Transitions and Process

As I've opened up to my congregation about the need for them to 1) seek new pastoral leadership, and 2) my willingness to have them seek another pastor while I work with them to help ease the transition, I anticipated that such a process wouldn't necessarily fly well.

Non-standard approaches don't tend to set well within the structures of the Presbyterian church.  They can, but getting to the point at which the broader church is willing to accept them takes some significant effort.  You have to be willing to engage in all manner of assessments and reviews and evaluations, all of which take time.  We're willing to take risks, sure.  But leaps of faith for Presbyterians tend to happen after we've carefully plotted out our trajectory, then replotted it, then done a meta-analysis of the cross-cultural literature on leaps of faith, and engaged the services of a certified leaping consultant.  This is, of course, the decent and orderly way to proceed, assuming you have all the time in the world.

Having been through that at the front end of this ministry, I'm now encountering it as I try to bring my time here to a close.  Though I'd hoped to be able to transition from my current designated status (meaning I'm here on a time-limited contract) to interim status (also time limited, but with my primary function being to help prepare the congregation for a new pastor), it looks like there is little chance of that occurring.

Both my request for a transition of status and my congregation's request to start the process of calling a new pastor were gently denied by Presbytery this last week.

I understand the intent behind this, and it's not malicious.  Heck, it's not even unwise.  This church faces some really significant hurdles, and has a pretty defined point (four years away now) when it's going to run right into a financial brick wall.  Blam.  Game over.  For Trinity, growth isn't just this thing we feel compelled to do 'cause our culture fetishizes it.  It must happen.  And lately, it isn't.  That's why I need to step aside.  Having taken a hard look at our situation, I know where Presbytery is coming from.  Some time to reflect on why things are stalled out would be very useful.

But so much of revitalization lies in energy, enthusiasm, and a sense of Christ's purpose.  I watched some of the new young leaders of the church...well...just sort of deflate...at this weekend's realization that while things are urgent, nothing is going to happen in the near term future.

They may be young, but after a very constructive series of visioning retreats and open discussions, they're not ignorant of how urgent things are.  Even though I'd alerted them to the possibility that Presbytery might seek more reflective time, they're feeling disempowered and discouraged.   Having worked for five years to empower and encourage, it's hard hearing a new session member in his late 20s shrug his shoulders and say that he can see he "doesn't have much say and that Presbytery is in control of his fate."  Or another new session member lament that he's never experienced an organization that moved so slowly.  I'm sure it feels a bit like stonewalling.

That's not the intent, of course, as I will endeavor to remind folks.  Presbytery is just trying to do its job.  This process could be really useful, if it's embraced as an opportunity to grow in understanding and strengthen the church.

New Things

As I sit in the pastor's office on a Saturday morning, things are typically silent in the church. The halls are empty. The classrooms sit cold and dormant. The sanctuary is still. The thrums and wheezes of our heating system and the staccato clacking of my Mac's chicklet keyboard are the usually the only sounds. It can feel like a hollow, empty shell of a building, a brittle egg with no yolk and no white.

Today, though, the church bustles and hums with life. One of the folks who is joining the church tomorrow had the vision and desire to restart a culture school for adoptive parents of Korean kids. Our church had hosted a similar program years ago, but it waned when the agency we worked with changed hands and lost interest. But one eager and entrepreneurial soul was enough to get it rolling again. The church gives her the space and our encouragement and our prayers, and suddenly, there's sound and laughter and footsteps here again. I had the pleasure of offering up words of welcome to the group on behalf of the church this morning, and it was a delightful thing.

For a small church, there are three things to carefully avoid when you start up a new thing.

First, we need to avoid viewing new things as a distraction or a threat to "how things are." Many fading churches are desperate to revitalize, but only understand revitalization as "doing what we've always done but with more people." That is the path of decay and death. Life means dynamism and change and openness to the new. Vibrant and successful churches both nurture and celebrate newness. They encourage the gifts and hopes and aspirations of every soul who gathers with them. I think we've got this one down. Folks here are willing to embrace change, and my little leadership cadre has made that an explicit part of our congregational vision.

Second, we need to avoid being physically territorial. Whenever there is change in the life of a church, sometimes folks bump up against other folks. We try to coordinate times and spaces, but sometimes..well..things get moved. Or a room isn't quite exactly the way you left it. Or someone chasing down a child forgets they left a half-consumed cup of coffee on your desk. Given our not-so-distant remove from other higher primates, it's easy for human beings to get all pissy about picayune stuff like this. I know I can be that way sometimes. But that petty material gracelessness can be a surprisingly impressive impediment to renewal. For little groups who are used to everything being theirs, the whispering and puckered-lip disapproval over their use of our space and place can hamstring efforts to welcome in new opportunities for joy. I think we do OK at this about two-thirds of the time. I commit to doing it better, and to lovingly kicking the butts of folks I see falling into this trap.

Third, and this one is the hardest, we need not to be grasping. As any new program comes into being, particularly ones that serve others, it's really really hard for churches not to seize hold of them like a panicked drowning person. Every person who comes SIMPLY MUST JOIN US! We need you here! Pleasepleasepleaseplease! In our desperation to be moving in the right direction, we view every new opportunity as something that should serve us.

This gets it exactly backwards. Every new opportunity is an opportunity for us to better serve others. I know we don't have much time, and things are tough. But we need not to grasp and cling and cry out and have our future drown with us as we claw it under with us. Be calm. Don't panic. Celebrate the moments as they come, and keep ourselves open to the moments of new possibility that will arrive.

Principles of War

I have this odd aversion to pastorly books. Pastorly books are that particular sub-genre of religious publishing that are intended to give "best practices" to today's pastors. It's a nice little cottage industry, and I know there's some good wisdom in there. I read a whole bunch of them there books in seminary, and got a great deal out of it.

But for some reason, I like to branch out a bit. Take my own congregation, for example. We're in a life or death battle to revitalize and renew ourselves. It's a struggle, a conflict against organizational demise and the tensions inherent in making the seismic changes that we need to make to survice. Most times, it feels like a battle, a whirling, savage martial conflict against the forces of apathy, fear, mistrust and brokenness that rule over the human soul.

There's a ton of stuff out there on congregational revitalization and new church development. There are how-to books by pastors who have done this before, who have taken little churches and turned them around. There are New Church Development conferences and Small Church Revitalization seminars.

They're all quite useful.

Yet in the context of the struggle, I've been finding inspiration elsewhere. Like this last weekend, when I spent some time studying some of the writings of 19th century Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz. Heck, if it feels like a war against the forces of brokenness, then dagflabbit, maybe I should know more about military strategy.

While his discussion of the disposition of infantry and cavalry aren't really apropos, some of the bon mots from Carl seem to resonate with the battle I'm in. Like, for instance, this little section from his essay "Principles of War:"

Let me sum up once more the last two principles. Their combination gives us a maxim which should take first place among all causes of victory in the modern art of war: 'Pursue one great decisive aim with force and determination.'

If we follow this and fail, the danger will be even greater, it is true. But to increase caution at the expense of the final goal is no military art. It is the wrong kind of caution, which, as I have said already in my "General Principles," is contrary to the nature of war. For great aims we must dare great things. When we are engaged in a daring enterprise, the right caution consists in not neglecting out of laziness, indolence, or carelessness those measures which help us to gain our aim.

There's something about that sense of mortal urgency and intensity that resonates with the needs of a renewing church. There's a tendency for communities that are attempting to reverse decline to be complacent, or to get sidetracked, or to become overwhelmed with the impossibility of it all. "Let's just do what we've always done." "Let's argue about the carpet or the music or anything that helps us not grapple with the problem at hand!" "We're tiny! We can't possibly do this!"

But the ferocious and relentless pursuit of a vision doesn't permit any of that [poopy]. If we see ourselves radically and personally committed to bringing about joyous change, then you put your whole self in. It's a mortal conflict. It's war.

Yeah, I know, we Jesus people are peaceable folk. Our weapons are not the weapons of the enemy. Not at all. But that doesn't mean we're not fighting.