Vital Signs

Living With Loss

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to be part of a group that met and talked with Dan Mosley who teaches at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, and who also serves as the senior coach for the Indiana Clergy Peer Group program, a Lilly Endowment clergy excellence project.  In his book, Living With Loss, Dan speaks about dealing with loss and how new life and spiritual gain can only be recognized by working through loss and arriving at what lies beyond it.   Dan says, “If something is alive, it is changing.  And if something is changing, something is dying.  I have discovered that loss is a gift that opens up the future in ways nothing else can.  It is the way new life is possible.”  (Living With Loss, pg. 14). Consistent with this theme, Dan recommended reading Transitions:  Making Sense of Life’s Changes by William Bridges.  Bridges says that life consists of endings and beginning but, until you address endings, it is difficult to experience new beginnings.

Our group talked about the importance of endings and beginnings in the context of the congregational transformation process.  Learning to let go of the past is a major challenge for many congregations who want to experience a new beginning. The statement that “we have never done it that way before” is rooted not only in doing the familiar but also in hanging on to the past.  Congregational development specialists, in helping and supporting congregations to affirm their past, suggest doing history timelines, acknowledging sacred places and times, and lifting up the saints.  These are important building blocks for the future but may not be enough to work through the grief of the loss.  Mosely and Bridges say that it is just as important to name and acknowledge the loss of the past and to create some indigenous rituals to address this loss.   

Our conversation with Dan and the two readings caused me to reflect on these questions – How do we learn and practice to let go of the past?  How do we learn to value, own, and acknowledge endings as well as beginnings as a part of the natural life cycle, for ourselves and for our churches?

Building Ministry Partnerships

In the latest issue of Presbyterian Outlook (April 28, 2008) Leslie Scanlon wrote an article about three smaller membership churches in Flint, Michigan that wrestled with the idea of merging and ultimately decided to do so - "New Church emerges as struggling congregations come together."  This is a good story of three small churches willing to try something new to serve God

Last Saturday, I attended a great presentation in Charlotte, North Carolina from the Pastor Larry James and Elder Jim K. Polk of Grier Heights Presbyterian Church, a smaller membership African-American church and Elder Neill McBride of Myers Park, a large European-American church.  These two churches are working together with Antioch Baptist Church and local residents to discern how they can serve the Grier Heights neighborhood, an area that is facing potential gentrification. The three churches agree that their community development work for and with the Grier Heights neighborhood must be focused on justice as the centerpiece. There is still much work to be done, but the leaders of this partnership believe they can work together with their neighbors to bring about "gentrification with justice."

The Wee Kirk network and the Association of Presbyterian Mission Pastors have been discussing how they can nurture and develop healthy, effective mission partnerships between smaller membership churches and large churches. 

Developing mission partnerships and shared ministries is not a new concept.  These models of ministry challenge all of our churches to collaborate together as members of the One Body of Christ.

So how are you building ministry partnerships?

Rebooting the Church for the 21st Century

The blog title comes from the Synod of Lakes and Prairies leadership training event that took place this past weekend at Camp Clearwater, Deerwood, Minnesota.  The keynote speaker for this event was Dr. Leonard Sweet who has written many books on social, cultural and congregational change issues.   His latest book is titled, The Gospel According to Starbucks (2007).

Dr. Sweet's presentations were very informative and challenging.  I would like to share with you a few of his comments for reflection about your own congregational transformation/renewal process.

1)  Dr. Sweet said that we need to move away from being ABC churches to MRI churches.  ABC churches focus on attendance, building and cash.   MRI churches focus on being missional, relational and incarnational.  MRI churches have a purpose for being and not just trying to survive.  "A missional church is out there."  MRI churches are more participatory and connective rather than being spectators and heavily individualistic.  MRI churches get their members to grow deeper into and with the culture rather than to avoid or deny the cultural changes taking place.  "When God is incarnated within a culture, it should become indigenous.  Gospel should not transform culture but be incarnated within one's culture."

2) Dr. Sweet said that we should use image statements rather than mission statements. It's sort of like the Nike swoosh image which tells people - Just do it.  Dr. Sweet says that the church should move from being word driven to image rich. "Mission statements are used to attract, not to send out."  We should be inviting people to come to Christ, not to the church.  "We need to tell people to get off your butts and your  buts and go out and do mission in the world."

3) Finally, as I thought about how some churches wrestle with and resist being transformed by God to do God's mission, the following thoughts from Dr. Sweet really hit home for me - "We need to treat the bible as a subject rather than an object."  He said that pastors should not be trying to figure out how to make the bible come alive for their people, but rather realize that the scripture is already alive with God's word and what we need to do is to submit ourselves to scripture and to God so that we can become alive. This made me wonder, what would happen to the churches that resist God's transforming spirit; if they really approached God's Word this way in their personal and congregational discernment processes. No doubt these churches would be "rebooted" to carry out God's unique call on their lives both individually and collectively. 

It's not rocket science!

Several months ago, I sent a message out on our office's email list telling folks that I was planning to start a blog site. I asked the question - what would you like me to put on my blog?  Numerous folks responded - tell us what is working and why?  This response is a natural one since lots of church leaders, urban, rural and small are working hard to transform their churches. But I also often hear this response - help us to turn around our churches in the next six months!  When I respond to or meet with some of these church leaders and tell them that transformation work is labor intensive and requires lots of time and energy, many of these folks respond - That's too much work!  Isn't there some generic blueprint that we can implement to turn around our church with less work on our part!  The answer is of course NO.  There is no easy blueprint to turn around your church.  It takes vision, passionate leadership, relationship building and lots of work! 

The first few steps for the PC(USA) congregational transformation process are: 1) Coming to terms with the past; 2) generate spiritual energy (leadership); 3) reconnecting with the community.

I was reminded of this process when I sat in this morning on a workshop on "healing and community building" at the SCUPE (Seminarian Consortium on Urban Pastoral Education) national urban ministry conference held at Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago.  One of the leaders for this workshop is the Rev. Walter Tilleman, pastor of Christ Baptist Church in Worcester, Mass.  Rev. Tillman talked about how in his early ministry, he felt that his call was to save souls and not to get engaged with community issues.  He went on to say that later on in his ministry in "his mid-life crisis," he came to the realization that as much as he was saving souls, it was not not doing anything to heal the hurts of his people living in a very low-income community, e.g., employment and affordable housing issues.  He realized that he needed to work both on personal and systemic healing by engaging his community.  Rev. Tillman said in reaching out with his community and working on numerous community felt issues, his congregation began to experience personal, congregational and community renewal. 

This is the story of an Anglo Pentecostal pastor!  Rev. Tillman's story remind us that congregational transformation is not rocket science.  There is no easy blueprint or short-term fix to transform our congregations and communities.  It takes vision, energetic and passionate leadership, and rolling up our sleeves and getting out of our cars to meet and build relationships with our neighbors, and working in partnership with our communities to address community felt needs

Sharing power, authority and leadership

I'm attending the Multicultural Church conference in San Antonio. I like to share with you the following comments made last night at the conference by the Rev. Jin S. Kim, founding pastor of the Church of All Nations, a multicultural PC(USA) congregation in Columbia Heights, MN. 

“The multicultural church movement must not be one more desperate attempt by white churches trying to co-op ethnic minorities for its own institutional preservations,” Kim said. “We do not confer dignity on ethnic minorities if we say, ‘OK, we’ve tried white flight in the suburbs, we tried first steps and mailings and friendship evangelism and every possible thing. OK, so since the wedding banquet is still empty, now let’s go get the lepers and the blind and the poor and the lame and see if we can preserve our white churches.’”   

Kim said Christians “in turn for eating the crumbs of white privilege” have turned their backs on groups such as African Americans and Native Americans who have been historically oppressed in the United States.

And in order for the multicultural movement to truly take hold, he said, “we really must make the multicultural church movement a genuine expression of the ministry of reconciliation in our time.”   (The quotes are from Presbyterian News Service)

Rev. Kim's words are powerful, insightful and prophetic.  Developing multicultural congregations and ministries is not simply a matter of just opening the church's doors and welcoming "new folks," but about possibly stepping aside if not stepping back and learning how to share leadership, power and authority with our brothers and sisters.  Food for thought.

Organizing Hope

The title of this blog comes from an article in the April 2008 issue of Sojourner magazine that talks about Barack Obama's three years of working as a community organizer on the south side of Chicago.  The article describes how community organizers like Barack work to tap the resources of the church and the community, not just their financial and human resources but also the power of hope to rebuild communities.   At the same time of this publication, the Rev. Henry G. Brinton, pastor of Fairfax Presbyterian Church in Fairfax, VA wrote an article titled "Faith and Power" in the March 31, 2008 issue of Presbyterian Outlook. Rev Brinton talks about faith-based community organizing and how his congregation along with other Presbyterian congregations across the country are working together through the 170 + faith-based community organizations to "work on behalf of the poor and the working poor, and all are helping people of faith to become comfortable with exercising power."  Recently, the Jewish Fund for Justice and the Unitarian Universalist Association developed resources to help their synagogues and congregations learn more about faith-based community organizing and how it can help strengthen and renew the life of their congregations and communities. 

Barack's presidential campaign has elevated the subject of faith-based community organizing to a higher level of media coverage.  Many folks think that faith-based community organizing is new work but it has been around for more than 50 years.  I am proud to be part of the Presbyterian Church (USA) because it has played an integral part in the development and growth of faith-based community organizing in the US and overseas. 

The articles from Sojourner and Presbyterian Outlook demonstrate that faith-based community organizing transcends left and right theology, that it embraces doing both evangelism and social justice, that it works in suburban, rural and urban communities, and that it organizes God's hope wherever it deeply roots itself.

Building relationships

This is my first step into the world of blogging.  It's a whole new world for me because I tend to prefer meeting and talking with folks personally, one on one.  I accept this new reality because this is the way some folks prefer to do their communication and it does reach a larger mass of folks quickly.  But there is still significant value in relationship building.  In the arena of community organizing, doing one on ones is the foundation for building relationships and building a broad based organization of people to address deeply felt community issues.

I just read in the latest issue of Presbyterian Today about the new church called Hot Metal Bridge.  In this article, it says that when the two founders of Hot Metal Bridge met with the Presbytery of Pittsburgh to discuss their vision for this new church, the Presbytery said that one of its expectations was that they had to go out into the highways and byways and meet and talk to 100 new folks each week.  This is what it means to do one on ones!  This organizing methodology of building relationships one by one was the same strategy employed in the  development and growth of Saddleback Church and Willow Creek Church. 

So when I meet with many urban, rural or smaller membership churches and propose to them that they go out into their neighborhoods to meet their "new" neighbors as part of their congregational transformation process, I usually face great resistance.  Some of these churches prefer to send out fliers, develop a more sexy web page, or have some kind of community event but one that will be held within the church's four walls or grounds.  Anything else but going out to meet their neighbors one on one. 

Relationship building is a key component of community organizing, new church development and congregational transformation.  It's not easy work but it's also not rocket science!