The Church as Lapidary

I was listening, online, to the presentation of Gradye Parsons, our General Assembly Stated Clerk, addressing the Eastern Regional Benefits Conference of the Board of Pensions. Gradye was talking about the state of the church and challenging his listeners using the Apostles’ Creed as his framework. He said, And this whole forgiveness of sins, this whole relationship thing that’s in the Church where, you know, you bump against me and I bump against you and we have to get sore about it and bruised and all this stuff and work through all of those things. This reality of forgiveness and living into forgiveness. It’s hard work. It’s hard work to be in relationships. And that’s what the Church is about. Is being in relationships with each other. To care for each other. To accept each other for the broken people that we are and realize that we are accepting each other because God is accepting us for the broken people that we are.

That statement caused my mind to jump to a sermon illustration I had used a few time. The object for that illustration was a lapidary. One of those stone tumblers which polishes the stones. Even old river rock can become smooth and beautiful after enough time in the lapidary.

In the lapidary, along with a few stones, are grist and water. Over time, as the lapidary turns, the stones bump against each other. The rough edges are chipped off and the grit polishes the stones.

Have you ever thought about the Church as a lapidary where, as Gradye said, …you bump against me and I bump against you and we have to get sore about it and bruised and all this stuff and work through all of those things. In the everyday life of the church we are constantly bumping into each other. In a healthy way, we are knocking the rough edges off each other. When we engage in sharing different perspectives on Scripture, various issues and projects with the grit of Holy Spirit we are being polished into being more faithful disciples.

If it were not for the lapidary of the church we would forever be just plain old river rocks. The small and large conflicts we encounter, if we are open to it, is all part of our development and growth. Where are you bumping up against another and finding small chips of your rough edges being smoothed off. As Teaching Elders and Commissioned Ruling Elders, what are your rough edges, and are you willing to stay in the lapidary long enough to become more smoothed and polished? Or, as soon as the tumbling begins, do you start to look for another place where there is not so much bumping against others? Do you embrace the diversity of thought and action, or do you only want to be with like-minded folks?

The Great Secret

In every congregation there is a great secret. Some are in on the secret. Most do not know the secret, especially the minister. If the minister is bold enough to ask about the secret, or to stealthily go looking for the secret information, they might find the drawer slammed shut on their fingers by the guardians of the great secret. Even if the congregation uses a data program like Servant Keeper, Church Windows, the minister usually does not have access to some of the data so the great secret can be maintained. Keeping the great secret away from the minister implies a distrust of the minister and casts doubts upon the pastoral integrity of the minister.

Ministers new in their service usually want a clear empirical answer to the great secret. Ministers with some tenure in service are usually about to intuit the answer to the great secret. The great secret is not about sex, politics or theology. The great secret is about………money. In most situations it is a strongly held belief and practice that the minister should not know how much any individual or family gives to the church. Some ministers declare, “I don’t want to know.” My question is, “Why not?”

After some years serving a congregation a minister will know some of the most intimate and embarrassing details of the lives of members of the congregation. Marital problems, problems with children, addictions, failures in business, faith crises, foreclosures, sexual dysfunctions are all things a minister eventually comes to know. Yet, the one big secret of who gives how much is stringently guard, lest “the preacher should know.”

As a pastor, we are to help people grow in faith and to live more faithfully. There is no part of our being and doing which is separated from our faith. It is said when Constantine had his soldiers baptized they were to hold their right arm and their sword up out of the water so they would be free to kill in battle. It seems today that we hold our wallet out of the water so we are free from applying our faith to it. If helping people grow in faith and to live more faithfully is our task doesn’t that include their giving?

Which of us would go to the doctor for our annual physical and tell the doctor, “You can prod and probe even the most intimate parts of my body, but you can’t know my blood pressure?” For a physician, knowing a patient’s blood pressure is not the only data they need, but it is critical data in determining our physical health. Knowing a congregants level of financial support of the church is not the only data a pastor needs, but it is critical data in assessing spiritual health.

What was it Jesus said, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also?” (Mt 6.21 NRSV) Ministers, will not break the seal of the great secret, but why is it so important to keep the secret?

Rest IS a Weapon

How many hours a week should a pastor work? Every minister and every congregation will, at one point or another, ask this question. Ministers are weary of hearing the joking jab, “You only work one hour a week.” Yes, it is said jokingly, but behind the joke is a serious question/ concern about just what is it pastors do and how long does it take to do it. Just how long does it take to write a sermon and the accompanying liturgy? “Don’t you just get that stuff out of a book or off the internet?” For the diligent pastor that last one really hurts.

In my observation, the issue is not that the pastor works too few hours. The issue is working too many hours. Unless a minister leaves town and leaves their cell phone at home, a minister is never off the clock. Even when on a date with one’s spouse, if the cell phone rings the pastor is expected to answer the call. If the call involves a personal crisis for the person on the other end of the call the pastor is expected to respond appropriately. Responding may mean having to leave your date to find a quiet and less public place to hear the person out and to give the necessary reassurances. Responding may mean having to end the date and make a trip to the hospital to be with the family of a person facing emergency surgery or end of life issues.

That sermon for the next Sunday is always on the pastor’s mind, even when not frontally active. When enjoying an evening home watching the TV or reading a book the sermon is simmering on the back burner. A word, a scene, a paragraph can suddenly bring the sermon off the back burner to the front burner and to a galloping boil.

Much of a pastor’s work is hidden except from those to whom the pastor is ministering. The pastor cannot go about telling others the story of having sat for hours with the distraught parents of a teenager who was arrested for drug possession. The pastor cannot begin to describe the personal emotional and spiritual toll in preparing for the funeral of very close member of the congregation. For pastors, in more rural areas, it may take two, three, or more hours driving each way to visit a member in an acute care hospital in “the city.”

In the Robert Ludlum novels featuring Jason Bourne a frequent refrain of Bourne is “Rest is a weapon.” It is Bourne’s contention, in any struggle or conflict, the person who is the most rested has the advantage. In the Gospels, Jesus and the disciples periodically pulling away from the fray for rest and prayer. If we look to the account of the Fall, arduous work is one of the consequences associated with being expelled from the garden. If we look at Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus invites those who labor and are overburdened to find rest in Him. Jesus redeems the negative consequence of arduous labor inviting us to rest.

Pastors and congregation members, rest is not optional for the pastor. Rest is essential. The pattern is set for us in the creation account where God rested. Every day, pastors are in contention with powers and principalities of this world as they seek to minister to those they have been called to serve. Taking at least one day a week for rest and re-creation is essential. Taking an extended vacation each year is essential.

Those who continually work 10-12 hours a day, seven days a week and fifty-two weeks a year are not doing themselves nor the congregation they serve any favors. Such a pattern is a failure in the stewardship of self. Such a pattern rejects the gift of Sabbath. Such a pattern is to ignore Jesus’ invitation to rest.

Jason Bourne had it right. Rest is a weapon. In any struggle or conflict the one most rested has the advantage.

Holy Hell Week and Low Sunday

It is Tuesday of Holy Week. Get some rest now for the marathon of worship services of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday. I remember feeling so exhausted by the end of the Easter worship I began to refer to the week as holy hell week. There was generally a minimum of three worship services to prepare and as many homilies or sermons to be written and delivered. One community in which I served had an early morning breakfast each day of Holy Week, which meant that five of the ministers had one more presentation to prepare for the breakfast.

In another congregation in which I served there were three deaths in the congregation during Holy Week, including the death of an infant. I had never had the experience of trying to minister to a family in such a circumstance. That truly was one holy hell week.

How do we bring a new word during this annual drama? The script never changes. Everybody in the pews has a minimal working knowledge of the four acts or movements of the Holy Week octave. Yet, each year we work hard to make it all fresh and deeply soul touching so it crescendos into the Easter acclamation “Alleluia! Christ is Risen!”

Bruce Reyes Chow postulated, in 2011, that we should not make such a big deal out of Easter in his blog titled, Why Easter Worship Service Should Be Nothing Special. It is clear to see why the Sunday after Easter is typically called “Low Sunday.” The preacher takes the Sunday off to recuperate from the physical and spiritual exhaustion. The fanfare and exuberance of the musicians is spent. The crowd has dispersed. The faithful few are the only ones in attendance. Compared to the week before, the whole worship experience feels flat, but does it need to be?

Isn’t every Sunday an Easter Sunday? Isn’t each Sunday called The Lord’s Day? Aren’t we in the liturgical season of Eastertide? What if each Sunday we began with the call and response, “Christ is risen!” “He is risen indeed!” What if worship began with strong, lively, rafter shaking music? What if preachers did not take the Sunday off? What if our worship was a startling as was Jesus’ appearances to the disciples?

Preachers, musicians, worshippers maybe we need to tone down Easter Sunday and amp up the Sundays after Easter.

Caught in the Middle, Again

Over the years I have observed an unspoken but very real tension involving pastors and congregants. There are plenty of areas for there to be tensions: politics, theology, external versus internal orientation, chaplaincy or mission, contemporary or traditional worship, and the lists go on. Each pastor can list their own series of tension areas. Yet, there is one in which the pastor is caught and very well may not have the first inclination of its reality.

For a while I thought this tension was peculiar to western Pennsylvania. Upon reflection on other areas of the country where I have served, I now think it is far more pervasive in the Church and across the country. As a pastor, as a member and chair of the Committee on Ministry, and as a General Presbyter (kind of like a Methodist District Superintendent) I have had ample opportunity to observe this cloaked tension. Regardless of congregational size or location this tension is not actually between the pastor and members of the congregation, but the pastor is definitely caught in the tension.

The tension is visible with the annual review of pastoral compensation, or when the pastor asks permission to go on a spiritual retreat for some decompression time. Listen in the corridors or in the parking lot and you will hear comments about the pastor being paid too much; “we don’t get four weeks of vacation after only a year on the job;” “I don’t get paid mileage;” “Don’t they learn enough in seminary? Why do they need continuing education time and funding;” “Now, the pastor wants more time off the job to gaze at their navel.”

The tension in the life of the congregation is between those with a labor or management mindset. There are those in the congregation with what I call a management or owners perspective. Likewise there are those with what I call a labor perspective. Before I go further, let me admit to using stereotypes and not disparaging any particular people or status. Those with a management or owners perspective tend to view the pastor as an employee. Those with this perspective typically want the most production for the least cost and with the least lost time. Those with a labor perspective tend to view the pastor as upper management, and “everybody knows they are paid too much for what little they do.”

Therefore, pastoral compensation and down time are suppressed by each perspective. If asked nobody in a congregation would admit to functioning from either perspective. Yet, listening to comments and observing attitudes the hidden management/labor perspectives function in the life of the congregation. It is possible for both perspectives to be voiced by the same congregants depending on the situation. There are very few voices from comparable “professionals” in the life of a congregation who will champion the cause of the pastor.

What is a pastor to do? There is little which can be done, other than to realize it is another of the tensions/binds which come with pastoral ministry.

The Detroit Presbyterian Council

In a little more than two months Presbyterians will gather in the supreme Council of our denomination. Teaching Elders (ministers) and Ruling Elders will gather much the same as the leaders of the early church gathered in Jerusalem, as did the Council of Nicaea, the First and Second Vatican Councils, and the myriad Councils of the Church throughout history. The one commonality among all the Councils is each convened amid controversy. Controversy will certainly mark the Council of Presbyterians which will meet in Detroit.

Some are referring to the three Ms before the General Assembly this year: Marriage, Mid-Councils and Middle East. The Council will make a decision as to whether to send to the presbyteries a constitutional amendment on changing the definition of marriage. The Council will decide whether to reduce the number of synods from sixteen to eight. The Council will add it voice to issues centered on Israel & Palestine. Any one of the three Ms could warrant the Council’s singular attention without the three being lumped into one meeting.

I believe there is a fourth and fifth M which are at the center of the Council of Presbyterians’ concerns. The two additional Ms are members and money. These two Ms are the epicenter of our collective anxiety. The issues of members and money are directly related to the other three Ms. Some of the largest congregations in the denomination have withdrawn or are in the process of withdrawing to other denominations, because of previous decisions of the General Assembly, members and money are drained from the denominational statistics and coffers.

I have lost track of how many Assemblies it has been since we have not begun the Council meeting with the question, “Is this the year when we will be torn apart?” In fact, following each General Assembly meeting there have been, and will be, those whose disagreement with a particular decision motivates them to seek another spiritual home. The last six decades have seen some the most serious fracturing of the Presbyterian Church, in this nation, since the division into the Northern and Southern branches. Since 1967 we have witnessed the rise of the Presbyterian Church in America, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church and the Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians. With each fracture members and money are the real generators of our anxiety.

We will gather in Detroit with three Ms as the presenting issues and the two other Ms are the true sources of our anxiety. How much will our anxiety drive the decisions of the Council?

The Voice & Preaching

Tonight I was watching The Voice, again. Once again, I am super impressed with Usher as a judge and as a coach. His vibe seems so real and supportive of his team members. While watching The Voice, I was also on my Facebook page. A friend, Steve Fleming, recommended an article from the Ministry Today magazine and I read the article while watching/listening to The Voice. (http://ministrytodaymag.com/index.php/ministry-leadership/preaching/20795-how-much-sermon-preparation-time-is-enough)  Another friend, Jan DeVries, was wondering if anybody plans to attend the Homiletics Festival in May.

My thoughts began to combine the two media. Like many/most/all preachers, I know there are times when I think nobody preaches as well as I do. When I am in worship and hear other preachers, my mind cannot help but fill in some spaces, use some different illustrations, and exude more or less energy in the delivery. Many times, I am also collecting points on style and content to consider using myself. Also, I know other preachers do the same when I am the one preaching. It is the blessing and curse of being a preacher with other preachers present.

I wonder if we could improve the preaching, in general, if we had a periodic "preach-off" like the blind auditions, coaching and a battle round? What if instead of seminary preaching classes, with peers tearing apart each other’s sermon content and presentation, the classes were done more like the coaches on The Voice working with their team members? The idea is not to crown the best preacher, but to give improvement “notes” for each and all. (Yeah, “Preaching is not a competition,” say most preachers.) Who are we kidding?

As Teaching Elders and Commissioned Ruling Elders, eighty percent of our exposure to fifty to seventy-five percent of the congregation members and visitors happens in the worship hour. If we cannot proclaim the word with sincerity, devotion, and energy how can we expect the people to express sincerity, devotion and energy in worship? Like a song, a sermon builds to a crescendo and holds the congregation there to the end. This is true for those which are rafter shaking and those which are so tender and sensitive a profound hush is the only possible response.

There are a lot of theories on both the content and delivery of sermons. There is validity in each. Like the singers on The Voice each of us has to find our voice, our style, for sermon construction and delivery. How can we help each other improve in the construction, content and delivery of our sermons? Would working with a personal preaching coach help? Would a preach-off help, challenging preachers to bring their best stuff all the while being humble enough to take the “notes” seriously? Whatever it takes I believe we need a serious effort to improve preaching, across the board.