Milford's Musings

Seeing Injustice

2008-12-17T14:47:00.004-06:00

Making out small print on the sides of medicine bottles is becoming a chore for me. In just the last few months, I’ve caught myself doing the “middle age arm dance” as I move objects closer to me and further away, trying to find that point where I can actually focus on them. At 43 years old, presbyopia is beginning to have its way with my eyes. I’m still fine with the newspaper, hymnal, and other things I read on a regular basis, but the small print on medicine bottles is a doozy.

Because I also have an astigmatism in both eyes that is not corrected by my contacts and because that is worsening in my right eye, I wasn’t sure whether my problem was presbyopia or the astigmatism. On a run to Wal-Mart last night, I decided to grab a pair of +1.00 diopter reading glasses and see if they would take care of most of my blurriness on small objects. I then grabbed a medicine bottle and turned to its fine print. Sure enough, it was as though the font size on the bottle doubled. It was clear as day.

I went ahead and invested about eight bucks in a cheap pair of reading glasses. When I got home, I told my wife, Nadia, about my little experiment. (Truth be told, she needs them, too!) We laughed a bit about how we are at a stage in life we had thought of as being “old” what seems like only a few years back.

Later in the evening, it struck me. What an injustice! What an unfair world this is!! Here I was wearing +1.00 diopter reading glasses over -6.00 and-6.50 diopter contacts for my myopia (nearsightedness). It doesn’t take any math genius to know that +1.00 + -6.00 ought to be -5.00. In other words, shouldn’t it be that as presbyopia begins to set in for me, my nearsightedness gets better and I never need those annoying little reading glasses. Instead of worrying about moving up to +2.50 or 3.00 diopter reading glasses over the next few years, shouldn’t I be looking forward to my nearsightedness getting steadily better over the next decade? But no, that is not to be the case for me. Instead, I may well reach the point over the next ten years where I am up to 10 diopters of correction between the positive and negative correction needs I’ll have in the lenses I’m carrying around.

But this is where it really gets good, isn’t it? What a pathetic little “injustice” to get worked up about, right? I mean, how many people in the world today would think of wanting to add positive and negative diopters together to get improving myopia when they have such easy and inexpensive (relative to their salaries) access to corrective lenses? The slightly larger injustice is that there are so many people worldwide who don’t have access to or can’t afford corrective lenses of any sort. Larger than that is the number of people who suffer from easily preventable forms of blindness—people whose vision can never again be restored but whose vision could have easily been protected.

Even greater are all kinds of injustices caused by corrupt, inept, or tyrannical governments. Or what about the injustices caused by a sometimes cruelly competitive marketplace that can lift up one region, country, or product, only to destroy it a short time later? What about children being raised by adults whose lives are in one form of chaos or another? What about war or drought-ravished regions where death becomes endemic? What about people imprisoned by the racial, ethnic, or gender-based discrimination of others? What about hard-working folks whose contributions to the common good are counteracted by the drag caused by selfish or lazy people who stand in the way of progress?

I have a pair of reading glasses now. I’ll probably have multiple pairs to leave in different places within a short period of time. But I can see, and for that I thank God. May I enjoy seeing the smiles on my kids’ faces, the beauty of the world around me, and the ideas put on a page in print. May I learn to be better at offering thanks to God for these good things and so many more. May I not be distracted by renaming minor annoyances as “injustices.” May I learn to see the truly unjust things around me and in me. And may I be humble and committed enough for God to use me to address the true injustices in our world.

Grace & Peace,

Dan

Is Christmas Worth Celebrating?

2008-12-08T16:51:00.004-06:00

Historians reveal to us that the earliest record of Christ’s birth being celebrated on December 25th was not until 354 A.D. and that it is unlikely Jesus’ nativity was widely celebrated on that day in December any earlier than 300 A.D. They invite us to hear that the date we celebrate Jesus’ birth and many of the things we use to celebrate it—large festive meals, the giving of gifts, and visiting friends—were all brought over from the Roman festival of Saturnalia. Additionally, they inform us that such things as greenery, acts of charity, and lights were brought over from the celebration of the Roman New Year. These celebrations in the dead of winter came at (or near) the winter solstice, the time when the dark nights had reached their longest and were beginning to shorten again.

Discovering that some of our hallowed traditions have very pagan roots can be a disconcerting thing for us as Christians at first. If we borrowed this symbol or that idea from pagans, what else did we borrow? What else is “untrue”?

The earliest Christians seem to have made no effort to remember the day of Jesus’ birth. Instead, it was his resurrection that they celebrated as they gathered in homes weekly on the day after the Sabbath—“the Lord’s day.” That practice became so widespread that centuries later, Christians would come to assume that Sunday always was the Sabbath, having forgotten that the Jewish Sabbath runs from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday.

During the Reformation, beginning in the 16th century, Christmas was rejected by some Protestants since it was not a celebration advocated by Scripture. The Pilgrims who came to the New World also rejected it, even outlawing it in Boston for a time. In our day, it has become so highly commercialized that Christians routinely feel the need to remind one another “the reason for the season.” Recognizing that the celebration of Jesus’ birth was not a part of early Christianity, that it borrows heavily from pagan festivals, that it was rejected by Reformers and Puritans, and that it is being “re-paganized” by its commercialization today, is it even worth continuing to celebrate Christmas?

I think it is. One reason is that it points to deep truths about God. While the date of Jesus’ actual birth is certainly contested, a deeper reality is revealed in our celebration. God comes to us not just in the bright sunshine of our successes, but in the darkest nights of our failures. God enters humanity not just in the warmth of our expectant receptiveness, but in the coldness of our indifference. God enters the human condition not in strength and power, but in poverty and helplessness. In our darkest moments and despite our coldest rejections, God comes to us and God is with us. Emmanuel. Amen.

Gratitude in Surprising Places

2008-12-08T16:48:00.004-06:00

You’ve seen the images dozens of times. A family has just lost its home or a community has just been devastated by a natural disaster. The cameras are rolling, and the person who has just lost everything says, “We’re just grateful that we still have one another. Everything else can be replaced.”

If we heard that line once or twice, it would be one thing. We hear it so often, though, that it seems to actually be a common, and sincere, response to surviving a disaster. There’s something totally illogical about it. We work hard to build a home and accumulate the things that go into it. Then we lose it all in one devastating day, and our response is one of gratitude.

How can that be?

Perhaps a big part of it is simply relief about what we didn’t lose. Even if that’s the case, though, I think it represents that we’ve developed a new mindset, a different perspective, a transformed way of thinking. In that moment, we are not focused on what we don’t have and trying to acquire more. At that time, we aren’t taking anything for granted, as though possessions, health, or even life are guaranteed to us. Coming out of a traumatic event that shakes our world, we tend to get a great deal of clarity about what really matters to us and what doesn’t. We also realize, perhaps for the first time, that everything is a gift to be enjoyed and shared.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to get to the same place in life—a place of deeply felt gratitude—without having a near-death experience? Perhaps it’s possible. Perhaps it’s something we can nurture into maturity like a gardener gently cares for her plants.

Two elements seem to be central to gratitude. The first is a recognition that the things we enjoy in life aren’t guaranteed to us. Health, economic security, freedom from pain, a home to live in, children, even life itself—none of these things are guaranteed to us. Ministry with people who have lost some of these things can remind us of their fleeting nature. As we care for others who are in need and become more aware of the suffering others endure, we find overturned our assumptions that the many things we enjoy will last forever. Like a farmer turning over the hard soil with a plow, this ministry can prepare the soil of our own hearts for seeds of gratitude.

A second element that seems central to gratitude is to focus on our blessings rather than focusing on what we lack. Immediately following a natural disaster, people often focus on the question: “What’s left? What do I still have?” To take an assessment of everything that had been lost would put them into a deep depression. Instead, they instinctively look for what remains, what will provide hope for the future, what will give them a reason to keep living.

We can choose to “count our blessings” at any time. The goal is obviously not to quantify them—to try to determine our “net worth” or something akin to that. Instead, the goal is to give thanks for each of the people, situations, and things in our life that bring us joy or comfort. We may even find that things or people that cause us discomfort but help us grow qualify as blessings and should be named as such.

Our grandmothers were right: “counting our blessings” has a way of making our hearts more grateful. Hearts filled with gratitude tend to overflow with generosity, peace, love and compassion. Such things are medicine of the Holy Spirit for a broken and hurting world.

Consider how you can reach out to people who are hurting. Consider forming a habit of cultivating gratitude. And then enjoy waiting for the harvest to come in!

Grace & Peace,

Dan

Doing the Job While It's Easy

2008-11-20T16:04:00.003-06:00

There are many ways in which I enjoy hard work. Keeping up with household chores and keeping my office clean are not among them. When I looked in the back yard late last week, though, I knew the time had come to get the rake out and do some work.

Ignoring leaves is not an option in our yard. We have four large oak trees, a young elm, and two large hickorys on a very small lot. That makes for lots and lots of leaves. We also have a large hairy dog that attracts leaves as if he were a great, roving electromagnet—picking up leaves from all corners of the yard while outside, then immediately releasing them from his heavy coat upon entering the house.

In the final analysis, we only get to choose what tool we will use to get the leaves into bags. We can either use the rake and large, cheap plastic lawn bags or we can use the vacuum cleaner with its small expensive bags. While I’m not particularly fond of either kind of work, it’s obviously easier to rake the yard, bag up the leaves, and get it over with than to have the long-term nuisance of leaves dragged into the house a few handfuls at a time.

This past Sunday afternoon the weather was perfect for raking, so out I went to the chore that awaited me. It wasn’t bad work, and it was rewarding to see the progress I was making. I also enjoyed a few breaks in which I played with Luke, our 95 pound electromagnet. (Note to self: I need to do more of that—it’s good for both of us!) Late in the afternoon, I even got a bit of help from my kids as they returned from an afternoon of playing with friends.

By nightfall, I had bagged nearly every leaf in the back yard and, with my helpers, got as many of the bags to the street as the trash collectors will pick up in one week. We even thought to store all the bags upside down so that if it rains, the bags won’t fill with water through the small opening left at the top. “This was so much better than last year,” I thought, “when we battled leaves in the house for a week or two before finally getting the job done. It’s better than last year, when I left the bags in the back yard for months, allowing them to fill with rain and melted ice, making them heavy, wet, decomposing messes by the time I carried them to the street.”

With so many jobs, we either do them right and do them in a timely fashion or we find ourselves with extra work to do in the future. We either control our appetites and get some good exercise every week, or we have a harder diet and exercise regimen down the road to regain our health (or we shave years off our lives from compromised health).

We either clean things up and put them away when we’re finished with them or have a larger mess to deal with later. We either focus in and learn someone’s name well the first time or two that we meet them or have the embarrassment of having to ask them their name repeatedly in the future. We either take care of car and home maintenance needs on a timely basis or deal with costlier and more extensive repairs down the road.

Similarly, it’s easier to learn good stewardship and good money management when the economy is strong or when our responsibilities are few than to try to learn these lessons when we’re overwhelmed with commitments and struggling in a weak economy. (If you still have kids at home, this is also a plug to teach them money management and stewardship now, while it’s just a question of their learning to limit what they spend on their wants.)

When I finished the back yard, it was getting dark and I was ready to quit. The kids, though, had made a great pile that we could have filled 3-4 bags with in pretty short order. I told them it would have to wait; I had done what I set out to do and we could deal with those leaves another day. Well, as I write this, a heavy, steady rain is soaking that pile of leaves, making the job of bagging them a lot more onerous than if I had taken another fifteen minutes last night.

Obviously, this is a lesson I’m still working on—doing each day’s work as it comes, rather than putting some of it off and just making it more burdensome in the future. Sometimes I just need to do things the hard way a time or two to inspire me to do them when they’re relatively easy the next time around.

Grace & Peace,

Dan

Good Press on the Presbyterian Church (USA)

2008-11-04T10:02:00.004-06:00

(From time to time and for various reasons, the Presbyterian Church (USA) gets bad press. The good news doesn't find its way into the press very often, so this is one small attempt to get out a good word.)

Presbyterians missionaries entered Oklahoma long before statehood, including those who arrived with Native Americans on their “trails of tears.” Presbyterian pastors arrived with a passion for education (establishing what eventually became the University of Tulsa), a passion for evangelism (with the first church in many of our towns and cities in Oklahoma being Presbyterian), and with a passion for mission (reaching out to people in poverty in many ways, including the establishment of social service agencies).

The primary denomination of Presbyterians today, the PCUSA, is home to about 78% of all Presbyterians in the United States (The Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches, the edition of 2004, Eileen W. Lindner, ed.). It is a denomination that fearlessly tackles issues affecting modern life, seeking to understand how God is speaking to us through scripture to guide us forward.

While it regularly produces study papers and even position papers, the church does not compel its members (whether clergy or laity) to espouse particular viewpoints on modern issues. It is, however, a “confessional church,” meaning that it has a “Book of Confessions” that has a central role in shaping the theology of the denomination. The eleven documents in this book include creeds, confessions of faith, catechisms, and a brief statement of faith. Each of these came into being as Christians struggled to understand what aspects of their faith in God were most important to proclaim in their context. Ordained officers (ministers, elders, and deacons) in the church commit to be instructed and led by those confessions as they lead the people of God.

Presbyterian faith proclaims the full divinity, the full humanity, and the lordship of Jesus and proclaims the mystery of the Triune God—God present as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, yet one God. While individuals within the Presbyterian Church are free to dissent on theological and practical issues, the Book of Order (the portion of our denomination’s constitution dealing with church government) draws clear lines that affect what actions are permitted within member churches. Dissent is welcome within the denomination, resulting in vigorous debates on countless theological, social, political, and other issues. Defiance of the church’s constitution, though, is not welcome, as it rends the fabric of community and trust in the Spirit that unite us.

The PCUSA Book of Order states that “all property held by or for a particular church…is held in trust nevertheless for the use and benefit of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).” This provision is not so that the denomination might benefit from the value of the property, and it makes no effort to do so. It does, however, provide the leverage needed for the denomination to hold pastors and congregations accountable to carrying out their ministries under the authority of Christ as understood and practiced through our theology and church government.

Church officers in the Presbyterian Church (USA) profess, among other things, that we “accept the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be, by the Holy Spirit, the unique and authoritative witness to Jesus Christ in the Church universal, and God’s Word to [us].” Bible study is of immense importance in our denomination, with pastors being required to learn Hebrew and Greek and study numerous courses on the Bible as part of the Master’s of Divinity degree required to be ordained as a pastor in the PCUSA. The reading and interpretation of the Bible plays a central role in Presbyterian worship. Sunday School classes and Bible studies for adults provide venues where laity can learn to study the Bible and apply it to their lives. In some ways, it is astonishingly easy to understand the Bible’s meaning—the overwhelming challenge is to try to live it out. (“Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,” is a good example, the repeated insistence throughout both Testaments on care for the poor and the vulnerable is another.) In other ways, it is extraordinarily hard to discern how different passages should be held in tension with one another and how to let them speak to modern life. Abortion, birth control, divorce, homosexuality, and women's roles in the community of faith are such hotly debated issues in churches of many denominations precisely because the Bible directly addresses them rarely and leaves open questions about how the passages should be interpreted. Christians of good conscience, deep relationship with Christ, and courageous commitment to God differ on how they ultimately understand the Spirit to be guiding the church to respond to those issues. While there is consensus within Presbyterian churches on some of those, there is vigorous debate on others.

In short, while you’ll never find unanimity of thought in the Presbyterian church, you will often find people who consider no question or issue off limits as they try to love, honor, and seek God with their all their mind. You’ll also find Presbyterian members and congregations who are passionate about demonstrating the presence of God in the realities of this world through serving others in their time of need, not only pointing to God’s promise to life beyond the tomb. The Presbyterian Church: it’s a great place to come with your thorniest questions and deepest yearnings. The Spirit is at work in our churches (as in other churches), drawing people to itself as God continues to reconcile the world to himself in Christ.

A Brief History of Communion

2008-10-06T14:28:00.003-05:00

In the early years after Jesus’ death and resurrection, communities of his followers began gathering on Sunday evenings (“the Lord’s day,” because it was the day of his resurrection) to share in a common meal and worship together. These early communities had members from across a socioeconomic and ethnic spectrum. Becoming a community of compassion and generosity was sometimes accomplished spontaneously by the work of the Holy Spirit, but other times early Christian groups resisted allowing those qualities to flourish among them.

For example, word came to the Apostle Paul that people in the church at Corinth in Greece were hoarding the food and drink they brought to this meal rather than sharing it with those among them who were poor (see 1 Corinthians 11:17-34). Paul lambasted them for their failure to allow this special meal they shared to be what Jesus had created it to be—a time in which his sacrifice for them was remembered in their willingness to sacrifice and live for one another, and a time in which his presence was invited and welcomed by their willingness to be made more like him.

The focus simply had to be returned to the original intent. “Whoever, therefore,” Paul stated, “eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord. Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves.”

A great summary of the early observation of the Lord’s Supper comes from an article by Henk Jan de Jonge titled “The Early History of the Lord’s Supper”: “The purpose of the community meal was the realization of the communion (koinonia, including equality, fellowship, solidarity, and brotherhood) which the members of the congregation felt they missed so badly in the outside world…[and to] bring about the koinonia that is its goal: koinonia with Christ and with one another” (pp. 210, 213).

The same author shows how an additional, but abbreviated, meal and worship service before dawn on Sundays eventually superseded the fuller evening meal as the one of greater importance in Christian communities, resulting in our present observation of the Lord’s Supper only being symbolic of a full meal shared in community. Apparently the growth of the church made the full meal shared by the whole community logistically prohibitive.
Nevertheless, one of the central meanings of the sacrament remains: that in the sharing of this holy meal, the entire community is united—across ethnic and socioeconomic boundaries, to name a few—to one another and to Christ.

Another development in how we celebrate the Lord’s Supper evolved over a period of centuries. An emphasis on the mystery of the sacrament and on the concern that one could inadvertently “eat and drink judgment against themselves” led to people being distanced from the Lord’s table. Physically, this became a reality as the table was placed on the raised chancel area and as far as possible from the congregation. Often, a small “fence” (more like a short railing on a deck) was placed at the edge of the chancel, creating further separation between the people and the table.

By the time of the Reformation in the 1500’s, most Christians rarely, if ever, participated in the Lord’s Supper. The mass (worship service) was conducted in Latin, a language most people didn’t understand. A portion of the communion service was done far from the people, sometimes even behind a screen to obstruct their view. The bread and wine were proclaimed to literally be transformed into human flesh and blood—that of Jesus. The wine was withheld from the people because the “blood of Christ” was too precious for them. All these factors led devout Christians to resist partaking of the Lord’s Supper.

Several changes took place during the Reformation. One was to begin serving communion just once per quarter. As Protestant churches over the last 40 years have increased the frequency of the Lord’s Supper to once a month or more, many members have been concerned that if it is taken too often, it loses its meaning. The irony is that it was decreased in frequency from weekly to quarterly to actually encourage Christians to take it more often, not less. With the removal of the impediments that were in place at the time of the Reformation, some Protestant communities have resumed weekly observance of this holy meal.

A second change that occurred during the Reformation was in how the elements (the bread and wine) were served to the church members. The Reformers returned to a doctrine of “the priesthood of all believers” that changed the role of the clergy from priest (necessary intermediary between people and God) to pastor (shepherd of a community).
To represent that change in its services of the Lord’s Supper, Huldrych Zwingli brought a new innovation to the meal: he sent the trays of bread and cups of wine into the congregation where members could serve one another. Many Protestant churches still use this as their primary, or even only, form of serving Communion.

In the early 1960’s, the Vatican II reforms of the Roman Catholic Church at long last implemented many of the changes Protestants had embraced in the Reformation. The combination of this movement in the Roman Catholic church with the ecumenical movement at work in the Protestant wing of Christianity led many Protestant churches to reconsider practices from historic Christianity that had been rejected by the Reformers in their zeal to distance themselves from Rome.

As a result, colored paraments (the cloths on the communion table, pulpit, and lectern), Advent candles, and using a “lectionary” (a three-year plan for alternating biblical texts used in worship) have all found their way back into Protestant worship without diluting the theology of the Reformation.

Similarly, Protestant churches have begun exploring different ways of serving communion. As with Zwingli’s innovation about 450 years ago, the changes feel odd, even threatening to some of us, but they also allow different theological points to be highlighted.

Intinction is one method being used by Protestants today. In this form of distributing communion, members generally come forward (though it can be done in the pews) and tear off a piece of bread from a single loaf. They then dip that bread in a cup filled with juice or wine and thereby receive both elements together. Many who enjoy this way of participating in the Lord’s Supper enjoy tearing “real” bread (not crackers, wafers, or sandwich bread) from a common loaf, coming forward to receive the elements individually, using earthen pottery rather than polished silver to remind them of Jesus’ eating the Last Supper with common people, and hearing from a church leader (lay or clergy), “This is the body of Christ broken for you.”

On the first Sunday in October, we celebrate “World Communion Sunday.” We will receive the bread and the cup in our traditional way...in the pews.

This will be a great opportunity to focus more on what the sacrament means for us than on how it’s served. It will also be a time to be reminded that our uniting with Christ unites us with people from across the globe. I hope you’ll be able to join us this Sunday!

Grace & Peace,
Dan

The Problem of Black and White

2008-10-06T14:20:00.003-05:00

Here's my latest submission to the Sand Springs Leader (local newspaper) and the editor's response to it:
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20152570&BRD=2754&PAG=461&dept_id=612242&rfi=6
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=20152451&BRD=2754&PAG=461&dept_id=574610&rfi=6

What's the Current Doing? (Part II)

2008-09-29T15:09:00.004-05:00

In the newsletter a month ago, I explored the phrase “cultural current” by thinking about what the current of a river really does to those people or things that enter it. In that article, I focused mostly on the image of our culture as a current that is slow but persistent.
Obviously enough, though, change in our world is often fast, radical, and treacherous. It’s more like navigating through rapids with occasional waterfalls than like going down the Illinois near Tahlequah.
Anyone who is going to boat on a river needs both a way to judge how swift the current is and to determine how swift it will become and what obstacles it will present in the miles ahead. Currents do present dangers as well as opportunities.
We saw a stretch of the Yellowstone River in Yellowstone National Park that made this point so clear to me. In one section, the river was fairly broad, deep and calm, with the current’s speed looking deceptively slow.
Not far downstream, there was a sharp bend in the river flanked by tall rock outcroppings on either side. In that narrow pass, the abundance of boulders, along with the speed and shallowness of the water, made the section look impassible even by professional kayakers. Another long stretch of river in the park seemed gentle and easy enough to navigate, only to lead to a massive waterfall.
In short, anyone planning on boating on a river in a mountainous area must find some way to learn about the current’s dangers prior to starting his or her trip. One way is to leave the boat on the shore and hike the full length of the river that will be traveled that day. Another is to have scouts on foot ahead of the boaters—though they will find it difficult to travel as fast as a canoe or kayak on a swiftly flowing river. I could imagine the early explorers of the Lewis and Clarke expedition doing just that.
The more common approach now, though, is to consult a river outfitter who is deeply familiar with the stretch of river you want to enjoy. They can tell you the difficulty rating of that part of the river, which may help you decide whether or not to attempt the trip or whether inspection from land of some of the more difficult passages may be in order. The classification system, with six major divisions, can give anyone with some familiarity with it and with their own ability level the information they need to make a safe decision. These outfitters can also describe the more treacherous sections of the river, suggest ways to navigate through them, and even provide guides.
It is easy enough for us to realize that if we are going to get on a river we want to know where the current will be taking us and what challenges we will face along the way. It would just be foolish to get on a mountain river with no knowledge of what is ahead and assume that we can handle anything the river throws at us.
The current of our culture is not always slow, gentle, and easy to navigate. Positively, that makes for an exciting ride. Negatively, it means that we often make costly mistakes when we try to navigate our way through life without seeking help from some kind of guide.
The church is a community of kayakers that is unafraid to get into the sometimes chaotic waters of life and culture. But these kayakers are not “Lone Rangers” who do everything on their own. Instead, we are a body of people who constantly seek out words of wisdom from one another and keep our eyes peeled for others who may have gotten in trouble on the river. We are quick to report to each other where we’ve encountered trouble, in order to help others avoid the same mistakes. We are quick to seek out the guidance of others who have traveled the same or a similar stretch of river before. And we realize that much training is needed to become great kayakers.
Except when those things are not true.
For some crazy reason, we let our own pride get in the way of seeking out help, asking for guidance, seeking out mentors, and recognizing that some things are just more advanced than we’re ready to handle. When we act in these ways, we often fail spectacularly.
We have so many ways that we as Christians can get help along the way for navigating the cultural currents before us. Compared to previous generations, we are loaded down with options for study Bibles, commentaries on scripture, and Bible study groups we can join. It’s almost ridiculous how available they are. But if we don’t take advantage of them, it’s a little like getting on a river with no clue as to what may be ahead.
There is an amazing breadth of different kinds of Christian communities we can join, not to mention the smaller groups within those churches. But if we don’t come with openness to share when the cultural current has led us into treacherous places and with a yearning to learn from the insights of others—especially those more experienced than us—it’s like ignoring the presence of other kayakers who can teach and learn from one another.
The cultural currents of our day are often swifter than we realize, and the river is laden with dangerous obstacles. May we recognize our need for guides along the way, take advantage of the bounty of assistance right in front of our noses, put in the effort to learn the art of “kayaking” through cultural currents, and know when to get off the water. Then may we run the river with joy and confidence!

On Possessions

2008-09-02T14:06:00.004-05:00

"As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, you should keep it. If you were to give it up in a mood of self-sacrifice or out of a stern sense of duty, you would continue to want it back, and that unsatisfied want would make trouble for you. Only give up a thing when you want some other condition so much that the thing no longer has any attraction for you, or when it seems to interfere with that which is more greatly desired.” Mohandas 'Mahatma' Gandhi

If anyone knows the context for this quote, please forward it to me.

It is a fascinating quote in the large context of Gandhi's life--a man who studied in England, became an attorney, and lived as a person of the higher classes in his young adulthood. He died celibate (though he still had a close relationship with his wife) and with almost no possessions. His quote forces the question, "What do I most want in life?" and the obvious follow-up, "Where does that hunger come from and what does it do to me and to others when I try to satiate it?"

What's the Current Doing? (Part I)

2008-08-19T16:51:00.003-05:00

What you can do in a river depends significantly on what the current is doing. In a slow-moving river, the danger is limited and one can focus on playing, swimming, fishing, or relaxing. Even novice canoeists, kayakers, and rafters can learn to control and direct their boats around obstacles.

Oh, every once in a while, it is important to check where one is relative to the shoreline, because even the calmest of rivers slowly, but surely, carry their cargo to the sea. Still, returning to where one began is possible if a person has a little persistence and makes small adjustments at regular intervals to move back upstream.

A river with just a slightly stronger current changes the game, though. Only the strongest of swimmers has any hope of even matching the speed of the current, much less moving upstream against it. If the current is flowing a bit faster, only kayaks can be paddled upstream against it. With the kind of whitewater we saw on a recent vacation in Yellowstone National Park, there is ultimately no means of moving upstream against the current in many places. The only option left then, is to navigate with the current.

I love rivers and enjoy the opportunity to raft, canoe, or kayak on them. I also have tremendous respect for their strength and for the danger that strength brings. If you stay within a river under conditions that are at or below your skill level, there can be great fun ahead. Maneuvering around boulders and “strainers” (fallen trees or low-hanging branches) is half the fun. The joy of meeting a challenge is found as you seek out the best parts of the rapids and the places where the current is swiftest.

We often talk about “cultural currents,” drawing from the imagery of rivers. How often, though, do we explore what that metaphor really means? For example, our culture has a broad and gentle current to it, just like the Illinois River near Tahlequah. There are many ways in which the culture sends us in a certain direction, but gently enough that we have the freedom to choose to go against it when that is important to us. The culture is not like a lake, though. It is a body of water with a purpose, a direction, a flow, and when we fail to recognize that, we can also fail to recognize how far it is taking us from where we really wanted to be.

The influence of television is a good example of this. What once reflected values that were often consistent with those of the gospel—though support of racism, chauvinism, and domestic abuse (think of the Honeymooners on the last one)—were certainly exceptions, has changed dramatically over the last several decades. However, because we had already concluded that the “river” of television is not dangerous, we’ve found ourselves lulled into its influence. That influence certainly includes moral decay that is alarming. More subtly, though, is its persistent effort to make us into consumers. From the programming that presents people with better stuff than we have to the advertising that tells us what we “deserve” and “need,” much of what is on television seeks to quietly transform its viewers into people focused on themselves—their wants, their needs, their preferences.

Another example is in sports leagues for kids. These organized activities began as fun opportunities for kids to learn and grow through the teamwork, self-discipline and perseverance that sports teach so well. They reinforced what parents were doing in the home and what was being taught at church and in school. Driven by competition (of the parents, mostly), they have now become a huge industry that threatens to consume the time, energy, and financial resources of any families who dare to register their child in a “competitive” league. We have found that even having three kids in “recreation” leagues for soccer and basketball is quite a challenge. The current of our culture urges us to teach our kids about commitment through sports, ignoring the reality that other—and more important—commitments are often neglected along the way. Going against that current, in the least, challenges us to help our kids learn to choose between competing commitments and determine which ones are the most important.

Our desire to be “successful” in our work can become another current that can have perilous ends. When we put our advancement at work as the main priority, it can lead us to attend too little to our families, to ignore our health, or to agree to do things on the job that are opposed to what Christ would have us to do. Likewise, when we focus on trying to be “successful” in our work of parenting or “grandparenting” the children in our families, we can overindulge our kids or pressure them to become what we wish we had been.

With these examples and many others, what begins as a gentle current can grow in strength, becoming difficult to resist or even navigate in.

Perhaps it’s time to ask probing questions about the cultural currents of our day. What are their sources (and yes, there are many more: political, economic, pop culture, etc.)? Where do they seek to lead us? What are their dangers? What are their benefits?

Also, who can advise or guide me in navigating the stretch of “river” that’s before me? Am I humble enough to recognize that I need guidance at times? These will be the subject of the entry in two weeks.

Grace & Peace,

Dan

On Proverbs and Presbyterians

2008-08-11T17:18:00.005-05:00

The Saints & Ain’ts Sunday School Class has been looking at the Seven Deadly Sins this summer through a curriculum that draws on Gilligan’s Island. That curriculum draws heavily from Proverbs in providing teaching on each of the areas of sin. It raised the question, “Why do some denominations use Proverbs so much more in their teaching and preaching than we do in the Presbyterian Church?” The more I thought about it, the more I realized it was a great insight and an important question.

In scripture (in both Testaments) there are multiple “voices.” In the Old Testament for example, one points to God's covenant with Israel as being unconditionally given by a God who will fulfill his promise to Israel despite its lack of merit whereas the other points a conditional covenant between God and Israel where the obedience of God's people is the necessary condition for God's promises being fulfilled for them. Similarly, Wisdom literature (of which Proverbs is a prime example) points toward our right living leading to wellness for us whereas our disobedience leads to suffering for us. Job and some other Old Testament texts, though, demand to know why the world is not so morally coherent as Wisdom literature suggests. After all, sometimes the righteous suffer and the wicked prosper. What are we to make of that?

We see a similar variety of voices in the New Testament regarding God's grace versus our call to obediently follow Christ. Matthew and James almost make it sound like grace doesn't enter the equation--our obedience is what is necessary. Either we bear fruit, or we are cut off. Either we respond correctly to Christ or we end up in the place where there is "weeping and gnashing of teeth." We're to be not just hearers of the word, but doers.

Paul, having been through a radical conversion to Christ for which he could take no credit at all, credits everything to God's grace. John seems to agree, with Jesus reminding the disciples, “You did not choose me, I chose you.” Luke does, too, with parables about the lost coin, the lost sheep and the lost son and with the story of Zacchaeus.

For Paul, Luke and John, it is almost inconceivable that someone would not respond to such grace with sacrificial obedience. If they don't respond, they must not realize either how unmeriting they are (like the rich young ruler, the Pharisees, and the "Judaizers"--Jewish Christians who demanded the circumcision of Gentile converts) or how good and unconditional God's grace is. Certainly anyone who understood would respond. (I'm over-simplifying here admittedly, but the point—in general—is valid, I believe.)

It seems like the early communities of faith--Jewish and Christian--realized that both of these voices needed to remain in the texts. Similarly, modern physicists will refer to light both as matter (particles) and energy (wavelengths) while still believing that nothing can be both at the same time. They also recognize that Einstein's Theory of General Relativity and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle both appear to be totally correct until you try to put them together--at which point they become mutually exclusive.

Perhaps our ancestors in the faith were like physicists who long for a "grand unified theory" but who ultimately have to settle for describing two independent realities that come as close to the truth as we can comprehend while also contradicting each other at some level. Perhaps our ancestors of the faith knew enough about human nature to know that if we're to have any hope of staying out of the ditches on either side of the road that leads to life, we need to hear both threat of punishment and unconditional love and grace.

Our Christian brethren who are more drawn to Wisdom literature (like Proverbs) are probably also more drawn to an understanding of God's grace that requires our response to become efficacious for us (and perhaps toward secular politics that emphasize responsibility for one's own actions and well-being?) whereas Presbyterian theology tilts more towards Job, Paul, and unconditional grace (and secular politics that emphasize the responsibility of the community to provide justice for the most vulnerable?) Again, a lot of oversimplifying here, but perhaps an insight as to why we use Proverbs much less than other Christian communities.

Clearly, though, an emphasis on personal responsibility to an extreme can lead to works righteousness for those who think they've made it and despair for those who think they can't. Equally dangerous, an emphasis on unconditional grace can be misconstrued and lead to laziness and presumptiveness (that we're the "pampered darlings of Providence"). It can also fail to recognize and teach that there are many important lessons in the Bible that, if we'll just learn, can save us from a lot of the hardship that comes when we repeatedly shoot ourselves in the foot.

Finally, a similar difference between faith communities can be found in what we name our kids. Think of people you know or have heard of who are over 30 years old and carry names like Amos, Isaiah, Moses, Jeremiah, or just about any other OT prophet. Chances are that they're all black, right? My guess is that the black churches read from those books a lot more than we do in white churches. If you read Amos or think about what Moses was called to do, you’ll quickly see why African-Americans might be particularly drawn to Israel’s prophetic tradition while it might make those of us who are more comfortable with the status quo uneasy.

In seminary, we talked about our "canon within the canon"--a recognition that all of us as Christians tend to focus heavily on some books while quietly avoiding others. The challenge to read them all is a good one. I admit to Proverbs being one of my least favorite books. In part, I like narrative more than lists of advice or rules. Might be a good reason for me to spend more time in Proverbs, though!

Grace & Peace,
Dan

Presbyterian Government and U.S. Government

2008-07-15T20:59:00.004-05:00

In the Presbyterian Church, we’re proud of pointing out the connections between our form of government and the rise of representative democracy. Well before the birth of John Locke, King James in England could already see the implications for the crown of the Presbyterian form of government (which was taking hold in Scotland). He thus asserted that “Presbytery agreeth with monarchy as God with the devil.”

John Witherspoon, the sole pastor to sign the Declaration of Independence, was a very influential Presbyterian. When one delegate of the Congress that produced the Declaration “expressed fear that America was ‘not yet ripe’ for independence, Witherspoon replied, ‘Sir, in my judgment the country is not only ripe for independence but in danger of rotting for want of it.’”

As president of what would later become Princeton University, he taught a course in political philosophy, among other things. Political views of his growing out of his Presbyterian Calvinism would include:
“(1) As sovereign, God alone, no king, can claim absolute authority.
(2) Humans are so sinful they must have checks and balances.
(3) God graciously provides government to curb our evil and promote good.
(4) Human life in this world changes, and therefore a constitution should be flexible enough to meet changing conditions.”

Finally, Witherspoon’s students included James Madison (the “Father of the Constitution”), who chose to stay an extra year after graduation in order to study further under this pastor. Additionally, “at one time or another Witherspoon taught his Presbyterian philosophy of government to many men who would become officeholders in the new republic, including a future president (Madison), a vice-president, nine cabinet officers, twenty-one senators, thirty-nine congressmen, three justices of the Supreme Court, and twelve state governors. Five of the signers of the Declaration had been this Presbyterian thinker’s students.” (All quotes from William M. Ramsay, Church History 101: An Introduction for Presbyterians.)

With all these similarities, how is the Presbyterian form of government different?

Term limits—While pastors have a vote for life at Presbytery meetings and elders can serve there as long as their sessions continue to send them, there are other ways in which term limits have long been a part of our form of government. For example, elders are limited to six consecutive years on their church’s session and few elders or pastors have the opportunity to serve as commissioners to the General Assembly more than once in their lifetime—more than twice is probably almost unheard of.
No Constituencies—Elders, Pastors, and Commissioners don’t represent constituencies. Though there is often some effort given to have a broadly representative session and/or presbytery, the job of elders and commissioners is to seek the mind and will of Christ, not to represent some constituency’s desires. While at meetings of governing bodies, elders, pastors and commissioners should not be focused on: “What does my Sunday School class, my church, or my presbytery want me to vote on this?” but rather on: “What would Christ have me to vote on this issue?” Members of a governing body become privy to all kinds of discussion and new information that folks who haven’t been at that meeting may not have. Similarly, they are also called to rise above their own self-interest when they vote. While balancing competing self-interest is at the core of our nation’s form of government, Presbyterian pastors and elders should seek to rise above that to seek the mind of Christ.
Limited Vote—Most members never get a chance to vote at a level beyond the local congregation. In U.S. government, voters get to chime in on who will represent them at every level, from the most local level up to the presidency. This is not so in Presbyterian government. While the congregation votes for its elders, those elders, in turn, vote for who will be their commissioner(s) to presbytery, and the presbytery commissioners (elders and pastors) vote for who will represent them at the Synod and national levels. Similarly, people in the pews don’t vote on changes to our constitution or major denominational emphases or position statements. For some, this results in a feeling of having too little voice in the direction of the national church. There is, however, as much or more (generally much more) access to the national governing body (the General Assembly) for laity in the Presbyterian Church as in any other denomination.
Self-promotion to office is frowned upon—Presbyterians generally do little more than mention that they might be interested in serving as an elder, a presbytery commissioner, a General Assembly commissioner, or even the Moderator of General Assembly. Any campaigning for office looks like a power-play that turns off more people than it attracts. Even for the moderator of GA--the one position where candidates promote themselves openly--there are strong limits on how much money can be spent and how much campaigning is deemed appropriate.
Nominating committees exercise tremendous power—while we elect officers and commissioners, nominating committees lay the ground work by receiving recommendations, discussing what kind of people are needed to serve in different areas, approaching those they’d like to nominate, and ultimately presenting a slate of nominees to serve in all needed positions. Nominations can always be taken from the floor, but when things are going well in the church, those people the nominating committee present are generally elected unanimously. That’s quite different from the election process used in secular government that invites self-promotion, tearing down one’s opponents, and a win-lose mentality. It also means, though, that congregations and other governing bodies generally let the nominating committees do the work of choosing their representatives.
There are no political parties. There are affiliation groups, some of which exclusively work to advocate for policy changes in the denomination, but many others help churches do ministry in a variety of ways. While many of the groups could roughly be called “conservative” or “liberal,” I suspect the majority of churches belong to none of the groups. There is certainly some polarization as in our secular political arena, but there seems to be a broader “middle” that ultimately determines what changes will be accepted.

The differences between our form of government and that of secular representative democracies is not accidental. Ultimately, we are not simply trying to provide a way for competing self-interests to be balanced. We are challenging those who serve in our church’s government to seek the guidance of the Spirit to be obedient to Christ’s calling. Obviously, it is still fallible people who make the decisions, thus there are many checks and balances to try to overcome for the inevitable presence of sin and self-interest. Still, the Spirit works in interesting and often inspiring ways to lift us above those baser motives.

If you worship in a Presbyterian Church or are considering doing so, enjoy the rich history of our wing of the Reformation. We have contributed greatly to introducing and spreading the representative form of democracy in churches and in secular governments. This form of government has proven to provide significant freedom from tyranny for people in many countries and many churches over the last 450 years. Also, try to appreciate the degree to which our church’s form of government is intentionally different from our country’s. Hopefully, there is less self-promotion, less breaking into rigid factions, and less energy spent on destroying the credibility of those who think differently than us. While we still have much to improve upon, there’s also a lot to celebrate and enjoy!

Stimulating Thoughts

2008-07-09T16:42:00.004-05:00

We received our “economic stimulus check” in the mail today. It will certainly be a stimulus to our family’s economy, but I’m not convinced this program will do much to stimulate our national economy. Seems to me the primary goal of these programs—whether called “economic stimulus checks” or “tax rebates”—is to stimulate voters to favor the politicians that support them. Whatever short-term impact they may have on the economy, I suspect they’ll be one more thing we’ll add to the national debt and pay for with interest over the lifetime of my kids.

A comedian quipped that it will be hard to spend the “economic stimulus checks” in ways that actually stimulate our own economy. His argument was something like what follows. “If you shop at Wal-Mart, you’ll be stimulating China’s economy. If buy stereos or TV’s, you’ll be helping Japan. If you go on vacation, you’ll be burning fuel that will help Saudi Arabia and Venezuela. Just about the only way you can help the U.S. economy is to spend it on booze or prostitutes.”

I think we can do a lot better than that, but the point is well made that in a global economy, our spending could increase the national trade deficit rather than decrease it. So what are we to do with this windfall from Uncle Sam? Here’s my shot at a few ideas that might do some good.

Charitable Giving—Consider this an easy opportunity to take a step toward tithing. For example, tithe the economic stimulus check to the church or a Christian ministry that you are passionate about…or to both! Since it comes to each of us as a surprise windfall, we can’t really claim that we can’t afford it. If we do it, we then discover, “Hey, that wasn’t so hard!” and we still have 80-90% left to spend on something else. A bigger challenge would be to give 1% of your total annual income from the check. That’s a step toward tithing on an annual basis and may still leave you with a pretty fair chunk of change to spend a different way.

Pay Down Some Debt—Many Americans have let themselves get into a bit of a hole with debt. At times, we may feel helpless to get out of the hole. This check may represent at least a rung or two on the ladder. If, for example, you have $8,000 in credit card debt and a $2,000 economic stimulus check. Just $1,500 of that could drop your credit card debt 25%. If you combine that with a commitment to keep chipping away at the rest of that debt, you could be in a situation a year or two from now where you’re free from paying all those ridiculous interest charges while getting nothing for them. If your credit cards are under control, paying on a car or any other loan you have will also save interest payments in the future.

Consider a Donation to Sand Springs Public Schools or the PTA of the SSPS school of your choice—Our administrators and teachers are trying to accomplish a Herculean task in Sand Springs. With property values that are low compared to most of Greater Tulsa, our school system’s total income on a per pupil basis doesn’t compare well to other school systems. The result is that we have all kinds of additional hurdles to clear in order to provide a top-notch education to all students in our district.

Support a Scholarship Fund—Our long-term economic health as a country is more related to the education of our next generation of kids than on any consumer products we buy today, I believe. If you have kids or grandkids, you might particularly want to consider putting this into a college fund for them. If not, you might want to help support a scholarship that gives funding to the kind of students you’d like to see succeed. The cost of higher education is growing at a rate that is probably only comparable to the rate of increase in the cost of health care. That doesn’t bode well for future generations…particularly considering the national debt we’re leaving them!

Create a Memorable Moment—Enjoy a nice dinner, an evening at the theater, a small vacation, or something else you like doing with the people you love. Consider doing something responsible with the bulk of your check, but then also do something of lasting joy with the people you love.

Day 8

2008-06-28T00:32:00.003-05:00

A lot has happened in the last two days, including me running out of gas. I've got a family to take care of when I get home and a worship service to lead on Sunday. My note taking plummeted after about noon yesterday. More lessons for the day when I get to be a commissioner--many of the most important decisions are finalized in the last 48 hours...a commissioner needs to pace him/herself to finish strong.

Signing off from San Jose.

I'll try to get some reflections up mid-week after returning.

Day 7

2008-06-27T02:32:00.004-05:00

REFLECTION:

A few tests for whether I am being guided by the Spirit:

I’m being led in a direction very different from what I was raised to believe.
I’m being led in a direction that would put me at odds with people whose affirmation means a lot to me.
I’m being led in a direction opposed to my secular political leanings.
I did not come to this conclusion easily.
It did not require me to sing Kum-ba-yah

The presence of any, or even all, of these elements does not mean that I am being led by the Spirit. It could simply demonstrate a spirit of rebelliousness that is not of God. The spirit is consistent in where it leads us, I believe. Where our past has been effectively and fully guided by the Spirit, turning against it represents no act of faithfulness.

The absence of any, or even all, of these elements does not mean that I’m not being led by the Spirit. However, it should give me pause to consider whether I might simply be following the biases of my upbringing, my social circles, and my political party affiliation. It’s not so much that the Spirit changes where it leads humans (at least in broad senses) at different times in history, but that we have more of our biases exposed so that they no longer masquerade as absolute truth and the Spirit of Truth can be heard more clearly.

Long Meetings...

The motion to reconsider a motion that has already been passed. WOW! What a headache! Just when you think an item has been put to rest, you can find there’s almost no limit to how long a body of almost 1000 people can spend trying to tweak it in one direction or another. One blogger referred to it as the hokey-pokey. You put the motion in, you put take the motion out…

I think I’ve had a taste of what it feels like to be A.D.D. Any time we have breaks, I find myself swaying from side to side or pacing. This whole evening I’ve done my share of pacing or mentally checking out. Once again, the challenge is great on the commissioners. The meeting ended tonight at 11:00 p.m.

Positively, people are working through differences in fair, open ways. While there are obviously politics as work, I sense no effort by the leadership on stage (stated clerk, moderator, etc.) to manipulate the process.

Day 6

2008-06-26T01:48:00.004-05:00

REFLECTION:
WOW! Motions are made (by referring to a number, i.e. “We move to approve item 15-01”) and passed so quickly that there is no time to even find and read the motion, much less the rationale for it, etc. If commissioners didn’t read and study all the overtures (motions to GA) before coming and check to see what action the different committees recommended last night/this morning, they don’t even know what they’re voting on! One more witness to the strong need for advanced preparation.

If we’re approaching evangelism based on our needing more people in church, in the choir, in our SS classes, etc., we’re approaching evangelism the wrong way. Evangelism is not for the sake of recruiting people to support our institutions or our ministries, but rather for the sake of obedience to Christ’s call to make disciples of all nations and out of a desire for others to discover the reality of the God of creation made flesh in Jesus—a reality that calls us into lives of joy, peace, courage, and hope as we learn to love the world as God loves it and as we discover God's saving power in Christ making us new.

We heard about the 100 year anniversary of the beginning of camps and conferences in the PCUSA. Commissioners were asked to stand who had been drawn closer to God through an experience at a Presbyterian camp or conference. Most stood, but I was surprised how many did not. Granted, many may have had camp experiences in other denominations. Still, I have heard some of our adult members mention never having had such an experience as a youth or young adult. It made me think how valuable it would be to have an all-church retreat. Having had so many deeply meaningful camp/conference center experiences in my life, I hate the thought that anyone has been left out of that!

“The world is too strong for a divided church.” A quote of the General Secretary of the National Council of Churches. Great quote. I didn’t hear him really go anywhere with it, but it is oh-so-true. Divided, our witness is weakened and the voice of “the world” is louder and, for too many people, more compelling or enticing.

There were some gaps in my attention tonight. I have one foot in an effort to walk through this assembly as though I were a commissioner so that I can learn as much as possible about what it takes to be an effective commissioner. I’m giving myself some slack at times, though, as well. Tonight, I let my attention wander while in the meeting and had no idea what was going on when I clued back in. You know, “The mind can only absorb what the rear can endure.” The commissioners really have a challenging week. (I wonder how many times I’ll say this before the week’s out!)

Work done today included: sharing the estimated costs to accomplish everything that the committees are recommending at this point (approx. $825,000 over the next 2 years); a variety of actions to promote church growth and Christian education (including the addition of Goodland Academy in Hugo, OK to the list of secondary schools related to the PCUSA and the creation of a new curriculum on adolescent human development and human sexuality); statements on ecumenical and interfaith relations; and actions intended to support youth ministry (including the release of a DVD on faith that received rave reviews from the committee, esp. from the YADs, encouraging congregations to actively recruit and train mentors to work with youth, and the creation of a youth ministry task force).

Oh, I was informed that I was going to hell on the way into the convention center after dinner. A really belligerent handful of protesters held large signs and screamed (really!) things like “Where’s your Bible! You need to read your Bible!” (The guy yelling this at me didn’t have a Bible with him, either) and “You’re going to hell!! You’re all going to hell!!” at everyone walking past them to the convention center. (One of their signs declared, "We don't hate homos"--Hmmm, what would have made anyone think they did?!) Meanwhile, representatives from Presbyterian groups lobbying for allowing openly practicing gays and lesbians to be ordained as deacons, elders, and pastors quietly and warmly offered cookies and smiles to all who passed them on the way into the convention center. The contrast was unbelievably stark.

Day 5

2008-06-25T02:09:00.003-05:00

REFLECTIONS (from an observer to the Form of Government Committee)
Negatively, there is a fair amount of confusion regarding how to proceed since the moderator opened up the option of not requiring the committee to work on amendments prior to making a decision about what to do with their final product (i.e. send it to the GA for approval or to the presbyteries for study). Too many options makes it hard for a large body to proceed, but having the options narrowed may eliminate the best decision before the committee has a chance to consider it. It also raises suspicion about moderators controlling the outcome of a committee's work by controlling the options and/or the process. The moderators of this committee have truly moderated the committee's work without trying to control it or its outcomes.

Positively, order and good will have not been broken in this committee. With such a controversial and complex task before them, simply avoiding pandemonium is at least half the battle for this committee. Towards the end of the day, Terry Schlossberg, with the Presbyterian Coalition (an evangelical affinity group), told me that she thought the moderators had done the most fair and able job of leading a committee that she’s ever seen (and she’s been attending GA’s regularly for many years.)

“Friendly amendments” don’t exist in Robert’s Rules of Order, nor can someone withdraw their motion once it’s been seconded (it then “belongs” to the committee). Motions are requested in writing. Knowing how to use Robert’s Rules of Order is important for commissioners. Patience in teaching Robert's Rules of Order is critical for the moderator and vice-moderator. We saw amendments of amendments, substitute motions, amendments of substitute motions, points of order, call for the question, etc. today--most of which are never used in the session meetings of most congregations. A lot of time was lost from trying to help the commissioners learn and effectively use Robert's Rules.

The main focus of this committee today has been to try to discern what process would best allow presbyteries and sessions to have time to digest the nFOG and have input into it, and then to have some task force distill feedback and send to the next GA a second draft of a Form of Government that has buy-in and wisdom from the ground roots. They finally reached their conclusion at about 5 p.m.

To refer and recommend the nFOG to the GA for a period of consultation and study with churches and presbyteries through a system or systems designed and implemented by the Task Force that has designed the nFOG to the 218th GA and members of the 218th GA committee on the nFOG. The participation of every presbytery in the period of consultation and study will be strongly urged. New members of this expanded Task Force are to be chosen from the Committee on the FOG of the 218th GA by the Moderator of the 218th GA on consultation with the moderator and vice moderator of the GA Committee on FOG.

The new task force will revise the nFOG taking in to account the concerns and suggestions gleaned from the consultation and study process. The guidance of the ACC and the overtures and testimony received by the FOG Committee of the 218th GA and is will be referred to the task force for serious and studied consideration.

The revised nFOG is to be submitted to the stated clerk of the GA no later than October 15, 2009 for distribution to the church at large no later than January 15, 2010 for consideration to the 219th GA.

Once they got this done, their work on the overtures sent to them went very quickly. I left before they began the work of creating comments to add to the discussion about the new FOG.

Day 4

2008-06-24T00:54:00.004-05:00

Monday morning, June 23, Form of Government (FOG) Committee
The opening devotional was led by one of the YADs. She taught us a simple song in an African language that essentially proclaimed, “I believe.” Catchy tune, we were accompanied on a jimbe (a kind of African drum). We repeated it multiple times until we had it down. She and another YAD then began reading a Psalm (96?) simultaneously: one in English and one in Spanish.

Introduction to the work of the committee
The moderator revealed that someone had come to him saying that they had a group together and they were going to “throw this thing out.” He asked all the commissioners to come with their opinions and conclusions, but to remain open to learning something new, to having an opinion changed, and to being engaged in the process. He cautioned that when they get to the point of making their motion (I haven’t pulled up the agenda, but I’m sensing that’s late in the process), if it doesn’t rule the day, an amended document may go to the GA that won’t have their input.

Introduction and questions from a representative from the Advisory Committee on the Constitution
The ACC rep gave a history showing that there have been requests from GA’s going back 15 years or more to have the Form of Government changed. He shared that the FOG Task Force had shared an initial document with them, they had studied it thoroughly and given feedback, most of which had been incorporated. He indicated that he would be bringing recommendations to the committee from the ACC for some additional changes. He made it clear that there are times that the committees have to receive advice from the ACC but that they are never required to follow it. He also outlined that they have the following options for action:
1. Approval of the new Form of Government
2. Disapproval of the new Form of Government
3. Approval with amendment
· Rewording of report
· Change procedure for approval
· Provide provisional adoption
4. Referral for study
· Without a plan for study
· With a plan for study

Small Group Work
The committee meets around tables. They began at about 10:30 a.m. sharing with one another their greatest concerns regarding the FOG. They reported the top concerns to the moderator in writing.

Reports from Each of the Overture Advocates
Presbyteries send overtures to the General Assembly, especially when something big like the proposed new FOG is coming through. Each presbytery sending an overture gets to send an advocate to speak to why they think their overture should be taken seriously and to clarify questions about its intent. Presbyteries that concur with someone else’s overture also get to send advocates to speak. There were scads of overtures, a handful of concurrances, and lots of advocates lined up to speak. This took most of the afternoon.

REFLECTIONS
The members of this committee have their work cut out for them! That may well be the case for all of the committees, but it’s pretty overwhelming to try to understand what all is being proposed in this significant overhaul of the Book of Order and what the ramifications of it will be. For example, to do their job adequately, committee members should have read the side-by-side copy sent to them showing everything in the current Book of Order and everything in the new Form of Government. Additions and deletions become clearer in this light. Then, they needed to read the advice of the ACC on the whole thing. On top of that, they needed to read each of the overtures and try to discern what God’s will is on them. Ideally, they would have also read critiques of the FOG from lobby groups in the denomination from across the theological spectrum. That could help them understand perspectives different from their own and open them further to the Spirit’s leading. In short, preparation for attending a GA as a commissioner needs to be taken seriously and started well in advance.

On the value of Overtures to the GA from Presbyteries. (When a presbytery sends an overture to GA, they get to send an “overture advocate” to speak for a period of time—5 min. here, I believe—to clarify why the committee should consider their overture) This committee has just heard from 30-40 people bringing overtures, etc. many of which have urged the committee NOT to send this to the presbyteries for approval or disapproval this year. Some suggested sending it to the presbyteries to be studied for two years. A few recommended disapproving it altogether. All had done their homework and were very convincing. I can’t help but think the commissioners must be pretty heavily influenced by such a witness. The major points/concerns have been the following:
1. The current Book of Order doesn’t hamper churches from doing ministry, including doing missional ministry. (Giving us a more missional polity has been a major selling point.) A number of overture advocates and commissioners bore witness to churches that are successfully doing missional ministry under (or around?) the current Book of Order.

2. The new FOG lacks clarity/adds ambiguity—to intentionally add ambiguity assumes that we have a high level of trust or can develop one in short order. That assumption is inaccurate and would likely mean that changing to a FOG that is “more flexible” would probably result in chaos. One person shared that we need things more defined because people tend to manipulate things. Another indicated that flexibility isn’t always a good thing, as with a cane, a cast, or a skeleton—all of which need to be pretty rigid to fulfill their functions.

3. The claim of the FOG helping us become missional (outwardly focused) is self-defeating in that it will require pastors and elders hours of study to be prepared to vote on it at presbytery meetings. Then it will require hours of time for handbooks to be created to replace sections deleted. Then it will require hours of learning to use a new book. Then it will require discovering where its weaknesses are through subsequent trials, failures, etc. All of this takes energy away from serving the world Christ loves. Dave Wilkinson, Overture Advocate from the Presbytery of Santa Barbara, had some colorful phrases for us: “This FOG is not so much missional as it is omissional.” “If you teach a bear to dance, you have to dance as long as the bear wants to.” “Don’t pull the trigger until you know where you’re going to put the body.”

4. Concerns about the status of past Permanent Judicial Commission (PJC) rulings and past Authoritative Interpretations (AI’s). Would they still have authority if the constitution changes? There were concerns expressed, including from a member of the GAPJC, that even subtle changes in wording could invalidate PJC rulings and AI’s.

5. The comment that our problem isn’t structural, but theological. Changing the structure doesn’t solve the theological problems.

At the end of Monday, the new FOG appears to have quite an uphill battle, though there are clearly commissioners that want to advocate for it or at least give it a full and fair hearing. And some of the task force members are clearly bright and extremely eloquent. They obviously didn’t spend hours working together to try to find the quickest way to ruin the church. Tomorrow will involve more opportunities to hear the positive aspects of the FOG. One final comment: the moderator and vice-moderator are doing a great job of teaching the committee how to do their work with patience, clear direction where needed, and humor to help keep the anxiety level down.

Day 3

2008-06-23T00:13:00.002-05:00

Reading
I read two publications by Presbyterians for Renewal yesterday, both of which I found insightful. First, a brochure entitled, "Why Stay PC(USA)?" It is available online at http://www.pfrenew.org/images/pdfdownloads/WhyStayBrochure.pdf. There is a button on the Adobe toolbar (on my computer it is the 4th icon from the right) that allows you to turn the document 90 degrees for easier reading. It's good food for thought.

The second was a booklet about the 12 issues they consider most important at this GA. I don't believe it's accessible online. It's helpful to have someone who's spent time studying all of the issues to some degree sort through what is most critical and what is more mundane.

Worship
What a joy to simply worship with no responsibilities for leadership! My mom is a great cook who enjoys putting out a special meal for guests. I sense that when she eats in restaurants, there are times she thinks, "I know how to do this meal better," other times she thinks, "This dish is great; I've got to get the recipe," and still other times she simply enjoys eating food she didn't have to prepare and doesn't have to clean up after.

For me, worshipping as a participant rather than a leader is a fairly rare treat. When I get it, it's so easy to become a critic (I can do that better) or a connoisseur (I want to do this at home!). Today, I simply enjoyed being open to God and grateful to God in a service I didn't have to prepare or clean up after. Ahhh!

Rev. Joan Gray, the moderator for the 2006 GA and a pastor I worked under for almost a year, preached. I will still describe her preaching as being extremely challenging but where you know that the challenge comes from someone who loves you and wants something better for you. That's a recipe I'd love to be able to prepare as consistently well as Joan.

Committee Meetings Tomorrow
I'll be attending the meetings for the Form of Government Revision, as that is likely to be the hardest thing to understand and one of the more important ones coming out of this assembly. What is very unclear to me at this point is how accountability will take place if the FOG Task Force's work is adopted. Other church governments (Epsicopal, Methodist, Catholic, etc.) have a more top-down government where an individual (bishop, district superintendent, etc.) can quickly and efficiently reign in pastors or governing bodies that act outside of the church's polity. We don't do that well in the PCUSA. Of course, less I wax too longingly for a more authoritarian system, it must be noted that those systems are only as good as the individual in whom all the authority has been placed. Learning to exercise a love that includes accountability [hey, that's inclusiveness, isn't it? ;-) ] may well be one of the hardest things we are called to do as Christians.

Day 2

2008-06-22T09:37:00.003-05:00

The Wonders of Technology—In years past, GA commissioners have had a small tree worth of paper documents sent to them prior to the meeting for them to study, lug to the site, and be able to access as needed. Thanks to the wonders of computers, wireless networks, and the internet, those items have simply been posted online for anyone (commissioners or not) to download as they have interest. The system is ideal, saving a small forest of trees, making it much easier for commissioners and others to access documents they need, and sparing them the hassle of carrying reams of paper with them.

Except when the system doesn’t work. Like this morning. After spending about an hour trying to get connected, I finally went for help and was relieved to hear it wasn’t me. I guess they have a day or two to get the system ironed out before it begins to be critical. Glad I’m not in charge of that!

I finally got on to the pc-biz system in the afternoon. Hopefully things will work smoothly for the rest of the week.

PCUSA Video—Overview of the denomination through a look at all that is done through the six areas under the General Assembly Council. It was very well done and made it easier to see how our denomination is doing much more than just the sum of what all the individual churches and presbyteries do (which in itself is massive and would make for an impressive video from each presbytery). I wonder if we can get a copy of this? It was probably about 20-30 minutes in length and would be great to show at a fellowship dinner.

General Assembly Council (GAC)—Evangelism & Church Development; Theology Worship & Education; Vocation (Military Chaplians, etc), Compassion: Peace & Justice (such as Presbyterian Disaster Assistance), World Mission (partnerships in 100+ countries).

Office of the General Assembly (OGA)—Helps the church be the church; under the leadership of the clerk of the GA. Publishes the constitution & helps interpret it. Keeps annual stats. Preserves the church’s heritage. Partners w/ecumenical churches worldwide. Plans/organizes the GA and other national meetings.

Presbyterian Publishing Company (PPC)—Geneva Press (Hymnal), The Thoughtful Christian (Bible and theology Christian Living, Religion and Popular culture, youth, etc.), Westminster/John Knox Press—Self-sustaining, one of the top 5 religious publishers.

Presbyterian Foundation—like Texas Presbyterian Foundation (TPF) that we’ve started a permanent funds ministry with, but on a national scale.

Presbyterian Investment and Loan Program (PILP)—Low-interest loans for construction, land, and refinancing loans. Funded through Presbyterian endowment funds and Presbyterian investors.

Board of Pensions—oversees benefits for ministers and other church staff. 1000+ grants awarded each years. See board’s new website. Offers seminars for plan members, encourages self-care to improve health and well-being.

Moderator Election
Four candidates put their names in the hat for moderator. All impressed me as being people of deep faith and great commitment to the church.

One, Carl Mazza, had an amazing story of having been homeless as a youth when a group of Presbyterian youth from a small church reached out to him with the gospel and ultimately welcomed him into the family of God as he gave his life to Christ. The majority of his years of service as a pastor have been dedicated to the ministry to homeless people that he founded 20+ years ago. It has drawn in churches from across the denominational spectrum to serve the homeless and work together. Great story.

Another, Bill Teng, had served as a moderator of National Presbytery (Washington D.C. area) and impressed me as mature, even-keeled, and likely to be quite good at moderating the General Assembly. There were some key aspects of his theology I was attracted to, as well.

A third, Bruce Reyes-Chow, was young (39), enthusiastic, and eloquent. He seems to have one foot in our church’s tradition and another in the future to which God is leading us (though not all of what he believes is where God is calling us—of course that’s true for everyone; none have perfectly grasped God’s vision for our future). He also seems to be living out the missional church theology that will be the future of our church, understanding that God calls us together to send us into the world to bear witness to the gospel in all kinds of ways. (Theologians are reminding us that “mission” means “sent”.) I think he will be quite effective after the assembly in the role of ambassador that the moderator takes on for two years. I especially think that youth and young adults will be drawn to him across the church, as they overwhelmingly were here. Where I sense I differ with him theologically I’m not too concerned, first, because I don’t believe the moderator influences the theology of the assembly very much and second, because I don’t believe his theology was what got him elected, so it doesn’t serve as much of a bellwether for where this assembly is headed.

Day 1 at General Assembly

2008-06-21T00:32:00.004-05:00

Well, I made it safely and easily to San Jose, CA for the General Assembly meeting of the Presbyterian Church (USA) this afternoon (Fri.). It's a 9-day marathon of meetings that comes around every two years. This is my first experience with it, so you'll get a rookie's eye view at the event.

My first "event" (after checking in to the hotel, finding the light rail line and going downtown, and hitting the conference registration desk) was the "Meet the Candidates for Moderator" time that was planned to last from 6-8 p.m. I anticipated some kind of town hall meeting, presentation, or debate followed by a meet and greet. Don't know where that expectation came from, I just imagined it that way. Here's what I found, though. Each candidate was within about 10 feet of the next and in front of a small display. They all had something to hand out--a flyer, a button, a t-shirt--but none of them had spent much on such campaign kitch. Each candidate had a small group of 2-7 people around them. They visited, showed interest in the ministries of each person I overheard them talk to, and that was it.

On the plane, I did a lot of reflecting. I'm going to save most of that for later because despite it only being 10:45 p.m. in San Jose, my body and brain are well into Saturday on Central Time and I'm wiped out. I brainstormed, though, some of the ways in which our denomination is not like our country's democracy. As a point of context, I routinely tell officers and newcomers about how much our church's government is like our country's govt. I'm not changing my tune on that, but it is important, I think, to also point out the differences. Most of that for later, but for now, the moderator's "campaigning" was a good reminder of a difference between govt. in our church and in our country: in the church, it doesn't pay to show too much interest in attaining a position of leadership or power. People don't campaign to become elders, presbytery commissioners, or pastors. Even moderators of the General Assembly do little more than respond to some questions in advance for the "voter's guide"-type articles produced in a few publications and stand in front of a small booth. The folks in the exhibit hall are a lot more energetic in trying to get one's attention than the moderatorial candidates.

Anyway, I met each one and talked with them briefly. I've got a favorite candidate in terms of first impressions from my conversations with them and a brief article/interview in the Presbyterian Outlook http://www.pres-outlook.com/reports-a-resources/presbyterian-heritage-articles/2-presbyterian-heritage-articles/7421-moderator-candidates-discuss-their-plans-visions-for-church.html, but I want to learn more about them before naming my "horse." It just fascinated me that there is so little promotion of them.

Next came a first run at the exhibit hall. Looks like the granddaddy exhibitor is Cokesbury, with enough books to sink a ship. We pastors have a weakness for books...I resisted temptation on Day 1, though I did write down some titles for consideration...

Then I went to the Form of Government (FOG) Task Force Presentation. There were some very bright and eloquent folks on the task force. That was only the beginning of my education on the "FOG." I have to wonder how much the actual commissioners have studied it. I'll probably try to attend the committee meetings that deal with it so that I can learn more.

I closed out the meeting by going to the Presbyterians for Renewal (PFR) Welcome Reception. Nicely done. I hoped to see some folks I know from years past (o.k. mostly 10 years and more in the past) who have been involved with PFR. I didn't see anyone I knew so I didn't last long.

More to come tomorrow (meaning Saturday: looks like the posting time on this will be in Central Time rather than Pacific).

Peace,

Dan

Ahhh! Summer's Here!!

2008-06-17T09:53:00.002-05:00

The day will come when my life doesn’t revolve so much around the academic calendar. That day hasn’t arrived yet, though, and I can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. That makes summers precious to me.
We had all three kids in soccer in the fall and spring and in basketball during the winter. We had two taking piano, one in drawing, one in dance, and one in scouts. Throw in a meeting or two a week for me, WNL, and a bit of homework for the kids and the evenings became a blur of activity with us struggling to find evenings where we could all eat together, much less do things of our choosing. In short, exactly what I swore I would never allow to happen in my home when I was younger and knew a lot more.
Now I look at June 1st like the edge of an oasis in the middle of a dry desert. When I grow weary during the school year from the hectic schedule, I look up to see how close June 1st is on the horizon and keep plugging along.
Though we’re just a week into the month, our yard no longer looks like it only needs a ‘73 Impala on cinder blocks to finish the “look.” I’ve also hunted for worms, gone fishing, been to see a movie at the drive-in theater with the family, played some basketball, been “trained” in Jedi light saber dueling, and had a few good conversations with the kids. During the school year, I mostly watch them play. When school’s out, I get to play with them. Looks like it’s shaping up to be a good summer!
At church, it has intrigued me over the years to note that we often have more first-time visitors during the summer than I ever would have expected. Sometimes, it has seemed that we’ve had more visitors then than at any other time during the year. Now, I suspect I may know one of the reasons why.
When summer arrives, those of us who run frantically during the school year finally begin to catch our breath, slow down a bit, and take stock of life. Things that we’ve wanted to do but couldn’t find time to (like playing with the kids) get back on our schedules. Things we feel like we should be doing, whether we like them or not (like taking care of the yard for me), we also find time for. Likewise, whether from desire or from a sense of obligation, people often find their way back to church during the summer.
What will they find when they come? While few of us could achieve perfect attendance at church over the summer months, each of us can make a concerted effort to be present in worship whenever we’re in town. The pews empty somewhat simply because of members leaving town on vacations. If we also take a “vacation” from worship when we’re in town, the attendance can get pretty lean, giving the visitors the wrong impression about the size and commitment of our congregation.
If, on the other hand, we make a concerted effort to be present and to focus on welcoming people we don’t know into the church, we could give a visitor the encouragement they need to worship with us again. We could also find ourselves getting to know other members in new and deeper ways.
So, if the practice of being in worship regularly has slipped for you over the last few months, consider breathing a deep sigh of relief that summer has arrived. Life can finally slow down just a bit and you can rediscover the value and richness of regular worship attendance. Come, grow with us in faith as we practice the art of loving others as Christ loves us.

Hypocrites All

2008-06-17T09:51:00.002-05:00

Over the last 45 years or so, people have been leaving Christian churches much faster than they can be replaced. From figures one of our elders compiled a decade ago, it was clear that once our church reached 250 members, we have lost an average of 25 members per year. This includes deaths, relocation of families, students who graduate and move away, people who get frustrated and leave, people who become attracted to a different church in the area, and those whose commitment to worship and participation in the church begins to wane until the time arrives that they have become fully inactive.
That figure of 25 members lost per year to our congregation, though, represents our history from about 1918 through 1997. What if we looked just at the last 45 years? My guess is that we’d find the figure to be even higher.
One of the reasons cited by people who cease to be active in any Christian church is that they become weary of the hypocrisy that they encounter in the church. Sadly, they can often tell a number of stories that illustrate that hypocrisy all too vividly. It really is a problem in churches across the board.
I would define hypocrisy in two ways. First, it is when people profess to hold a standard of belief or behavior and then fail (especially when they do so dramatically) to actually live by it. Secondly, it is when someone seeks to hold others to be accountable to a certain standard of behavior, while at the same time failing to abide by that standard themselves.
In the church, there are countless examples of when pastors, church officers and leaders, and church members have acted hypocritically. It’s something we dare not take lightly. Our hypocrisy disillusions people and tempts them to give up on the church. One of our goals of Christian growth, then, should be to become more aware of the ways in which we act hypocritically and then try to get our actions more in line with what we profess we believe.
Certainly the time has come for us to really understand that being a member of a church or even being involved in a church no more makes us Christians than being in a garage or being involved with a car makes us an automobile. To be a Christian is to be one who relies on God’s grace, is open to the Spirit’s work of transformation, and strives to follow where Jesus leads, loving the people he loves and serving in the way he serves.
However, it also strikes me that the very accusation of hypocrisy upon one person or group puts the accuser at great risk of becoming a hypocrite him (or her)- self! After all, isn’t the accuser implying that he consistently lives up to the standard he proclaims he believes? If that’s actually true, might it just mean that he’s simply adopted really low standards?
No doubt, egregious sins are created in the church by members and leaders alike. This is no treatise being offered up to go soft on bad behavior.
It is also true that people outside the church live and act in ways that are often more inspiring than what one can see in most churches most of the time. Racial and socio-economic barriers are often crossed more easily outside the church than in it. People often live more sacrificially on behalf of the common good in the armed services or in an environmentalist group than in the church. The people with the greatest zeal in caring for those who are handicapped or otherwise “different” from the norm are often outside the church.
But may part of the challenge be that in the church we are more open to the accusation of hypocrisy because we strive to hold ourselves to a much higher standard? There are many “dividing walls” that separate people: age, race, gender, economic status, education, and political ideology, just to name a few. While groups outside the church focus in on crossing one or two boundaries and do so in inspiring ways, are they also comfortably refusing to cross other “dividing walls”? For example, I heard the term “inclusive” used quite a bit in my seminary days, but found that those who used it most weren’t noticeably more inclusive; they simply drew their boundaries differently.
In short, living into the call of the gospel is hard work. While we don’t excuse away our failures to live consistently by Christ’s call, neither should we assume that hypocrisy is a condition unique to Christians. At least in the church, we are frequently confronted with our hypocrisy and challenged to overcome it. May we stay open to that challenge as we reach out in love to an equally flawed world.

What's Next

2008-06-17T09:48:00.002-05:00

Imagine yourself serving as an EMT (emergency medical technician) in a small rural community without easy access to physicians, much less specialists. Getting started, you find many ways in which your limited training in medicine, primarily related to first aid, can help the people in the community you serve.
Soon enough, though, you recognize that there are chronic health problems that need to be treated so that folks don’t keep ending up in the back of your ambulance. You realize that you don’t have the education you need to serve the people in the community in deeper ways. So you decide to go back to school.
Fortunately, there is a med school that allows you to stay on the job full-time and pick up your classes on the side. By going on short stints and studying on your own, either when you’re off work or between crises, you are bit-by-bit able to get through the schooling necessary to become a doctor. What then?
Part of the answer depends on why you were serving in this rural setting in the first place. Was it desperation, insufficient schooling to serve in a more urban setting, or an interest in serving precisely in the rural setting that led you there? If there was an aversion to the country scene and you were just paying the bills until you could get the sheepskin that would help you get out, you would probably work through the degree requirements as quickly as possible, making all other priorities take a back seat to the priority of getting the degree so that you could get a “better” job and move to where you really want to be. If you enjoyed serving in medicine there, though, your priority may have been more on trying to make sure you responded to every emergency, even if that delayed your graduation several years. After all, if you weren’t in a hurry to go somewhere else once the degree was in hand, what would it matter how long it took to get it?
Sand Springs is not a rural community. However, people who have a thorough education in theology, biblical studies, pastoral care, church history, polity and other subjects taught at seminary are probably significantly more scarce in our town than are EMT’s.
The place the image fits for me is in this: Nadia and I came to Sand Springs not as a stepping-stone or a move of desperation, but as a sense of God’s call into a different form of ministry after I had served about five years as an associate pastor in missions and Christian education. I took the maximum amount of time allowed to complete the degree, in large part, because I let ministry (and family) concerns take precedence at many points along the line. I did not rush through to complete the degree because I was not and am not in a rush to leave Sand Springs. Finally, I began the degree program out of a sense that I needed to know more to serve this congregation better.
Now at the end of the program and with the degree soon to be in hand, I’m like the EMT-become-physician in the rural setting that realizes that there’s still so much I don’t know that I wish I did in order to care for my community better. And learning becomes a life-long quest. Thankfully now, though, I can learn the way I graze at a buffet line—picking and choosing what strikes my fancy or meets an immediate need rather than being under the discipline of a program (which also has its place) that requires certain courses and deadlines.
Unlike in some other forms of church government, Presbyterian pastors aren’t moved around by bishops or other church officials. The term of service in a congregation is open-ended, with the congregation and pastor both having the power to end the relationship between them when it is no longer fulfilling the church’s needs or when there is a strong sense that God has something else in store. It is also generally believed that longer pastorates are good for the church when the relationship between pastor and church is healthy and invigorated.
There are many things that still excite me about ministry in Sand Springs. We have just restarted our Long Range Planning committee and have many ideas percolating about how we can strengthen the ministries of our church and improve the transitions that come as officers change each year. Our Christian Education committee has been doing great ministry for years, but is now on the brink of being able to step up the ministry we do to new levels. For the first time in many moons we are entering the summer with two great staff members who both have a year of experience in our church under their belts. We also have many members supporting the ministries we have to children and youth and many kids participating in those ministries.
Additionally, there is growing enthusiasm behind strengthening and broadening our missions ministries, reaching out in evangelism, and striving to shape our services on Sunday morning to provide the full breadth of our membership with an environment through which we can whole-heartedly worship God.
I’m also enjoying ministry in Sand Springs with my involvement in Sand Springs Community Services, the Sand Springs Ministerial Alliance, and Sand Springs Public Schools.
In short, I’m looking forward to going out to Atlanta and enjoying graduation exercises and then coming back and rolling up my sleeves and getting back to work. Does a doctorate make me a more attractive candidate to larger churches? Certainly. Would we like to move closer to my parents? Yes. But there have already been a couple invitations over the last few years to pursue a call to a larger church, and I have felt no peace to pursue those opportunities. In fact, they have only served to deepen my commitment to ministry here.
At this point, perhaps the most important thing each of us can do is to deepen in our commitment to serve Christ together. There’s much that we can’t know about the future, but that future always turns out better when we meet it fully committed and fully engaged in serving as Christ leads us.
I’ll miss seeing you this Sunday, but when I come back, my sleeves will be rolled up! I hope yours will be, too!

The Starvation Next Door

2008-06-17T09:45:00.001-05:00

Hunger is something I don’t really understand. Oh, I’ve got a hearty appetite and my stomach tells me when I haven’t pampered it recently enough. But I’ve never gone without food for more than 24 hours and never been deprived of food for any reason other than my own choice.
I go to the grocery store pretty regularly and generally buy whatever I feel like getting, within reason. I’m used to eating a great variety of foods and enjoying that breadth of choice.
But as hard as it is for me to conceive of it, starvation and malnutrition are still major problems throughout our world. Not only does a significant percent of the world’s population eat a very basic diet comprising mostly of grains and beans, far too many millions experience periods of food shortages every year.
One of the places where our church is involved in mission is Haiti. Please note the following quote from the webpage of the World Food Programme: (http://www.wfp.org/country_brief/indexcountry.asp?country=332)
“Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, and one of the most disadvantaged countries in the developing world. It ranks 153 out of 177 countries on the UNDP Human Development Index (2004). Seventy-six percent of Haitians live on less than US$2 per day, while 55 percent live on less than US$1 per day.
Chronic malnutrition is widespread among the most vulnerable, with severe or moderate stunting affecting 42 percent of children under five. While easily preventable, maladies like malnutrition and diarrhea kill 28 percent and 20 percent of children aged 0–5, respectively. Food supply covers only 55 percent of the population and daily food insecurity affects 40 percent of Haitian homes.
Haiti ranks along with Afghanistan and Somalia as one of the three countries of the world with the worst daily caloric deficit per inhabitant (460 kcal/day). Some 2.4 million Haitians cannot afford the minimum 2,240 daily calories recommended by the World Health Organization.”
In the mountains southwest of Port Au Prince, the Haiti Education Foundation (HEF—see www.haitifoundation.org) has been working for over twenty years to build schools, feed and clothe children, and bring hope into a desperately impoverished area. Our church has contributed more than $100,000 in the last 19 years in this ministry effort, but HEF still only reaches a tiny segment of the country.
As hard as it is for me to conceive of that, it’s even harder for me to imagine that children are showing signs of malnourishment right here in Sand Springs. No doubt, in many cases, bad decisions by their parents or guardians are responsible for putting their lives in jeopardy. But the fact remains that teachers and administrators are alarmed by the dozens of kids in Sand Springs schools that show signs of food insecurity every week.
Fortunately, there are relatively easy ways that we can help. Sand Springs Community Services (SSCS), in coordination with the Eastern Oklahoma Food Bank and lots of volunteers locally, is able to provide a backpack with nutritious food for the weekend for those children displaying the greatest signs of food insecurity. For just $50/year, a child gets a backpack with nutritious food for 40 weekends through the school year.
SSCS also helps with bills for rent, natural gas, electricity, and water. Food assistance and clothing are other ways the poor in our community are helped. While assistance of over $1000 per family could have been received during 2007 for qualifying households, less than 18% of families received over $400 from SSCS. That’s a pretty good sign that the agency is doing a great job of finding ways to help people without simply creating a dependency on the agency.
Through our annual budget, special offerings coordinated by our deacons, and coordination of care between our church and SSCS, we’re helping to make a difference in people’s lives right here at home. Soon, SSCS will have a new website that will help you learn more about the great work of the agency. We’ll look forward to sharing good news with you.
It’s astounding to consider that so many people struggle for basic nutrition in our modern world; that’s the bad news. The good news is that it’s so easy for us to make a difference.

Inviting Thomas Back

2008-06-17T09:41:00.002-05:00

He agrees that the gospels paint the picture of an historical figure who lived a pretty inspiring life. He is inspired by the courage Jesus showed during his confrontations with corrupt religious and political figures. He is even awed by the profundity of Jesus’ teaching and by the way he really practiced what he preached in his life and during his trial, torture, and crucifixion.
Still, the whole resurrection thing has got to be a fabrication, he assumes. He used to come to church. He enjoyed the fellowship with the people he met there. He liked that they sought to do good for others. He relished the lively discussions about things that really mattered. He appreciated the opportunity to help raise his own kids and other kids the way they should be raised: with parents and a community that loved, challenged, and corrected children to help them grow to be mature and responsible people. He offered his time, talent, and money to help further the work of the church.
He misses all that now, though he wouldn’t readily admit it. He might even be open to coming back (not even he knows that for sure), but he just can’t swallow the faith claims that people are expected to make as Christians. He wonders, “Why can’t the church just be a community of people that believe Jesus was a man (not God) who lived an inspiring life because he revealed great truth in his teaching and, astonishingly, practiced what he preached? He would probably go to that kind of church.
If I could go back in time and interview one of the apostles, it would probably be Thomas. I would love to know what all he thought, felt, and experienced during the first days, months, and years after Jesus crucifixion.
A new possibility hit me while talking to a friend who is also a pastor. What if Thomas had given up on the disciples and Jesus? What if he had decided that the excited talk on Easter morning about Jesus rising from the dead revealed that the group had gone over the deep end and they no longer represented what he was about? What if he had decided to get his things together, leave Jerusalem, leave the disciples, leave it all and try to start over on life as though none of this had happened?
What if he was missing on Easter evening because he was making arrangements to leave Jerusalem? What if the only reason he was still around a week later to finally see the risen Christ was because the disciples had begged him to stay?
I can only imagine that life was challenging for the disciples during that week between when the disciples witnessed Jesus’ presence and when Thomas finally did seven days later. While they were still trying to figure out what it all meant and what they should do next, they also had one member in their midst who was on a different page.
Chances are, you know some people like the person I imagined at the start of this article, someone who could identify with Thomas pretty easily. We don’t know whether Thomas had stayed with the disciples because he wanted to or because they had begged him to stay. We do know, though, that he met the risen Christ as a result of being in the room with the other ten remaining disciples when Jesus showed up there again a week later.
It’s fun to imagine the disciples inviting Thomas back, urging him to stay, praying for him to come to a point where he can trust their witness even if he never sees the risen Christ himself. It’s fun to do that, in part, because that’s precisely where we find ourselves nearly 2000 years later.
If you know someone with doubts, invite them back into a community of believers in the resurrection. Who knows but what Christ might choose to make himself known to that person. He might even do it in the breaking of the bread.

What Makes a Community?

2007-11-02T21:26:00.000-05:00

College Hill Presbyterian Church near the TU campus in Tulsa is going through a challenging phase in its history. A number of years ago, they chose to become a “More Light” congregation: one that is affirming of gays and lesbians, working within the church and in society for gay rights, marriage, and ordination. “More Light” congregations and other congregations that sympathize strongly with them elevate “inclusivity” as one of the high values that unites them. Such congregations frequently describe themselves as inclusive and express frustration with congregations that are “exclusive.”
Several months ago, College Hill began reaching out to the Hispanic community near it. What some of the members hoped could become a Bible study reaching 10-12 adults has quadrupled expectations with about 40 people being touched on a regular basis with the gospel. What was envisioned as a small outreach on the periphery of the church has become much more, with non-English-speaking Hispanics showing up in significant numbers for Sunday worship and showing interest in joining the church.
From what I hear, the church is responding admirably. Spanish classes are being offered to help the members be able to communicate with these new visitors. A recent sermon was given in Spanish with translation into English. “Listening sessions” are being held where members can openly express their anxieties about the church changing, about what they’re afraid of losing, about their discomfort with trying to cross racial, linguistic, cultural, and educational lines all at once. Members are admitting that perhaps what they meant by “inclusive” was still pretty limited in terms of who they actually were happy to include (i.e. white middle-class folk, whether gay or straight). And members are remembering the anxiety they faced as the church debated its stance on homosexuality a number of years back. The memory of wondering whether they would be considered “good enough” to be fully welcomed into the church drives some of the members to try harder to embrace their new guests.
In reality, I don’t believe any human community this side of heaven is capable of being “inclusive” of all people. Communities are built on shared beliefs, shared practices, and shared priorities. As new members join the community and as existing ones go through experiences that change them, the central interests around which they formed their community will come under attack or be gradually altered if either the boundaries aren’t fixed or the center isn’t clear and compelling.
Thus, some communities will draw sharp lines to define where their boundaries are. They do this out of a mix of pragmatism and fear, I believe. Pragmatism, because defining the boundaries helps keep central priorities in place. Fear, because the communities are fearful of being changed or absorbed by the larger culture. Fear may also arise from a lack of confidence that the center is compelling enough to withstand change at the edges.
This emphasis on defining the boundaries can help clarify who the community is and what it stands for. However, it nearly always results in people being excluded from the community who would like to be a part of it. Another problem is that when communities focus on their boundaries, they can inadvertently recruit new members who share their concern about a particular boundary or issue but that do not focus their lives around the same center as those in the community. Before long, the community’s central purpose can get lost as energy and resources are poured into skirmishes at the margins. Ironically, the very effort to protect their central focus can end up as the thing that destroys it.
I experience this happening in the church in our battles over homosexuality. With our emphasis turned to a boundary skirmish, people with a dog in that fight are drawn into our congregations. Whether they stand on the left or the right of the political spectrum, they are not so interested in focusing their lives around Christ as they are interested in finding religious support for their stand on sexuality. Ultimately, for many that stand is more central to them than their commitment to Christ.
Jesus repeatedly criticized the religious leaders of his day for trying so hard to protect the boundaries that they lost sight of the center. His ministry was marked by his single-minded focus on the heart of the Law—loving God with heart, mind, soul and strength and loving neighbors as oneself. In his zeal to return the focus to the center of Jewish faith, he welcomed all kinds of people who were cut off by the careful boundaries that had been erected to protect the faith. Lepers, prostitutes, tax collectors, Gentiles—all kinds of “outsiders” were welcomed in by Christ and lifted up as examples of faithfulness.
Christian communities ever since have been challenged to imitate Christ in this way. We are to steadfastly hold to Christ as our center and welcome all to come into our community and share that focus. There is still a haunting sense of being an “outsider” experienced by those who never come to share the central commitment to Christ (many of whom will be “good religious people” in our day just as they were in Jesus’ day). But the boundary of our community must be more permeable and we must remain forever open to being surprised by the people the Holy Spirit brings into our midst.
Let us hold our brothers and sisters at College Hill in our prayers as they walk through this challenging time of wrestling with issues of inclusion and their central commitment to Christ. May we strive to be open to allowing the Spirit to surprise us with new brothers and sisters that it is drawing into our midst to enrich us, teach us, challenge us, and focus us. May we trust that our center in Christ is compelling enough to hold us together when our boundaries prove too rigid. And may we imitate Christ in all that we do.