Bilingual...sort of.

Conversations was not a misleading title for this weekend's event; there were indeed many conversations.  Some were enlightening, some challenging, some inspiring, some irritating.  I had conversations with people I've known since my first entrance into the RCA in 1999 and people whose names I've never heard.  This crazy melange of perspectives and contexts is the RCA, and I was deeply grateful for the value we place in face to face gatherings.  Even as we grow and change, we still feel fairly small at times like these, when I realize how rare it is to have such personal access to the leaders of one's denomination, and to be asked to lend our voices to a chorus of witnesses as we try to discern a path that we can travel together, despite all of our differences.  

One thing Conversations was not for me, however, was comfortable.  I didn't really realize why it was uncomfortable until I shifted into the meetings of the Commission for Women yesterday.  The CFW is comfortable for me.  I've been serving on it for six years.  The work and the people are familiar.  More than that, within that group, we speak a common language.  Our contexts and experiences are different, but at least in terms of our work together, we share common values.  The ways that we speak about God and faith are not identical, but they are relatable.  We don't have to do much explaining of terminology or concepts.  If we're not entirely on the same page on everything, at least we understand each other.  I can speak freely in the way that I do in my daily life and ministry and people get it.  I get it when they do the same.  

During Conversations, however, this was not true for me.  The language used in worship carried a masculine and triumphalist view of God that is just not at all the way we speak and sing about God in my congregation.  The majority of my small group spoke about God and faith in a way that I would liken to my experience of speaking German: once upon a time, I spoke it frequently and well, but I am massively out of practice after several years of not speaking it.  It wasn't my first language, and I rarely use or encounter it now.  When I hear it, it takes me time to wrap my head around it, and my efforts at communicating in it are stiff and limited. 

Most of my small group members spoke the language of popular evangelical Christianity.  I spent my first formative years as a Christian, in college, speaking that language.  It's not entirely foreign to me, but it's not a language I've used for several years.  They spoke a lot about reaching the lost and unchurched, leading people to Christ, saving souls, evangelism, and reproducing churches.  I can't tell you the last time I've heard any of those phrases in my own context.  We talk about community engagement, proclaiming the Gospel in word and action, relational ministry, justice, and revitalizing churches.  They refer to God as "Father" and "He" (even the Spirit, which puzzles me).  We sing the traditional trinitarian formula in the Doxology and speak it in the Apostles' Creed, but work in some feminine and gender-neutral metaphors as well, and generally avoid overly gendered language for God.

As a result, my experience at Conversations was one of filtering.  Filtering what came in, so that I could understand and embrace the parts of that language that communicated things about God and faith that were good and relatable for me and my community.  And filtering what came out, so that I could be understood by those who find my classic-Reformed-meets-social-progressive God language just as alien as I find theirs (or more so, since many of them probably don't have as much experience in my world as I have in theirs).

Frankly, it was exhausting, and I don't think I did all that well at either.  And since this foreign language was the one used in worship and our large group sessions (along with the corresponding monocultural worship style of loud, leader-focused praise music), I find myself wondering if the language I speak is being phased out of or excluded from the gatherings of the RCA as a whole.  I wonder if I will ever again go to a General Synod worship service and hear language that I don't have to filter or translate.  And because I don't think it's really good for any of us to remain in pockets of people who share our language and values all the time, I wonder if we can learn to speak "bilingually" to each other?

50 Ways to Reach People for Christ

I need to give a preface to this post.  I really am not trying to pick on the church multiplication people.  Really.  I am all for new churches where they are needed, and the church planters I meet at General Synod and other RCA events are some of the most energetic, creative, fun people around.  One of the most inspiring conversations I had at Conversations was with a pastor whose church is very focused on multiplication, whose intentional leadership development process is so amazing that I want to steal it and implement it in my own congregation tomorrow.  I took the church planter assessment myself, found it to be tremendously helpful, and perennially consider launching a second campus from my own congregation.  I AM NOT AGAINST NEW CHURCHES.  Okay?  It's just become such a huge part of our denominational focus that sometimes it draws some critical reactions.  When I post things like I am about to post, I am hoping for engagement around these ideas, so yes, I sometimes speak strongly from a critical perspective, so that you care about coming back at me about it.  Please, consider that an invitation.  All of that said...   

The phrase I've heard most often in the last three days is: "Planting new churches is the most effective way to reach people for Christ."  It is fast becoming my least favorite phrase, partially because I have yet to see any substantiating evidence (although I'd be open to seeing some if any of you have it), and partially because I'm not even sure exactly what it means.  The truth of it is widely assumed and strongly defended, even though the only support most people can give for it is anecdotal.  And maybe it is true in their experiences, and in their contexts.  

Anecdotally speaking from my own context, "the unchurched" (who we just call "people") in my area are not looking around for a new church to open its doors so they can hear the Gospel without the trappings of traditional Christianity.  They don't really care if the church is new or old, if it has an organist pounding out old hymns or a snazzy contemporary praise band, if the pastor wears a robe and preaching tabs or jeans and a t-shirt.  They often have respect for church because of its ties to their parents or grandparents, but its not a felt need in their own lives, even if the church has some kind of water or tree reference in its name.  They're just not all that interested.  They don't think the church does anything they really want to be a part of.  That doesn't mean that being part of a church wouldn't be good for them; it just means that planting a church probably isn't going to be effective in reaching most of them.  For the people I work with, church is a few stops down the line; it's not the way you're going to get them on the train.

Planting a new church can be AN effective way to reach people for Christ.  There are lots of other ways as well, and these are some of them, gleaned from the ministries of churches and individuals in my area.

1. Build a genuine relationship.

2. Mentor a child.

3. Run a food pantry.

4. Be kind to someone who treats you badly.

5. Visit someone in prison.

6. Open your church to groups in need of meeting space.

7. Host a 12-step program.

8. Provide meals for the hungry.

9. Shovel mud out of a flooded home.

10. Tell someone about your faith journey.

11. Facilitate a spirituality discussion group in a coffee shop or bar.

12. Open your home to difficult foster children.

13. Lobby for issues of systematic or political justice.

14. Support a local not-for-profit.

15. Invite a friend to church.

16. Send a child to summer camp.

17. Run a neighborhood day camp.

18. Deliver needed items to people suffering from HIV/AIDS.

19. Form a partnership with a social service agency.

20. Open an emergency shelter.

21. Sing in a long-term care facility for the elderly or disabled.

22. Provide low-cost daycare or babysitting services.

23. Volunteer with Hospice.

24. Build a home with Habitat for Humanity.

25. Stop to talk with a person who is homeless or begging for money.

26. Speak to local government officials about poverty, hunger, or housing issues.

27. Help with disaster relief.

28. Really listen to someone going through a crisis.

29. Start an after school program.

30. Open your youth group to teenagers who aren't church members...and make it a group they'd want to be part of.

31. Go on a mission trip.

32. Don't tell people you're trying to "reach them for Christ."  In fact, don't try.  Just be the Christian you are and share your life.

33. Listen to someone who doesn't believe what you do.

34. Sponsor an immigrant family.

35. Teach job skills to women who have suffered domestic abuse.

36. Donate good clothing (not the worn out, dirty, holey stuff you can't use; maybe even something new)

37. Host a support group for the recently divorced or widowed.

38. Adopt a family at Christmas or Thanksgiving.

39. Bring a hot meal to a community of street people.

40. Offer child care to a single parent so she/he can shop, sleep, read a book, etc.  

41. Mow the lawn or shovel the walk for a sick or injured neighbor.

42. Be kind to a disgruntled server or cashier.  Don't skimp on the tip, especially when you are obviously having post-church brunch.

43. Stand up for someone who is being harassed, bullied, or oppressed.

44. Partner with a group home.

45. Engage youth and young adults in service and community transformation.

46. Publicly appreciate your police and fire departments.

47. Speak about your faith in a way that is both honest and respectful of differences.

48. Host a provocative speaker in your church.

49. Build cooperative relationships with other churches, faith communities, agencies, and government officials in your community.

50. Offer or support programs that help people find pathways to freedom, health, and wholeness from addiction, prostitution, mental illness, gangs, and abusive relationships.

Got more?  This is just a beginning!

Conversation?

This week many of us will be gathering in Orlando for the Conversations event.  I'm excited to see everyone and to engage in what I hope will be a fruitful discussion and discernment process.

I'm hearing quite a bit of anxiety, however, from people who couldn't go because of finances, time away from church and family, etc.  Conversations has been set up as The Place where decisions will be made about denominational direction for the next decade.  Those who are already not so crazy about Our Call are especially concerned that, once again, the needs and realities of their ministries will be ignored and excluded.  As I listen to people in my area and other, similar contexts talk about what they hope will and will not come of Conversations, there is one big, common, "will not" hope that comes up over and over.  It's a hope that seems unlikely to be realized, given the current state of things and the keynote speaker who was chosen, but it's a hope anyway: we hope that the over-emphasis on church multiplication, and the resulting minimization and exclusion of other types of ministry, will not be part of the plan from here forward.

Let me explain.

None of us are opposed to new church starts.  We believe they *can* be an effective way to reach people, and are sometimes needed.  That said, we have some concerns (and this is where I'm going to shift to speaking only for myself, and let others voice their own concerns separately).  

1. One of the things I often hear around the RCA is some variation on the theme, "Living things reproduce," meaning that a church that is alive will be planting other churches.  Conversely, a church that is not planting other churches is implied to be dead.  There are numerous things this line of thinking doesn't take into account.  

First, many of our churches are in rural areas where planting another church isn't necessary or practical, or areas where there are already plenty of churches (I'll come back to the church planting in western Michigan phenomenon).  It is entirely possible that a church would decide that it is simply not in anyone's best interest for them to be involved in starting a new church, and that their energy and resources should be focused elsewhere.  Second, many of our churches are dealing with limited resources that they are already stretching to serve their own communities.  It may not be good stewardship to direct those resources toward a new church.  Third, there are many ways to "reproduce."  A church might be reproducing justice, or peace, or other Gospel works, without reproducing a new congregation.  Fourth (and I've touched on this before), that kind of language can be profoundly hurtful to people who are infertile, single, or simply don't have children.  Are your childless parishioners dead?  Do you really want to communicate to them that they are useless?  Do you really want to tell congregations that are doing faithful ministry that happens not to include starting new congregations that they have no value to the world, that they are dead?  I hope not.

2. We seem to be doing a lot of new church starts in areas that are already abundantly supplied with churches.  Who is going to these new churches?  Often, people who have left other churches in the area.  So, instead of supporting and improving existing congregations, we're giving people an excuse to leave them when things get tough, or simply don't go their way.  Instead of equipping congregations to do better ministry, we're stripping them of people and finances.  Instead of encouraging people to think about the church as a covenant community where we stick it out and work together toward a collective future, we're showing them that the grass can always be greener at the shiny new church down the street.  Ugh.

3. Numbers are the big thing in church multiplication - numbers of churches, numbers of members.  But this focus on how many and how much reduces the Gospel and Christ's call on our lives to getting more people to church.  There are SO many more ways to proclaim the Gospel in word and action.  I don't want us to stop providing places for people to gather, worship, and experience the Word and Sacraments, but it would be nice if we also recognized and supported those places that have been doing that for a long time, rather than telling them that they're dead.

4. So about those numbers, and our obsession with them: this seems to me to be a symptom of deep institutional anxiety about our own survival.  Understandable, given the decreases in recent years, but do we really want the center of our identity to be about self-preservation?  That doesn't seem to me to reflect the attitude of self-giving and lack of fear of death that I think is a hallmark of Christian faith.  

Let me reiterate: I am not at all opposed to new church starts.  I've considered being part of them myself.  I see great things happening in some of them, like the City churches.  But I am going into Conversations hoping for something more, something that doesn't leave many of our churches feeling ignored and downtrodden, something that inspires all of our congregations and members to live into God's particular calling for their lives, whether that has anything to do with starting a new church or not.

The PC(USA) Way?

I was saddened this week to see that a new Presbyterian denomination has been formed, the Evangelical Covenant Order of Presbyterians.  The ECO will allow PC(USA) congregations to be associated with them but remain members of the PC(USA), to seek joint association with both denominations, or to leave the PC(USA) and become full members of the ECO.  I wasn't saddened out of any sense of inherent good or bad in either denomination, but rather because of the break in relationships and the grief my Presbyterian friends are feeling over their fractured community.  

I'm also paying special attention to this shift because we in the RCA share many of the same tensions over biblical interpretation, especially where it relates to the church's treatment of LGBT persons.  I often wonder if we are headed down a similar path, although as a smaller (and sometimes more familial-feeling) denomination, some of our dynamics are different.  Unity is a high value for me, but it seems like many of my brothers and sisters are close to the point where they will not in good conscience be able to remain in the RCA unless we come to a firm and final decision to declare homosexuality a sin, and same-sex marriage and ordination of LGBT persons to be unacceptable.  I understand their perspective, although I don't share it.  I have close friends who hold that perspective, and personally, I'd rather struggle with them and remain in communion than split.  But the PC(USA) news and some of the talk I hear around the RCA makes me wonder if split is inevitable.

Given past responses on this blog, and the tension that currently goes along with this topic, I may be inviting a fight here, but that's not what I'm looking for.  Rather, I'm curious about what others think about the future of the RCA, especially as the Conversations event approaches.  What are your thoughts about the split in the PC(USA)?  Why is unity a value for us, and at what point might other values take priority over it?  Can we continue to function as a denomination while disagreeing with one another over this and other issues?  If so, what changes might we need to make for that to happen well?  As I think more about this, I'll try to respond to my own questions in the comment section.    

Thoughts on the Conscience Clauses

I've spent the last few days at the meeting of the Commission for Women, where we spent a good deal of time discussing the so-called "conscience clauses."  For those unfamiliar with them, these are sections of the BCO that prohibit obstruction of the ordination of women, but allow for those opposed to women's ordination to absent themselves from it on the grounds of their conscience.

The conscience clauses have in some ways allowed for unity over the last thirty or so years, providing us a way to live together despite our disagreement in this matter.  I'm all about unity.  I believe we're called to it as the Church.  But I've been struggling this week with what kind of unity we really have under the conscience clauses.

I've been thinking about baptism.  We baptize boys and girls alike with the same liturgy, the same words promising to instruct them in the truth of God’s word, in the way of salvation through Jesus Christ; to pray for them, to teach them to pray; and to train them in Christ’s way by example, through worship, and in the nurture of the church.  The congregation promises to love, encourage, and support them by teaching the gospel of God’s love, by being an example of Christian faith and character, and by giving the strong support of God’s family in fellowship, prayer, and service.  In baptism we treat girls and boys the same.  We say that the same love, encouragement, and support will be given.  We imply that we will give girls the same value in the church that we do boys.

Then some of those girls try to get ordained.

Suddenly the same pastor who presided over those promises tells a young woman she'll have to join another church if she wants to be a candidate for ministry, since her own church family doesn't believe in women's ordination.  Or the classis examines her more harshly than her male classmates in an attempt to scare her away.  Or she is verbally attacked by male seminary classmates who tell her she has no business being there.  Or several of the men in her classis refuse to participate in her examinations or ordination.  Or church after church declines to interview her because she's not the <i>man</i> they are looking for.  Or she stands up to give a report at General Synod and has to face another minister waving a Bible in her face and remarking that he sees no women in leadership within it.  

It's their consciences, you see.  

I love the RCA and do not regret joining or being ordained in it.  But there are days when I wonder if I should recommend it to other women who are called to ordination.  There is sexism in other denominations, of course.  But we continue to have it written right into our consitution.  We take baptismal vows to these girls.  We tell them that this is a denomination that values women, that encourages their full participation in the life of the church, that ordains them.  And then we slap them around for daring to believe that's true.  It seems to me that we should be honest with ourselves and with them.  If we're going to ordain women, let's ordain women.  If we're not, well, I'm pretty sure we've already made that decision, but if we're not going to follow it, then let's stop claiming we treat women as equals.  There are too many cases when we don't.