8. Paradigm

Look at the chart on page 78.


Where do you find yourself?  Where do you find the church?  


Yesterday I had a conversation with a young adult where I serve--we talked about the future of the church and the significant decisions the congregational leadership needed to make about its future.  As I was trying to express the road blocks I had experienced I mentioned that the church's DNA was one of its biggest issue.  This congregation was founded by a group of people (who are wonderful, really great people) who were nevertheless somewhat ambivalent about starting a church.  


Why?  I am thinking it has to do with the very hard and exhausting work of founding a "traditional church " (meaning a church with ordained clergy and land/buildings).  Think about it, these were folks just starting our with young families and working to get a church up and running was one more thing in a very busy life.  I also think the world is just so different than it was when the majority of our churches were started.  Knowing founding members of two churches (one 50+ years old, the other 20+ years old), I see two very different worlds.

I find this to be one of our biggest issues as we look at starting new faith communities.  I keep going back to Elaine Heath'sbook where she talks about alternative models for faith communities.  One model that struck me was a group of clergy are leaders at the church and also work other jobs.  The offering goes to mission and to support those who go to seminary so they can become prepared to lead in a local church.  I am liking this model more and more as I think about change, church and success in today's real world.
-Nicole

7. The 1,700 Year Wedgie - Reflection by DS Catie

As I have gone around to churches for Charge Conferences, I have asked the question: if something happened tomorrow to all your church buildings, would you still be ___ church?  In every case, the group gathered together says yes.  The importance of that is not that they say yes, but the experience of saying yes, because in that moment they are affirming something important about who they are and who they can become, that they are more than their buildings. 

 

I have preached from Acts 2 more than any other text.  That description of the early church community says something quite tangible about what it means to be the beloved community, that is not about where we meet but who we are.  I have been on my own journey in trying to imagine that.  Some of us are working on a project that is classified as a new church start, but it is about reaching 20 somethings, and is not defined by a place.  I find that hard, as the steward of all things tangible in the district, to imagine a ministry without imagining a place, but what a great faith journey that is!  My sons play Xbox live, and I am aware that there is a sense of community when they gather friends, old and new, to play whatever the game is of the moment.  I can hear them as they talk, and for them, they gather with people they’ve never met, by my definition of having met face to face, and yet they meet in this video community; they get to know one another on a certain level, they experience something together, and it is community.  Not the beloved community, but community, and it pushes for me on the concept “church suddenly became a place you went to instead of a people you belonged with.”  My sons both have felt they belonged with the people at church, and those ties remain even as they go off to live somewhere else; I am not always so sure how they experience God in the midst of that.

 

The book asks us to wrestle with “what are the personal tensions you are processing as the church is transitioning from the center of culture to the margins of culture?  What tensions will this cause in most churches.”  I know all about the tensions it causes in most churches, and we can either circle the wagons until the last man or woman is standing, or we can open up, change the direction we are facing, reach out from the margins into the center of culture, redefine who we are as a church or the church and look for how we can be more than our buildings. We can take seriously the community of Acts and have that help shape and define who we are, what we do, and who we become.  It may take us out of our comfort zone, actually it is guaranteed to, and pushes us to reexamine what we know to be true, and yet there are core beliefs that remain to give enough stability that it is really not all that strange.  This last Saturday, 5 or 6 churches in the SF Valley  gathered together to put together Health kits for Haiti, over 1000, and we were the beloved community in that moment together; there were people there I never exchanged names with, but we belonged.  We were “defined as a people who”, and not “a place where.”

 

Chapter 5 (part: B “Moving Forward”)

From Stan Ferguson

In Chapter 5, in the section entitled “Moving Forward,” the author talks about a pastor who left behind his large church pastorate in order to minister to a couple of families in inner city San Francisco.  Referring to this pastor as well to as his daughter said, “Such people are all humble; they don’t rely on past experience or present ministry posts to define them.”  How do we compare?  Are we eager to get to Annual Conference to compare size?  For the large church pastor friend of the author, he did not settle on the large church as his goal for life.  “He didn’t talk about church,.  Instead he kept wrestling with the Kingdom of God.”

You can pastor a large church like a high powered CEO; but if you have not loved, you are nothing.  (I Corinthians 13:14)

How many of us are willing to reduce or eliminate our compensation packages and “start all over.”  Is the large church pastor willing to go to the small church, where with the experience of the past he can help the small church of the present see the Kingdom of God?  

The concept of working out of Starbucks like a branch office to meet new people within the community is very intriguing; but for the pastor who is over extended, how likely?  For the author,  he interpreted it as a “personal quest to be able to spend time with people outside the church.”  You know the ones, tax collectors, sinners and prostitutes.  All this because he “longed for something more.”

Who knows, maybe it’s time to forget our press and read how we are to humble ourselves like Christ (Philippians 2:8)  

5Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
 6Who, being in very nature[a] God,
      did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
 7but made himself nothing,
      taking the very nature[b] of a servant,
      being made in human likeness.
 8And being found in appearance as a man,
      he humbled himself
      and became obedient to death—
         even death on a cross! 

 

4. U-Haul

I went to my new appointment full of hope and excitement.   I felt called to this congregation and was excited about what I knew of them. 

Of course,  you know how these things go: things turned out differently than I expected.  The church was in crisis mode and had been for a while.  Leadership was unsteady.  Staff was most all gone.  Bills couldn’t be paid the month after I got there. 

But I didn’t want to see it.  Because the one thing I didn’t want to do in my next church was a revitalization.  But here it was and I was faced with the question, OK so now what am I going to do?

I share this because sometimes we think, if I go to another church things will be better there, it won’t be so hard, the hours won’t be so long and people will be more friendly.  I do understand that there are bad matches between clergy and laity but in general I am a firm believer in the idea that the best congregation you are ever going to get is the one you are in now.   So learn to love them and join with them in listening for God.

Change is brutal.  It is much easier to just do what we always have and pray there will be enough for some young pastor in 10 years to turn around.  But my sense is there won’t be and those of us who are willing need to do this work now. 

Even if you have a lot of Milos and Mittens—.(I loved that story…). 

Even if you have no idea what to do first.

Even if you don’t think you have it in you.

So….what are the essentials needed to turn the church toward relevant, life changing discipleship?  What do we need to let go of in our own ministry to put our attention on these essentials?  What will you do to care for your own soul in the midst of the hard work of change?  

3. Tremors

Every Advent and Lent until 2 years ago I had terrible neck and shoulder pain.  It would start with a couple tense muscles and get worse from there.  I tried various over the counter medications and found some relief but usually, a week after Christmas and Lent, it would just go away.  Two years ago when I started feeling the advent/lent pain I did something different, I went to a physical therapist.  Since then at the first sign of the tension, I get my hand weights out of the closet and practice ways to relieve the tension.

Too often we live with the tension, seldom naming it or working to release it.  Here are the five tensioned mentioned by Hugh Halter in chapter 3.  They are:

1. The tension that comes from a broken heart.

2 The tension that comes from the simple frustrations of energy and resources wasted.

3. Tensions can bring fear.

4. Tension that arises when you see the structure of church falling and you realize everything the church stood on may go down too.

5. The tension related to our identity.

I think at one time I have experienced all of these tensions (plus the ulcer creating tension of not being able to pay bills and make payroll).  I really loved the honesty of the letter included on pages 16 & 17—the pastor who works hard, loves deeply and felt a failure.  But the tension I feel is a combination of both tension and longing. Longing for all the church could be and tension around how far we still have to go. 

One of the things I am working on in my appointment is growing the leadership.  One of my key strategies in bringing change and growing leadership is to model what ministry might look like and then hope that others go, yes!  I want to be part of that!  Of course, when you are in the midst of it, it can feel like just a lot of craziness, long hours and major tension. But Sunday that tension decreased.

Which is strange because on Saturday night, the church I serve was robbed.  They got away with lots of computers and other items that could be easily sold at a swap meet.  At both worships, I asked for prayer for the church as we addressed this robbery.  We had just changed leadership at the church and so had a new Trustee chair: he was just great, jumped right into it.  For the first time in 3 years, we also had lay leaders; they also were in the mix.  Other laity—some staff, some not—helped out too.  At the end of the day I felt, “WOW! How lay run this church is becoming, how exciting that is!”  I went home and slept like a baby.

This week, there is still tension and lots to do cleaning up and figuring out who needs what, but I am grateful and almost a bit giddy too.

What tensions are you feeling in your local church?  Do you talk about them?  Do you have any ideas how to resolve them?

-Rev. Nicole

smumc.com

2. Elvis Has Left the Building

I am an Elvis fan.  Elvis may have left the building, but he has certainly not left my I-Pod.  In our book, the author, chapter 2 is titled “Elvis Has Left the Building.”  Each year at Annual Conference, I have a ritual that requires me to look around during the Opening Worship and wonder “who has left the building?”  As I begin my fourth decade of attending Annual Conference, I have witnessed a change.  There has been a departure of those who preceded us.  I remember back in the 80’s, there was a concern about the future and there was a call to reach out to Baby Boomers.  Obviously that has passed.  Now the Baby Boomers are making their exit from the work force and life.  Unfortunately, in some ways the Baby Boomers may be the first generation our conference adequately did not reach.  Each successive generation seems to be more dismal regarding the success of our conference reaching out to the generations that follow the Baby Boomers.  

There are many asking “Why?’  There are many pointing fingers.  I suspect there are a variety of reasons why “Elvis” has left the building.  Perhaps the first question to be asked is, “Who is ‘Elvis’”?  Followed by the question, “And, why did he leave the building?”

To begin with, is Elvis, is it the  Baby Boomers?  My generation has certainly left the building.  Even the dedicated youth that attended Methodist Camp with me, mostly have left the building, either for other denominations or completely away from Christianity.  Yet, maybe Elvis is not the Baby Boom Generation.  Perhaps Elvis is the generation that followed the Baby boomers, the one we call Generation X?  I suspect they are are even more sparse in our conference.  Or maybe Elvis isn’t restricted to a generation.  Is it a group of people?  Over the years, it seems like Republicans have left the building.  Sometimes at Annual Conference, I am tempted to break out in song, “Where have all the Republicans gone?  Long time passing...When will they ever learn?”  Forty and fifty years ago, maybe Republicans represented half of all our conference representatives.  Then again, maybe “Elvis” is another group.  How about the working group?  More and more, it seems like there are more retirees than workers out in the congregation during Annual Conference?  Or, how about a particular ethnic group?  So, the question remains, “Who is “Elvis?” and “Why did he leave the building?”

Who knows?  Maybe “Elvis” is not the people in the pew, nor the person behind the pulpit, nor the singers in the choir loft.  Maybe the “Elvis” that has left the building is Jesus.  And because Jesus has left the building, the “concert” is over.  With no “music,” why remain in the seats?  So, the “concert goers” are now leaving the building as well.  “So, when will we ever learn?”

Reflection:  Who is Elvis and why did he leave the building?

-Stan

1. Fiona

Eight years ago my ministry changed.  Where I served moved from one worship to two with the expressed purpose of connecting with people who wouldn't connect with traditional UMC worship.  People came who had little to no faith background.  Early on one of them asked to be baptized.  We sat down and shared what the life of faith was about for the next month in a series of conversations and questions.  

In the midst of that time I felt, yes this is what I am called to do.  Sharing the journey with someone new renewed my call and my experience of the life giving way of Jesus Christ.

I wish I could say I have had dozens of these experiences but the truth is there have been a small handful of experiences like this in my ministry.  

Sometimes I look at my ministry and think, what is the point?  For while I am blessed to serve in a church where newcomers find their way here almost weekly, many are people who are just looking for greener pastures as their last congregation didn't change/changed to much/changed pastors/needs to change pastors/is too big/too small, etc and they "audition" us to see if they like us better.  My experience tells me that even if we "win" we lose.

Where did it go so wrong?   What can we do about it?

I plan to spend the next 20+ weeks reconnecting with why this is where I have given my life.  What about you?

Nicole