Freedom from anxiety and divided interests? At least for a moment?
Paul, all manner of tragedy and the Great Litany.
In the early summer of 1997, I began the two-year journey of checklists and meetings, reports and conferences, appointments and applications that concluded with a letter from the bishop of my diocese confirming that I was, indeed, a “postulant for holy orders”. We then sold our house and moved over six hundred miles away from our extended family, our friends and parish community so I could invest three academic years in formal study. This vocational journey, from my first meeting with my rector (pastor) at the beginning of the process, until I was ordained as a priest, spanned nearly five and a half years. Throughout those years, people consistently encouraged me, constantly saying things like, “You’ll make a good priest, because you’re such a people person.”
I’ve been at this work (which I love!) for going on ten years. I’m still a “people person”. There’s only one problem. The culture has moved so far beyond the training I received, I worry if I will ever be able to catch up. I was trained to offer courses. I was trained to do book studies. I was trained to organize committees. I was trained to fill out reports and keep records of Sunday attendance. We debated the best practices for “growing” congregations. We learned how to analyze congregational dynamics and spot malfunctions within the congregational system. Sadly, most of those “practical theology” classes are no longer relevant, much less “practical”. The routine activities of what used to constitute parish life have less and less connection to the lives of the people who show up at Trinity Church on Sunday mornings. It is increasingly obvious to me that joy and delight I derive from being around people is not the same thing as having any sort of clue about the ways in which a parish priest is helpful (or not) in marshaling and coordinating the people in her/his specific congregation to engage in the mission of God in the world — which is not the same as teaching them how to be good church members.
I’m presently reading a book entitled, The Missional Renaissance: Changing the Scorecard for the Church, by Reggie McNeal. In the opening pages, the author identifies several “shifts” necessary for moving from one way of being church toward a different one. McNeal summarizes the program model of church as a congregational way of being in which the mission is primarily about keeping people in the pews, buildings in good repair and programs of various sorts and conditions humming along in perpetuity — and with a balanced budget. The missional model of church understands “church” as an active presence in the world rather than a passive presence withdrawn from the world. The missional church is the people of God on-the-move, engaged in the mission of God, who is on-the-move “out there” — with the poor, the hurting, the estranged, the sick, the stressed and the apathetic. The role of the pastor in this “missional way of thinking” would be less about program development and more about people development. The missional pastor functions more like a mentor/coach and less like an ecclesiastical functionary.
McNeal then highlights what such a change in perspective would entail: “We must change our ideas of what it means to develop a disciple, shifting the emphasis from studying Jesus and all things spiritual in an environment protected from the world to following Jesus into the world to join him in his redemptive mission.” (p. 10, emphasis mine)
The author goes on to underscore how difficult such a shift will be for clergy — not because clergy are resistant, per se, but because such a way of thinking is simply not how we were formed by our training. McNeal writes, “The typical clergyperson is groomed to do project management (yes, even a sermon is a project) and perform religious rites, not develop people…Leaders will have to travel a steep unlearning curve to move away from the activities and behaviors that support the program-driven model.” (p. 11)
McNeal continues, “This shift also means that church membership or some level of involvement in a local congregation will no longer be the primary spiritual expression of missional followers of Jesus. Missional Christians will no longer be content to help their church succeed in getting better at ‘doing church’ or consider their commitment to the church as an expression of their spiritual depth.” (p. 11)
I went on to read another forty pages, but I recognized I had to come back to pages 10-11 and let this stuff sink in. I believe McNeal has described the reality I see unfolding in my little corner of the world. That reality is exciting and more than a little frightening. Can a graying church-geek like me learn a new set of behaviors? Am I willing to stumble and fail miserably in my learning process? Can I climb the steep unlearning curve McNeal describes?
Just because I’m empathetic, a reasonably attentive listener, a sometimes encouraging presence, a good teller of stories, a (mostly) coherent preacher and particularly gifted with remembering people’s names, does not mean I have any real clue about how to be an effective “equipper of the saints” for participating in God’s mission in the world. Being a “people person” may be a start in the right direction. But it isn’t enough.
Wrestling with the reading for the day.
“And all who believed were together and had all things in common; and they sold their possessions and goods and distributed them to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they partook of food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.” (Acts 2:43-47, RSV)
Recently, I attended a church gathering in which the attendees were strongly encouraged to re-read the Acts of the Apostles. Acts is the New Testament document which tells the story of the growth of the church in the aftermath of Jesus’ resurrection and ascension. Now, I grew up in a denomination that lived, ate, slept and breathed the Acts of the Apostles — I’ve been there and done that (over and over and over and over again). So the suggestion to re-read this well-worn story only seemed to add to my pre-Lenten fatigue.
Then, last week, the Executive Committee of the Episcopal Church released a draft budget for the three year period between 2012-2015. An avalanche of reaction (not much of it positive!) ensued. Essentially, the draft budget proposes significant increases for all things administrative (Office of Presiding Bishop, Office of President of the House of Deputies, Comptroller’s Office, etc.) plus the continued funding for a “public policy” presence in Washington, DC. Simultaneously, the proposed budget eviscerates funding for such things as Christian Formation, Youth Ministry, Campus Ministry and similar ministries and initiatives previously considered fundamental to our mission as a denomination. The rationale for these cuts is that such ministries can be better provided at a more local level. The problem with this rationale, however, is that, without any sort of lead time, these ministries will be largely “unfunded” (and may well never return in any form).
Plenty of people are writing about the specifics of the budgetary debate. My point here is not to rehash the pros and cons of the proposed budget. The amount of energy I’ve seen unleashed in the social media platforms about that document elicited another response from me: I got out my Bible, opened it to the Acts of the Apostles and started reading. When I got to the verses I’ve posted above, I saw something with a clarity that was absolutely frightening and simultaneously energizing.
The text says (among other things), “…[they] were together and had all things in common…” In the first few days after the outpouring of the Spirit, the newly birthed church — without the benefit of a headquarters or hierarchy, without a funding source or a financial plan, without a strategy or a stewardship statement — did the following things:
1. They kept on believing the Spirit was moving among them (of course the signs and wonders helped!)
2. They sold everything they had and placed the funds in a common treasury for the good of the entire community.
3. They worshipped together in the Temple — keeping up with their prayer life and the study of the scriptures available.
4. They broke bread together — presumably both in the fellowship of shared meals and in the sacred meal of Bread and Wine.
In short, they placed the totality of their faith in God and in one another, even to the point of giving it all away — EVERYTHING! Now I’m not proposing any sort of radical literalism. Further reading of the New Testament demonstrates that, while filled with good intentions, this “sell it all” strategy later turns out to be a reckless longterm financial decision. But what can we learn from these few verses in light of the looming budget debate in the run-up to General Convention 2012?
Perhaps we can begin with a gut check.
Do we actually believe the Spirit is still hovering and brooding and creating over, within and throughout the Church (Episcopal and otherwise)? If we do believe such a thing, then why are we so often fearful, anxious, angry, sad and pessimistic? Why is it easier to see darkness than to see the brightness of Christ’s Light in the world?
What if we became more concerned about the common good and our common mission than about currency? What if we began to think about ways we could invest in real ministry in the communities beyond our doors and spent less time attempting to hoard dollars to preserve buildings which are often little more than liturgical museums and to support ecclesial governing structures that are calcified, stratified and petrified?
Even if we can’t quite let go of our desire to control everything (including the Tempest we call God’s Holy Spirit); even if we can’t quite let go of our fixation with bricks, mortar, committees and commissions, could we at least entertain the notion that a ten day prayer meeting might be more beneficial than a ten day legislative session? After all, the 120 gathered in Jerusalem immediately after Jesus’ ascension prayed for ten days and the next thing we read in Acts, people are spilling out into the streets drunk on the Spirit of God. A few hundred Spirit-drunk Episcopalians on the streets of Indianapolis this summer would definitely be newsworthy…and it might even translate to a revival in ministry and mission the likes of which we’ve never known.
What if we actually started living like we are what we eat in Church on Sundays? What if we became the Body and Blood of Christ in the world?
I’m not suggesting that if we did any of these things our monetary woes would magically disappear. After all, we live in a culture dominated by currency. But I keep praying that a day will arrive when our common life together as Church is more important than our balance sheets. Yup, I know it’s squishy, pie-in-the-sky, touchy-feely stuff. But thank God the 120 had better things to do than debate their budget and all the money they didn’t have. They took to the streets with the Good News, and (as someone reports later in the Acts of the Apostles), “turned the world upside down.” Now THAT’s a mission I can get behind.
soulwerker 