Listening for God's Answers Rather than Worrying About Our Own

Discernment.

It's not the easiest sell in a fast-moving, "decision now" type world, yet I would hazard God speaks most clearly to us when we allow ourselves to ponder and more importantly listen attentively.

Over the past few weeks, I have been invited into a variety of church situations where decision making might seem best made "right here and right now".  The need for a quick fix or something to make the anxiety of the moment go away hurriedly is often the mode we operate in as human beings as well as institutions.  We do not want the pain or the uncertainty.  With these churches and leaders, I shared the good word of pausing, waiting and listening.  What might seem best in the moment does not necessarily lead us to the right paths, let alone "answers".  Wisdom comes in the slower and deliberative, not so much when we are rattled or feel like somebody mixed anxiety with Mountain Dew!

Peter Steinke, a popular author on family systems and congregational leadership, published two influential books:  How Your Church Family Works and the later volume Healthy Congregations.  While I learned a great deal from these earlier works, his later volume "Congregational Leadership in Anxious Times: Being Calm and Courageous No Matter What" helped me realize there's a lot of "noise" often going on within myself, often of my own devising.  Steinke's insights into understanding the anxious element helped me understand myself and in turn, the situations I was involved in as well as the personalities and behaviors of those around me.   (Note: Peter Steinke's books listed above are available via the Alban Institute.)

When we handle our anxiety, we begin to think with a clearer mind and gain some perspective.  We realize the energy we expend on frittering away nervously could be refocused into more constructive ways of thinking and acting.  (I often joke we tend to have so much energy tied up in worrying, a church could otherwise power Las Vegas for a few months.)

Clearing our heads leads to the ability to discern carefully what God is calling us to do next.  For congregations considering how to realign mission and vision or facing tough situations (i.e. pastoral transition, governance challenges, financial or property woes), handling the interior noise created by more anxiety-prone ways will open us to the possibilities before us and puzzling out the way(s) ahead.  We can listen for God more perceptively now that we've allowed ourselves to quiet down the nerves and interior chatter within.

What is God saying to us now that we are listening?

_______

NOTES:

To have a good conversation about tough questions, your regional ministry staff is available to come to your church and help out!  Dr. Kelsey offers a workshop around Gil Rendle's Journey in the Wilderness: New Life for Mainline Churches (Abingdon, 2009).  I am glad to come and speak with your leaders about strategic planning tools to rethink ministry and realign a church for missional purposes.  We are also available to assist with conflict resolution (Jim Kelsey) and understanding transition in churches and pastoral seasons of ministry (Jerrod).  All of these services are brought to you by your congregation's support of the Regional Offering and United Mission!

For books on discernment (personally or corporately), authors Judith Todd and Valerie Isenhower offer two great books from Upper Room Books:

Listening for God's Leading:  A Workbook for Corporate Spiritual Discernment
Living into the Answers:  A Workbook for Personal Spiritual Discernment

Upcoming oddities

Advent 2009
Weston Priory
Weston, Vermont

For many congregations, Rally Day and other signs of "beginning of Fall" around churches are taking place.  While our Sunday school teachers prepare classrooms for new learners, young and old alike, and the choir gears up to learn new anthems for upcoming services, the minister finds herself caught in the odd time known well to many long-time pastors, organists, choir directors, etc.   The trees will start saying "autumn" outside, yet in the church office and pastor's study, we start thinking about the upcoming season of Advent and Christmas.

When I worked for the Central Seminary Cokesbury bookstore, I soon learned the wisdom of having the Advent section well stocked by Labor Day.  For many students beginning the Fall term, they thought it an odd sight with the seasonal books and resources (and Advent candles!) right beside the rows of textbooks soon to be purchased (and the professors prayed, read this term!).

Yet for the graduates now in their pulpit callings, the alumni gratefully returned to the seminary bookstore to stock up for Advent planning.  For some, it was the first Advent they had to plan "solo" as ministers in small churches.  For others, they arrived with the mandate from worship planning committees to try something different and novel for the Advent/Christmas season.  And for a few, they just liked seeing what was new to the market this season in case a bright new set of liturgies, responsive readings, mini-dramas, sermon resources, etc., had arrived, ready to take their worship planning to new heights of creativity and inspiration.

And yes, Virginia, there would be some folks who called in a complete panic at the close of Friday business with the first Sunday of Advent that weekend, desperate for candles.

Advent planning is even more curious as the church sets up for Christmas by waiting.  Last month, back to school shoppers found Christmas trees awaiting to entice early sales.  Now the Halloween candy seems crammed in, with the Christmas garland at the ready to be the Kudzu of fall retail strategies.  When radio stations are selling ads in anticipation of the lucrative programming change to "Christmas Music Around the Clock" just after Thanksgiving dinner table scraps are tucked away in the fridge, what possible enticement can there be for a group of people who say no thanks to singing a raft of Christmas carols for four straight weeks?

Instead, visitors will encounter a strange lot who read stories from Matthew's gospel this lectionary year, and it doesn't sound instantly like the Charlie Brown Christmas special.  Cranky prophets will wilt the insta-Cheer most Americans associate with the time of year.  They will hear more from the grown-up Jesus in the Advent lections before they will hear a cry coming from the manger.

It's a bizarre and contrary spectacle, this Advent season of waiting, watching and not rushing ahead.

Happy Advent planning!

Parables of the Lost and Found

            In Luke's gospel, the narrative often lingers at the dinner table.  Indeed, a good meal in the gospel is often accompanied with a parable spun by Jesus.  Luke's fifteenth chapter is a good example of this sort of experience, where Jesus tells of the Kingdom/Reign of God and its subverting of the current order.  He often tells this good news to an assemblage of folks marginalized or rendered "less than" by the political, social and religious leaders.  Good news from Jesus is indeed good news for all!
            Unfortunately, the Pharisees never got the memo on this.  They see Jesus spending time with, heavens, even eating with people who the Pharisees know to be “sinners”.  They stand there aghast at how (yet again!) Jesus befriends those who ought to be kept at arm’s length.  So Jesus directly addresses the issues through three interlinked parables.  One is historically the more famous, yet read together, all three stories invite us into the parables of the lost and found.
            A lost sheep, a lost coin, a lost son: each of them might seem fruitless to search for, yet the woman, the shepherd, and the father never give up.  The Pharisees are told these stories as they see Jesus sitting among people they have considered “lost”.  To Jesus, these folks may be conflicted, may be rough around the edges, but as far as Jesus is concerned, they are “found”.  These people are not “those people”, that infamous phrase oft-heard when one group thinks another group inferior, suspect, or of little worth.   The parables point to this dinner crowd not as “undesirable riffraff” but beloved children of God.

         At the start of Luke 15, before the parables start rolling, one after the other, the Pharisees are off in the corner, grumbling.  The Greek text uses a word that harkens back to the days when Israel wandered in the wilderness and did not like much of their life, not least Moses’ leadership or the manna provided by God.  The Pharisees are not only grumbling to themselves, they are grumbling hopefully in the earshot of any passersby.
        Ironically, their chief grumble (“This person welcomes sinners and eats with them”) is exactly what Jesus wishes to be caught doing:  welcoming.  You see, the Greek word for “welcoming” or “to welcome” (prosdechomai) appears elsewhere in Luke’s writings when people are looking forward to God’s own visitation, when they are yearning to see God bring about comfort, hope, and an end to the woes of life.  The Pharisees see Jesus welcoming the seedy and unclean.  Jesus sees a group of people who really need to hear God’s welcome.
        Now, here in this story of “a dinner party for the unwelcome and the written off” appears this word where “welcome” means hospitality as well as hope.  When Jesus welcomes the sinners in, it is the gospel he preaches being acted out.  Indeed, he does welcome people, to table as well as to hear of the Kingdom of God.  As one Baptist New Testament scholar observes,  “Place Jesus at a dining table filled with all kinds of folk whom the religious tradition had rejected, and you will see Luke’s [gospel] clear and undiluted” (Linda McKinnish Bridges, The Church’s Portraits of Jesus, Smyth & Helwys, 1997, p. 68).

         Each of these three parables offers very little instruction about how one repents.  Each parable avoids moralizing, instead ending on a celebratory note.  The shepherd invites his friends to celebrate, the woman claims the angels dance in heaven above with joy, and the father throws one of the wildest parties the neighborhood has seen.  The lost are found by the God who is like a shepherd searching, who is like a woman diligently seeking, or who is like a father long pained by a child’s absence and now overjoyed at receiving the prodigal.
         In his recent and masterful commentary on the Gospel of Luke, scholar John T. Carroll observes, "The parables of Luke 15 are a vigorous attempt at persuasion (deliberative rhetoric); the third parable leaves the outcome in the hands of the Pharisees: will they be able to move beyond offense at Jesus' gracious hospitality toward the lost and join the party, symbol of the realm of God?"  (Luke: A Commentary, Westminster/John Knox Press, 2012, p. 319).

         The evangelist and American Baptist Tony Campolo shares a story of traveling by train around the United Kingdom.  He notices in his train car is a young man, looking ragged from what Campolo presumed was an annual rock music festival going on near that part of the country.  Oddly, the man has just one shoe on.
          Campolo asks the young man, "Sir?  Have you lost a shoe?"
          The young man replied, "No, man.  I found one!"

Lost in a good book

Recently, a religion journal excerpted poll data from a Barna study, noting pastors are "a group of professionals who, on average, buys 3.8 books per month per person—92% of whom buy at least one book per month—adding up to between 8 million and 13 million books per year. Compare that to the total population, where less than one-third (29%) of American adults buy more than 10 books in the course of a year."1

When I pointed out the much higher reading stats of clergy to my wife, she looked at me and said, "And what?  We seem to buy a book every week!"

Zing!

Okay, okay....I admit my spouse and I are avid readers.  In our new home, we have decided not to have a living room.  Instead, we call it our library.  As for those who helped us relocate this summer can testify, the Hugenot/Shermer (Shergenot?) household counts among its most prized possessions a good size religious studies section, a literature section, and by my wife's estimation, more than enough graphic novels and single issue comics than a grown man under 40 should own....

I read online book reviews as well as the weekly Book Reviews in the 6 lb. Sunday edition of the NY Times.  (I like the Sunday Times in the print, hence my joke about the weight of taking one home....)  I look through religious journals and clergy publications.  And thanks to eight years with Cokesbury (back in their brick n' mortar days sadly passed), I know how to trawl the "front lists" of various publishers to see what's new or coming soon to the market.

Our cats are named after books.  Hopeless, aren't we?

I find reading enlivens ministry.  It may seem counter-intuitive given the work load we often find ourselves navigating on a weekly basis, yet those times spent with a good book (comic or otherwise) improves our day to day living.  Also, an avid reader preacher finds ways to connect with stories and insights into our weekly preaching.

Ministry can be wearying, yet a good book can be the cure of the preacher's soul.  In times of writer's block, I find a book on something else frees my brain from thinking relentlessly about the Sunday sermon text.  You need to back up and let tension go sometimes.  Some weeks, though, I find a chance reading of something off topic sometimes nudges me homiletically in a different direction.  Reading a good book has yet to be counter-productive or less than edifying!

I invite my clergy readers (and lay folk book worms, too!) to consider their recent purchases or findings at used bookstores or while wandering their local branch of a public library system.  What book has really made you think?  What tome has sparked new insights?

I invite you to comment in the section below and share books you find enlivening (past and present!).


Footnotes:

1  Barna poll data analysis: https://www.barna.org/barna-update/congregations/613-reading-habits-of-today-s-pastors#.UiqZuOA_021

Remembering the March (and marching onwards!)

This week, Wednesday marks the 50th anniversary on the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.  Most famous for the historic speech given by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the "March on Washington" is a cultural touchstone of modern U.S. history.  With the establishment of a federal holiday in Dr. King's honor, it has become part of the rhythm of schools and colleges to include a King Day celebration, and with gaining popularity, a day of service where students are engaged in various forms of community activism and volunteerism.

With each passing year, the March on Washington becomes like all historical events.  The key players and the first-hand witnesses to the gathering begin to pass away.  Presently, Rep. John Lewis is the only major platform speaker still with us.  While he provides his speech for the anniversary gatherings, Rep. Lewis is adding to his legacy through telling his life story in graphic novel form. 

Envisioned as a three part series, Rep. Lewis recounts his upbringing in the South in the just published "March, Book One" volume (Top Shelf Productions, 2013, $14.95). 

 

Former President Clinton hails the author as one leading us "from a past of clenched fists into a future of out-stretched hands".  Lewis uses the frame of imparting his story to two young constituents who show up at his office on the morning of the 2009 inauguration of President Obama.  Wrapping his story around the present and the past makes good sense as Lewis has spent his years recounting his first hand experiences of segregation, desegregation and striding alongside Dr. King and other key Civil Rights leaders as they sought ways to smooth out the "stony the road [they] trod". 

As I explore March, Book I, I will share a more formal book review with the blog and my review work with the "Sharing the Practice" journal, the quarterly publication of the Academy of Parish Clergy.  The book is already making the rounds on best-seller lists in a few short days.  One hopes through the graphic novel medium, often considered just a format for the spandex clad superheroes, a new generation will discover the power of a story embodied in the life and witness of Rep. John Lewis.

Elsewhere in American Baptist circles, the General Secretary Rev. A. Roy Medley shares a pastoral letter on the March on Washington, readable via: http://www.abc-usa.org/2013/08/28/a-pastoral-letter-spurred-by-the-50th-anniversary-of-the-march-on-washington/

On the day, Dr. Medley was an invited guest, sitting in the eighth row of the 50th anniversary celebration at the Lincoln Memorial.  At the original gathering, we were well represented by various denominational representatives, seminarians, pastors and lay folks.  Dr. King and Rep. Lewis themselves are counted among our numbers as dually aligned members of ABCUSA and the NBC/PNBC groups.   A period publication noting ABC presence at the original March on Washington appears via this link:  http://www.abc-usa.org/2013/08/28/american-baptists-and-the-march-on-washington/

Also on the morning of the 50th anniversary celebrations, American Baptist affiliated congregation Shiloh Baptist Church in Washington, DC, provided the venue for an interfaith prayer service with speakers from various faith groups and dynamic worship music.  To stream the service, visit http://new.livestream.com/ShilohBaptistChurchDC/events/2353827

Spend time watching the original and the 50th anniversary speeches online. You'll find much to celebrate and some good reminders of what we Baptists join together with many diverse folks in seeking a just society and the beloved community.

Book Review: 7 Creative Models for Community Ministry

Over the years, I have contributed book reviews to a few journals. Most recently, I began serving as a book review contributor for Sharing the Practice, the journal for the Academy of Parish Clergy.  This journal is written by ministry professionals for a clergy and seminarian audience, so the book reviews tend to range from practical ministry books to academic texts exploring the different disciplines a minister should keep up with (biblical studies, historical/theological books, and other "weightier" matters).  

Recently, I prepared a review for the Fall 2013 issue of "Sharing the Practice", exploring a new book from Judson Press (the denominational imprint for the ABC/USA).   As a minister concerned for churches in need of revitalization, I believe this book will be of benefit to congregations, lay leaders and pastors, marshaling missional creativity with author Joy Skjegstad's experience and wisdom.  I invite you to read the review and consider this book in your church's mission.  You might never be the same after reading it!

Skjegstad, Joy.  7 Creative Models for Community Ministry.  Judson Press, Valley Forge, PA: 2013.  $16.99.  Available via www.judsonpress.org or your local independent bookstore!

               Ron Carlson, Missional Church Strategist, for the American Baptist Home Mission Societies, is a long-time advocate for churches to become missional, yet he asserts some of the groundwork must be laid to get congregants into the right mind set.  He refers to this effort as shaping a “mental model” for why missional differs from previous approaches to church ministry and mission.  Rather than paternalism or institutional support, Carlson challenges churches to study what it means to be in the immediacy of a mission field: their own communities.  Getting into the missional mindset starts reshaping the “givens” of how churches operate and function.  In other words, the church has to think differently as it endeavors to act missionally.

               While certain missional church texts tend to engage the theory, 7 Creative Models for Community Ministry offers a very hands-on, close to the ground approach.   Consultant Joy Skjegstad distills her years of experience journeying alongside client clergy and churches into the seven models for churches to consider.  Devoting a chapter to each, Skjegstad offers insight into ways a church might enter into community ministry.  These models include:  donate goods or money, mobilize volunteers, partner with other organizations, advocate around public policy, engage in community organizing, develop a ministry program, and create a church-based non-profit.

               What I admire most about Skjegstad’s approach is her advocacy for a very measured, tethered to reality approach to any of these creative models.  Before she fleshes out each model in the book’s middle section, Skjegstad offers her opening chapters for churches who do not wish to trip over their own feet, or worse, rush into poorly planned, clumsily executed projects.  She warns against insular thinking where churches presume to know what is needed or best yet wind up with the efforts fundamentally misguided at the outset.  She offers basic principles for beginning a community ministry project, built upon careful study and gathering consensus from within and beyond the church that the effort is needed and feasible.  She sends you off on journeys sometimes less considered by congregations:  sitting down with community stakeholders, public/private/non-profit sector leaders and experts, activists, etc.  She encourages churches to listen intentionally, knowing that it will be a humbling experience for some, as they realize their understanding of a community’s needs may have been outdated or misinformed.  Such work may be leavening for a congregation, aligning them more closely with their own neighborhoods than ever before.  Given the depletion of federal and state resources for assistance programs, creative community ministry projects are needed more than ever before.

               She encourages churches to dream yet not to skirt laying a foundation with some attention to the project’s aims and purposes.  For example, the first model involves donating goods or money. Skjegstad points out donations are often the first and only stop along the way to meeting those needs.  By starting with the most familiar, Skjegstad skillfully reframes the untapped potential churches have to explore by reading onwards in her book and considering different models to approach community ministry.  If they choose to do so, churches soon find themselves deepening the potential of their church’s efforts as a congregation, a missional team or collaborative partner.  Instead of repeating old habits, churches begin seeing their efforts in a new light.

               Skjegstad turns often to illumining narratives from the churches and pastors she has served as a consultant, telling the stories of churches addressing poverty challenges, helping expand the educational horizons of children and adult learners and other ways of reaching out to help the marginalized or disenfranchised.  From these stories, readers gain perspective for the possibilities of what a local church can do in community ministry as well as no end of encouragement as they move from reading this text and into the missional context where they live.

               The third section offers chapters on evaluation, seeking funding and keeping projects in perspective when being carried out by small membership congregations.  Skjegstad reminds frequently that congregations do not have to carry out projects on their own, and they strengthen these efforts when they partner.  She encourages frequent communication within the congregation to affirm where projects are developing as well as celebrating the milestones, great and small, along the way.  (Her thoughts on fundraising are covered in her prior book Winning Grants to Fund Your Ministry, published by the Alban Institute in 2007).

               Skjegstad offers an optimistic yet realistic approach to community ministry.  Following the first section’s wise advice to dream yet be well informed when considering community needs, a church can select a model for community ministry and take those first steps.  When moving in the right direction, churches will find new life and vitality from such missional endeavors.  Indeed, Skjegstad encourages us to be aware and attentive to the possibility that your community ministry project will beget opportunities for “hybrids”.   One project can delve into a community need’s related issues (i.e. a food pantry ministry leads a community ministry project to form around cooking skills courses or efforts to help persons with limited or fixed income to learn personal finance and budgeting principles, etc.).  Her suggestion about a non-profit organization starting up as part of a community ministry project is presented with some basic non-profit governance concepts, ensuring a careful reader will realize the extra complexity involved if this avenue is pursued.

               For a brief book, 7 Creative Models serves as a thought-proving, perspective reframing introductory text.  In her approachable prose, she invites churches to hear and see their communities anew.  The book is best kept close at hand, consulted frequently all along the way.  The testimony of community ministry-minded churches reminds us we are not alone in such work.  For congregations wishing to embrace their communities more intentionally, the fruitfulness and dividends of reading this text may be frankly immeasurable.

See Where It Takes You

In English and Karen, the banner proclaims "One in Christ"
at Tabernacle Baptist Church (Utica, NY)

Over the years, I have heard the persistent worry of the sinking of the American Baptist Churches/USA and its other mainline Protestant counterparts.  Since the mid-1960s, "decline" has been shaping the narrative we tell ourselves and one another.  The heady days of mid-1950s euphoria have faded away.  Worse, some Christians try our best to imitate what worked then.

 

In these early years of the 21st century, scholar Diana Butler Bass has championed the idea that mainliners aren't down for the count or gone into the night.  Bass' research points to a number of smaller to medium size congregations who are embracing spiritual practices that go way back in Christianity's history:  hospitality, welcome, compassion, prayer, service to others, discernment, listening intently to the Word, you name it.  

The ways Christians live out their faith may vary, yet in such intentional efforts to connect belief with action, gospel with mission, churches in local neighborhoods are finding new life and vitality.  Some of us call it "missional", and others may say, "We are getting closer to the core teachings and values of Jesus."  We learn to reach out into our neighborhoods with more care and less chance of misinformed paternalism.  We learn to journey alongside one another in Christian fellowship and learn how to be neighbors to the Other.  (More on this last count below.) 

Bass was once asked how to wade into such a way of living and acting out the faith.  She suggests we "pick one--one activity that tugs at  your heart...Start there.  Just one thing.  Not all of them.  Do one thing well, with passion, with depth, with openness and understanding.  Engage it intentionally, pay attention to the practice.  See where it takes you" (Christianity After Religion, HarperOne, 2012, p. 152).  With these building blocks in hand, congregations find new life and reinvest deepening meaning on the basics of why we believe and "live and move and have our being" in Christ (Acts 17:28).  

I was reminded this past Sunday of my readings of Diana Butler Bass and others when I spent the morning as the guest preacher of the Tabernacle Baptist Church of Utica, NY.  Over the years, Tabernacle has been the second longest ABC/USA congregation to have ministry and partnerships with the Karen, people originally from Burma/Myanmar who left the country due to the political climate there and immigrated to places all around the United States.   Like many other congregations, Tabernacle found Karen families arriving on their church steps in search of support and friendship.  

Associate Pastor Rev. Daniel Htoo
speaks at the beginning
of the Karen worship service.

Thirteen years ago, the first family arrived at Tabernacle, looking for help.  They knew where to look because of the long mission history ties between Burma and the American Baptist Churches/USA.  In fact, this year is the 200th anniversary of the arrival of missionaries Adorniram and Ann Judson in Burma to begin their mission.  After much hardship (and I would wonder if we could be as faithful), they began seeing the mission field slowly develop as they became accepted.  Deep faith practices are much evident in the making of these hardy servants of the Lord!

The Judson legacy gave these Burmese refugees their hope, arriving as the "children" of the Judsons many generations later, knowing that the American Baptists would be a welcoming body of believers.  Tabernacle itself is revitalized, with a present day Sunday morning schedule of an English service (with a high percentage of Karen attending) followed by a service in Karen. 

The church provides a variety of services through their facility, serving the many Karen living in the greater Mohawk Valley area.  Through such intentional practices of compassion, hospitality, and solidarity, the congregation's identity has changed and blossomed.  A Sunday morning service at Tabernacle shows how these basic ways of living the faith lead to the faith becoming incarnate in the care, friendships and shared mission. 

In 2008, Senior Pastor, the Rev. Dr. Mark Caruana was interviewed by PBS' Religion and Ethics Newsweekly.  He observes, "This is a congregation that's been willing to embrace a new group of people--have been willing to go with changes that set people's heads spinning.  There have been times when I've wondered if the whole thing would just kind of blow apart.  It hasn't yet, and actually I think we're at the best place we've been as a congregation in years." 

Another great element of Tabernacle is multiplying its mission through theological education partnerships.  The American Baptist Churches/USA provides teachers and educational offerings thanks to Duane and Marcia Binkley, two dedicated missionaries affiliated with American Baptist International Ministries and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, Central Baptist Theological Seminary (my alma mater in Kansas City!), and support from ABC NYS and other ABCUSA mission partners.  Tabernacle hosts sessions for Karen church leaders and pastors to build skill sets and enhance the various ministries.  The day before my visit to Utica, fifty-three attended a workshop at Tabernacle.

In Diana Butler Bass' words, see where it takes you!

+++++++

To learn more about Tabernacle Baptist, visit http://www.tbcutica.org/

To learn more about the Binkleys' work, visit http://www.karenkonnection.org.

To learn more about New York area Karen and other Burmese congregations, visit http://goo.gl/cYuF73

To learn more about ABC New York State, visit www.abc-nys.org. 

To learn more about Central Baptist Theological Seminary, visit www.abc-nys.org 
To learn more about Diana Butler Bass, visit www.dianabutlerbass.com