heart of the problem in Micah’s day was that Israel had grown tired of God and chosen to go her own way. Judges took bribes to render unfair judgments; priests were immoral; prophets would prophesy anything you wanted in exchange for a few shekels. Micah and the other prophets were scathing in their denunciation of people being seduced into turning away from God, worshipping and serving other gods. Those ancient Israelites were attracted to gods of sex, power and material things. Have the temptations changed?  Are we moderns not obsessed with self, forever making gods in our own image? What is good for us? What provides us the most pleasure and security?

What is least challenging to our status quo?

We are where we are, in large part, because we have not heeded Micah’s proclamation of God’s call: do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with God

Justice: making sure that all persons are treated fairly and have the opportunity to share in God’s good gifts. Micah said, do justice.  That means it is not enough to wish for justice or to complain because justice is lacking. God’s people must work for justice, for fairness and equality for all, particularly the weak and powerless who are exploited by others. Even the church, in black and white community, must examine itself in relation to this. Black preachers can speak with more integrity and influence in the black community about accountability and the breakdown of family structures than the white preacher. The white preacher can’t ignore his prophetic responsibility in dealing with the evil of racism because he/she is tired of two or three black preachers who make a career of moving into every “hot spot” to speak their word of condemnation.

Love mercy. When we talk about justice, we need to remember that God’s justice is always flavored with mercy. Justice without mercy is not God’s kind of justice, and mercy without justice is not God’s kind of mercy.

The Hebrew word for mercy is hesed, which is difficult to translate with a single English word. Most often rendered mercy, sometimes it is simply rendered kindness, and often a combination of two words, loving kindness.

Mercy, along with justice, is an action word, a matter of the will. It is not natural, because we are basically selfish persons. Mercy requires decision. It may be costly, often requiring giving up something for ourselves and doing something for the sake of others.

More often than not, our problem is not in not knowing what to do, but in doing it. I believe that’s the reason the prophet added, “walk humbly with God.” It is our willingness to walk daily with God that energizes us, enabling us to do justice and love mercy.

Mercy (hesed) was a special word to the Hebrews because it is one of the principal attributes used to describe God in the Old Testament. More often than not, justice and mercy were connected in the preaching of the prophets. In a word similar to Micah’s, the prophet Zechariah says, “Thus says he Lord of hosts: ‘Execute justice, show mercy and compassion. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor.’” (7:8-9) So the three directions for “real religion” cannot be separated. Walking humbly with God – living all of life in relation to God – will result in doing justice and loving mercy.

With my background journey, with Mississippi, California, and now Baltimore burning, living in the city where Martin Luther King was killed, I’m convinced the fundamental problem is education and the breakdown of the family. Those two things are intimately connected. I believe that public education is the civil rights issue of the 21st century. The zip code of where a child lives should not determine whether that child has an opportunity for a quality education. Whether a child can read when finishing the third grades marks what is going to happen to him/her the rest of life (including whether they will end up in prison). Whether a young woman finishes high school and goes to college often marks whether she will have children out of wedlock. The level of education for most incarcerated persons is less than high school.

I know that issues are more complex than these assertions, but I’m weary of excusing ourselves because the issue is so complex. Education is clearly a justice/mercy issue. That’s the reason why our church in Memphis has made a missional commitment to doing justice in relation to education.

Our congregation (Christ United Methodist Church) has been involved in education almost from the beginning of her life in 1955. As soon as buildings were available, the church started a school, kindergarten through sixth grade. I’m sure the motives were not altogether “justice for all.” Some folks were probably acting selfishly, making sure the children of the congregation had the opportunity for a “quality” education.

I served as Senior Minister of Christ Church from 1982 to 1994. Christ Methodist Day School had become one of many outstanding private schools in the city. During those years, I sought to lead the school in reaching out to the underserved of our city. We provided scholarships and tried to manage some common transportation.  But nothing really worked in any significant way.

To be faithful as a congregation, to really do justice and love mercy, the congregation acted boldly in 2010 and opened Cornerstone Prep, a private, explicitly Christian school, with very focused attention to providing education for the underserved children of our city, locating it in the hood.  We sent prospective teachers and administrators to cities across America where effective urban education was taking place, studied these schools, and developed our own “style” in response. From the beginning, with 33 kindergarten students, this little school has had positive record-breaking outcomes.

There was no question of need. In 2011, 950 of Tennessee’s 1750 public schools failed to make adequate yearly progress. In the concentrated educational reform efforts of our state, 85 of the worst “failing” schools were targeted for intervention by the state. Through the Department of Education, our governor established a non-geographical district of these “failing” schools, designated it The Achievement School District, and named a superintendent of that district, charging him to “reclaim” those schools for effective education. Sixty-nine of the 85 failing schools are in Memphis, a glaring sign of the condition of public education in our city.

Lester School is the primary elementary school serving the Binghamton neighborhood, where our congregation has been serving in different ways for 20 years. We located Cornerstone Prep there as another expression of our commitment. Lester is among the 69 failing schools in Memphis; in fact, it was the lowest performing school in the state.

One year after The Achievement School District was established, and three years after Cornerstone Prep was founded, we had the opportunity to do justice and love mercy in the Binghamton Community in a more expansive way. We were invited to take responsibility for the first three grades of Lester School.

To do so, Cornerstone Prep would have to “give up” being an explicitly Christian private school and become a charter school. This change in status would allow Cornerstone Prep to serve the larger public good in a manner currently not possible, enabling Cornerstone Prep to serve 325 students, rather than the 66 we served the previous year. After that year, we were given the entire school, kindergarten through 6th grade.

The big question was: would we be willing to surrender being an explicitly Christian school? We remembered that Jesus said, “unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24). As those seeking to “do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God,” we decided that Cornerstone Prep had to die in the sense of being a private Christian school, in order to serve a desperate community. In the core sense, we did not forsake our “Christian mission” of “doing justice and loving mercy,” of serving “the least of these.” We decided to pursue the mission in a different way.  Some of what we had been able to do in Christian witness and teaching in the classroom, we now do “after school.” But more, we do it not in curriculum, but in the way we teach and how we express care and affirmation of the students. We do it through countless volunteers who mentor and read with students. We do it in an Art Garden for the students and the community, located across the street from the entrance to the school.

Cornerstone has had amazing results in proving that where a child lives does not determine learning potential. The educational measurements have exceeded national norms in every area, so our little school has gotten state and national attention. The establishment of this school was one expression of our church doing justice. It is our statement that if our church is going to provide quality education for our suburban constituency through Christ Methodist Day School, justice requires that we seek the same for the children in Binghamton and the whole city.

I dream of the day when God’s dream, expressed by Micah’s contemporary, Amos, will be realized in our city: justice and righteousness will be running throughout our city “like a mighty stream.” For now, it isn’t. But the flow has begun and is gaining velocity. Cornerstone will be responsible for all the grades of Lester School in the school year 2015-16, and will also assume responsibility for another of the failing schools in The Achievement School District. From a small but bold dream that began with 33 kindergarten children, after six years, we will be serving 1,400 students.

A bold teacher-training program, Memphis Teacher Residents, is increasing the pool of outstanding teachers. With the 2015 graduating class, 267 will have received their Masters Degree in Urban Teaching through this innovative program, having made the commitment to teach in our public schools for at least three years. Seventy-nine outstanding college graduates from across the nation are committed to be a part of the next cohort of this program. Our goal is to have at least 1,000 persons trained in this program that has been judged by national organizations to be exceptionally effective, teaching in our Memphis public schools.

Hundreds of volunteers are giving generous hours weekly to tutor and mentor. The stream is rising and flowing more strongly. One day, cities across the nation are going to say, “they did it in Memphis; we can do it here.” And in the city where he died, we will prove Dr. King right: “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

Preach This, Tweet That: What Black Millenials Are Looking For From The Preacher by Dominique Robinson

Preaching has always been a lively communal dialogue between the preacher, God and the congregants within the Black Church tradition; however, technology and social media have invaded this dialogue for Black Millennials. Their idea of interactive preaching goes beyond the “preacher, music and frenzy” that W.E.B. DuBois refers to Black Millennials want church as they know it to reach beyond the four walls of the sanctuary. For them, preaching is no longer what happens when the preacher stands behind the lectern but preaching happens when one’s truth is shared no matter the medium or mode of communication.

Though Black Millennials may look, sound and even act like their ancestors they are an entirely different breed of Believers. This generation of Black youth and young adults has a disjointed spirituality. Though they hold firm to the belief that Jesus Christ died on the cross for their sins as an innocent man and was resurrected for them to gain a chance to eternal life they do not believe that his gift of the Holy Spirit can change racism and violence. They believe that God is present with them in the loss of their grandmother or while trying to matriculate college but not present during the prevalent loss of Black young lives at the hands of officers; this has created a dichotomy in what they believe and live[1]. This current-day lynching legacy is not new to Black people but the overwhelming access to, sharing of and posting of the images of Black lifeless bodies and the brutality of police officers has created a different sense of fear, anger, anxiety and protest in Black Millennials that is drastically different than their elders. Black Millennials no longer want to hear the “three points and a poem” sermon; they want answers about what is happening in our society and they want to be able to post, tweet, and share those answers.

Listeners can use their mobile devices to easily verify and share what the preacher has stated. They can pose questions, invite participation from those not physically present, and share photos and videos relevant to the topic at hand. This new level of verification and sharing via social media and technology challenges preachers and the preaching moment in ways they have not been strained before.

God is still talking to and through preachers but preachers need to learn how to effectively reach this angry, hopeless, disjointed, technologically-driven generation. We must reconnect Black Millennials to the Black Church by way of preaching to them in a way that speaks directly to them in their language. Preaching at its most effective state is contextual; I would like to offer the term iHomiletic™ as the “new” method of preaching to Black Millennials. In an interdisciplinary way, this method utilizes homiletics, Christian Education tenets, youth ministry, and social media/technology with a primary focus on homiletics. Similar to the term iGeneration, iHomiletic™ “is derived from the Apple lineup of popular products which especially took off in the younger market, specifically the iPod music device and more recently the iPhone. The little ‘i’ and the subsequent capital second letter is a homage to Apple’s impact on today’s youth, though the company does not own the rights to the term.”[2]

The iHomiletic™ is a technique of preaching that deals directly with where Black Millennials locate themselves socially, culturally, psychologically, physically, intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. It addresses their questions and makes the Gospel practical and relevant to their lives.

Like the very successful manufacturing of Apple products, the iHomiletic embodies a high quality design. Homiliticians who embrace and employ the iHomiletic know the “product” that they are creating; “they are light on their feet, inquisitive and interested in being wrong. They are motivated by failures and optimistic about change.”[3] These homiliticians know that the product – the sermon – must have focus and simplicity. The iHomiletic, like Apple products, must have a clean, flawless, and operational design. All of what impacts Black Millennials must be seamlessly incorporated into the sermon development and articulation. The iHomiletic is a way of preparing and delivering sermons to Black Millennials that starts and ends with their questions about life, makes the Gospel user-friendly, compact, sleek, practical and relevant; and makes God easily accessible.

The preacher must be willing to take risks, be intentional in encouraging and accommodating feedback, and do so with integrity. The iHomiletic allows for the preacher to engage in the 21st century “call and response” where congregants do not wave their hands, stand, sway and “holla” back at the preacher but congregants create hashtags for their sermons, post memes related to their worship experience, post photos or recordings of the preaching moment or even the “frenzy.” This way of developing sermons integrates Christian Education and adult learning principles. It is an embodied theology that permits the preacher and congregants to engage one another, establish instant connections, and mirrors life outside of church as experienced at work or school.

The iHomiletic’s use of social media can become significantly helpful to connecting to Black Millennials. It meets Black Millennials where they are within and outside of the church walls. It assists them with being able to cope with evils of the day in the same mediums – social media and technology – they they are being bombarded with discouraging images and news.

I hope that I have made it clear what the iHomiletic is and how it can be helpful for preachers as they seek to reconnect with a generation that seems to be too focused on posting and sharing. In the next post I will share how to develop an iHomily™.

 

[1]  Evelyn L. Parker, Trouble Don’t Last Always: Emancipatory Hope Among African American Adolescents (Cleveland, OH: Pilgrim Press, 2003).

[2]  Zack Whittaker, “Defining the iGeneration: Not Just a Geeky Bunch of Kids,” ZDNet.com, June 20, 2010, accessed July 14, 2014, http://www.zdnet.com/blog/igeneration/defining-the-igeneration-not-just-a-geeky-bunch-of-kids/5336.

[3]  “How to Design Like Apple” (video), 2012, accessed October 17, 2014, http://www.onlinemba.com/blog/design-like-apple/.

Invisible Growth: Because Evil Doesn’t Win by Elizabeth Glass Turner

Do you remember standing tall and straight against a door jamb etched with pencil markings as a child? Was there a spot in the family home marking years of growth? Perhaps you had a growth chart, able to be folded away and moved as you relocated.

If measuring height was part of your childhood, you’ll know that feeling in your bones – the pull of muscle, joint, ligament as you pull yourself up to your fullest height without allowing your heels to leave the floor: you stretch as much as possible without actually going up on your toes. You trace former numbers – dates, heights.

How far you’ve come.

Tracking growth is fun; an odd pride results. How I’ve grown over the past year, you think. Naturally, we like to take stock. You stand, back to the wall, assured of a half an inch more height from the last time you were measured.

If only it were that easy.

One day – one very dark day, that followed on the heels of many other very dark days – I chatted with a wise old gentleman. He asked how I was doing. Sometimes, even in casual conversation, I forego trite responses and simply answer very honestly. That dark day was one of the first times I ventured into that.

With heavy eyes, heavy voice, heavy heart, I met his gaze.

“I’m discovering that sometimes we grow out – and sometimes we grow down. Growing out is more fun; it’s visible, there’s evidence, there’s fruit. But I’m learning the value of growing down – invisibly, under the surface, growing roots. I’m learning the value of not toppling in a storm. Sometimes growth is expansion; sometimes growth is not falling over when the wind blasts you.”

He held my heavy gaze and nodded slowly, knowingly, affirming what I struggled to verbalize. I felt like Yoda had just observed me slowly and painfully learning a new lesson. His expression was not without empathy for the pain of invisible growth.

Seasoned Christians seem stable because they know the enjoyment of measuring growth – but they don’t depend on those outward signs of success to affirm their character. They know who gets the most fun out of measuring growth: children…and that as much as kids mark growth with measures and comparison, their parents mark their growth not only with height but with behavior, attitudes and values: when a child becomes less selfish and more generous; when a child helps a sibling instead of impeding them; when a child shows courage and honesty instead of self-preservation. How do you measure those qualities with a yard stick?

If, for a moment, you’re “Judgment Day honest” with yourself – what do you use to measure growth in yourself and other Christians? Is it:

Being debt-free and practicing financial peace?

Salvaging your marriage in the nick of time?

Getting a promotion at work as a result of your good work ethic?

Raising kids who outwardly conform to the values with which they were raised?

Helping friends and family who are going through difficult times?

Going to a church where there aren’t just people of your race?

Even, says Jesus, the pagans do that. Which means these aren’t signs of spiritual growth; they’re signs of human maturity. They’re helpful signs, like lines marking 2 Feet, 3 Feet, 4 Feet on a charming Noah’s Ark-themed growth chart. But they’re not the real spiritual growth.

The spiritual growth is the painful, invisible growth that makes our heavenly Parent smile: the slow, costly growth that C.S. Lewis’ character Eustace experienced when Aslan had to remove his dragon scales.

But, you say in a moment of utter honesty, there’s no fun in invisible growth, in growing down rather than out; no one sees that. There’s no glory in it.

And it’s true. Growing pains don’t make the highlight reel – at least, the suburban North American highlight reel. It’s true – there’s no admiration from the neighbors when you painfully forgive your brother-in-law like there was when you paid cash for a new car. There’s no praise from your supervisor when your spouse starts homeschooling your troubled teen. There’s no Hallmark cards of appreciation arriving in the mail when you finally have some freedom from a soul-starving porn addiction.

But don’t believe for a second that there’s no glory in that.

The only glory that matters is, as one Max Lucado title points out, the applause of heaven. The only glory that matters is the praise we give the Triune God for bringing us through the storm that bent but did not break us:

Here I raise mine Ebenezer

Hither by Thy help I’ve come

And I hope – by Thy good pleasure –

Safely to arrive at home…

Hither by thy help I’ve come: here by your great help I’ve come.

What a measurement that is: not my self-aware growth, but rather how far God’s grace has brought me.

Why is invisible growth so important? It is vital for living in a world of storms, that rocks and quakes with evil. Analyzing a growth chart can’t sustain us when the rug is pulled out from under us. Where’s the significance in a promotion when the love of your life is dying from cancer? Where’s the glory in delivering a casserole to a friend when a black academic is body-slammed to the ground for jaywalking? Where’s the joy of being debt-free when your teenager disappears for days at a time and returns in a dazed high?

A woman graciously endures dehumanizing racism: here I raise my Ebenezer…

A lonely single man spends his vacation on a medical mission trip: hither by thy help I’ve come…

A sister holds her junkie brother in her arms, praying words of healing and victory into his ears: and I hope – by thy good pleasure…

A pastor forgives soul-crushing wounds inflicted a decade earlier: safely to arrive at home.

Oh friend, I’m so proud of you.

Look at how you’ve grown…

The Virtue Of Pastoral Leadership by Andrew Thompson

I returned recently from a trip to the beautiful hill country of north Alabama. While there I spent a day in conversation with Methodist clergy from there about leadership in the church.

The questions we were grappling with are important for the future of any church in the Methodist family: What does Wesleyan pastoral leadership look like? Is there even such a thing?

I’ve been pondering these questions for a few years, since I first taught a seminary course called, “Models of Wesleyan Pastoral Leadership.” The idea of Leadership Studies is, of course, very much in vogue right now. That’s true for many different fields of endeavor — business, higher education, government, athletics, and non-profit work. Within the Wesleyan tradition, writing about church leadership has been going strong for several years. In 1999, Lovett Weems wrote “Leadership in the Wesleyan Spirit,” which examined the leadership traits of John Wesley, Francis Asbury, and other early Methodists. Since then, books on church leadership written by self-conscious Wesleyans have proliferated: William Willimon’s “Calling and Character” (2000), Adam Hamilton’s “Leading Beyond the Walls” (2002), and Kenneth Carder & Laceye Warner’s “Grace to Lead” (2011), just to name a few.

So is there anything we could really identify as Wesleyan Pastoral Leadership? I think we can identify a leadership approach that is distinctively Wesleyan, even if not uniquely so.

Think about this issue from the standpoint of conventional approaches to ethics. Duty ethics is focused on doing the right thing or making right decisions — ethics from the standpoint of rules. Consequentialist ethics emphasizes reaching the right outcome or emphasizing decisions and actions that are focused on achieving the most desirable ends. Virtue ethics shifts the focus away from decisions and outcomes, and toward the person involved in decision-making. This approach is most interested in the character of the decision-maker, believing that the most important factor in good ethical decision-making and action is the person him or herself.

If we look back at the example of John Wesley and the early Methodist movement, we will find some expressions of each of these major ethical approaches. The approach that might leap out at us immediately would be duty ethics. The early Methodists were, after all, great lovers of rules. The General Rules established the baseline expectations for how every Methodist would live within a local society. Wesley himself set down rule guidelines for everything from the regulation of the bands to the expectations of his preachers. All of this evidence might suggest that perhaps Wesleyan understandings of pastoral leadership are most closely related to duty ethics (at least if we tie the Wesleyan tradition to its origins in the 18th century).

There is, however, some reason to consider the place of consequentialist ethics in the early Methodist movement as well. After all, early Methodism was highly adaptable. Many of the institutional structures that developed (the class meeting, the conference, etc.) emerged in the context of the revival as opposed to being planned in advance by anyone. And the reasons for many of the structures coming into being at all were to serve the needs of the revival — such as local society organization, the deployment of preachers, or the needs of the poor. These early Methodists were mostly interested in salvation, understood as the redemption of both bodies and souls. They made all sorts of decisions based on that overriding interest in the end of salvation. So perhaps we should think about Wesleyan leadership as more tied to a consequentialist approach to ethical decision-making and action.

Then there is the approach of virtue ethics. Were Wesley and other early Methodists interested in the subject of character formation?

It turns out that this is very much the case. The formation of virtues within the soul was a topic that John Wesley was deeply interested in. His early sermon, “The Circumcision of the Heart” (1733) is a meditation on the progress of sanctification towards Christian perfection with reference to the virtues of humility, faith, hope, and love. For Wesley, a Christian account of the virtues ultimately becomes a description of sanctification itself.

When he was addressing the preachers under his authority in the Large Minutes, Wesley counseled them to emphasize the kind of habits in their daily lives that would build them up in the right way. Of course, they were to engage in the daily acts of ministry — “preaching and visiting from house to house.” But they were also to take time for spiritual disciplines, as he put it, “in reading, meditation, and prayer.” He understood that a good minister had to be truly good inwardly.

The similarity between the virtues and sanctification becomes especially clear when we grasp the connection between holiness and happiness. Holiness is a synonym for sanctification, which in the Wesleyan sense is seen as that state whereby our character comes to be defined by holy love. Happiness is a virtue concept — it is the eudaimonia of Aristotle, which is best described as that condition whereby human life is flourishing at an optimum level. For Wesley to link the two together — as he does explicitly — is to suggest that we only find true happiness when our lives have become marked by the holy virtues of faith, hope, and love.

There are some evidences of leadership via the approaches of duty ethics and consequentialist ethics in early Methodism. Those approaches were only ever utilized in an ad hoc way, though. What really counted for Wesley and other early Methodists was the formation of character in a leader, and right character can only come about through the kind of disciplined practice that leads to a virtuous life. A sanctified life. For leadership, a rightly formed character is what is truly foundational.

Like all institutions in our culture, the church is in a period of difficult transition. The tendency is to focus our energies on the institution, thinking that if we just get some type of organizational reform right then the church’s health will be restored. The early Methodists would point us in a different direction, though. Wesley once asked his preachers, “Why are we not more holy?” The answer he gave: “Chiefly because we are enthusiasts; looking for the end, without using the means.”

Leadership is a high calling, and it is a difficult calling. Those who are called to lead are also called to submit themselves to the kind of discipline that renders them worthy of being followed. If we want the church to be led well, we must press on in pursuit of those virtues that leadership requires.

How A Reluctant Mentor Learns To Be An Adequate Leader by Talbot Davis

Those who know me well know that  I have made confessions like:

I’m better at leading the congregation than I am at leading the staff; or

I’m a disciplined person but not a very disciplined leader; or

I’m better at dealing with one or with 2,000 than I am with twelve.

To a certain extent all those things are true.  I will always more naturally incline towards pastoring and teaching than I will to leading and mentoring.

However, I have recently come to a realization that has helped me enormously in increasing my leadership ability when it comes to both the staff at Good Shepherd and younger clergy in the United Methodist Church.

It’s this:  take what has become second nature to me, put it on paper, and then share it verbally with team members.

Here are a few examples of what I’m talking about:

*I’ve done so many funerals and memorial services through the years that preparing eulogies has become second nature.

*I’ve knocked on enough doors of new movers into our area that the script for Bless This House has become second nature. 

*I’ve had so many counseling sessions with men who are addicted to pornography that sharing with them the steps into recovery has become second nature.

*I’ve followed up with enough first-time guests that the process has become second nature. 

*I’ve even done enough marital counseling that the agenda for a first session with a couple has become, you guessed it, second nature.

And my natural wiring is to store up that second nature information inside me – essentially, to approach ministry like I do a singles match in tennis! 

All that is why through the years, on occasion I have become frustrated with team members or younger clergy who weren’t responding to those same ministry opportunities in ways I thought they should.

But then it hit me:  it’s not second nature to them.  You need to take the time to spell out all those years and all that stuff you have running around in your head and share it with them.

That process, in turn, has become great fun – especially if you have either staff members or younger clergy who have teachable spirits.   

So we’re having some smaller staff meetings that become verbatims (for those of you who remember Clinical Pastoral Education), shoring up counseling abilities.

It’s why we now share much more of the sermon development process.  It’s even why I am learning to take the time to show team members what is involved in the seemingly mundane task of composing hand-written notes to first-time guests.

Because in the big picture, mentoring is about turning what is second nature into a first priority.

Branded: The Iconoclasm Of Marketing by Elizabeth Glass Turner

This is not an anti-technology diatribe.

There are enough diatribes in the world, I think: talking heads, Facebook rants, raised fists and honking horns etching anger for a permanent moment of rush hour that hangs now in the universe reflecting our contorted faces back to us. What if I died in that moment? The moment of my life when my face betrayed the ugliest, most conniving, grasping lust for getting my own way? (Gollum, anyone?) What if I died in the moment when my face softly revealed the most loving, joyous, celebratory delight in someone else?

Which person am I? 

Oh, the pilgrim’s progress. I am pilgrim, wandering from grace to grace. Sometimes the ordo salutis leads to bloodied knees.

Only how do you market bloodied knees?

I’m so glad the Desert Fathers and Mothers weren’t on Twitter.

Instead of a diatribe, let’s try confession, towards which we’ve recently been so beautifully encouraged.

Confession: I am a marketer’s dream. I have brought home a bulging plastic grocery bag with one item particularly chosen due only to its packaging. Who cares how it tastes? It was on the list, and the font on the front – oh, the font – it spoke to me. Once on a flight I sat next to someone whose job it was to extend a net over shoppers just like me. We chatted about the psychology of it all, color and design and that marketer’s dream, the moment of delight when you reach out and have to touch the box.

Of course, carefully hidden out of customers’ sight is the less romantic reality of plastic-wrapped pallets stacked high with identical products being forklifted to other people by hungover operators wondering if their ex-wives are going to let this weekend with the kids be drama-free. Bill’s picture doesn’t make it to the front of the package.

Just like Golden Globe red carpet coverage doesn’t start at 6 am with a make-up free actress smoking, downing a kale smoothie and working out for three hours while snapping at her personal assistant to take the dog out.

Confession: I love to market. It’s like giving a persuasive speech, and I’ve always loved to argue. More than that, it’s fun to promote something I care about, to engage others I may never meet. I’ve written promotional copy for websites – nonprofit and academic – I’ve conceived of words to explain why alumni should think about giving gift annuities, I’ve written a speech for someone else that brought listeners to tears.

Words are a gift, language is a gift, and whatever your views on evolutionary biology, there is still such a leap between us and the most communicative of animals that I believe expression is one of the most God-like things we can do (in the beginning was the Logos-Word…). Let there be, and there was.

No, technology, and words, and mass communications, and persuasion are all good.

Until they’re not.

We pilgrims with the bloodied knees have ways of ever-so-slightly twisting focus, blighted with spiritual astigmatism. Instead of a diatribe, let’s try confession.

We do not need to try to brand Christ. We need to receive the brand of Jesus Christ.

By all means, have a good church website. By all means, use your words to draw people to the Messiah. By all means, be smart and use your best resources.

But be warned: the moment you slip from branding as an evangelistic tool to branding God, your logos and graphics have slipped from tool in service to God to weapon of iconoclasm – destroying an image. Hashtag simony. We do not create Team Trinity.

We are called to receive the brand of Jesus Christ (not his motivational verse t-shirt). Christ imprints himself on our thoughts, our emotions, our decisions. By his stripes we are healed, and there is no web analytics metric to measure the bleeding back of Word Made Flesh. We are called to be made into the image of God, to be bearers of God’s image, and anything that eats away at the image of God in us is violently iconoclastic.

There is a fine line between marketing the church and marketing the faith; between marketing the faith and marketing Christ crucified like scalpers on the street corner gambling over his clothes. Receiving the brand of Jesus Christ on our souls runs deeper than the most ardent Yankee fan’s tattoo. We are not called to be Jesus’ #numberonefan.

And so, let us confess our sins to God and one another: we have not loved you with our whole heart. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent…

Are American Clergy Suffering A Crisis Of Faith? by Elizabeth Glass Turner

Are American clergy suffering a crisis of faith?

From megachurch pastor and quintessential church cool guy Rob Bell to Seventh-Day Adventist pastor-turned-atheist-for-a-year Ryan Bell, 2014 was a doozy (the topic even emerged as a central theme in Steven King’s new novel “Revival”).

From Rob Bell: “All of these things that people think dropped out of the sky by divine edict are actually a reflection of ongoing human evolution and a thousand other factors that have shaped why we as humans have done what we’ve done.”

From Ryan Bell: “I do think I’ve now seen both sides of the coin. Being with the atheists, they can have the same sort of obnoxious certainty that some Christians have, and I don’t want to be a part of that. It feels like I’m stuck in the middle. I want to be for something good, but I don’t want boundaries, and religion just feels like a very bounded thing. The question I am asking right now: Why do I need religion to love?”

But I don’t just have to look at the headlines about Rob Bell’s seismic theological shift (he learned the most about Jesus from…Oprah? She’s great if you want to know if you’re wearing the correct bra size, but – Oprah?) or about Ryan Bell’s wrestling with the problem of evil and whether God exists (I completely applaud him for being honest about his struggles and for stepping out of the pulpit if his beliefs were in flux that deeply).

No, I don’t have to read stories like this one or this one to wonder if these North American clergy suffering crises in faith and theology are part of a greater trend. I have too many friends who are going through a similar process to wonder if it is, as my Facebook feed daily demonstrates.

It’s a mistake to think that clergy suffering crises of faith are something new under the sun, though. If Mother Teresa recorded her struggles and doubts, I think we can all breathe a sigh of relief.

It’s also a mistake to criticize questioning by and in itself. Buddy, you better. An unexamined life is not worth living, and an unexamined faith will last about as long as Farrah Fawcett hair, Hammer pants, beanie babies, MySpace, “Gangnam Style” and every other grass that withers and flower that doth fade away. Or as I occasionally put it to my congregants from the pulpit: “I really believe this. Otherwise I wouldn’t waste your time. Join the Rotary if you just want to be a good citizen.”

Why here, though? Why now, and why so many?

Orthodoxy itself is not bankrupt. In fact, if you feel disillusioned with the church or faith (though people rarely actually say they’re disillusioned with Christianity itself, which is why you don’t hear, “you know, the Apostle’s Creed really disappointed me today”), reading G.K. Chesterton’s “Orthodoxy” might be just what the doctor ordered, a breath of fresh air that anticipated with remarkable acumen what the intellectual challenges of the next century would be. No, orthodoxy is not bankrupt even if modernism is. As many clergy or church-bred people I know who are slowly, gradually breaking up with the church, I know nearly as many drawn not just to orthodoxy but to an additional packet of dogma as well, eschewing North American Protestantism for the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions.

If there is this crisis of faith among North American clergy, then, why here? Why now? And why so many?

Here are a couple of factors that I suspect are shaping this trend.

The fault lines in fundamentalism have taken their toll. What a heartbreaking process to read (former Seventh Day Adventist pastor) Ryan Bell’s intellectual turmoil. Fundamentalism is all baby, no bathwater, as the LA Times piece recounts: “All along, his doubts grew. The more he tried to reconcile the Bible with science, the more it seemed he was putting together a puzzle with parts that didn’t fit. The more he thought about the unceasing suffering in the world, the more he doubted God’s existence.”

If your faith falls apart when you pull on the string of literal, six-day creation theory, you probably grew up a fundamentalist. There are good, loving, generous Christian fundamentalists who are the salt of the earth. But if your faith – the whole of your faith – could be shaken by the discovery of millions of iconic, undisputed, beautiful “missing links,” then your faith wasn’t in the Creator God whose mysterious ways caused all life; it was in one narrow interpretation of a complex language. This intellectual legalism has churned out more atheists and universalists than even Ricky Gervais could ever hope for.

What happens when you go through college and seminary without working through these theological issues? You work through them after you’ve joined the ranks of other clergy, after your own faith gets hit with challenges while you’re also trying to serve in ministry. American clergy are in part suffering a crisis of faith because we’re still recovering from a wicked hangover left by the well-intentioned fundamentalists of the 80’s, committed to coalitioning everyone to heaven.

The fatigue of the faithful has taken its toll. Show me a pastor who is struggling with theology or philosophy of religion and I’ll show you a pastor who’s also very likely burned out. Clergy see the best and the worst. Consider this statement from a Huffington Post piece on former megachurch pastor-now-Oprah-network-show host Rob Bell:

Now resettled near Los Angeles, the couple no longer belongs to a traditional church. ‘We have a little tribe of friends,’ Bell said. ‘We have a group that we are journeying with. There’s no building. We’re churching all the time. It’s more of a verb for us. Churches can be places that help people grow and help people connect with others and help people connect with the great issues of our day,’ Bell said. ‘They can also be toxic, black holes of despair.’

Competition from colleagues, church members fixated on petty, ego-driven concerns – these realities can knock the wind out of a beautiful baptism, a tender, hard-fought reconciliation, or a quiet “thank you” after a sermon. It’s not always the moments when a church can be a “toxic, black hole of despair” that send clergy into a theological tailspin. Sometimes it’s what they’re also dealing with themselves: grief, loss, depression, mental illness or addiction.

In At Home in Mitford, writer Jan Karon hits the nail on the head in this fictional letter from a bishop to his clergy friend:

You ask if I have ever faced such a thing as you are currently facing. My friend, exhaustion and fatigue are a committed priest’s steady companions, and there is no way around it. It is a problem of epidemic proportions, and I ask you to trust that you aren’t alone.Sometimes, hidden away in a small parish as you are now – and as I certainly have been – one feels that the things which press in are pointed directly at one’s self.I assure you this is not the case.An old friend who was a pastor in Atlanta said this: “I did not have a crisis of faith, but of emotion and energy. It’s almost impossible for leaders of a congregation to accept that their pastor needs pastoring. I became beat up, burned out, angry, and depressed.”The tone of your letter does not indicate depression or anger, thanks be to God. But I’m concerned with you for what might follow if this goes unattended.

Keep a journal and let off some steam. If that doesn’t fit with your affinities, find yourself a godly counselor. I exhort you to do the monitoring you so sorely need, and hang in there. Give it a year!

Any pastor “worth their weight” willingly exposes himself or herself to extraordinary amounts of pain. Even those who attempt to engage in “self-care” frequently short themselves or fear criticism from colleagues and supervisors. Does your denomination offer sabbaticals?

What percentage of your pastors actually take the offered sabbaticals? Do you communicate expectations to your staff that they will not only take their days off but their vacation days as well? Do you make sabbaticals mandatory? Do you admire a colleague’s “work ethic” and then raise an eyebrow when he has an affair? Do you demand 60 hours a week for a salaried position and then make judgments on your employee’s health and fitness level? Do you give compassionate leave to those in your district or conference who lose a parent, or do you send them carefully worded correspondence reminding them that their church is behind on apportionments, budget, or whatever your denomination calls the money a local congregation sends to its hierarchy?Dear pastors, superintendents, bishops: remember the Sabbath. Keep it holy. Rest your way back into faith.For clergy suffering through the epidemic of faith crises that seems as miserable, unwelcome and persistent as this year’s flu strain, what palliatives might be offered? Plenty of rest (see above), but also these comforts:

Good-enough pastoring. When I became a new parent, I was panicked, constantly waking the baby by checking on him. Then I read just a short review of a book with a title that, in itself, calmed me down. The book? “Good Enough Parenting.”

Thank you, sensible reviewer, who, having had enough of the neurotic 21st century moms and dads who over parent so lovingly, gently suggested that perhaps parents need to relax a little and simply aim their expectations at “good enough.”

Dear clergy slogging through a crisis of faith: I know you are pressured on all sides to be intuitively genius at social networking; to have the preaching abilities of your congregation’s favorite pastor from 20 years ago; to have the evangelistic zeal of Billy Graham; the charismatic charm of Jimmy Fallon; the generational with-it-ness to know who Jimmy Fallon is; the biblical knowledge of a cloistered New Testament scholar; the entrepreneurial spirit of Donald Trump; the organizational abilities of Martha Stewart; the leadership abilities of whatever current “best practices” guru is popular; the financial soundness of Dave Ramsey himself; the parenting insight of Super Nanny; the technological and fundraising prowess of the 2008 Obama campaign and the humility of Mother Teresa.

Oh. And the holiness of our Messiah.

Let’s prevent a few existential crises by saying, here and now, that the Body of Christ in North America might better be served simply by pastors who are “good enough.” You may never have a multiple-book publishing deal, but you never got sent to federal prison, either. You weren’t ever a keynote speaker, but you also avoided major public meltdowns. In our quest to give God our best, maybe it also would have been valuable to give God quiet, almost invisible consistency.

Philosophy matters. Some of the most pastorally gifted people I know, who seem to intuit the pastoral needs of those in their care, are extremely well grounded in philosophy. I’ll never forget what a seminary friend once said to our philosophy of religion professor. After a tragic loss while she was young, she was left with enormous life questions that threatened to engulf her. In all her questioning, it wasn’t counseling classes or time with therapists that ultimately gave her peace: it was the content of an introduction to philosophy of religion class, where questions like “why would a good, all-powerful God allow suffering?” were dissected with compassionate logic and reason rather than answered with a quick-fix Bible verse or a prod to rehearse the blank abyss of her own sorrow on the therapist’s couch.

The best response to bad theology isn’t an absence of theology: it’s good theology. And the best response to deep philosophical questions isn’t to throw away faith, but to acknowledge that faith and reason complement each other, and that any version of Christian faith that rejects intellectual and philosophical questioning – or claims – is a version of the Christian faith that is cheating you.

And dear friend, you deserve more.

Let’s eavesdrop on G.K. Chesterton in closing:

Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.

Oh God, take our cynicism and hand us back our wonder.

 

A reading list for the underwhelmed, over marketed and disillusioned:

“Orthodoxy” by G.K. Chesterton (non-fiction)

“At Home in Mitford” by Jan Karon (fiction)

“Heaven, Hell and Purgatory” by Jerry Walls (non-fiction)

“Harry Potter” books 1-7 by J.K. Rowling (fiction: trust me on this)

“Canon and Criterion in Christian Theology: From the Fathers to Feminism” by William Abraham (non-fiction)

“Good God: The Theistic Foundations of Morality” by David Baggett and Jerry Walls (non-fiction)

Receiving Christmas by Elizabeth Glass Turner

I’m learning what pastors around the globe know so well: that Christmas Is Different For Pastors.

The same truth reverberates – Emmanuel, God With Us. It has, however, sunk in that this year I work Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, and not only work, but serve to fashion a threshold between tired hungry human hearts and the Trinity. The Advent season has been joyous at church, candles lit every week, new faces showing up in worship; in the past week I’ve swung from sitting with a family while a woman has knee surgery to taking the youth roller skating to chatting with a young woman who faces her first Christmas without her mom, a cancer victim, all the while catching Christmas songs on the radio, trying to keep my own Advent calendar up to date and trying new spritz cookie recipes until I’m too tired to keep my eyes open. At 7:30 last night I told my husband I was going to bed, then discovered once there that my mind was whirring.

I love Christmas. My favorite time of year, and this year, I’m enjoying watching my little one rip paper off packages and exclaim delight at illuminated yards.

I wonder if the poinsettias are watered. I haven’t watched It’s a Wonderful Life yet this year. I need to call and ask who organizes the handheld candles for the Christmas Eve service.

Lots of “I” there, I see. The truth is, don’t say a prayer for pastors just because it’s a busy season, it’s busy for everyone.

Say a prayer for those like me who are homesick or grieving. Those are the emotionally draining things, truly, not busy hubbub. I’m not the only one. Many people in this economy see their loved ones less, and many people grieve during the holidays. Pray for them too. For those separated by distance, separated by hurtful choices, separated by necessity. I think of military families and marvel at their daily strength. It was a tiring Christmas for Mary, after all – travel over bumpy paths nine months pregnant, then labor pains, then visitors kept bothering her blabbering about visions. I think it took a year or two for the wise men to arrive just to make sure Mary wouldn’t tell them where to stick their frankincense.

Truth is, it’s hard to feel Not Your Best or Not Your Holiest at Christmas, when you love the season and deeply want to create space for others to worship. Silly human instinct, really, to want to dress up to visit the Manger.

Most of us don’t overly love “Little Drummer Boy,” but I do, because sometimes I’m keenly aware that all I have to offer the Baby is the ability to bang loudly on a potentially annoying instrument. No bank account of gold, no Neiman Marcus myrrh, just myself, rhythm, playing in thanks for God With Us. Here’s my rhythm, Lord. My excitement at your birth. It’s all I have.

I think that times like these, it’s important to step back a bit and consciously adopt a posture of receiving, rather than one of acting. There are times when you build character, and times when you draw on character – and I think, in seasons of unexpected limitations, it’s important to passively allow God to take you where God will. 

Advent is to be received, not performed (pastors – take note). Childbirth is both acting – hey, there’s a reason it’s called labor – and receiving – you’re receiving this child, this experience, whatever it entails. Jesus’ Incarnation was not initiated by humans: that is one of the most important implications of the Virgin Birth. Jesus came, unexpected, uninvited, uncreated.

Receive Christ, then, this season, as you do in Holy Communion. You can put up a tree: you cannot create Christmas. You can get a great deal on The Toy for your kid: you cannot create Christmas. We receive Christmas.

Receive Christ, and the celebration of his birth, this year, and be blessed.