Complainers

A common experience of ministers is being the subject of complaints. Nothing breaks a pastor’s spirit more than complaints. Blessed is the pastor when one having a complaint comes to the pastor, face to face, to give voice to their complaint and is open to dialogue with the pastor about the source of the complaint. Cursed is the pastor when the infamous “they” are cited as having a complaint. “They are saying you do not visit enough.” “They are saying they are not being fed by your sermons.”

“They” is often used to indicate a quantifiable group in the congregation are dissatisfied. Frequently, the message carrier will resist naming who “they” are. “Well, pastor, I was told this in confidence, but I thought you ought to know. I would be betraying their confidence if I gave you their name.” How does one handle the complaints/dissatisfaction of nameless ghosts? Are “they” a couple of people or fifty percent of the congregation? Is the complaint legitimate or is it a matter of personal preference? Or is the complaint one which comes from a person who is a chronic complainer about everything and everybody? Besides, the vague “they” is a good screen behind which to hide, and seems to add weight to the complaint.

Complaining about those in religious leadership is not new. The exodus journey had not more than started and complaints began to be voiced to and about Moses. Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us, bringing us out of Egypt? (Ex.14.11) And the people complained against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink? (Ex. 15.24) The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness… when we sat by the fleshpots and ate our fill of bread; for you have brought us out into the wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger. (Ex. 16.2-3) And finally Moses responded to their complaining … (H)e has heard your complaining against the Lord. For what are we? Your complaining is not against us but the Lord. (Ex.16.8)

What would be the result if ministers were to use Moses’ response? Your complaining is not against us but the Lord. We say the call of a minister to serve a congregation is in response to the action of God. God is the leading influence in a particular pastor and a particular congregation coming together. The disease of complainers is that of “me-ism.” What I like or dislike is paramount. The yapping of complainers is most irritating and disheartening. Of course, that road runs both directions. The complaining of ministers about their congregation or particular individuals is demoralizing to the congregation or individuals.

What if we all, members and ministers were to seek to follow the advice of the Apostle in Philippians 2.5 Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others?

Murmurings, gossip, complaining are the airborne viruses which spread unhappiness in the church, regardless who is the one sneezing.

Scriptural quotes are from the New Revised Standard Version.

The Way We Were

Just before Christmas we had to have our cat “put down.” My wife and I still find ourselves at times doing things as we did when he was with us. After eleven years some behaviors become routine. Because he was a bad cat and would go into any bedroom and whiz in the middle of the bed, we put a baby gate at the top of the stairs to prevent the cat’s access to our bedroom. Each evening we would “lock” the gate and each morning unlock it so we could get down the stairs. There are still mornings when I automatically reach to unlock the gate, even though it is no longer there.

I use this to illustrate how our patterned behaviors can and often do continue long after there has been a change which no longer requires that behavior. There is the story about a woman preparing to cook a beef roast. One of the first steps in the preparation was cutting off an end portion. When asked why she did that she responded, “That’s the way mom always did it.” When her mother was questioned why she had always done it that way she responded, “That’s the way mom always did it.” When the grandmother was asked why she always cut off a portion of the roast she replied, “I always bought a three pound roast. My roasting pan was too small for it all to fit. So I would cut off a bit of the roast and used it for something else later.”

How much of our lives are lived doing what we used to do regardless of the changes in circumstances surrounding us? I know there is a lot in my own life. So much of it is on automatic pilot. We are being told that long distance airline pilots may be losing their flying skills because of their extended use of autopilot. Are we losing some of our life and discernment skills because of extended use of autopilot?

In most 12 Step programs Step 4 is, Making a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. That is no easy proposition. The two adjectives defining the moral inventory are searching and fearless. Searching takes us deeper than the first layer or two. Searching is to plumb the depths to get to the real us we have kept hidden, even from ourselves. Fearless does not mean we won’t find skeletons and monsters which will frighten the hell out of us. It means we will not allow our fears to impede our inventory. We need to face our fears and move forward.

It is said, The seven last words of the church (or any organization) is, “We have always done it that way.” The time between a circumstantial change and modified behavior in light of the change is called a “lag.” With the rapidity of change in our lives, and in the world, the acceptable lag time is becoming shorter and shorter. That makes it all the more important to stop and ask, Why am I doing this and why am I doing it this way? It is helpful if we have somebody with us who can ask the questions if we do not ask them of our self.

The other night on the Daily Show, it was pointed out to Jon Stewart that he always slaps his desk before asking one of his probing/insightful questions. It was amazing to him that he had that behavior. A pitching or batting coach in baseball might stand watching the player for a long period of time seeking to identify flaws to be corrected or improvements to be made. The player cannot see from the same perspective as the coach, even when watching videos by his/her self. The coach is able to ask the why questions and to help the player adopt new behaviors. Which must be constantly practiced and re-enforced until they replace the previous way of doing things. That is part of the practice for anybody entering a 12 Step program is to do thirty meetings in thirty days.

Old habits may die hard, but they can be buried.

41 Days to Lent

Thank goodness Christmas is over, now that we are past the 12^th day of Christmas. Oh, crap, I just looked at my calendar and Lent begins in forty-one days. There is barely time for minister types to catch their breath and it is time to start planning for the next penitential season and its following festival. What Bible study will be done during Lent? What prayer groups need to be pulled together? What Lenten discipline will be followed privately and publicly? When will the choir begin to practice for the Easter cantata and will we squeeze it in on Palm Sunday? Will we have a new members’ class for the youth of the congregation? When will they be “confirmed?” Will the men’s group want to do the “Living Last Supper,” again this year?

Let’s not forget before all that there is the annual meeting of the congregation to hear from the governing body what happened last year and what is planned for this year. There are elders and deacons to elect, train and install. Then there is the governing board retreat. Why can’t we ever do that in good weather? How hard will arms have to be twisted to get the elders to show up? What do you mean the retreat can’t include an overnight at a conference center instead of part of a day in the church basement?  Don’t forget, the Super Bowl is on February 1^st, so nothing can be scheduled that day, even though the game isn’t until that evening. (Alas, the Steelers will be watching it instead of playing in it.)

Will the lectionary be followed in this time before Lent, or is this a time for one or two special sermon series? If it is to be a connected series of sermons what will be the umbrella topic? Maybe marriage would be a good topic. Better rethink that, how do folks feel their own marriage? If the topic is marriage what can be said about divorce? Might have to touch some sensitive nerves. Then there is the big one, what do we say about same-gender marriage? There are bound to be people on both sides of that hot potato. Okay, let’s think about something else.

How about a lectio continuo series on the Book of James? There are a lot of issues to be dealt with there. There is the faith and works issue. How about bridling the tongue? Some of the church conflicts could be addressed, but only obliquely. Don’t want anybody to think the sermon is aimed at them. “Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, commits sin.” Oh, that is a great text for a sermon, as long as it is done in generalities. There is always the economic divide in chapter five, but there are several members in the 1% and 5%. They might not like that.

Maybe it will be best to avoid anything controversial. Didn’t the Prophet cry, “Comfort, comfort ye my people?” A series could be developed around our many blessings. “Don’t just count your blessings, make your blessings count.” Does that emphasize our white privilege, since 99.5% of the congregation is white? A series on the fruits of the Spirit would be okay, but wouldn’t that be better after Pentecost?

Ah ha, a series which is comforting, non-controversial, avoids stepping on any toes or touching a sensitive nerve is what is called for. Let’s just use the text for each Sunday as found in the D.C. Cook Sunday School material for grades 3-5. That is never controversial. The harder topics can be saved for the summer when fewer people are in worship.

A Time for Forgetting and Straining

As the clock ticked to Midnight millions shouted “Happy New Year!” The New Year begins with a lot of hope. We hope the New Year will be different than the year which is now past. We hope the travails, disappointments, illnesses, calamities, debts, wars, killings, and everything else which was negative in the year past will stay in the in the year past.

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. (Philippians 3:13) To set the context, the writer is speaking of perfection in Christ. I think it is an apt text for us as we move into the New Year. Note the two active verbs forgetting and straining.

If we truly want 2015 to be different than 2014 we need to forget what is behind. 2015 will be no different if we carry the hurts, offenses, disappointments and all which drug down our spirits into the New Year. 2015 will be no different than the year past if we insist of doing the same things in the same ways.

2015 is a new opportunity for us. This is where the second verb in the verse above comes into play. If we want 2015 to be different we have to put serious effort to making it so. We must strain forward. Straining forward carries the picture of exertion of great effort and energy to make progress. As the New Year opens the image is not that of coasting along with the wind to our back. It is difficult to set a new course for our life or our congregation.

We make resolutions indicating things we want to change or do differently. We resolve to lose weight, to be more careful in our spending, to grow in our faith, to exercise regularly. Sadly, most of our well intentioned resolutions are like the dew which passes under the strength of the sun. Keeping our resolutions requires commitment, effort and determination. We often have to strain forward if we are to stick to our resolutions. Just making the resolution does nothing unless persistent action flows from the resolution.

It is not uncommon for church boards to have a retreat shortly after the New Year for the purpose of assimilating new members and for setting goals. Too often the goals are so generally stated, like many of our resolutions, it is impossible to measure any progress. If we resolve to lose weight we either think we have to lose a “ton,” to succeed. The other option is if a pound is lost to claim victory. We may resolve that our congregation will experience numeric growth. If we gain one member is that sufficient to declare the goal achieved? Or is it thought that the numeric size of the congregation must double? Ideally, the goal will be enough that we have to strain to reach it, but not so grandiose that we give up early knowing it will be impossible to accomplish.

Thanks be to God, we have entered a New Year. Will it be different than the year past? It can be if we are willing to forget what is behind and to strain forward for what lies ahead. May God give us grace not only to forget, but to forgive. May God give is the strength and determination to strain forward for that which lies before us.

V or U Crotch

We just had to have an old hickory tree removed. The base of the trunk is over three feet in diameter. We really did not want to cut the tree down. However, it had a tight crotch which over the years had allowed water to penetrate and with freezing and thawing had begun to split. Eventually, it would have split and fallen on our house. This picture illustrates a tight crotch tree and how the tight V leads to deterioration. Our tree was in the form of a Y with the single trunk splitting into two trunks.

There is another type of crotch which is much stronger than the tight V crotch. It is one where the crotch is more U shaped. The wider U crotch allows more wood to develop between to two upper trunks.

Here are pictures of a cross-section of the healthy upper trunks and of the problem from the point of the crotch down about six feet into the single trunk.

 

I just read the white paper produced by the PCUSA Office of Theology and Worship entitled Our Challenging Way: Faithfulness, Sex, Ordination, andMarriage. The paper points to the adoption of an authoritative interpretation and a proposed amendment to the PCUSA Constitution which would allow members and those in ordered ministry to hold diametrically opposed options on the issue of same gender marriage. Those opposed to and those in favor of same gender marriage may both faithfully remain in and function within the PCUSA.

It seems to me we run the danger of growing into a tight crotch tree like the one we just took down in our yard. The upper trunks were strong and healthy. However, from the tight crotch down about six feet the single trunk was seriously deteriorated, hollowed out, with the remaining lower three feet of the trunk still relatively solid. Will we see the PCUSA develop with a V tight crotch with two healthy branches above or with a U crotch with more wood to hold the upper sections together?

Early in the white paper the writers briefly refer to forbearance. If we can exercise enough   forbearance it is possible a strong U crotch may develop. If there is little or no forbearance then the danger of a V crotch developing weakening the singular trunk from the inside. The future of the PCUSA tree depends on our mutual exercise of forbearance.

Need a New Image for Santa

Now that Christmas Eve and Day are past my natural Scroogeiness can rear its head concerning Santa Claus.

Our theology is formed in our early years of life. Very little of the secular ethos of Christmas carries any indication of grace. I remember being told as a kid, “If you aren't good Santa will only bring you a lump of coal and a bundle of switches.” Doing some reading, via Google, I discovered this goes back a long way in history. Those with whom Santa (by any of his names) was not pleased would receive these symbols of his displeasure as an incentive for better behavior in the coming year. From occasional experience I knew the switches were for a type of behavior modification applied to one’s backside. My great-grandfather lived across the street from us as I was growing up. He heated his small four room house with a coal stove. I knew coal to be dusty and dirty, necessary for warmth, but to be thrown out as a useless cinder. A single lump of coal wasn't of much use. The lesson was be good and receive gifts. Be bad and it is a lump of coal and a bundle of switches.

I also grew up hearing the song “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.” Again, via Google and Wikipedia, I learned the song first was heard in 1934. The message was very clear. Santa keeps a ledger of who is naughty and who is nice. There is no hiding from Santa who sees you when you are sleeping and when you are awake.

These images are imprinted on young minds even before they begin to have awareness of God. It is but a small leap to transferring the characteristics of Santa Claus to understanding of God. There is no place we can go, nothing we can do, that God doesn't see us just like Santa seeing us when we are sleeping when we are awake. Good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell. God must be keeping a list and checking it twice just like Santa.

Yes, we could proof text those attributes of God and God’s relationship with us. In some quarters those attributes are the primary ones which are taught. Lived is lived under the constant threat that if we are not good enough God will be displeased. If God is displeased God will withhold good things from us in this life and the afterlife will be unending punishment.

Is it any wonder works righteousness dominates so much of the Church’s lived theology? Lived theology is how we practice our faith in differentiation from our orthodox and academic theology. How can we construct/deconstruct/reconstruct the stories and fables about Santa Claus which are imprinted on young minds so that God’s grace, love, abundant providence and other positive attributes inform more of our lived theology from a young age?

As leaders in the church this is critical for us to figure out, especially in the modern cultural ethos. The Nativity story requires too much interpretation to become easily imprinted on young minds. How do we appropriate the prevalence of Santa Claus from a psychological manipulation of the young to behave into a positive image of grace, love and abundant providence upon all? How do we move from the early imprinting of works righteousness to “doing good” as a response to what we already have received without merit or goodness?

Fair Pay

In many congregations there is yet one thing to do as we rush headlong toward the end of this calendar year. It is not something anybody relishes talking about or doing. Ministers are usually mum on the subject. Congregational leaders are highly uncomfortable bringing it up. The subject is “How much do we pay the pastor next year?”

Pastors in a congregational polity system are largely on their own to negotiate this with congregational leaders. In some cases there is no negotiation. The leaders make a unilateral decision about if there will be an increase for the next year and how much the increase might be.

Pastors in a connectional polity system usually have some minimum standards established at a level of oversight higher than the congregation. For part-time pastors these minimum standards are usually prorated at a level for the portion of full-time equivalency the pastor is serving. Often there is a polity requirement that the pastor’s compensation be regularly reviewed and reported to the level where the minimum standards are set.

Consider the precedent for paying ministers for their service. To do so we have to begin in the Hebrew Scriptures. In Joshua 13:33 the Levites were not apportioned the possession of land. Their function was to serve at the Tent of Meeting and later the Temple. In Numbers 18:21 and also in 2^nd Chronicles 31:4, we find that the Levites received the tithes in return for their service.

In 1^st Corinthians 9:7-15 Paul asserts the right of those who service the Lord to receive compensation for their service. Do you not know that those employed in the temple service get their food from the temple, and those who serve at the altar share in what is sacrificed on the altar? In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel. (NRSV)

In the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), at the time of the installation of a teaching elder as pastor, the congregation affirmatively answers this question, Do we promise to pay him (her) fairly and provide for his (her) welfare as he (she) works among us? (Book of Order W-4.4006b (3)) The presbytery establishes the minimum standards for what is “fair and providing for his/her welfare.” However, there are those in congregations who think the minimum standards are extravagant.

I believe I previously have observed in this blog two distinct mindsets in congregations concerning pastoral compensation. In my observation, there are those with what I call a “management” mindset which views the pastor as a hired laborer. Those with this mindset want optimum production for the lowest cost. On the other hand, there are those which what I call a “labor” mindset which sees the pastor as management, and everybody knows they are paid way too much. Both mindsets work together to suppress pastoral compensation.

As evidenced in every negotiation for compensation in the church or secular environments there are at least two different definitions of “fair pay.” “What is fair?” is a tough question to answer. I commend to pastors, sessions, committees/commissions on ministry and presbyteries as a body the 2010 study resolution adopted by the 219^th (2010) General Assembly entitled “Neither Poverty Nor Riches: Compensation, Equity, and the Unity of the Church” The resolution can be downloaded at https://www.pcusa.org/resource/neither-poverty-nor-riches/.