Upgrade me

Oh so much has been written about the consumerist nature of western Christians. But as I was reading Tim Keel's excellent book Intuitive Leadership: Embracing a Paradigm of Narrative, Metaphor and Chaos (Baker 2007), I had a wee ah-ha moment. Keel mentions that us sheep aren't the only ones wandering from pasture to pasture, church to church.

He pointed out that many of our leaders engage in the same hunger-driven behavior. Looking to upgrade their resume, buff their experience, and be where "it" is happening, there are some church leaders who move on in order to move up. Like in college football, the evangelical world doesn't have an official ranking system. "Moving up" is more a state of mind or bragging rights than actual measurable distance"up". Though the evangelical world doesn't have sportswriters spinning out weekly rankings ("Saddleback has slipped to number six this week due to quarterback Rick Warren's pulled hammie"), there is this funny pecking order that exists in the minds of an awful lot of these leaders. This order is based on things like a church's size, positive secular media attention, cutting edge-ness... It is invariably signposts of human success/power that shapes these rankings.

I've heard enough present- and future-pastor conversations both at the seminary where I sometimes work and among church leaders I've known to know that Keel's words about some spiritual leaders' ambitions are true. (Not all, for sure - but a fair-sized some.) So at least in some cases, the motivations of leaders and of congregants each in search of some kind of church "upgrade" aren't so different from one another.

What drives people forward to greener pastures, a different church, a better "ministry job" (as if there was such a thing as a ministry job)? No matter who the person is, there's hunger driving them on and out (and, in some cases, up). I have a friend who lost about 40 pounds a few years ago by learning to eat only when she was truly hungry. She learned that most of her feelings of hunger were actually feelings of other kinds (boredom, anger, anxiety, unthinking responses to food commercials on TV).

How do we learn to listen to the hunger so we can learn what real hunger feels like? How do we learn to understand that what we call moving on, moving up, moving out is what we often call "hunger for God" but might not be hunger at all?

Growing pains - part 3

"Leaving a church because you're not 'being fed' is a sign of spiritual immaturity."

This might be true. Or false.

I once had a conversation with a person who headed both children's and women's ministry in her mid-sized church. Sunday mornings, she circled through the church like an electron in an atomic accelerator, overseeing children's programming. The rest of the week, she divided her time equally between organizing curriculum, recruiting volunteers, planning women's events, arranging mentoring relationships, and constantly communicating with her sub-leaders about plans and vision. "When is the last time you sat through a church service here?" I asked.

"Oh, I'm a self-feeder," she laughed. "I haven't attended an entire church service here in years!" Of course, she could listen to the pastor's message on CD later if she so chose. (But that isn't really the point, and neither is her motivation in being so darn indespendible.)

Her comment stuck with me, because church - the image most of us conjure when we first hear the word, anyway - is that thing we do on Sunday morning. When we say "I'm not getting fed at my church", we're usually saying "The sermons are missing the mark for me". Or we might be saying "The music to which I'm supposed to be worshipping stinks." Some of us might even be saying, "The other stuff we do in a church service has become rote and meaningless for me."

Even though I found the actions of this woman's/children's pastor extremely troubling, I found a bit of spiritual truth in her words. Spiritual maturity means that we learn to become self-feeders. Or, to put it another way, we learn to feed deeply on God, rather than being fed by others. As we do, we form a different kind of relationship with a Sunday morning church service - particularly those of us who attend churches where the sermon, rather than communion, is the centerpiece of the Sunday morning worship service.

So if we become "self-feeders", then those other things about a congregation (the stuff that happens the other 167 hours of the week) change priority, don't they?

Is it possible to outgrow a congregation if you're a self-feeder?

Growing pains - part 2

One reason the question of whether it is possible to "outgrow" a church keeps coming back to me is because of the process described in Ian Michael Cron's semi-novel Chasing Francis. The book is an interesting hybrid of history lesson, travelogue, church diagnostic, and love story. It tells the story of an evangelical megachurch pastor named Chase Falcon who has a spiritual and emotional implosion one day while midstream through a Sunday morning sermon. Pastor Falcon happens to have a beloved uncle who is a well-connected priest living in Rome who just so happens to be a scholar and student of the life of Francis of Assisi. The uncle directs Chase on his unexpected pilgrimmage walking in the footsteps of this 800-year old true, faithful Christian.

What is most striking about the book (besides the fact that I wished I had a cool uncle like this) is that Pastor Falcon didn't lose his faith, though for a while, he thought he had. He kept walking through that desert with Francis, and discovered his faith was there, but he'd outgrown the practices and spirituality of his mega church life. The book ends with Chase in his living room with a group of friends, plotting what it would be like to have the kind of church that echoed the ministry of St. Francis.

This was quite inspiring, but this cozy living room scene was immediately preceded by weeks of high-level church political subterfuge that took place while the pastor was away, followed by a fireworks-filled congregational meeting at the megachurch that ended with the pastor's ouster.

And this is how growing pains seem to work - too often. For every lovely parting of the ways when someone outgrows a congregation, there are many more flame-filled bridge-burnings. Curses are invoked, salvation is unnecessarily questioned by those left behind, and relationships are damaged. John 17 remains an unanswered prayer...

Some don't believe you should ever leave a church - that it's disloyal and consumerist. Stick with it, and grow there. Bloom where you're planted. Even if the soil is dust-bowl dry. God will bless your loyalty.

If you're one of those faithful "bloomers", I'd love to hear from you. What made you decide to stay in your church? What has the result been? What would you do differently? Recommend to others to help sustain them when the church no longer provides sustenance or fellowship?

Growing pains - part 1

Yesterday at Scot McKnight's popular Jesus Creed blog, he started a discussion about finding/losing faith. (Click here to read his post and the lively discussion that followed.)

It reminded me of something I read as I was up to my frontal lobe in research for The Church For Skeptics: A Conversation For Thinking People. It was a discussion about the stages of mature faith development in a person's life, and if I'm remembering correctly, the work in question (a book, I think) discussed the crisis that must precede a mature, deepening spiritual life. Of course, I hunted through my bookmarks, and couldn't find hide nor hair of the book's title anywhere, though I seem to remember the essence of the author's scholarly contention was that some of us simply outgrow the churches and practices that sustained us as young-in-the-faith Christians.

Read this the wrong way, and it sounds like I'm espousing a "gotta do what's right for me" program of spiritual growth that will endorse unbiblical practice or celebrate spiritual smogasbord-ism in the name of capturing a renewed sense of spiritual momentum. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Wrong.

But is it possible to outgrow a church?

Two brief examples in support of this possibility:

(1) When I was in high school, my parents didn't allow me to attend church, but they did let me go to Young Life club meetings. These meetings were designed for "seekers", and consisted of games, skits, songs (Pass It On, anyone?) and a short bible lesson. Meanwhile, I was sitting in my room at home, reading my bible, listening to Bible teachers on WMBI, and devouring spiritual life books as fast as I could sneak them into the house. A couple of years into my life as a Christ-follower, I began to get frustrated with the surface-y lessons at Young Life. I complained to a leader, and he looked me straight in the eye and said, "I think you've outgrown us." He wasn't saying it like I was an arrogant annoyance (though perhaps I was). He was simply stating that I'd gone farther than their particular vehicle could carry me. Though Young Life wasn't a church per se, it certainly functioned as one for many of the kids there (including me) to some degree.

(2) Also yesterday, I spoke with an old friend I first met years ago at a Vineyard congregation. She now attends a liturgical congregation. She said, "I got tired of the pastor wringing his hands about what to preach about next. Everything was a sermon series, and we weren't getting the simplicity of the Word of God." The church she now attends uses the lectionary, and the service is shaped by liturgy, rather than weekly invention. She is still a third-wave Charismatic, but worships in a formal setting, and uses her spiritual gifts in other settings (prayer and healing ministries with which she's involved.)

Do you think its possible to outgrow a church? Is this a Biblical idea - or just an accomodation to our church hopping culture?

Kickin' `em when they're down

I get Monday Morning Insight's (MMI) weekly pastor/leadership newsletter every (surprise!) Monday morning. The dudes there definitely have their biases - they heavily promote the Second Gen Mega Church church leaders. I don't always agree with the MMI guys and their congregational cover boys, but the things they're thinking about and doing affect us all, whether we want them to or not.

So it's been interesting (like a car wreck is interesting) to follow the discussion that's ensued at the site in the wake of a question about church hoppers vs. church "lifers", which shifted in an instant to become a discussion about the problems with church hoppers versus the problems with screwed-up dysfunctional abusive church leadership. This is an old, tiring debate that never seems to change any minds or any practices. The MMI conversation in particular has left me feeling a little beat up, frankly. Both sides (because in this conversation, there really is a sense of "versus" that is fueling this round and venue of the old, tiring debate) mostly sound like Jets Vs. Sharks, not sheep and shepherds.

My good friends (scattered all over Chicago and WI) have been listening to me weep and grieve these last few months over the fact that we don't have a church home. (If you want to hear the whole sad saga, e-mail me at mishvl@yahoo.com. An abbreviated version is also listed on the above MMI post.) We have been attending a place, but it is shockingly unhealthy, and we know at this point in our lives, we aren't the stick of dynamite these sleepy people desperately need. I have grieved deeply, perhaps obsessively, that we're back on the road again...again. And I have grieved the molasses-like stuck-ness that has left this middle-aged church shrinking, clubby and completely disconnected from the community around her.

So listen up, MMI guys: I don't want to be looking for a new church. I don't want to be a church hopper. Your conversation this week hurts right now. Not like conviction hurts - in order to bring change. No, it hurts like cliques and smug answers hurt.

I want to be the church - the bride!, live the mission, and love and be loved by Jesus.

Banned book at church

Bill and I have been attending a small church for the last 9 months or so. Small churches typically don't drown their members' schedules in lots of programs and meetings and busywork. This congregation is especially sparse, programming-wise. Besides Sunday services and a wee youth group, there was some kind of once-a-month women's meeting that did...something, but I have no idea what, and a women's Bible study that met this spring to explore the book of James. (Let the reader note - I didn't participate in either of those women's "ministry" offerings.)

I was surprised to get an e-mail note to the women of the church that read:
Ladies Book Club
Book Choice: The Secret by Rhonda Byrne
Instructions: Please purchase/borrow the book, before the start of the first session please read
the Forward, The introduction and the first two chapters.
For the second session please read chapters 3 - 6, the following session read two chapters.
This will be an open forum to express your views and feelings on the book, and gain insight from everyone attending. I hope it will be a fun and interesting time! This group is open to all of the women (of the church) & whom ever they wish to invite.

(If you're unfamiliar with Oprah's most recent fave book, author, pastor and professor Donald Whitney has a fair and non-hysterical review here. )

I give the context for the invitation to spend some of my summer evenings with the ideas found in The Secret and the women of this troubled church because this has left me in the unpleasant position of Bad Cop, questioning both the "why" of this book choice as well as asking whether the elders at this church reviewed the book before giving the OK to the woman who initiated this book group. (Aw, come on. You already know what the answer is.)

If there was a sense that this church was interested in exploring the intersection of Biblical truth and pop culture, I might have fewer questions and different concerns. But I have seen no evidence of this in the kind of teaching the church proffers on Sunday mornings, the kinds of outreach (none) the church does, or the kinds of things the women typically discuss amongst themselves. I am trying to figure out what itch The Secret scratches for the women of this church, and why they're willing to spend time with this book instead of something that might spark some spiritual growth among them. I am also realizing that the trust issues (old scars) I have when it comes to church leadership have been scraped open a bit with the announcement of this book group.

How funny that I, a writer who reads widely in my areas of passion as well as a reader who encourages others to read books and blogs with which they'll be challenged or even disagree in order to shape their hearts and minds would become Bad Cop when it comes to a book group.

BUT its not just a book group. It's a book group AT CHURCH. If I wanted to learn about The Secret, I'd watch Oprah or go to a discussion group at Barnes and Noble. But I don't.

I want Jesus....

What do you think about this? Am I wrong in my concerns? If so, why?

* * * * * * *

And just to lighten my mood on this depressing topic, I'm posting a picture of 3-1/2 year-old grandson Gabriel.

See? I feel better already.

:)

In the home stretch

I’m 95% done with “The Church For Skeptics” – well, with the writing part of it, anyway. It still has to go under an editor’s microscope, and then into a designer’s hands. I’m not sure what kind of rewriting I’ll have to do, although my guess is that it won’t be any significant amount. What an amazing process this has been. I’ve been working on this book non-stop since last summer and have gotten a chance to go deep as I’ve written on one of my favorite topics – the church.

After exploring the definition, the beliefs, the practices, the history, the denominations and the community of the church, as well as what Jesus has to say about religious insiders and spiritual outsiders, the process has changed me. I have run into every possible sort of group identifying themselves with the church as I’ve surfed the net the last few months. Notables include a nice man named Earl who has declared himself the true Pope, the flaming fury of the fundamentalist haters committed to showing up at soldiers’ funerals, the people who believe that the Bible is nothing more than an interesting Important Cultural Myth, white supremacists, and a lot of bloggers angry about everything from Southern Baptist church politics to the use of the “e” word – emerging.

The subject of the church stirs a lot of passion in me. It always has. I am ruined by the promise of what I saw when I read Scripture sitting alone in my room for 3 years because my parents prohibited me from attending church while I was a teen. I saw the problems of the church, but I also believed the description of who she is meant to be – a body, a family, a living temple, a bride. Given the dumb stuff* we’ve gone through at the hands of some mighty dysfunctional churches, it would have made a lot more sense to just walk away at some point. But I can’t…

I am amazed at the number of people who feel as passionately about the church as I do. Though some of them are at best misguided – and others are dangerous whack jobs – it’s been fun to discover that there are some interesting people who’ve tasted Jesus and, as a result, refuse to settle for a life of complacency and safe religion.

*One sorrow - More than anything, I wish I could have spared my kids the experience of living through the dumb stuff.

I do not like this noun

I love to volunteer to help, to serve, to minister, to use the gifts God has given me to bless another. Volunteer is a verb in this sentence.

I hate to be called a volunteer. Noun.

When I was on staff at a mid-sized evangelical church, we spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to fill slots in our org chart, especially in the children's ministry, cleaning and lawn mowing areas. Some of the people used words like "recruit" and "volunteer" A LOT. We brainstormed lots of creative ways to get people to volunteer for the grunt work of the church. (Of course, we never quite put it in those sort of bald terms, but really, that's what it was.)

On a recent visit to the Letters From Leavers website, I found a couple of points in one person's letter that seemed to capture what it is about the noun "volunteer" that cranks me a little. He (or she) wrote: "IC’s establish a hiearchy within the church. Paid staff know the answers and the average Joe believer takes their orders from them" and "IC’s promote believers to identify themselves by what they “do” at church and assign value, higher and lower, to their areas of service. A praise singer is awesome while a stage hand is trivial. They may say that “all” service is equally important but they treat them with high/lower values in mind."

So what is it about the word "volunteer" that bugs me? Two things - First, though no one quite puts it like this, it seems to me that often "volunteers" are the blue-collar laborers, doing tasks assigned by the white-collar staff. Second, most of us know that there is certainly a lot more church social currency given to someone who can play a killer guitar solo than the person who mows the lawn.

And though there are lots of good reasons for the former (and not a single valuable one for the second) - big churches ARE institutions and organizations, and need manpower (people power?) to keep them running at max capacity. And good leaders make sure to try to help plug people in to their org charts by using their gifts and talents, not just by finding someone with a pulse.

But I think there is a kind of non-profit business paradigm embedded in the word "volunteer". Scripture never uses this sort of image to describe the body of Christ. As a matter of fact, the idea of a volunteer kidney or tibia is absurd.

Every believer is called a priest. This is not a volunteer position. Our ministry of offering praise to God comes in the offerings we bring to him, and the way we love one another in the body. This can mean volunteering to watch poopy kids in the nursery, cleaning the toilets, or singing on a worship team - because we've been empowered to minister, not because we've been drafted (or conscripted by guilt) to BE A VOLUNTEER at a church.

P.S. - If any of you are blogger users and can explain why this wacky site doesn't show my line breaks between paragraphs, HELP! :) I don't like reading solid walls of text, either - and haven't entered it this way, so I'm not quite sure what I"m doing wrong.

Go around to the back

Matt asked me a great question in his comment to my “Vegetables of the Spirit” post below. He queried, “As a "front door" person, go ahead and take your time getting to know your way around and then jump into serving and community. As a "back door" person, the expectations for gift use and leadership increase pretty dramatically. There is a payoff and cost either way, isn't there? That being said, what are your thoughts about bridging the gap between the two experiences?”

It’s a question that’ll become increasingly relevant in his own new ministry – and it is a question my husband and I have had to wrestle from both sides of the welcome mat. On the “inside”, as church staff/leaders in WI and as people who’ve interviewed for staff positions at other churches - and, in the last 3 years, as “front door guests” at a number of churches as church visitors.

Here are some thoughts how churches can bridge the gap between their front doors (guest doors) and their back doors (staff doors).

First, a couple of disclaimers:
(1) Not all churches have front doors and back doors. Home churches, simple churches, church plants and small churches either don’t have two doors, or the doors are positioned so close to one another that you barely tell them apart.
(2) Not everyone needs to come in the back door of a church. Many people choose to simply attend a service and leave, without interacting much with the community life of the church. They may be investigating Christianity and want to sample church life. Or they may be investigating the church and prefer to get to know the church through the church’s formal channels. Or they’re busy in other areas of their lives, and don’t have a need or desire to connect with the church community more deeply. Or they’ve been hurt by the church, and the fact that they’re even at a service is all they can do – and that even showing up in a church has come at a very high price in their lives. In any case, the front door practices of the church (greetings, newcomer packets/gifts/visits/brunches/classes) are designed to welcome these people in.

In fact, the reason these practices are used is because they work. People need to get to know a church, and the church needs to get to know them before the people can be given responsibility. Paul offers some principles to his young mentoree, Timothy, that shape our thoughts on this (not many should teach, and new believers should not be given leadership responsibility).

In practical terms, many churches have a policy that people can not become ministry leaders until they’ve been at the church for a specific amount of time or completed various classes and seminars. Some churches have been left holding the bag when a person is given a responsibility and then the person decides the church isn’t where the he or she belongs after all.

Paid staff go under the microscope, as they should. They’re being given a position of trust and honor in a congregation, and those who are leading the congregation (and those who will be working alongside a potential staffer) need to make sure that gifts, personality and experience are a good fit. People’s tithes/gifts are being used to pay staff salaries.

But when God sends a mature, experienced leader to a church, there ought to be a pathway to service in the church that takes into account that person’s experience. I am thinking of a man my husband and I know who had been a pastor for nearly 30 years. Though some difficult church politics, the man was ousted from his position and showed up at our old church in WI to rest for a season. He soon discovered that the gifts and calling of God in his life were still at work in his life, and almost in spite of himself, he began ministering to those around him. The elders and staff wrestled with what to do about using him in the church’s ministry because he hadn’t gone through our “pathway”. He was limited to ushering, the cleaning or parking crew, helping out in children’s ministry. We had clearly defined pathways to leadership and responsibility in place, and no idea what to do with this kind, gifted ex-pastor who oozed pastoral gifting desperately needed in the church. “If we break the rules for him, then anyone can be in charge of anything,” some said.

Perhaps the rules were artificially stringent. A different discussion about insecurity about one’s position and how the rules were used to keep people out of the inner sanctum might fit here. To the man’s credit and maturity, he served faithfully in the little things and found other ministry outlets (preaching and pastoring at a nursing home) to use his gifts. But several people in the congregation asked questions about why this man was kept at arm’s length for such a long time.
I believe that just as a clearly defined “front door” pathway must exist and be exercised with supernatural hospitality in a church, so must a well-lit, paved pathway to the back door be made clear. If God sends a leader to a church, wouldn’t it be worth cultivating that leader using some of the same methods used to hire a staff member? (Is it a waste of time taking someone through a rigorous interview/courtship process when no paycheck is involved?)

Am I asking this because I think I deserve a position of responsibility in a church? Am I asking this because I don’t have a servant’s heart? Is this just a lack of humility – I am looking for a fast track to a position since I might be back on the “church search” trail again (we’ve been attending a small church for a few months, but its future is very, very questionable at this point), and already know what it means to walk in the front door? Once we find a church, more months of doing nothing – which is a direct contrast to those who come into a church because they’ve been invited to join the church staff. Am I weary because I know that community and meaningful service exists for those who get to use the back door and I am aching to be a part of a team where my gifts and experience fit and matter?

I’ve had a lot of time in recent years to discover that each of these motivations exist in me. God has done a big work in me – and has used the wait to purge and purify me. And if He asks me to keep on waiting, I will. And I will serve Him as I have been, everywhere I can, in the wait – because that’s what He’s asked of me.

P.S. - The chapter "Unbiased Discrimination" in my book Parablelife talks about what it is like to be in the busy-busy inner circle in a church and yet live without true community. Being in the Pluto orbit of the inner circle has some missional ministry advantages, for sure. But what I'm advocating in this post is that some of the artificial ways of org-charting people in the church need to be reevaluated.

The Vegetables of the Spirit

Christianity Today's Out of Ur blog recently posted part of an interview they did with Phil Vischer, the guy responsible for Larry and Bob, those CGI vegetables that became an empire. Phil talks about the way that our bigger-is-better American thinking has shaped the way do ministry in this country - and what being a poster boy for this "false gospel of impact" did to his soul.

Of course, his book got published because he's got a name and a platform. People in the evangelical world know about Veggie Tales, and may know something about the rise and fall of Phil's Big Idea company. But it isn't the autobiography of a business flameout that makes his words a prophetic warning for our evangelical subculture. It is in his insider's view of the spiritual sterilization that occurs when our cultural values are bred with the gospel.

Ironically, the man who brought us talking vegetables was brought to repentance by the Bible's discussion of fruit. He said, "...one day I was reading my Bible and I came across the verse that lists the fruit of the Spirit. It occurred to me that none of those things were present in my life. It didn’t say the fruit of the Spirit is impact, large numbers, or selling lots of videos. I realized something was not right."

* * * * * * * * *

I have been thinking recently about what a radically different experience it is entering a church through the front doors (as an unknown visitor) than it is coming in through the back door (an invited member of the staff).

You get to participate in community if you come in through the back door. You get a form to fill out and a "getting to know you" class if you come in through the front door.