A Healthy Debate

Being a delegate to General Synod is a fascinating role. After roughly 12 hours of debate (a.k.a. – diplomatically arguing) the tension, especially this morning, is palpable. What are we debating? The need to help our seminarians obtain funds through a national-based offering.

After two votes on rather controversial amendments, the resolution itself has been diluted to a point where, as our flagship seminary president mentioned, ineffective. No national offering will be held…and that’s a cynical view. As a seminarian grad with five figures of debt and as a seminarian graduate who didn’t qualify for any UCC scholarships (after all, I am white, male, straight, and ‘privileged,’ coming from a humble low-to-middle class family), this resolution is disappointing.

Yesterday we passed another resolution placing the proverbial cart before the horse with the resolution to divest from fossil fuels. The resolution doesn’t address the sheer problem of demand – our insatiable appetite for gasoline, diesel, oil, coal-driven electricity, etc. Te root core of the problem isn’t the fossil fuel drilling, and digging, although environmentally is a growing detriment tithe world our great-grandchildren will inherit.

While I’m not comfortable in the environmental impact of our culture being victims of comfort, I’m confident we haven’t addressed successfully the core of the problem.

Not so surprisingly, this happens frequently here.

I call it…

Passion.

Passion energizes our vision, influences our stance, and even allows us to dig our heels in, even in the fog of seeing through our own lenses. Passion does, indeed, prevent progress as much as it is capable of encouraging progress.

Being “gung-ho”, on the band wagon, on the right track without paying attention to the finer points has been an accusation of one of the flaws of the United Church of Christ. While gifted in seeing a bigger picture, the finer points do occasionally get lost in the mix. I feel this happened last night and this morning.

It wasn’t the first time, and it won’t be the last.

Still, that’s the beauty of the UCC. This wild, wonderful gaggle of delegates comes together to be the Church in all its wonder, glory, function, and dysfunction.

That’s Church. National speaking to and not for the local church.

Frustrating? Yes. Beautiful, too? Yes.

One of speakers stated (in a few more words) that if you love something you love it with a passion.

You stand up for it.

You speak up for it.

You may even fight for it.

Do you love your Church?

I do. All of it.

Tension, Conflict, and Faith: The “Joys” of Being a Pastor & Delegate in a Larger Church Setting

This morning I sat in a Q&A session about divestment in fossil fuels through our national setting investment corporation, a movement that is passionate about socially conscious-free investments. More clearly, investing monies in companies or businesses that do not harm people, environment and the like. Hopefully that’s a clear enough picture that I’ve painted.

I’m now in my committee (OY! Committees!?!?!? Yep, that’s the congregational way of doing things) discussing resolution 14, RESOLUTION SUPPORTING COMPASSIONATE COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM AND THE PROTECTION OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS OF IMMIGRANTS (sorry about the caps lock thing, I’m a little to lazy this morning to retype a copy and paste).

This has been an informative hour and a half,my brain breaching max capacity. If I forget a few of my family member’s names, I can blame the sheer volume of information that has my slots full.

There’s a conflict in my heart. A good conflict. While faithfully mindful of the environment as it pertains to a healthy world, i.e. agriculture, I also am pastorally mindful, compassionately mindful, of my constituents in rural NE Colorado, home of one of me largest fracking industries in the nation. If you’re familiar with both fracking and faith,you understand my conflict, the tension within which I exist. I’m also in conflict due to the context within which I pastor, rural Colorado, where labor forces for agricultural industries rely heavily upon migrant or immigrant hands.

While agricultural field or slaughter jobs are available, many Caucasian folk aren’t likely to apply for open positions. Again, conflict rises in an area with heavily Hispanic/other immigrant population rises as an economic/industry need and yet conflicting with negative or even uneducated sentiment toward the particular race or culture entering in. While our church’s local history is one of immigration and cultural resentment toward founding members, perhaps the history has been forgotten, perhaps empathy has been replaced with an unfortunate cynicism. All in all, I’m in conflict. There have been ICE raids in our locale, and did I mention, I also carry a badge, as the Commander of the Volunteer Chaplains of our local law enforcement agency. Conflict once again…layers…

…and layers…

…and layers…

…of inner, spiritual conflict.

The environmental impact of fracking is debatable in some socio-economic arenas, in other words, depending on where one lives, the opinion will likely change…greatly. Similarly, the,issue of immigration is more heated now (particularly in the southwest) than ever before, even though this present administration, while promising a better life for immigrants, is responsible for the highest rate of deportation and even detaining undocumented folk than any other administration in our nations history.

Surprised? I am.

Appalled? You should be, if you’ve heard the stories of unfair treatment, of systematic oppression only comparable to the likes of Jewish concentration camps of the late 1930’s early 1940’s.

This is all new information I’ve taken in in the last 2 hours…I’m emotionally pooped.

So here’s where I am in all of this…at the moment…as I continue to be informed by new information and by your responses, as members of the local church, to navigate a proper and valuable vote to represent who I represent…the local church member.

I am not in favor of the resolution to divest from fossil fuels as it does not address appropriately our insatiable appetite for them, aka – demand. I also do not agree with a section of the resolution that states fossil fuel companies business plans are completely flawed. Perhaps staying at the table as investors to steer these same companies toward renewable energy? My answer is, “I don’t know, but is it possible?” All things are possible.

As it pertains to the committee I am sitting on/in (follow this link to the current resolution as its been proposed before any amendments via committeeresolution #14) I am in favor of the resolution.

I’m in favor because my faith, our faith, should continuously call us into this notion of neighbor. Do you love your neighbor? St. Augustine’s definition of neighbor was whoever was standing/sitting beside you. So, I ask the question, who is your neighbor and do they have to be right beside you?

I look forward to your (the local church’s) input. God’s grace and peace to you.

ALL FOR ONE! (and It’s All About Me)

Disclaimer:

I’m not a Democrat.

I’m not a Republican, either.

In college frat terms I’m a GDI – (PG version:  Gosh Darn Independent)

Another Disclaimer:

I believe people have the right to bear arms.

I also believe some people shouldn’t be allowed to bear arms.

I believe all have the right to happiness perhaps through childbearing.

I also believe that some people shouldn’t bear children.  Honey Boo Boo?  *eye roll*

For the last 15 days I’ve had to reconcile the best laid plans and Murphy’s Law about those same plans.  And, admittedly, it sucks.  I read an article the other day about a woman who thought having kids was the worst mistake she’d ever made.  She said, “Like parasites, they took from me and they didn’t give back”.  My inner voice does not resonate with this tackless outburst from this parent.  Matter of fact, my love for my little sickling has grown exponentially (geometrically – just for Jeff) over these past two weeks, like I’ve never imagined it could.  The feeling I have for my near 19-week old daughter-with-the-feeding-tube-but-getting-better-slowly far outweighs the meaning of a simple faaaantastic.

Yet I am disappointed at missing a good couple weeks of sabbatical leave.  Sabbath, a time for intentional rest, isn’t happenin’.  But, like I’d like to say to a some people I know, get over it, right?  Right.  Kind of like when people can’t wait for someone to show up to either finish or remove laundry from a dryer, so they just take it out and leave it an a damp heap on top of the dryer with their stuff running inside.  Nice. (I left a note…and the door to the dryer open, too.  Just kidding on the latter of the two.  An eye for an eye only leaves the world blind.)

I’m wrestling like Jacob with this sabbatical angel who really wants to know my name…who I really am.  I’ve begun to say that name, and just like Jacob, I’ll walk away with a little gimpy.

So life doesn’t circle around me as much as it used to.  Having a sense of this fact has helped me get a grip on my emotions for cancelled plans – two MLS soccer matches, two RV parks in Washington, one in Montana, and a whole 1,400 mile re-route yet to be finagled.  Water under the bridge.  Unless you’re in Grand Rapids, Michigan, right now where water flows over the bridges.

Interesting… Very interesting. Gun permits before ownership? What a novel idea.

In all of life we see similar instances of injustice on the self, only to be awakened to the reality that our own ego doesn’t like what’s happening to us.  For example, this whole debate of gun control is out of control.  It’s gone from understanding what it means to care for others to preserving the self…out of fear and in the face of all whose lives are fragmented by the devastation lack of gun control has left in its wake.  See photo to the left.

Having lived in an area for nearly 6 years which has little control over who buys and has access to guns and having seen, as a Volunteer Police Chaplain, the suicides committed via guns, I’m even more convinced that people are more concerned about being right than being safe.  After all, getting what I want, over an above the needs of others that live in this same world, makes sense to me! (Last sentence laden with heavy sarcasm.)

Gun control also bleeds into a form of religious control.

Hypothetical question:  “Can I make you angry?”

Now, the italics should give you the correct answer.  Truth is this – I can’t make you angry.  Having said that, I can sure push your buttons and provoke an answer out of you that would please me if I were that kind of a person.  Vise versa you can not make me angry.  Something you do or say I may choose to become angry with, but that my choice.

This is where religion loses its relevance.  If I’m unhappy with a pastor, I can simply get up without a word and go to a new church, perhaps one that reflects my beliefs and not those of a well-studied, even scholarly minister.  After all, my needs are more important than the rest of the world’s and that makes sense to me!  (Again…sarcasm)

Sadly, the line that begins, “A deeply religious…” speaks volumes.  Even sadder, Grand Rapids, Michigan is my home town.  No one should ever have to feel so bound by an errant view of “biblical marriage.”

So what happens if a pastor may have a different opinion?  What happens when a preacher goes into a church and, heaven forbid, asks them to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with (their) God when all they want to do is worship the organ, the hymnals from 1957, the un-padded pews, the memorials most everybody walks by without reading?

They leave.

What happens when a pastor preaches and encourages his/her members to work for justice for the marginalized, even though the sight of these people may make a majority of them squirm?

They leave.

All to easy any given member can get up from the pew, head to the nearest exit, and then bitch (because I can think of no other diplomatic word than the verb to bitch) to everyone in the neighborhood about how their pastor sucks and is a “false man of God,” because they know this for fact and they’ve all been through the rigors of an accredited theological seminary.  Oh, the pettiness of the Church.

Of course, I realize it’s horribly difficult to place an accurate meaning on scripture when it’s been so heavily scrutinized under a microscope for eons.  Still, Jesus’ prayer in John 17 paints a bigger picture – so that they may all be one.  Perhaps the writer of John left out that line filled with righteous indignation.  You know, the one that completes the verse with, “…unless you like guns, hate the preacher, dislike gay people…etc.”  But then the writer would have had to leave that out three times in the same passage.  Highly unlikely.

This two-week and one-day endeavor in hospitals has left me with a foul taste in my mouth.  Most of it from the pricey hospital food.  The rest of that foul taste is me getting over it.  And I will.

There are many things that life tries to teach us if we stayed and listened.  In this case, I don’t know what they are yet.  I’m not a big fan of the whole God-does-everything-for-a-reason theology.  If that’s the case, I think we’d have billions more atheists.  (Although, we are working in that direction!)

This face. I LOVE this face.
LOVE WINS.
(being in the UCC, I believe that is the only place a punctuation period should exist.)

Let’s start with love.  Love is a good starting point when trying to sift through life’s crap.  As Miracle Max said in the Gospel of The Princess Bride, “Sonny, true love is the greatest thing, in the world-except for a nice MLT – mutton, lettuce and tomato sandwich, where the mutton is nice and lean and the tomato is ripe they’re so perky, I love that.”

The Apostle Paul follows that with, “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.  Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.  It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (Italics and bold are my own.)

Love is patient and kind.  And it endures.  To endure means you’re in for the long haul.  Are you?  I am.  Because it’s not all about me.  There’s another 600 Billion I think about.

 

As Fast as You Can…?

I drove the minivan today on an 80-mile stretch of I-17 in Arizona.  I felt like I was of Richard Petty talent in a minivan race of NASCAR.  After driving the RV on interstate roads and local highways I’ve noticed a slight difference in the acceleration ability between our Honda Odyssey and the Jayco Greyhawk.  Just a little.

Kinda like my Odyssey… without Homer. Let that one sink in a bit.

It was difficult to keep my foot off the pedal and not go for broke – after all my minivan does have balls the size of church bells for a family sedan grocery-getter.  There (to Phoenix) and back again (not a hobbit’s tale) in about 3 hours with some heavy traffic on the return side of the trip – not to mention, two stops to plug the baby.  (She’s so stinkin’ cute, but she doesn’t hold on to that pacifier when it is just me in the car)

While in Phoenix I met with a good friend, the one responsible for this career in ministry.  Back in 1996 Pastor Ted, as I have known him, told me I should go into the ministry.  He said I had a ‘gift.’  I politely told him he was full of sh_t.  Four years later, I was in the ministry.  He was right.  I was wrong.

Pastor Ted is the kind of pastor I want.  The man exudes unconditional love – for all.  He and his ordained wife co-pastored a large UCC in the Phoenix area.  Notice the past tense.  He’s now off on a new-church start with a whole new set of perimeters that any established church would find too nonspecific.  But before I derail my train of thought, Ted is the person you’d find on all those, um…er… those TED talks – inspirational.  His laugh and his love for others is contagious.

The point is he and his wife are no longer there and not by their own choice.

Churches can be brutal.  They can be brutal in countless ways.  Any non-Christian may wonder why we worship a God whose symbol is an ancient Roman tool of torture and inevitable death – the crucifix.  I believe the answer is, quite frankly, that some Christians want to put it back into practice…on their own parishioners or even their own pastors.

Some will say churches have lost their significance.  Some will say the Church isn’t a relevant source of inspiration for their spirituality to feed from.  From the ‘Spiritual-but-not-religious’ to the agnostic to the atheist to even the regular worship attendee – they’re almost right.

It’s not that the Church has lost touch with the general population, but it has lost the ability to be unconditionally compassionate, empathetic, simpatico.  It’s exchanged unconditional love for self-righteousness, occasionally for righteous indignation.

If anything else, the guy is handsome.

Recently, Rob Bell, thought of as one of the leaders of the emergent church movement, made the news as being openly supportive of gay marriage.  To my dismay, a few of my colleagues started hating on the fella because he’s just now doing this instead of doing this back when he was the lead pastor of his start-up church in Grandville, MI, called Mars Hill Bible Church, not to be confused with Mars Hill in Seattle, a church that is far from proclaiming marriage equality.

Here’s my take: (And so glad you asked)  First, Rob has never preached against marriage equality.  In all his work and teachings, all I’ve ever heard from Rob, aside from occasional and appropriate satire, was a positive message about following Christ.  Boiled down into two words – love others.  That’s it.  Period.  I know Rob started this church on his own.  I know the first Sunday’s attendance was over 1,000 people.  I know that many of my friends and their friends were leaving mainline denomination churches in droves to attend worship in this converted, nearly-abandoned mall – yes, a friggin’ mall.  The place is gigantic.  I also know that my personal feelings toward this Rob Bell phenomenon were not pleasant at first.  I was just as pissed at Bell, calling their worship ‘candy store’ theology…until I attended a service at Mars Hill Bible Church…and learned something new and something about myself in the process.  In its heyday Mars Hill would see about 12,000 people file through its doors on a worship Sunday.  That’s A LOT of people.

Did you know, just off hand, that Ben Fold’s Five Song for the Dumped makes for an awesome prelude to worship?  Give me my money back, give me my money back, you… (they didn’t sing the lyrics, but the house band rocked it!)

Second, I belong to one of the most progressive mainline churches in America – the United Church of Christ.  Which, of course, is almost unapologetic in its progressiveness.  It’s known as The Church of Firsts – ordaining the first African American, ordaining the first woman, and ordaining the first openly gay minister.  Sweet.  Matter of fact, in everything the U.C.C. stands for it is about 20 years ahead of other mainline denominations.  Not bad for a smaller denomination compared to the Presbyterian Church, PC(USA) or the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA), or, the overwhelmingly huge Catholic Church. (They are, by the way, Christians)

What bugs me about the U.C.C. are the following:

• It’s the UnitED church OF Christ and not the UnitING Church IN Christ.  It’s like we’ve hung the MISSION ACCOMPLISHED sign on all of Christianity.  Oops… not yet, people.  If anyone reading this has been to a General Synod of the United Church of Christ during its business meeting portion of the event then you’d know that being united  is harder than it looks in print.
• Because of their radical stance on social justice issues like marriage equality, the U.C.C. estranges people in their own denomination.  What?  How can that be?  Due to this beautiful and complex phrase called local autonomy, any local church can believe in a manner acceptable to their local church as long as they’re not going off the deep end, which, for the U.C.C., is occasionally hard to see where that ‘end’ really is.  Still, the faster it goes, the more people are left behind… more on that in a moment.

I live in a more conservative area of Colorado.  I preach there, too.  I preach in a church that considers itself “theologically diverse.”  I am also an advocate of equality for all the world’s people.  I also despise the use of the word queer to describe a people I find as beautiful as the rest of the straight world.  Doesn’t queer mean things like odd, strange, unusual, funny, peculiar, curious, bizarre, weird, uncanny, freakish, eerie, unnatural, unconventional, unorthodox, unexpected, unfamiliar, abnormal, anomalous, atypical, untypical, out of the ordinary, incongruous, irregular, puzzling, perplexing, baffling, unaccountable; informal fishy,spooky, bizarro, and freaky.  I think those that argue for and support equality for all people don’t find gay people to be any or all of the above…on the contrary.

In the communities to the east and west of our humble community there were two more U.C.C. churches.  Notice the past tense.  They now have joined another denomination – the Conservative Congregational Church Conference, a.k.a The Four C’s.  These two churches felt as if the national office of the U.C.C. were forcing upon them the belief of marriage equality.  For many local church members, and sadly, many local church ministers, the phrase local autonomy didn’t matter.  The national office stepped off the deep end of belief.

Now, I don’t believe words like conservative or  liberal belong in theological conversations whatsoever.  They only serve to cause division rather than, say for example, unite.  Oh… there’s a concept.  What if we had a uniting Church?

Even within the U.C.C. there is rabid division – you can be O&A (Open and Affirming) or Faithful & Welcoming (still recognizing homosexuality as sinful gig) or you can be…well…you can just be.  Kinda like the church I serve.

But then, I would be accused of not being prophetic enough.  So I should just risk it all and tell my congregation to accept gay marriage and “get over it” if they don’t.  At the same time, I’d lose a majority of my congregation by verbally pushing that social justice issue…all up-in-your-face about it.

What many of my peers fail to realize is how many Christians we piss off by telling them point-blank it’s my way or the highway.  In a denomination that believes, or so I thought it did, in unification of Christians, telling other Christians who simply can’t wrap their minds around an opposing view that they are wrong simply doesn’t fly.

I heard of a pastor in Stone Mountain, Georgia who did just that.  Told his congregation that marriage equality was they way they were going to go.  End result?  Nearly half of a 6,000 member church left.  And those that left were probably pissed.  Not just the members that left, but the children of said members and maybe even their children.  So, while advocating for social justice for all people (something I deeply believe in) that church managed to divide over one theological issue, sending thousands into the abyss of resentment, digging in their heels for a battle anytime a chance at unification may rear its ugly head.

Rob never told Mars Hill he was pro-marriage quality.  Why do that and risk angering 6,000 people who desperately need to hear a message of love?  Just because it’s the right thing to do or there’s no better time than the present?  For who?  Also, who decides when the right time is for such an announcement to be made for this particular environment?  There is more than one social justice factor to consider.

But there’s another way.  And this way takes time.  This was always takes time.

Ask yourself these questions:   Have you ever noticed social change on a day-to-day basis?  From today to tomorrow, do you witness change on a global scale?  What you look back on the past 20 years of your life (if you’ve lived that long), how has life changed?

Truth is, we see change far better in the rear-view mirror than looking at the pavement in front of us.  Yes, change does happen.  Mostly in small increments.  We could say that the State of Colorado signing into law a civil union bill is massive change.  But how long, again, did it take that to happen?  It wasn’t overnight.

I often sit this way when I’m on my throne.  Wait… is that too much information?

When the Israelites are in Babylonian captivity under the rule of Nebuchadnezzar, the prophet Jeremiah wrote to them telling them to build houses and settle down there.  He told them to seek the prosperity of the city in which they now live, not just for themselves but for the sake of the city.  He told them that after 70 years God would come for them.  (Jeremiah, ch. 29)

70 years?  Why 70?  Why not just one?

How many generations of one family can you fit into 70 years?  Perhaps four?  One new generation every 20 years, for example, would make four generations in 70 years.  What happens when the ideals of one generation pass away?  Then the next?  Then the one after that?

Slowly with time and the quite literal death of old-shool thought, the world changes.  To change a societies way of thinking overnight, whether it be secular or theological, is nuttier than a Nutter Butter.

The methodology behind Jeremiah’s madness was to teach the Israelites to love their new digs.  To love those around them while maintaining their faith beliefs and practicing them just as they always had done before.  Keep doing what you’re doing with that LOVE thing, people! is what Jeremiah was preaching.  Love one another.  Regardless of their beliefs.  Even if they can’t change their mind as fast as the generation before them – love them.

To tell them they’re wrong, that the older ideals of theology just aren’t relevant anymore is to tell them that they aren’t relevant anymore.

I’m not willing to do that to anyone.  But I am willing to love all.  Unconditionally, no matter their speed of their faith, even if they never come to agree with me.

A good friend, April, wrote this.  I happen to admire this writing as it relates to this lengthy one of my own.

We are a society bent on winning, sometimes at all costs.  While we may believe it is all the right reasons sometimes it is just to piss off the ‘other’ party and set them back a decade in progressive movement.

It is okay to lose.  How you show love in the process makes the difference.

I don’t think we should drive as fast as we can to that final destination – we risk hurting others.  We risk hurting others who have faith, just a faith that’s lived differently than our own.  We should not forsake them.

I do believe we should keep on ‘driving’ per se, knowing it may take us 70 years to change.

Love… It really does win.  I have two of these stickers on my beloved RV – I may need to adhere a few more…

Oh, and Rob, thanks for your opinion, no matter when you spoke it, it’s all good!  By the way, I’m rolling through LA next week… can we meet?  Coffee?  A donut?  Some good conversation?  Please?

Go West, Young Man…

Once you’re past Grand Junction you enter… Utah… and many miles of barren lands.

So we’re here.  Well… Let me edit that.  We’re at our first stop.  Moab, Utah.  FAR from being ‘here.’  After 430 miles and a fill up 150 miles ago for gas (yes, mileage sucks.  No pun intended) we’ve arrived at a lovely RV just south of Arches National Park, where many a Dr. Scholl’s have trod (let that one sink in a bit).

The weather is mildly beautiful and, being 400+ miles from the eastern edge of the Mountain Time Zone, we had plenty of light to set up camp.

Now I can breathe.  Truth be told, I still drive tense – I had a muscular knot in my right shoulder that ached something fierce while navigating I-70 westbound and the lovely headwind that accompanied our ride.

Still, the journey has begun.  My head is filled with thousands of thoughts of what may happen during my sabbatical journey.  My only prayer is to save a tire blow-out for within a mile from home.

Actually, I have many prayers.  Prayers asking God keep us safe, and lead me to people in sacred conversation, and please, God, be a presence back home…at my church…that they may be lead to recognize your spirit and move forward in delight, just to name a few.  Rev. Mark Sandlin, a pastor in the PC(USA) in North Carolina, wrote in magnificent depth of his own sabbatical journey.  Another one of my prayers is to meet Mark when we journey through N.C. this coming May.  Many questions Mark asked then are my own today.

After five years of ordained ministry I am feeling the burn.  This journey, Lenten liturgical calendar timing be damned, is something I have longed for.  Our church has grown to a point.  We’ve received many young families.  A category most church-growth models show to me a less-than-dependable area of growth in the Church.  While I was excited about this our church has lived into that model reality.  Our average church worship attendance has trickled down like pee from a 12 and-a-half week-old baby’s diaper onto a clean pair of pants – takes some time, but eventually you notice.

So I figured we’ve made ‘members’ but not disciples.  There is this sense that people want a church to belong to but not a church to be.  What I mean is some people want a place of worship that’s there when they need it and so they can also tell their friends that they go this particular church or that unique church – but they can’t commit.  I’d say that less than 30% of our church members attend worship regularly.  That means that more than 70% of our church members hardly attend at all.

I was raised that going to church wasn’t an option.  I did.  Period.  No choice was given to me.  Even though I didn’t understand the pastor, even though I was bullied by other kids in the church, even though I’d rather stay at home a worship the almighty Atari I still went to church.  What that taught me was what I needed to be taught – Commitment.  And not just any commitment, but commitment with a capital C.  My parents’ level of commitment was passed on to me and for that I am grateful.

Now, instead of having to go to church.  I get to.  I long for this ideal to be the standard for all Christians.  A deep-seeded desire to want to be in church, to want to be the church.  Maybe someday that’ll happen.  But on we go.  Go west, young man… and then north.  And then back west before going east, south, north and back west again.

By the way, if you see me on the side of the road with a flat, kindly stop by for some friendly and potentially sacred conversation.  I’ll be waiting for the Good Sam Roadside Assistance to repair the dual-ie.

 

Bats in the Belfry

There’s a joke I have shared amongst my ordained peers…  Wanna hear it?  Here it goes. (I hope you caught that In Living Color reference)

Once upon a time there was a large byzantine church with an equally large ministry staff.  (And no, that’s not the joke.)  Every Sunday as the crowd filled the pews in the ornate sanctuary their chatter was only muffled by the chirping of a rather large population of bats that lived in the belfry.  Fed up with the chatter as only a senior pastor could be (after all, who talks over the pastor’s sermon?) the esteemed clergy climbed up into the bell tower, trapped all the bats, relocated them miles away into a cave.  Rather proud of his endeavors, he returned to the pulpit with a smug appearance only to have it washed away with the return of the excessive chirping noise emanating from the belfry.

The associate pastor said, “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of this.”  He, too, climbed the belfry’s ladder armed with a shotgun loaded with powerful blanks.  The confident young man fired off a few rounds into the tower, scattering the bats at once.  Yet, the following Sunday, the chirping was ever more present, ever more powerful – as if the bats were out for revenge.

As it so happened, this gangly, underpaid, part-time, guitar-toting youth minister approached the senior staff and says to the ministers, “I got this.”  He disappeared into the belfry and a short time later reemerged with a polite grin on his face.

The following Sunday morning you could hear a pin drop.  It was so quiet the members didn’t even recognize the pastor’s voice…and neither did he.  The senior pastor and the associate pastor approached the youth minster after worship and excitedly asked, “How’d you do it?!?”

“It was easy,” replied the youth pastor, “I confirmed them.”  (Okay, now you may chuckle.)

This joke has received better mileage than a Prius with a 100 mph tailwind.  Yet every time I tell it I laugh a little less.  I laugh less because there’s a reality that myself and my peers who laugh with me are all to familiar with.  Once we “confirm” our youth, most of them, if not all, disappear from the church.

I used to think this was all a problem with me as a pastor.  What was I doing or saying that estranged these young folk after Confirmation was over?  I’ve wrestled with this question for as many years as I’ve been in ordained ministry…which, altogether now, is only five years.  “Is only five years.”  (I hope you’ve caught the Airplane reference there.  Just don’t call me surely.)

What I have come to learn is that this problem goes beyond the local church setting and into the local church member’s home.  The understanding of Confirmation as more a rite-of-passage than an actual acknowledgment of their parent’s vows at their baptism is one part.  The other part is two-fold.  Part A is the family that perpetuates this ideal that Confirmation is just another ceremony that has to be done because “I did it at that age” or “this is the church that I was confirmed in, too.”  Part B is the local church staff that allows this ideal to be perpetuated without addressing it or, at least, trying to educate the general membership – some may have long  forgotten the meaning behind many of the church traditions and have simply begun to “go through the motions.”

I’ve been witness to families who play Confirmation as “there for when they need it” and then they’re gone.  The only value in the program is just to be “confirmed” – whateverthehell that means.  Whatever promises are made by the youth to participate, to serve, to worship, to be a part of this new church family are only as strong as the investment the parents have in said church.  Little investment equals bats in the belfry.  Greater investment equals…well…a guy like me, even though it took much time to fully maturate.

Keep in mind that I find the local church to be equally as dismissive of confirmation as many parents are.  Even members in these churches have no desire to reframe their own affirmation of baptism to dive into a deeper understanding of relationship with their God.  Sunday morning worship, for lack of a better phrase, is merely “going through the motions.”

I am taking an online coaching course from The Center for Progressive Renewal, based in Atalanta, Georgia.  I heard a statistic that was more disturbing; hardly anyone in our church experience God within the worship service.

We (the Church) are dramatically disconnected in this highly connected world.

I’m not sure the answer.  I find myself wanting to make more rules and structure for a disciplined Confirmation program… which is completely opposite of what my heart speaks is needed.  I want youth to come to me and say, “Pastor Greg, I want to be confirmed this year” without me having to ask for a parent-youth informational meeting at the beginning of the confirmation season.  I want these youth to be mature.  Perhaps more mature than their parents or even me.

Today we celebrated Confirmation Sunday.  Eight youth made commitments to the church.  Six of them I know I’ll see in church through their high school years, at least when their travel sport of choice isn’t playing on Sundays.  Five of them I’m pretty sure I’ll see if they stick around after high school.  Four of them I see as potential leaders.  Two of them have greater potential in ordained ministry.

When I look back on the classes of Confirmation I have had the privilege to lead, my best reflective guess is that roughly 20% of the youth confirmed in the last six years make regular appearances in worship.  Compared to other churches in our denomination, that’s hardly the joke of the bats in the belfry.

But it could be better.

12 days… But who’s counting?