United Methodeviations (Dan Dick)

Super Bowl 44 — over.  I am a huge Colts fan, but even I can’t be unhappy with the Saints victory.  Who could begrudge New Orleans anything?  I am delighted for every Saints fan everywhere.  I wish I could feel as good about the Super Bowl ads, but I don’t.  Oh, there were some funny bits and some classic moments, but as they unfolded I found myself appalled.  An inordinate number of ads were incredibly sexist and even hostile to women (except for those by women who objectify and denigrate…).  I found myself offended more often than entertained.  The “men are pigs, women are ignorant” message wore thin fast.  I felt a time warp — cast back fifty years to a time when men could be insensitive jerks and think it was cool.  Have we decided that women are somehow okay targets again?

I know.  I am idealistic.  I want to believe that we are an evolved and kind people, but the evidence is sketchy at best.  I still encounter Christians (United Methodists, in fact…) who question if “women” (as if this is some sub-species) should be pastors.  The question leaves me speechless.  Are we complete idiots?  Have we never functioned in the real world?  Have we no mothers, wives, sisters, or brains?  Have we never had any relationships of any worth or value in our lives with females?  Are we irrational, primitive, pre-modern, ignorants who live in total bigotry and prejudice?  No.  We’re intelligent human beings who respect and revere both males and females as created in the image of God.  We are not stupid.

But, then what explains the insensitive, violent, aggressive, antagonistic, misogynistic, hateful and ugly messages about women that pass for humor in marketing and media?  How have we devolved so far, so fast?  I am a guy, after all, and I found a large number of Super Bowl ads offensive and indefensible.  I can’t be too far off, since my wife found them offensive as well, and she is a woman!

I hate when the dominant culture is unenlightened and offensive — I hate it all the more when my church follows suit.  I lament with the wonderful, spiritual, competent, and gifted women clergy in my denomination who are still finding it hard to be accepted as leaders in our church.  I listen to denominational leaders crow about how far we have come, then talk to women in the system who are suffering under the burden of 19th century sexism and oppression.  Are we kidding ourselves?  We still mistreat women in leadership almost daily.

Look at our largest churches.  How many are led by women?  I actually had a well-known large-church pastor tell me it was because “women don’t want the responsibility.”  Yikes.  Our system doesn’t recognize or reward women the same way it does men.  We come up with a hundred and one (lame) excuses, but the one reason is that we simply haven’t gotten to the point where justice and fairness guide our life together.  We pay lip-service to what we know we should be (articulated values) but are light-years away from that goal (lived values).  We revere and honor woman while treating them as second-class — the great American way.

I can’t quite fathom the irreverent, disrespectful, and offensive messages about women in this year’s batch of Super Bowl ads, but I fear it reflects a deeper disregard that we refuse to admit and acknowledge.  In the church, this may call for some major repentance — unless we’re really not sorry.  I just can’t imagine that we would be so stupid as to rob ouselves of the amazing leadership of women in a system that needs the whole people of God to be successful.

I note with dismay that your blog is consistently critical of the church.  It doesn’t seem fair or balanced to continuously pick at flaws while ignoring the good.  While we certainly have problems, there is little benefit in dwelling on them all the time.  I don’t care to be made to feel bad or guilty on a daily basis.  My advice is to make as much of an effort to find what is praiseworthy in the church as you do finding fault.

This person has a point — to a degree.  Honestly, I am critical.  I take what the church says seriously, and for eight of the last ten years it was my job to travel across this denomination to test the veracity of our claims with clergy and laity inside the church, and the non-religious and the spiritual seekers outside the church.  In this blog, I report on what I heard — representing the opinions of a wide variety of people in our modern culture.  Two-thirds to three-quarters of what I have heard in the past decade is critical — much of it negative.  I make no apologies for telling the truth by sharing a non-sugar-coated report of what I have heard.  It doesn’t mean people have to like it or agree with it, but I am not going to lie or pretend that people are more positive than they actually are.

Our denomination makes the claim that it wants to serve new faith audiences.  However, I have spent considerable time with:

• the poorest of the poor in urban, suburban, and rural areas whose experience of us is that we are not open to them
• the least educated in our nation who do not feel welcome or comfortable in our churches
• Hmong, Korean, Chinese, Filipino, Puerto Rican, Mexican, Central American, South American, Cuban, Haitian, Dominican, Jamaican, African, African American, Caribbean, Native American (of no less than twenty tribal heritages), Eastern Indian, and Middle Eastern groups who report regular acts of racism that they face each and every day in the church
• those on the fringes of society — in prison, institutions, nursing homes — who feel ignored and abandoned by the church when they need them most
• physically and mentally challenged individuals who feel unwelcome; who feel their disabilities preclude them from “belonging”
• the most educated in our nation who do not feel welcome or comfortable in our churches
• the richest of the rich who have little time or patience for our church
• college and university students who look at our church and are dismayed by what they perceive as irrelevancy and “lameness”
• seminary students who are growing disillusioned with the whole institution and question their call to ministry or religious academia
• professors of both universities and seminaries who have lost faith in the leaders of the church system
• mainliners who look at the decisions made and the way money is spent who decide to leave the church altogether
• people working for the church at all levels who are suffering low morale because they no longer believe what they are doing matters
• retired clergy, including bishops, who lament the path of the current church, identifying the problem as a lack of leadership
• Conference leaders struggling to “lead” when the demands of the system are on management
• Government, education, international relations, and economics leaders who cannot fathom the short-sightedness and simplistic approach our church has to social problems
• Women of all levels of leadership who are appalled at the remnant sexism that undermines their ministries
• Youth and young adults who want meaning and purpose and find that church provides neither

My list is a LOT longer, but you get the idea.  There are people in our church who want to ignore all these things and only focus on the good.  I actually do a fairly good job of lifting up the good from all my research — it’s simply that there isn’t as much good to report.  Does this make our job bigger and harder?  Probably.  But I’m not sure where the idea came from that it should all be sunshine and roses.  It is not enough for us to say we have “Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors.”  If that is not how we are perceived by the very people we want to reach, we NEED to know that.  If we invite people to “ReThink Church,” but they don’t believe, trust, or respect us — because they don’t think we’re serious — then we have a problem.  If we save a life by purchasing a net, then we need to take some responsibility for that life as it grows through childhood into adulthood.  Just solving one problem (infant/childhood disease and mortality) by creating another (abject poverty, hunger, malnutrition, gang violence, tribal warfare, etc.) is not the kind of witness we really want to make.  Denying the truth of all these criticisms doesn’t solve anything.

And, sure, I could be more positive and spend a little more time saying what I think is right with the church.  Recently, a director from UMCom said to me, “Why do you always pick on us, and not CF&A or Pensions?”  My response was, “I think they’re doing a fantastic job, and I don’t hear nearly as many criticisms and negative responses to what they do.”  Same could be said of UMCOR.  I think UMCOR does a fabulous job — and I have said so on the blog, and will continue to do so.  I think the mission awareness work that Global Ministries is doing is fantastic, but I have said that here, too.  Most of my criticisms of UMCom and The General Board of Discipleship come from the interviews I have done with people across the denomination.  Sometimes they align with my own opinions, sometimes not.  But when I talk to fifty people about something like ReThink Church or Burning Bush or Romans 12 and forty of them offer complaints, criticisms, mockery, or downright contempt, that’s what I report.  Sorry, but people have a right to their opinion, and it was my job for a long time to find out what those opinions are and to share them.  I have never quite understood why people responsible for these projects try to censor me — if I were them, I would want to know that people dislike the product or service I’m offering.

I had friends who grew up in a household where it was not allowed to criticize or argue.  Any attempt to voice a negative opinion was clamped down upon immediately.  The mother in the family wanted to preserve peace and harmony at all costs, and she simply wouldn’t allow a cross word or discussion of anything unpleasant.  Today, all four of the children who grew up in that house are troubled and in therapy.  To those who wish for nothing but moonbeams and buttercups in The United Methodist Church, beware.  No problem gets solved by ignoring it.  If we want to reach new people for Christ, we need to listen to them — even when they tell us things we don’t want to hear.  Our goal cannot be to change everyone else while we stay the same.  We have things to work on — and enough people to work on just about everything!  There is nothing wrong with pointing out areas for improvement.  The only real problem we have is pretending we don’t have problems.

And while my motives may not be clear, I can only say — if I didn’t love and believe in this church, I wouldn’t even bother.  I hear the criticisms of thousands of people, and each one breaks my heart a little more.  I want the church not just to be acceptable or good — I want us to be great.  I want our witness to the world to be so powerful that people beat a path to our doors to be a part of something beautiful.  I share the opinions and criticisms of the thousands of interviews I did while at the General Board of Discipleship in hopes that we might see ourselves as we are seen by so many, and what to do something about it.

All I did was ask questions.  People would make broad statements and I would ask, “How do you know?”  People would claim supernatural and paranormal explanations and I would ask, “Is there another explanation?’  Attributes would be given to God that didn’t come from the Bible and I would ask, “Where do you get that from?”  I dropped in on a group reading a popular Christian book, and some people actually groaned.  I finally left, feeling judged and ridiculed because I am intelligent.”

I got asked to leave.  I went to two different Bible studies where I evidently knew more than the teachers.  I asked questions they couldn’t answer, and they got mad at me.  I really was just trying to learn — I mean, I was asking questions because I wanted to know — but it got turned into some kind of contest.  The person leading the group took me outside and told me that if all I wanted to do was make him look bad, I should just go home.  so I did, and I haven’t been back to church since.

I am a scientist, for God’s sake — and I mean that literally.  “For God’s sake” I went into science to try to make the world a better, safer, healthier place.  But I am college educated, and I refuse to check my brain at the door just so I can sit and listen to drivel.  If our faith is legitimate, it must stand up to the rigors of at least common sense.  I understand that some things are simply accepted on faith, but some things God wants us to figure out and apply the best reasoning and thinking possible.  “God only knows,” or “it must just be God’s will,” are answers given by fools and nincompoops.  I need a faith that can stand up to scrutiny and criticism — and I believe Christianity is that faith, were it not for the fearful lowlights preaching and teaching from a 15th century worldview.”

Three different people in three different places from three different decades (first quote, 1988; second quote, 1995, third quote, 2009), but all sharing a real pain at the rampant anti-intellectualism they encountered in our churches.  And these are just a few stories from a fairly large number of Christians frustrated by a lack of respect for keen intelligence, common sense and critical thinking.

When did intelligence and faith part company?  Once upon a time, pastors and theologians were among the most educated and highly respected thinkers in the world.  They were “men” (in chronological context) of letters — hobnobbing with academics, scientists, philosophers, mathematicians, and kings.  Pastors were often early adopters of the most rigorous standards of scientific method.  Nineteenth century theologians studied, discussed, and promoted the latest discoveries in astronomy, geology, and biology.  The leading voices of the Christian faith had nothing to fear from the natural sciences.  Physics held no threat to metaphysics.  But somewhere along the way our faith gave way to fear, our spirituality fell to superstition, and our reason succumbed to irrationality.

Today, a growing generation of the most educated feel that basic tenets of the Christian faith include credulity, ignorance, narrow-mindedness, irrationality, and downright stupidity.  Debates about stem-cell research, charting the human genome, evolution, astrophysics, and broader biomedical ethics begs the question that human intelligence is somehow against God, rather than a gift from God.  Various sciences find themselves at odds with religious faith — as if one displaces and disproves the other.  Perhaps science has disproven a white-haired Caucasian grandpa God in white robes floating in the clouds, but it has come nowhere close to disproving a “first cause” force from which all our beliefs about God emerged.  (Can’t prove a negative — only can display a lack of imagination…)  Has religion painted itself into a corner by anthropomorphizing that which is beyond human comprehension?  Sure!  Does that prove we’re idiots?  Not even close — just shows we’re limited (and not God…)

If the Christian faith is to have a meaningful future, we have to shuck off the mantle of fear and learn the lesson (again) taught repeatedly throughout history when religion bullied science and denied discovery and revelation.  If we believe we are in the least bit the image of God, then we must also believe that the height of intelligence is a reflection of God’s perfection.  Does it make any sense at all to believe that God isn’t smart?  Do we truly believe that we can learn anything that God does not already know?  Is there any true threat from science that is greater than God?  Real faith cannot be shaken by truth or facts, knowledge or intelligence.  Just the opposite.  We dishonor God and reject God’s gracious gift when we refuse to use our intelligence to its fullest extent.  Those who raise questions?  Those who challenge orthodoxy?  Those who fight against ignorance?  Those who demand rigorous critical thinking?  Perhaps they will be the ones who are first to hear, “well done, good and faithful stewards,” because they are the ones who truly value and manage wisely one of the greatest gifts God gives.

I have a special relationship with my GPS.  It’s a Garmin and her name is Greta.  Like most couples, we have moments when we don’t see eye to eye.  Greta wants me to go one way, and I choose to go another.  Every time I disregard Greta’s sage advice, she hits me with a petulant “recalculating.”  This is a term that, prior to the GPS-age, comes up rarely in normal conversation.  Yet, it is a perceptive concept, aptly applicable to our recent church history.  Ours is a story of repeatedly veering off course, demanding the constant need for “recalculating.”  I am making some assumptions here: the United Methodist Church (and its antecedents) has as its basic goals:

• to bring as many people to faith in Jesus Christ as possible,
• to live as faithful disciples in the world
• to do God’s will
• for the transformation of the world

These goals have stayed basically the same, though our language changes from time to time.

In the 1950s, the church was suburbanized along with most of our culture.  The model of large urban churches from bygone days became the hope and dream of pastors moving to the ‘burbs.  Monolithic footprint churches spread across the land, and in the immediate post-WWII days, they boomed all-too-briefly.  We like to think these churches were the “norm” against which to judge all subsequent “growth,” ignoring that the glory days of “big church” lasted less than a couple decades.  By the 1960s, the majority of big churches were already in decline.  Conservative, evangelical, independent, materialistic, consumeristic churches did flourish for a couple more decades, but the net gains were actually quite small, and the majority of people who have left “organized religion” did so because of bad experiences with big churches.

Recalculating

Disillusioned cadres of spiritual seekers looked for and created alternatives.  The Jesus Movement, the para-church movement (Young Life, Intervarsity, Campus Crusade for Christ, etc.), the earliest “emergent church” exodus — these and other slivers drifted away as a way to say that there needed to be something more than what mainline churches could provide.  Social and political activism motivated new forms (Sojourners,etc.) and challenged the mainline.  The church’s response was to try to assimilate the para-church, adopting an amoeba-like Blobbish-gluttony mentality to faith.  If you can’t join ‘em, eat ‘em — a mentality that exists to this day (look at what we have done to the “emerging” church, making it all but meaningless by making it mainline.

Recalculating

The mega-mall, mega-mart, mega-church selling-the-spiritual-soul approach to church growth boomed in the 1980s and 1990s, but — whoops — more people left the church than came in.  All of our pathetic copy-catting of the few aberrant success stories didn’t get us anything close to the results we said we wanted.  Our claim to want to make disciples has yet to yield any consistent, clear metrics by which to evaluate spiritual growth.  So we count attendance.  We claim to want to transform the world, but into what isn’t clear, so we track dollars.  We claim to want to create vital Christian community, but our leaders spend more time talking about what we have lost and what we used to be (or might be someday in the future) and what we don’t have, instead of casting a vision for what God is calling and gifting us to be.

Recalculating

We open the door a crack to Rethink Church, but every truly radical idea is shot down.  Deep change is something we say we want, but the only change we entertain is incremental and easily undone if we don’t care for the results.  As a denomination, we live in fear of a future that is going to happen to us, abdicating almost all responsibility for creating the future in which we choose to live.  We are obsessively-compulsively fixated on what the church needs, not on what the world needs from the church.  (Haiti excluded, but this is the exception that proves the rule.  Haiti has needed us for decades and it takes a tragedy to get us to pay attention..)

Recalculating

A growing segment of the American population is refusing to label themselves as anything — though they believe in God and they follow Jesus Christ.  They pray daily, study scripture, form tight-knit small communities, do work projects together, and worship without aid or assistance of priest or pastor.  These people love God, are faithful in their spiritual disciplines, witness to the power and presence of Christ in their lives, AND made a conscious decision not to connect to an institutional church.  One woman puts it this way, “My faith is too important to me to waste time with people whose most important life issues are keeping kids out of the parlor and making sure no one removes the American flag from the sanctuary.”

Recalculating

Here’s an idea… what if we took a year off to pray, read the scriptures together, and contemplate on what God’s will might be?  What if we put God first for a year?  What if we spent less time worrying about what we don’t have, and asked what God might like us to do with what we actually have?  What if we locked our sanctuary doors one Sunday each month, with the intention that we might spend that time visiting the homebound, feeding the hungry, reading to the blind, comforting the sick, holding Bible study in a prison or nursing home? What if we held people accountable to the promises they make to God and the community of faith when they join?  Why don’t we worry less about who “joins” and instead focus on who needs to be loved?  Why don’t we have a fire-sale on old, unmanageable church properties and find new ways to worship and work together in the facilities that don’t drain all our precious resources?  Why don’t we standardize pay (while we eliminate guaranteed appointments) so that we can place appropriate leadership and experience where it is needed most?  Why don’t we trust lay leadership grounded in God-given gifts instead of preferencing a professionalized clergy, which is costing us more than we can afford in the current system?

Why don’t we commit to a path toward a Promised Land instead of constantly… recalculating?

This has been one of those interesting days where one theme keeps recurring no matter where I turn.  A gentleman stopped me this evening to tell me how displeased he is with my blog — that he has, in the past, found value in my writing, but that my blog is “too critical.”  All day today I have been following an email conversation by many of my colleagues about the importance of criticism, and what constitutes acceptable and unacceptable criticism.  I received a phone call this evening from a radio talk-show host from New York asking me to share some of my opinions on the “limitations of contemporary religion to reach younger people.”  The interviewer told me, “It is so refreshing to talk to someone who isn’t afraid to honestly criticize organized religion instead of mindlessly defending it or irrationally attacking it.”  Tonight I received an email from a pastor pointing out that ” who don’t have anything good to say should keep their mouths shut.”

What this says to me is that the state of honest, open, critical analysis is in a sorry state.  Granted, there is too much nasty, unhelpful, and even destructive criticism in the world.  There is a toxic cynicism and corrosive competition that reduces much criticism to personal attack and outrageous insult.  These types of “criticism” are indefensible — and a natural and normal part of our American landscape.  Shock radio masquerading as talk radio is a fine example.  But cheap shots and name-calling are merely signs of low intelligence and lack of imagination.  There is plenty of room for real criticism that doesn’t sink to these petty levels.

We are in real trouble when we get to a place where analysis of strengths and weaknesses is unacceptable.  An example: “The leadership of the Obama administration is failing to provide the kind of recovery most Americans expected.”  A critical comment.  It voices an opinion.  It is based on an interpretation of evidence.  It offers a valuative judgement.  What it lacks for me is an objective viable alternative.  These are the four elements of fair criticism in my view — and it is what I try to do here.  Make a personal observation about something I feel is working well or poorly and offering ideas about what could be done differently.

Look at these four comments — all, I think, saying approximately the same thing:

• our leadership sucks
• our leaders are idiots
• I am not impressed by the performance of our leaders
• If our leaders could stay focused on the larger issues and not be distracted by minutiae, we would probably all be better off.

Broad, general attack offers no grace.  Personal attack is completely unhelpful.  Vague dissatisfaction and focusing only on what one doesn’t like doesn’t lead anywhere.  Identifying specifically where the dissatisfaction rests and pointing to a different way is at least a starting point.  Now, many criticisms blend all four (as well as many other) approaches together — we tend to frame our feelings in emotion-laden language — but what brings people to a table to explore options is a cool objectivity around the issues, not the personalities and people involved.  The national healthcare issue has been much less about healthcare and much more about political agenda, personalities, power, and posturing — all less helpful than stepping back from winning a political debate and seeking a solution no matter what. (Opinion, interpretation, valuative judgement, alternative.)

At its essence, criticism is either active or reactive.  Active criticism is looking for ways to improve and be better.  It assesses what is and asks what if?  It looks at the current reality and analyzes ways to increase value and positive impact.  Reactive criticism is simpler.  It basically asks “how do I feel about what just happened?”  If I like it, I praise it; if I dislike it, I criticize it.  If my emotions are strong and I don’t like something (or someone) I will attack it.  Reactive criticism takes no responsibility to engage in actually improving anything — it merely states discontent.  This is why so much negative criticism is dressed up as “constructive criticism” — we know what we’re saying is out of line, personal, and reactive, but we want to justify it.

Very little improves without criticism.  Until we assess how well something is producing positive results, it is impossible to determine what to change in order to make it better.  Critical analysis lies at the heart of all improvement.  We need to freely express our opinions — but as opinions, not fact, knowledge or truth.  We need to interpret the world around us — but with the best evidence available to us, being careful not to impose assumptions or ascribe intent.  We need to evaluate — to determine not only if something is good or bad (or liked or disliked), but what makes it good or bad.  And we need to explore alternatives and offer suggestions on how things might improve.  With this freedom and encouragement to criticize, everyone can engage in a process of becoming something better, something more.

The Christian life and the discipleship journey — by definition — are processes of continuous improvement. There is no “good enough” in the body of Christ — in our limited human capacity, there will always be room for improvement.  We can never become all that God calls us to be if we make “criticism” a dirty word and an unacceptable process.  The burden falls to us to find healthy, productive, civil, and loving processes for criticism that build community and do the least amount of destruction possible.

What is our problem?  How have we developed such a narrow-minded faith that we cannot interact with people who believe differently with any kind of tact, grace or kindness?  Why can we not “offer an invitation” to know our God without turning it into a defiant line in the sand?  Day after day there are new stories about Christians attacking non-Christians, and Christian leaders saying all kinds of nasty things about Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and Jews.  Uhm, did I miss something?  Aren’t we supposed to speak truth in love and manifest the fruits of peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control — especially with those whom we disagree?

I have been promoting interfaith and interreligious cooperation and communication — especially in light of what has happened in Haiti — and I am getting my head handed to me.  Christians from all over are accusing me of heresy and compromising the purity of the gospel.  I am hearing from people who want to have nothing to do with “towel-heads” and “Satanists.”  People who would never engage in racial slurs have absolutely no problem practicing religious bigotry at the drop of a hat.  Question: is a child of God any less a child of God simply because he or she doesn’t believe in God?  Is our edict to treat each person as we would treat the Christ any less binding on someone who doesn’t believe what we do?  Come on!

I have encountered a growing interfaith intolerance over the past decade.  Now, I am not sure that the intolerance is growing, but I am spending more time promoting ecumenical and interfaith engagement.  Some truly spiritual visionaries — calling us to a global compassion and justice — are Buddhists, Jews, Muslims, and Hindus (as well as Christians).  Is the vision false or corrupt simply because it comes from “the wrong mouths?”  Can the word of God cross lips that preach another belief system?  Is our God so weak and impotent that other’s words can negate God’s truth and purpose?  In my own twisted opinion, it is not those who seek interfaith collaboration who lack faith, but those whose beliefs are so fragile that they think they might be tainted by engaging with non-Christians.

I once wrote that Bernie Glassman’s, Bearing Witness, was the most Christian book I had read in a long time.  Glassman was raised Jewish and became Buddhist, but in a very real sense he is first and foremost a deeply spiritual, fundamentally good, person.  I received hate mail from United Methodists appalled that I would recommend “sacrilegious” books.  When I reviewed and highlighted Mariana Caplan’s excellent, Halfway Up the Mountain, a book that explores the dangers of taking shortcuts and over-simplifying religion and spiritual enlightenment, I had pressure put on me by a bishop to take it off the website because it “honored anti-Christian, godless” belief systems.

The ultimate flaw in this kind of logic is this: just suppose we are right and everyone else is wrong.  If we want to continue to be a positive witness for Christ, how can we do that by slamming the door on all contact and dialogue with people who believe differently than we do?  I want to WITNESS to the power and goodness and life and light that comes from a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.  I want to let people see how wonderful this life can be.  I want to share the core values, beliefs and practices of a life-affirming, loving and just faith with others.  I want to offer Christ to everyone, and hope they find enough value to accept it for themselves.  I want to find out how others think and believe so that I can find common ground and celebrate the ways we share a vision for beauty, truth, and justice.  My faith in God is strong — I’m not going to lose it because someone else shares a different, attractive faith.

We live in an ever-expanding, ever-integrating global community.  Competition and an unrelenting “us vs. them” mindset will do no one any good.  We must find gracious and healthy ways to disagree, yet enjoy one another’s company.  We have got to develop open means of communication that don’t necessarily imply agreement, but do convey respect.  And we need to soften our language so that we don’t tell others “we must,” “we’ve got to,” and “we need to” all the time.  (See I’m self-aware…)

An adequate life, like Spinoza’s definition of an adequate idea, might be described as a life which has grasped intuitively the whole nature of things, and has seen and felt and refocused itself to this whole.  An inadequate life is one that lacks this adjustment to the whole nature of things — hence its twisted perspective, its partiality, its confusion.  (A Testament of Devotion, Thomas R. Kelly, p.1)

 How does God view the creation?  Is there joy?  Is there regret?  Is there hope?  Is there shame?  Is there promise?  Is there disappointment?  Is there pride?  Is there anger?  I cannot help but believe the answer is simply “yes.”  All these things.  Humankind can scale the heights of glory and they can sink beneath the belly of the lowest demon — sometimes both in the blink of an eye.  Haiti is a good example — an outpouring of love from one source, an outpouring of bitter, bilious, hateful condemnation from another.  88% of Americans believe we should help Haiti; 31% of evangelical Christians believe Haiti has done something to deserve what has happened.  For myself — and this is a purely personal reflection — I cannot reconcile the concept of petty destruction and wanton violence with my understanding of a creative and loving energy that infuses and redeems all things.  What possible motivation could God have to hurt the children of the earth, unless God is as petty and ignorant and spiteful and selfish as human beings can be?  The God I believe in is better than that.

And the church I believe in is better than that.  In the “big picture” — the grand sweep of history into eternity – the micro-sins of an individual, a community, a tribe, or a state pale in comparison with the whole.  I truly believe that we humans must take responsibility for our own brokenness — God has much bigger fish to fry.  Just because we get our temporal panties in a twist over what goes on between people behind closed doors doesn’t mean the creator of all that is must be pacing the celestial floor, wringing cosmic hands, plotting ways to wipe out hundreds of thousands of people to make a narrow-minded point.  God must be bigger than that, right?

Jesus had this almost obsessive-compulsive fixation with “the kingdom of God.”  Apparently, he wanted us to care about it as much as he did, and he urged his followers not to wait for it to come from some far off future, but to live it in the now — to create the future that God wished for all creation.  This “kingdom” was not some oppressive monarchy or hegemonic oligarchy, but a benevolent dictatorship where grace trumps law, and the defining characteristics that apply to everyone are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, mercy, justice, humility, forgiveness, acceptance, respect, concern for dignity, compassion, healing and unbounded grace.  That is what Jesus called us to work on, to create, to pursue, and to provide.  The “blueprints,” if you will, are already drafted by God.  All we have to do is follow the plan.  Simple, huh?

But we can’t keep the end in sight.  We keep getting distracted.  We keep losing focus.  We keep worrying that everyone isn’t doing his or her part — of they’re doing it wrong, or they’re using the wrong tools, or they’re using their tools the wrong way, or we don’t like them, or we disapprove of them, or…  Well, we really aren’t sure we want them in OUR “kingdom,” is all I’m sayin’.  Their “sin-cooties” are ickier than our “sin-cooties.”  (Which aren’t really “sin-cooties” at all, because we’re good Christians — not like those people we disagree with, whose faith is obviously inferior and corrupt.  I mean, what THEY do is heinous and gross and obviously offends God.  All I do is engage in the wholesome and perfectly defensible spiritual practices of gossip and violent condemnation…….)  See?  See how easy it is to get distracted, and then expend an enormous amount of time justifying our fruitless, unhelpful, unproductive rationalization?

For me, the problem is simply this:  I am not God.  Not even close.  I am too limited in my knowledge, in my beliefs, in my understanding of all the variables and conditions.  I am not as smart as God, not as aware as God, don’t know the rules as well as God, and I am not anywhere near as forgiving and loving as God.  There is no way in a million years I can be the person I need to be to truly build a “kingdom of God.”  Now, pooling my limitations with the limitations of others helps — together we are “more” than we are on our own, but still — we’re a far cry from God.  I mean, even the BEST people of God/communities in Christ were still full of bickering, hostile, unforgiving, judgmental, short-sighted, petty people.  The BEST!  We are a people in formation — a constantly “becoming” body of Christ — in our infancy.  We are barely able to crawl, let alone walk or run.  This is why it is so wondrously breathtaking when we rise above our human limitations to shine for a brief moment.  We catch a glimpse of who we might grow up to be as God’s own children.

I guess I can’t impose this vision on other people.  All I can reasonably and responsibly do is to confess, I need to do better.  I need to acknowledge that, at best, “I see in a glass darkly,” — that my view is partial, inadequate, incomplete and twisted.  I need to reflect on the fact that my certainty and my clarity must look like confusion to God — because when I get it wrong, I generally get it completely wrong.  I need to stop over-thinking everything — looking for the one right answer, and seeking a one-size-fits-all morality that I can impose on others.  I need to love more, care more, share more, relax more, listen more, and stop contributing to the toxic flow of hate, hurt, ignorance, and selfishness that is poisoning God’s creation.  I am tired of “good” Christians hurting each other — and tarnishing the reputation and good name of God.  I need so much help to do this.  It’s why God sent Jesus, and why Jesus sent the Holy Spirit, and why the Holy Spirit breathed life into the (real) Church.  We have everything we need — the blueprints, the tools, the Spirit, and the purpose.  Now, all we need is the heart.

Sometimes it takes a crisis.  Sometimes it takes a terrible tragedy to remind us what’s important.  In a week of unremitting sadness for the victims of the earthquake in Haiti, it has been oddly refreshing to turn to United Methodist information sources and not read about our institutional plight, but instead about our missional reach of compassion and concern.  We are able to set aside the lesser issues of our declining numbers and lack of funds to actually remember who we are — the body of Christ.  There is a deep, heartfelt outpouring of compassion and love that indicates where our “treasure” truly is.  When it matters most, we’re able to be the people God needs us to be.

But why does it take a crisis?  What is happening in Haiti is horrible… but the conditions in Haiti have been unjust, intolerable, and terrible for a long, long time.  Where were we then?  My deepest concern is that the same thing will happen here is what always happens — after the earthquake is no longer news, and Brittney Spears or Lindsey Lohan have their next meltdown – Haiti will be forgotten just when she needs us most.  We can only cope with crisis so long, then we need relief ourselves.  The Tsunami of 2004 and Katrina in 2005 are good evidence.  We are still way far away from healing those two catastrophes, but we hardly hear about them anymore.  Mission team after mission team return from Louisiana and Mississippi reporting that there are entire communities where rebuilding has yet to begin.  But these tragedies are “old news.”  In this time of “new” crisis we are ready, willing, and able to respond.  But the estimates in Haiti are that between 1 and 2 million are homeless and hungry (due to the quake) and that 250,000 to 450,000 are in at-risk, urgent-need situations.  Army Corps of Engineer estimates for rebuilding are 36-to-72 months for major structures; 48-108 months for residential areas.  Three to nine years just to get back to substandard, low poverty-level, bare-necessity living!  It boggles the mind.

Here is my prayer: we adopt Haiti.  Not in a paternalistic, patronizing way, but as a concerned family doing everything in its power to get a loved one back on her feet.  If The United Methodist Church in the United States — almost 8 million members strong — made a commitment to “bring Haiti back BETTER than before,” we could work a miracle.  Think of it.  If 8 million people would just commit $10 a year — less than a dollar a month, for crying out loud! — that would provide an $800,000,000 pool of resources to support the rebuilding efforts.  That could make a huge impact.  If we made Haiti a VIM (Volunteers in Mission) and local mission trip priority, we could provide human resources to make that $800 mil go a lot farther.  We could get more people down to Haiti to meet — and fall in love with — the people.  We could improve communications and become a deeply connectional church with some of the most needy people in the world.

Of course, we could do this with anyone at any time… if we wanted to.  Our General Board of Global Ministries does an outstanding job promoting, supporting, and empowering a global church.  But there are a whole lot of us who don’t take advantage of the opportunity.  In fact, many have no idea what our opportunities are.  Many of our most charitable members and congregations have no idea all the work we do around the world, and all that needs to be done.  Shame on us for not telling the story.

Crisis helps us see what is possible.  When we rise to meet an incredible challenge we come to understand that we’re not just capable of doing “good,” but by God’s grace we can do miracles.  Our world needs miracles.  Our world needs the grace of God.  Our world needs us to be the church — to be the very body of Christ.  And we need to be the body of Christ when it matters most — each and every second of each and every day.

It never fails that when I am looking for something in particular, I manage to find something else I was looking for months ago.  Such is the case with interview notes I took in Colorado, Iowa, and Connecticut with 20-60 year old spiritual seekers.  These notes have been the missing piece in a puzzle that has frustrated me for the past three years.  They were part of the larger Seeker Study I did for the General Board of Discipleship, and they highlighted some interesting perspectives on preaching and proclamation.  These interviews — 71 in all asked non-church-affiliated Christian spiritual seekers to share their thoughts on the art of the sermon.  Two-thirds of the 71 interviews (48) were with women, and approximately the same percentage were Caucasian.  Twelve were of African-American, six of Korean, two of Puerto Rican, one of Japanese, and two of mixed ethnic heritage.  While this may not be overly important, there were some gender and racial/ethnic differences in responses — those these are correlative, not necessarily causative.  We discussed five questions:

1. what is a sermon?
2. what is a sermon for?
3. what is the preacher’s role in preaching?
4. what do you look for/desire/need from a sermon?
5. what types of sermons speak to you in meaningful and/or transformative ways?

What is a sermon? — I expected many simplistic “what the preacher preaches” kinds of answers, but was very surprised to discover that most of the respondents had fairly thoughtful answers.  In short and in general, men were more interested in “truth,” in understanding God’s will and having clarity about right and wrong.  Women lean toward “guidance” and “meaning” rather than in answers and information.  However, among the racial/ethnic respondents, there tended to be a stronger belief in absolutes — that there is right and there is wrong, and that we need to know the difference.  Older respondents had a much higher desire to differentiate “right” and “wrong.”  Younger respondents were much more interested in meaning, relevancy, and defining positive life goals, than in questions of moralizing or absolute truth.  A sermon, at its best, should clarify, demystify, raise questions, and illuminate.  Where there are multiple readings and interpretations, a sermon should present them all fairly and objectively, with some guiding questions to help people make up their own minds.  Sermons that a dogmatic and declarative are the least appealing.  Absolutely no one likes sermons that state definitively, “this you must believe, or else!”  Sermons should be like topographical maps that help hearers explore — they should not be like prepackaged tours that lead only to predetermined destinations.

One interesting recurrent theme in the responses was discomfort and dislike of the current trend of “preacher as pal,” the kind of talk-show-host delivering the monologue in your living room. One quote that well represents this attitude is, “I want to be engaged by the message, not impressed with the messenger.”  The best sermons, it seems, are those that could be delivered by just about anyone — or even read in print.  Over half of the respondents said that what they didn’t like about sermons were the preachers, and a smooth, overly slick and professional delivery can be as great the kiss of death as a poor delivery.

Sixty-six of the 71 respondents said that they had no interest in “technological enhancements,” — that sermons did not benefit from PowerPoint or video or other modern devices.  Almost all said that technology could enhance the experience, but the majority found it distracting and all but two said that a poor use of technology was a sermon killer.

Respondents defined a sermon most often by stating what a sermon is not: a sermon is not a lecture.  a sermon is not a show.  a sermon is not a platform to show how smart the preacher is.  a sermon is not stand-up comedy.  a sermon is not a happy, feel-good “rah-rah” speech.  Culling through the pile of pages of responses, truly three recurrent threads emerge: A sermon is a reflection on God — it helps us think about God.  A sermon is a personal challenge — it raises a significant question about what it means to exist.  A sermon calls for some kind of response — it refuses to leave a person alone, but challenges some kind of change in thinking, believing, behaving, or living.

What is a sermon for?

Ultimately, a sermon serves a simple, very specific focus — to help people grow in their relationship with God and God’s creation, to understand God’s will and purposes, and to order their lives in productive, meaningful, and God-honoring ways.  Over and over again, those who love God but dislike “organized” religion say, “the sermon isn’t about us, but about us in relationship to God.”  One young man kept referring to “the God equation,” and said, “I am starved for anything that factors into the God equation — God + me + the world = why am I here?  I want to go be with people who are asking the same kinds of questions and are focused on the same kinds of answers.”  Almost three-quarters of the people I talked to align with this kind of thinking.  A sermon serves the purpose of helping people better understand God, better understand themselves, and better understand why God put them here in the first place.”  One fifty-something woman said, “I don’t have any question about God — I take as a given that there is a God.  I also believe in myself — I think therefore I am.  What I could never really get from church on a regular basis was, “So What?”  Why am I here?  What does God want from me?  Most churches I went to told me that my reason for being was to come to church, put money in the collection plate, attend Bible study and work in the kitchen whenever we had a supper.  If that’s why God put us here… well, God needs to get out more.”

What is missing in most sermons – according to this small sample — is challenge.  It is fine to offer comfort.  It is great to offer knowledge and understanding.  It is great to offer encouragement.  But for 80% of this group, unless a sermon is promoting change and growth and an active, tangible response, it fails to serve its purpose.  “I can listen to books-on-tape if I want innocuous self-help, I’m a good person kind of stuff.  I haven’t heard a sermon in the past few years that I couldn’t hear the exact same thing on a TV talk show with Dr. Phil or on talk radio.  It’s kind of like everything has sunk down to this superficial, low expectations level.”  Another person said, “It’s very simple for me.  I am really busy and I don’t feel like I have time to waste.  Anything I do, anywhere I go, I ask one question: what difference did this make?  If it made a difference, I go back; if it didn’t, I’ll go do something else.  That’s why I stopped going to church.  Sitting through worship on a Sunday morning didn’t make any difference — or rather, I should say, the difference it made depended on me, and I don’t need to go to church to develop a strong relationship with God and other Christians.  Anything I can do as well or better on my own, that’s how I’m going to do it.”

Sermons are means to ends, not ends in themselves.  Oner insightful young woman observed, “I never think in terms of ‘was that a good sermon?’  Just like if I fix a good meal I don’t think ‘that was a really good pan I cooked it in or that was a killer spatula I used.’  The implement isn’t the point.  What happens because of a sermon or Bible study is the point.  Sure, you want to use good tools, but the best tools in the world are wasted if what they produce is crap.”  The sermon is a tool.  The sermon is a resource for growth, development, and performance.  The sermon is never the point.

The Preacher’s Role in Preaching

Almost everyone agrees — if you really like the preacher, you tend to like what the preacher says.  But for some this is as much a danger as it is a positive.  “Too many people give over their responsibility for their own spiritual development to church leaders, and that is frightening,” shared one 60 year-old woman.  “When I was younger, I went to a church with a great preacher, and when he went to another church, we followed him.  We had no real connection to the church, we just liked this preacher so much.  One day he came into church and told us all that he lost his faith and that everything he’d told us for years was a lie.  It almost destroyed my faith.  I will never give another human being that much power again.  It took me year’s to realize that he was just a disillusioned man with his own opinion.”  A large number of people who love God and Jesus the Christ but not “church” reflect that they feel preachers “get in the way” too often — that many pastor’s bask in the spotlight and love being the center of attention.  This gets in the way of good preaching.

The preacher is pivotal.  Good preachers can make a sermon “work.”  But a good preacher is not just a good speaker or presenter.  At least half of the respondents shared that the best “sermon” they ever heard came from untrained, non-professionals.  Personal witness and testimony from other laity provided example after example of a “good” sermon.  Authenticity, personal impact, sharing the “concrete” rather than the “abstract,” being vulnerable, passion — these all factored into “powerful” sermons, and they were direct extensions of the preacher — clergy or lay.  The concept of “authenticity” came up in many conversations.  Preachers are paid to preach — it is their job.  There is a strong sense of, “do as I say, not as I do,” to the professional preaching practice.  “I am unimpressed by a preacher who preaches on tithing who doesn’t give, or a message on the importance of risk-taking missions from a preacher who’s never been on a mission trip.  I want integrity, and I want to be inspired by someone who is sharing from experience and personal conviction, not someone who reads about things in books,” complained on respondent.  One woman summed up many people’s thoughts by saying, “I want to forget that there is even a person up front speaking.  I want the narrative to sweep me up and suck me in.  I want to be so engaged by what is being talked about that it doesn’t matter who is saying it.  I want it clear, I want it simple, I want it compelling.  That is what is so amazing about Jesus as he is presented in the gospels.  It is almost as amazing what he didn’t say, as what he did.  He forced people to engage and work out things for themselves.”

The old “window, not a mirror” concept came to my mind many times during these interviews — that the pastor should seek to be transparent so that people might see through the words to God, and that we should be careful not to make the message all about us.  “I want to grow personally, but if I go to church it’s more than that — I want to grow in relationship to God and to become more closely who God wants me to be.  I stopped going to <church> because, while it was helping me be a “good person,” I don’t think it was helping me be a real Christian.  It kind of bugs me that the pastor of the church is so popular.  It really is all about him in <church>.  I want to find a church where it’s really all about God.”

What Do We Look For, Desire, Need From a Sermon?

Invitation, invitation, invitation — invitation to know God better, invitation to grow in faith, invitation to act on what we are hearing and learning.  “It’s like exercise — I know I need it, I know it’s good for me, but I also know I won’t do it regularly unless someone keeps after me.  I think of a sermon like that — the preacher is a kind of personal, spiritual trainer,” one young man commented.  Sermons need to challenge and require response of some kind.  A good sermons asks hearers to DO something.  Sermons should irritate in a positive way.  “I want a sermon to make me a little uncomfortable, to make me think – ‘hey, there’s something I should be doing that I’m not,’ or ‘I could be doing better in this part of my life.’  Most of the churches I have been part of have been so scared to make anyone uncomfortable for fear they would leave, that I can’t remember the last time I was challenged.

Practical knowledge and transformative wisdom.  “I don’t know enough about God.  I don’t understand ‘theology.’  I need a better grasp of the big picture.  Churches assume I already have that, and most sermons just muck around in the details.  I need to know God better and understand God’s will better.  I need encouragement to become the person God wants me to be.”  This series of statements sums up a large number of comments.  Sermons help most when they equip people with the tools of the Christian faith, explain how they can be used, then train people and encourage them to practice using them.  While this may sound simplistic, it is a widespread desire and hope.

There is an intense hunger to know God.  Fifteen different people (21%) used food analogies to help describe want they look for from a sermon.  “I am starving to know God.  I can’t get enough.  I can’t wait to sink my teeth into real substantial spiritual food, then I get rice cakes and water at church.  It is very frustrating.  I have better conversations about God at work (I do construction) than I do at church.  How f***** is that?”  “When I can to I was a newbie, a baby, and infant spiritually.  I really needed milk and super soft food.  But I have grown quite a bit.  I may be still a spiritual child, but I am ready for solid food.  I stopped going to my church and I looked around.  Really, all I could find offered was formula and soft-cereal.  I finally starting eating solid food when I got out of the church and found other Christians who really want to make a difference in the world.  I am so grateful for what the church fed me when I was new, but no one can live on that forever.”  ” My church feeds us, but it is all sugar and fat and carbs and seasoning — both figuratively and physically, if you’ve ever come to one of our meals you know what I mean.  I never knew there were three thousand different kinds of potato salad until I became a Christian.  When I felt my spiritual arteries clogging up, I knew it was time for a change.  I am so much happier in my faith now that I am out of the church, I can’t tell you.  A diet of prayer, Bible study with friends, and weekly mission work is the best diet on earth for a healthy Christian!”

What Sermons Speak Best?

Authentic, personal, real, concrete, practical.  When hearers leave a sermon saying, “I learned this about God, I learned this about my relationship with God, and I need to make a decision about how I will live,” then 87% of the survey sample feel that the sermon was worthwhile, and they would be likely to return to hear a second.  “I don’t want to walk away from a message and only be able to say, “I liked it,” or “I thought that was well done,” reflected one middle-aged woman.  A slighty-younger man echoed her sentiment, “The worst insult I hear in church is when people shake the preachers hand and say ‘Good sermon, preacher!’ when they don’t even know really what he said.  Too many people judge a good sermon on ‘was it short, was it entertaining, and could I hear it?’  There’s a lot more to a sermon than enjoyment.”

Spiritual seekers are simple creatures — they want to be more like Jesus… and they are willing to give their time and energy to anything that helps them do this.  When sermons promote this cause and hearers can leave feeling like they have received help in their journey, the sermon was “good.”  However, if the sermon doesn’t connect their spiritual journey to the larger story of God and God’s will for creation, they tend to see it as a waste of time.

This anecdotal project is just that — it is not good, thorough research, but a pool of information that raises enough questions to warrant good thorough research.  In 2005, while I was doing this research, I had opportunity to share the information in one of our annual conferences.  I was meeting with clergy one day, then meeting with a larger group of clergy and laity the next day.  The response was interesting.  When I had the clergy alone, there was a high level of defensiveness, and many preachers argued that these responses were a minority sample and not representative of the mainstream.  Clergy were all too willing to dismiss the findings and ignore the implications.  That is, until the laity joined them the next day.  Then, a majority of lay people INSIDE the church said they felt many of these things as well and that is was only due to relationships and meaningful outlets for their own faith that kept them in the church.  You could have knocked most of the clergy over with a feather.  So, there is obviously something here to learn and reflect upon.  MAny leaders in the church simply assume that worshipers and growing Christians “need” sermons preached to them.  But the question may not be “who needs a sermon,” but what kinds of sermons do people need, in order to grow in their relationship with God, Jesus Christ, and the whole human community?”

Are there prophets in the church today?  Are there any willing to speak the truth regardless of the consequences?  Anyone willing to point out the unconscionable amount of money and time we waste in meetings and conferences?  Anyone willing to point out that our own systems and structures are as unfair and unjust as the rest of the world?  Anyone to challenge the status quo and say that mission and vision actually have less to do with our church leadership than power, status, and years of service?  Anyone who wants to mention that we treat one another horribly too much of the time?  Anyone want to lift up the fact that those who need serving most are receiving it least?  Anyone care to challenge the concept that church is a place we go instead of an incarnation which we become?  Shouldn’t we be told that the money we spend on bricks and mortar aren’t transforming the world, and that discipleship is about relationships and accountability not comfort and security?  Oh, I know, those who stand in glass houses shouldn’t walk under a ladder, or some such.  I confess, I am first among hypocrites and a poor example at best.  But I get tired.  Tired of business as usual and tired of all the bad behavior and materialistic values that define us.  And instead of stepping back and working out our own salvation with fear and trembling, we’re hiring $2000 a day consultants from the corporate sphere to come in and tell us how to change.  We so desperately want leadership but what we get is American Idol.

Can you guess I am frustrated?  Every day I read more rhetoric from my own denomination about loss and decline and financial woe and clergy misconduct and congregational misconduct and connectional misconduct.  I want to say, ‘enough!’  People are dying.  People are hurting each other.  People are starving.  People are in such despair they kill themselves.  People are seeking ways to take advantage of the defenseless.  People are using the name of God as a weapon to hurt others.  People are justifying hatred and violence in the name of Jesus the Christ.  And we spend our time in the church discussing meeting venues and marketing campaigns and target audiences and copier contracts and fund-raising campaigns.  Jesus wept.  At a time we need spirit and a renewal of vision (function) we focus on structure and processes (form).  When we most need a Promised Land we settle for the Wilderness.

A long time associate — one of the finest pastors, preachers and teachers I have ever known — is leaving the church.  He’s going into community organizing and advocacy.  His comment to me was, “If I am ever going to do ministry I have GOT to get away from the church.”  This isn’t a crackpot.  This is a golden boy, grow-’em-big, pop-star evangelist, fill the pews every Sunday, poster child for what we keep saying we want pastors to be.  He is a success by every low, worldly standard we keep imposing on the church.  And he’s had enough.  He’s going somewhere where he can be a true disciple and transform the world.  Is there a problem here?

One of the marketing/consultant/organizational savior gurus hired while I was at the General Board of Discipleship told us, “You can’t see what needs to be fixed when you’re riding on the roller coaster.  People who aren’t riding the ride have a better view of the whole system,” and we bought the metaphor unquestioningly.  Along with all the other spurious sloganeering (“…the view from thirty-thousand feet, follow the hedgehog, getting on the bus, if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will do…” — folks, if you’re on a bus at thirty thousand feet being driven by a hedgehog, the road you’re on is the least of your problems…)  It’s a bad metaphor.  The church isn’t a mechanical contraption — it’s a body, an organism.  And with any body, unless the commitment to change comes from inside, nothing wonderful is likely to happen.  The United Methodist Church needs to clearly define health and vitality, then do the hard work to get healthy.  We must change our diet (how about reading some good theology instead of the next pop-pastor’s ”look at how great you can be if you do what we did” — or maybe we could exchange our endless talk-talk-talk meetings for some prayer and deep relection…), we need to exercise (standing up for hymns and clapping to praise songs doesn’t count…) and we need rest and renewal (whatever happened to Sabbath?).  We need to change an entire corporate-denominational lifestyle and reject the standards of pop-culture and redeem the vision for spirituality and service that motivates missional-evangelical faith in the world.

I know — who do I think I am to criticize the system that supports me and provides my livelihood?  If I don’t like things, nobody is forcing me to stay.  But I believe in the potential of the system and I have dedicated my life to it.  I criticize because I love it, not because I don’t.  I stay inside the system because that is where I feel I can do the most good.  Problem is, I question whether I am doing any good at all.  When I worked for the national church, the national church said “no thank you.”  (The actual quote was, “the leadership here has decided your work doesn’t support the mission of the church or the vision of this board…)  I hammer away day-by-day to do good work, but I have no idea whether that “good work” is producing any real fruit.  When I challenge the status quo of our denomination I am asked (politely) to be quiet and to realize that I am hurting the church by my negativity.  But I refuse to be positive about institutional preservation and short-sightedness in the face of incredible human need and unlimited opportunity.  We need to turn this ship around!

Maybe I’ve got it all wrong, but it really bothers me that a church of Jesus Christ with so much potential for enormous good is having difficulty attracting new good leaders and participants, and is losing so many of the best and brightest — both clergy and laity.  We have let ourselves go.  We’re complacent and tired.  We’re unattractive.  We’re unfocused.  We’re sitting on the couch complaining about our state and wishing someone would come in and fix things (…if we could just get more people in our currently dysfunctional and declining churches that are failing to appeal to those who already believe that Jesus Christ is Lord, everything will be just fine…).  It ain’t gonna happen.  If we’re not careful, all the energetic, visionary, competent, and committed people with the desire, drive, and gifts to transform The United Methodist Church will be gone, and the rest of us will be left wondering what we ever did to deserve such a cruel fate.  Our conversations need to change.  Our values need to change.  Our thinking needs to change.  And no one can do it for us, but us.

My heart is breaking.  I haven’t been back to Haiti in more than 20 years, but a big piece of my heart is there.  The trips I made to Haiti were life-shaping and values-reshaping.  I learned more about being a member of a global community working in Haiti than I have in any other way.  I also experienced a pure and radical joy in worship in Haiti that I do not find anywhere in the United States.  And the people I met.  Good men and women living hand to mouth in some of the most unbelievably challenging circumstances, with few complaints.  And the children.  Beautiful, wonderful, normal, vibrant children — though often malnourished, ill, broken, or deformed.  Haiti symbolizes for me the crux of the human spirit — doing what you can with what you have to make a life… and not just a tolerable life, but a life filled with some measure of purpose and joy.  The images of the earthquake devastation tear me apart.

Haiti is one of the poorest places on earth.  There are few tradable resources.  The country is essentially deforested.  The cities are overpopulated.  Hundreds of thousands of people live in shanty-style tar paper and tin shacks.  Whole families share 400 square-feet of space squashed in with thousands of other families.  Clean water is just short of myth.  You can chew the air in most populous centers.  In the country, unemployment is the rule rather than the exception, and most families scratch out a subsistence living from what they can coerce from the ground, pull off the trees, or coax from the sea.  When I was in Haiti the first time, we had to walk a mile-and-a-half to pull muddy water up out of a hole to bathe.

My trips were during the Papa Doc Duvalier reign of terror and oppression, but things have not improved markedly in the year’s since.  The U.S. military is present to “help out,” but Haiti’s problems are much deeper than a peacekeeping force can manage.  The divisions between haves and have-nots is unbelievable.  And the contrast makes the strength and nobility of the people we met all the more remarkable. 

What I remember most about Haiti –

• we had three teenage women with us on my first trip.  They played rhythm games with the Haitian girls in the lantern light, laughing and hugging, though they could not communicate with words.
• we brought a bag of used tennis balls and the children acted as though we gave them gold when we passed them out.  They played with them non-stop for hours on end.
• one day we made balloon animals for the children, and they stood wide-eyed, mouths agape at the magic we performed.  Even when the balloons deflated, the children collected the colorful rubber scraps and proudly treasured them — making bracelets and belts from them.
• administering very simple first aid — people lining up as far as the eye could see, then bursting into tears over the simple acts of removing splinters, applying salves, or confirming that a child wasn’t seriously ill.
• the willowy young woman who sang and danced throughout worship and led a procession to the offering baskets where coins were deposited before she herself stepped into the basket, making an offering of her life to God.
• the preaching about hope and confidence in a loving God.
• the children in school, receiving the thrilling news that the government would be distributing school uniforms — the first new clothes many of the children ever received.
• the voodoo priestess who told me she was also Catholic, Jewish, Presbyterian, and a Rotarian (she proudly wore a Rotary pin…) who had pictures of the Pope, Jesus, and Tom Selleck in her small shed.  She asked if it would be alright if she were a Methodist, too.
• the young woman, hit by a bus and laying, bleeding, by the roadside whom we couldn’t help because our tour leaders were fearful of the political ramifications (to this day I wish I had gotten off that bus to help…).
• the little boy who looked like television’s Webster who belonged to the village but had no parents.  He would take every possible opportunity to sit on the lap of any person who stopped to sit down for five minutes.  He would climb up and almost instantly fall asleep.
• the orphanages — they are everywhere, and they are filled to overflowing with the damaged and discarded of the country.
• passing the fortified Club Med luxury resort situated in the midst of widespread squalor and poverty.
• landing at the airport and walking through platoons of unsmiling armed military guards — and the five-hour customs process where a third of our possessions were confiscated.

I could go on and on.  I can never forget Haiti, nor do I want to.  All the current destruction makes me want to go back.  Not that I would be an asset — I have the construction skills of a beached whale, first aid knowledge of a piece of chalk, and my experiences in disaster recovery generally consist of knowledgeable people saying to me, “Excuse me,” and “could you please move over there,” and “I think they need help counting supplies.”  I hate feeling helpless, and I am just so sad.  So I pray.

Two closing observations: first, on the importance of connection.  There are natural disasters in every country on earth, yet this one hits me harder.  Why?  Because I have been there.  Because I have a relationship.  Because Haiti is not an abstraction to me — it’s real.  This is a classic illustration of why hands-on ministry is so vitally important.  I can talk about a place and read about a place and hear about a place, and find it “interesting.”  But to spend time in a place and get to know its people and what it’s really like and to fall in love with it and really care about it?  Totally different story.  All the insipid money issues we struggle with in the church?  Gone in a flash if we got everyone up off their butts — excuse me, pews — and connected to something.  When you connect you care, when you care you invest, when you invest you commit — once committed, you make a difference.

Second observation: I absolutely despise Pat Robertson and all the other hateful, narrow-minded, unChristian, despicable, vile, unkind, arrogant, self-righteous, evil, toxic, stupid, Godless, judgmental idiots who are blaming this earthquake on the victims by calling them sinners and saying that this is payback from God for dealing with the devil.  Robertson claims to know that the “Haitians” met and dealt with a physical personification of Satan, and Tuesday’s earthquake is the result.  Is this man insane??  Is it any wonder that a growing number of people in our world look at such a pathetic, evil little beast like Robertson and say, “if that’s Christianity, I want no part of it?”  The people I met in Haiti — Christian and non-Christian alike — were some of the most wonderful people I’ve known.  The prayer life of Haitian Christians would put most Americans to shame.  The three- to four– hour worship services were joy- and spirit-filled.  The fundamental spirit of generosity and community was humbling.  How dare Robertson or any other pampered, pious American sit in judgment on them?  Lord, save us from ourselves.

A large number of United Methodist congregations are struggling — with money, with members, with commitment, with leadership, with a host of problems large and small.  Many of these churches aren’t doing anything wrong to cause these problems — in fact, they aren’t doing anything much at all.  And that’s the source of the trouble.  For years I have been curious to understand the large number of United Methodist congregations that do essentially nothing beyond the walls of their buildings.  This is not, I repeat NOT, in any way to ignore the incredible mission work The United Methodist Church does at all levels.  Missional outreach and Christian service is in the denomination’s DNA — it helps define us as “United Methodist.”  But that’s the point.  About one-in-five (20%) of our churches do nothing or next to nothing for those outside the church.  Another 20-30% limit their missional focus to whatever good is done through apportionments, and a significant number of our congregations support mission work passively — giving money so that other people might do it.  The important correlation here, however, is that our healthiest congregations are those that have active, widespread, committed engagement from a large number of people in a large number of good works.

The outward and visible signs of our inward and spiritual graces is not merely a nice poetic turn — it is the tangible evidence that we are truly engaged in the will of God and the work of Christ.  Yet, for years I have received resistance to the idea.  When I wrote the Bible study, FaithQuest, in 1996 — based on Luke, Acts, Ephesians, and teachings of John Wesley and The United Methodist theological task and Social Principles — I received a number of angry emails challenging my reading of scripture.  The thesis of FaithQuest is that we are formed in the faith, equipped to be disciples of Jesus Christ, through the empowerment of God’s Holy Spirit we become the body of Christ, and we continue to serve and function as Christ for the whole world,  This is the sweep from Jesus’ invitation to follow me, through the Pentecost miracle, to the formation of the “church” as a mission/vision focused institution to Wesley’s vision of the world as our parish.  To this day I don’t believe I imposed much of an interpretation on the biblical and theological materials (beyond selecting those books that best illustrate the universal servant/service nature of the church), yet many were angry.  One woman pastor from Michigan wrote:

How dare you imply that it is not enough that we take care of one another in the church.  Our world is a hostile and dangerous place.  There is a reason we call our places of worship “sanctuaries.”  It is all we can do to cope with the sin and corruption of our modern age.  We welcome people to come in out of the darkness and trouble for comfort and security.  It is unfair of you to place a burden of guilt on us because we don’t share your liberal agenda.

It always breaks my heart when I hear people link the notions of kindness, caring, healing, helping and generosity to a political agenda.  I cannot help but feel this woman’s pain.  Life is indeed difficult and the world can be a scary faith.  We truly do need a faith that protects and defends, but that alone is an incomplete faith.  We’re not the only ones hurting, and we do not have the luxury of merely receiving the blessings of Christ and holding onto them for ourselves.  What we have received, we are expected to share with others — whether we believe they are deserving or not.

On the practical side, churches that do for others tend to be healthier churches.  Giving is higher in missionally focused congregations.  Levels of participation and engagement tend to be higher.  Morale and spirit tend to be higher.  Just the other night I visited a small rural church where no fewer than five people proudly shared stories of the mission work being done by their congregation — and not just a few members of the congregation, but by the majority of the congregational members.  A few years ago I visited one of the poorest congregations (financially) I have ever seen.  They had funds for virtually nothing — including paying a full-time pastor or paying their apportionments in full — but just about every member of that church served in some mission-focused capacity in the community.  The spirit and energy in that congregation was infectious — a congregation with constant money worries where every person was smiling and singing and proudly sharing stories of the power of Christ to touch and change lives.  It was refreshing.

I have often likened congregational life to breathing, and ask the question, “which is most important?  Breathing out or breathing in?” (Answer: depends on which you did last…)  Sustainable health depends on balance — inhaling (inward practices that develop us in our faith and abilities to serve) and exhaling (applying what we learn in service to others).  Inwardly we build faith, while outwardly we express that faith as a witness to others of the grace and goodness of our God.  Evangelism isn’t just about the words we say to get others to come to us; true evangelism is the integral message of our entire lives — what we say and do (faith without works is dead…).

A number of years ago I met with a church that was considering closing its doors.  A once-thriving congregation of over 400 had dwindled to less than 50 and the building was literally falling down around their ears.  They could no longer afford a full-time pastor and they were struggling just to pay bills month to month.  In all their discussions and planning, not once did church leaders talk about the mission of the church or the work they could do.  They had no vision of the present, let alone the future.  Yet, they were located in the heart of a community struggling with many of the same issues they were.  High unemployment, low-income, struggling families, a higher-than-usual percentage of older adults, and a large, poor Native American population within just a few miles.  Through the process of planning, the leaders decided that they would work to close the church… but in three years.  During those three years, they would select one main ministry to focus on in the community.  They would offer help and assistance to the Native Americans.  They would open the church fellowship hall to mothers with young children.  They would work to help the elderly and the homebound in the community.  This plan was put into place in 1995… and the church still functions today, still very small, but strong and stable and making a difference in the lives of hundreds of people.

We all need reminders that the church isn’t ours, it’s God’s — and it exists to fulfill God’s will and purpose, not our own.  But when the church really takes off?  That is when God’s will and our will coincide — where what we do is a clean match for what God wants done.  We talk a lot about sin as an individual act, but throughout the history of the Hebrew people and the earliest Christian history, culture was not so much defined by individuals as communities.  “Sins” weren’t what individuals did; “sin” was the “missing the mark” (the literal definition of sin) of the whole community.  When we are not engaged beyond our own needs, wants and desires, we are missing the mark.  But when our life together bears fruit that feeds and satisfies a starving and struggling world, then we are right on target.

Over a decade ago, Evelyn Burry and I did a study of the issues that District Superintendents most hated dealing with.  In the broadest category, DSs hate having to deal with people — but that’s not fair, because the thing they like most about their jobs is people as well.  No, it is a particular type of people who cause DSs to dread their job — selfish people.  Now, I know what you’re thinking — Dan, come on, we’re Christians, man.  We’re the CHURCH.  There aren’t any selfish people in our churches!  This might surprise you, but there ARE some selfish people in our churches.  And they are making things tough for everyone, not just District Superintendents.

If our informal research is anywhere near correct, 65% of complaints DSs receive are from parishioners about their pastors, while about 25% of complaints are from pastors about their parishioners or other pastors.  10% of complaints are about the DS directly or about the Annual Conference, The United Methodist Church, the state of Christianity in the world, or God.  But what is most interesting about the nature of the majority of complaints is that they have little or nothing to do with the mission and ministry of the church — they generally have to do with personal disagreements, stylistic preferences, or simple personality.

Here’s a short list of some of the complaints DSs receive:

Our pastor laughs and smiles too much.  He also talks too much about forgiveness and joy.  We want a Biblical leader who understands how serious the Christian faith really is.  (Good luck finding a Biblical leader — they’re all dead…)

Our pastor expects us to change and we are tired of it.

Our preacher keeps preaching from the Old Testament.  I’m not a Hebrew, I’m a Christian and I want a Christian preacher for our church.

We cannot hear the sermons and we knew this would be a problem when we received a woman as our pastor.

The reverend is killing our church.  He won’t preach what we want to hear, and he won’t listen when the members try to tell him what to say.

We are good, God-fearing conservatives.  We feel that the pastor you sent is trying to corrupt us.  Is there any way we could choose our own pastor?

This is to inform you that we will not be paying any more of our apportionments until you find us a decent preacher.  You have failed to send us anyone we have liked for years.  This is the tenth bad preacher you have sent in a row.

We would like you to know what the pastor you sent is saying.  She is saying that if all we are doing is coming to church for ourselves, we are not really Christian.  She says if we do not serve others, we are liars and hypocrites.  She makes us feel bad that we love God and Jesus but aren’t doing anything for others outside the church.  What is the process for getting a different minister?

We don’t have a preacher, we have a stand-up comic.  He doesn’t wear a robe and he prances about with a microphone like some silly talk-show host.  He’s an embarrassment.  And another thing, he’s bringing in all these outsiders that are taking over and changing everything.  He acts like he owns the church and does whatever he wants to.  He’s killing our church!

You sent us a hugger and we’re not huggers.  This simply will not work.

I have sixteen type-written pages of these I pulled up out of interview notes from just about every annual conference in every region of The United Methodist Church in the U.S.  I have a shorter, but similar list of quotes from pastors about church people.  What is striking is how rarely someone says, “Our leadership isn’t challenging us enough,” or “we need a leader who demands more and works to empower and equip us better.”  Those kinds of requests are very rare when compared with all the griping about discomfort and disappointment and simply not liking or agreeing with the other side.  What I didn’t lift up (and these are almost exclusively on the side of people bashing pastors) were some of the more extreme and outrageous things DSs here.  Look at a few of these gems:

We want action now, or there won’t be a church much longer.  Nobody can predict when an accident might happen — to the church building or to a particular person.

We think our pastor is a homosexual and you have to ban him from ever serving in the church again.

Since the new pastor started, things have begun to disappear.  We think he is stealing them.

Women in this church are staying home because they don’t like the pastor’s advances.  He makes us all very uncomfortable.  (This one woman wrote her various district superintendents about six different pastors over a twenty year period of time, and no one in the congregation ever substantiated her claims).

My mother was fine until the ministrer visited her in the hospital.  She died after his visit and I want you to know that I will be pressing criminal charges against him, you, and the Methodist church.  (This suit never made it to court.)

These are extreme cases, but they are the tip of the iceberg.  No wonder we’re not changing the world, we have trouble just navigating the intricacies of human interpersonal dynamics in our own congregations.  How can we ever get busy on the big things when our day-to-day lives are defined by a fundamental inability to get along?  Those outside the church are very observant.  They want to know how being Christian makes life better.  They want to know how being Christian helps a person to live differently in the world.  They are looking for quantifiable evidence that Christians behave better, are more just, more loving, kinder, more forgiving and more tolerant than non-Christians.  What evidence are we giving?

Pastors are easy targets.  When things work well, we generally give the pastor way too much credit, but when things go wrong we gladly give the pastor all the blame.  We mash and grind and whip and squelch, and then wonder why the minister isn’t more effective.  Burn-out and exodus are on the increase in mainline churches among clergy, and it is harder and harder to entice new people into leadership.  Said one second career pastor recently, “I thought I could do it better.  I was always so disappointed in the pastors we got, so I decided to become one and show them how it’s done.  Now, not a day goes by I don’t think about getting out.  Don’t get me wrong, this is a great life… but only if it doesn’t kill ya’.”

Healthy relationships don’t happen automatically.  They are developed over time.  People need to be taught how to engage in positive and productive ways.  We all need guidance in what are proper ways to express ourselves, and the less proper ways we should avoid.  In our congregations we need to make a commitment to “do no harm” to one another, even when we disagree.  We need to seek ways to “do all the good we can” to build each other up and strengthen the overall health of the community of faith.  We need to be more intentional about practicing the means of grace — when we pray for each other, worship together, serve side-by-side, and engage in holy and uplifting conversation, it is that much harder to turn around and stab one another in the back.  In short, we need to decide to be good, and to be good to one another.  We need to commit to provide a witness to the world that the love of God is indeed greater than our petty differences.  And we need to bear fruit — the fruits of love, joy, peace, patience, generosity, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  We need to be good to each other, especially in a world where so few know kindness and compassion and love.

There are two deadly types of leaders in today’s congregations: ascribes — those who ascribe negative intentions to other people’s actions — and pharetics — legalistic types who go out of their way to misconstrue and manipulate information to make others look bad.  Two quick illustrations:

A young pastor left the ministry because, in her own words, everyone was out to get her.  Those who questioned her were undermining her authority and disrespecting her.  Those who disagreed with her were rude and ignorant and had it in for her.  When people wouldn’t do what she wanted, she felt betrayed and unappreciated.  When her SPRC suggested she take a sabbatical for some renewal and reflection, she blew up because they were trying to get rid of her.   She said people were “looking for things in my sermons to attack me for.”  She assumed that when she wasn’t invited to a meeting that it was so members could talk about her.  Over time, her paranoia led her to begin every encounter with defensiveness and aggression.  She was moved from one appointment to another — hoping that she might experience different results in a different setting.  After similar experiences in two different locations, the young pastor’s only reflection was, “the church is full of messed up people!”  A classic ascribe.

A church council chair disagreed with the pastor on the use of some memorial funds.  In exasperation, he said to the pastor, “You’re an idiot!”  He then proceeded to use his time and energy to undermine the pastor’s credibility, questioning his credentials and education, and planting the idea that the pastor wasn’t very bright in the minds of parishioners and other congregational leaders.  Any time the pastor made an error or stumbled over a word or phrase, the council chair would point it out and make a big deal of it.  The man delighted in jumping on any and every opportunity to make the pastor look bad.  He would pull out the Bible, the Discipline, Robert’s Rules of Order, and other “authorities” to “prove” the pastor didn’t know what he was doing.  He launched a one-man-crusade to undermine the effectiveness of the pastor — all backed up by a self-righteous, legalistic, dogmatic adherence to “doing things right.”  Said the pastor, “I found myself constantly editing and second-guessing myself, sneaking around to talk to people to try to avoid confrontation, and cowering every time the phone rang.  It got so bad that I really couldn’t do my job!”  The victim of a Pharetic — a Pharisee using the “truth” to tell lies and undermine right belief and understanding.

Now, I know these are very rare, extreme exceptions and that they don’t exist in most of our churches.  Oh, no, wait, that’s wrong.  They exist in just about every Christian congregation on earth.  That’s a problem.  How in the world did we get saddled with ascribes and pharetics in a culture of Christian community characterized by grace, humility, love, kindness, forbearance, tolerance, acceptance, peace, mercy, and compassion?  Oh, right, those are God’s qualities, not ours.  We’re the fallen ones.  We’re “only human.”  It is unreasonable to expect mere humans to act civilly or kindly or graciously.  That is way too much to expect…

Except it is exactly why the church exists — at least, in part.  If church and the Christian faith has little or no impact on behavior, what good is it?  If “Christian” is nothing more than a label or temporary tattoo, then it is essentially meaningless.  Christianity is not simply about what a person believes.  True Christianity must have an outward and visible expression of its inward and spiritual reality.  What is wrong with us that we cannot create safe, healthy environments where people learn to treat one another better than the rest of the world?  We’ll send mosquito nets half-way around the world with the same hand that stabs the person next to us in the pew in the back.  We’ll weep over the starving child in Africa while vilifying the idiots who left the church kitchen a mess.  We often allow people to say and do the most hateful things “in Christian love.”  What’s up with that?

Who do WE want to be?  What kind of people do we really hope we are becoming?  How do we address behaviors in our churches?  What proactive steps are we taking to create the kinds of civil, kind, just, and respectful communities of faith that truly mirror the realm of God?  In what small ways are we working to create heaven on earth in our congregations?  How seriously are we answering the questions what does it mean to “do no harm,” “to do all the good we can,” ” and to “attend to the ordinances of God?”  Were we spending more real time working to do no harm and to do good, we might actually experience this transformation of the world we hear so much about.  Start at home — get our own houses in order.  If we can’t be trusted with a little, what makes us think we will be trusted with more?  All our efforts to get new people to join us — why?  So we can alienate and mistreat them too?  Come on.  If we were more intentional making our congregations centers of grace and peace, it wouldn’t be nearly the struggle it is to get newcomers.  Our dysfunction isn’t likely to be appealing to much of anyone.

I know I sound like a broken record, but there really is only one answer to bad behavior — cut it out!  If you’re doing it, stop it.  If you see it, name it and challenge it.  If you are affected by it, confront it.  If you don’t like it, make sure it goes away.  Get consensus on your side — whatever a group decides has more clout than the decisions of scattered individuals.  DECIDE to be a better people, a better church.  Decide to be agents of light rather than darkness.  Decide to create the kind of community anyone would feel good about joining.  It doesn’t matter what we believe if our actions only work to belie our words.

“Naughty” is a great word.  Today it often means risqué, improper, bad or inappropriate, but in its origin it was an all-purpose word that could mean bad, evil, worthless, of no value, unhealthy, unpleasant, disagreeable, adversarial, contrary, difficult, improper, or hypocritical.  At its heart and essence was the sense of opposition for opposition’s sake — acting in ways that cancelled out other ways of action so that efforts were “for naught (or nought).”  It is this level of contrariness and opposition that I want to reflect on when it comes to the church — the thoughts, words and actions that transform Christianity into Christianaughty.

It has always troubled and perplexed me that we have so many church members who oppose mission and ministry — in fact, oppose any and all positive change and development.  They don’t want new people to come in and disrupt the status quo, they don’t want the pastor or other church members active in the community, they don’t want to spend money on new ideas (and many old ideas), and they vote against any new ministries or programs.  Yet, they believe themselves to be faithful supporters of the congregations — pillars, if you will.

There are also, in almost any church I’ve ever been part of, those who sow seeds of discord and disruption — gleefully engaging in bad-mouthing, criticism, gossip, and sometime outright slander and lying — all in the name of Jesus the Christ.  These people (I refer to them as “toxic influencers”) poison the entire congregational well, and they do more damage than openly vocal opponents.

Then there are the Time Lords, who have one motivation and one only: returning the church to the mythical golden age of the 1950s (when all the Sunday school classes were full of perfectly behaved children, where they had to set up extra folding chairs EVERY Sunday for worship, when they never had any financial worries, and where the pastor visited everyone in their homes, attended every church meeting, preached the most MARVELOUS sermons, taught four Sunday school classes, three Bible studies, never missed a WSCS (Women’s Society for Christian Service — prior to UMW) meeting and took the whole Epworth League (pre-UMYF) on mission trips to Appalachia every year…).  Time Lords don’t like the present, don’t believe in the future, and only desire a past that never actually existed.

There are also the Holy/Wholly Bovine — Christian cows chewing their cud and waiting.  Waiting for what, we never know.  They don’t want to DO anything, just be present in case something happens that they shouldn’t miss.  They really don’t care if the church does anything for anyone else, as long as it provides them a place to gather and graze.  They sit serenely blinking and chewing and only make a noise when someone steps on their tail.  Their Christianity is one of complacency and comfort.

None of these groups is “naughty” in the sense of being “bad.”  But all of them bring the best efforts of a congregation to naught if they are allowed to call the shots and have their own way.  Church, by definition, is to be a living, breathing, active entity.  It exists for a purpose, and that purpose lies beyond the walls of the congregation’s gathering space.  For too long, the “naughty” have defined for many congregations what their ongoing life will be.  They cancel out the positive impact the community of faith might have — or at the very least they greatly diminish the impact.

So what can be done with our naughty church?  Nothing simple, I’m afraid.  Every step is fraught with peril.  We will actually have to talk to one another and say “no,” from time to time.  To those who oppose all change, we need to thank them for their input but remove them from influential positions.  Anyone who prevents us from growing as the Body of Christ cannot be given power.  To those who spread poison throughout the faith community, we must name the bad behavior, confront it, and work together to eliminate it.  To our Time Lords, we must lovingly remind them that our future cannot lie in our past and once again remove these folks from positions of authority.  I know this is hard, but almost every change in our Book of Discipline for the past thirty years has been to put in place safeguards and processes to get good people in leadership and remove the less effective and downright destructive.  The system supports such action.  To the apathetic and complacent, we simply cannot organize our efforts around their comfort.  A little creative tail-stepping is in order to get some of these folks up and moving.

Regardless, as leaders in a congregation we need to constantly focus on moving toward a positive instead of coping with a negative.  We spend so much time trying to figure out how to get through the wilderness that we lose sight of any kind of Promised Land.  We work so hard to escape pain and discomfort that we rarely attempt to build a safe and secure future.  We expend so much energy managing people and problems that we have nothing left for creativity and innovation.  We get stuck in the now and miss much of where God is calling us in the not yet.  We are so busy watching our feet that we miss the vision being revealed on the horizon.  This isn’t an indictment, but an observation.  Most leaders want to create something better, they want to grow and move in healthy, positive directions.  They are frustrated by the dissipation of effort and energy.  Those who suffer most are those trying to do it alone.

Of all the things I have learned in thirty-plus years of ministry, the most important is this: church requires and demands community for effectiveness and success.  Pastors can play an important role, but it is only when a congregation begins acting like a true community that “church” happens.  Together, we need to decide how we will act and behave.  Together, we need to agree on what it important and what will define our life.  Together, we need to hold each other accountable and to encourage and support growth and development.  Together, we must seek and discern, discuss and pursue God’s vision for our whole community.  The needs, desires, and demands of individuals must be subsumed and transformed into the hopes, passions, and performance of the community of faith — many members, one body.  Church is defined by unity (common unity… comm-unity) and it is when we care more about God and each other that real miracles occur.  To be the Body of Christ — that is the whole meaning and reason of the church.  And that Body must move through the world to fulfill its purpose.

I listened to a Christian commentator rant about the moral decay of the nation and how Christianity “has lost its hold” on our country.  He was basing his rant on a report from the Gallup organization that indicates “only” 78% of Americans identify with some form of Christianity this Christmas.  He emphatically reminded us that 60 years ago 9-out-of-10 Americans were “good” Christians (as opposed to the 8-out-of-10 so-so Christians today…), and that “devil-worshipping liberals” (like me) were “killing Christmas.”  He neglected to report that Gallup also indicates that 93% of Americans celebrate Christmas, even if they don’t call themselves “religious.”

But do these numbers tell us important information or do they mislead and misrepresent?  I’ll let you decide, but here are some things to think about:

• in 1948, the U.S. population was approximately 146,500,000.  92% = 134,780,000 Christians celebrating Christmas.  The current population in the U.S. is approximately 308,4oo,000.  78% = 240,552,000 Christians celebrating Christmas (286,812,000 Americans celebrating Christmas).
• Gallup reports that 13% of Americans claim “no religious identity.”  This category needs some further exploration and unpacking.  When the General Board of Discipleship engaged in its Spiritual Seeker Study, we discovered a significant shift occurring that has implications for this statistic.  75% of the people we surveyed who believe in God and Jesus Christ claimed they “subscribe to no religion.”  They were part of the cultural segment who call themselves “spiritual, but not religious.”  The category “religious belief” is becoming archaic and less helpful.  Comparing someone with “no religious identity” in 1948 — or even 1978 — with someone claiming the same thing in 2009 may be comparing apples to oranges.
• Cultural, societal, and generational mores have changed — my grandfather attended church every week, considered himself religious, and gave a tithe of his income to his church.  He also swore like a sailor, made fun of most of the people he went to church with, never read the Bible or prayed, and thought Sunday school was for sissies and momma’s boys.  There is almost no way to adjust statistics for honesty or integrity.  Church attendance is no great indicator of behavior.  I remember an eye-opening interview I did with a woman’s shelter director in Tennessee.  She told me that the vast majority of abused women she counseled came out of “good Christian homes” where the husbands were active at church.  We need to be careful the assumptions we make when we here someone is “religious” or attends church regularly.
• Why fixate on the 10-15% we don’t have?  Eight-out-of-ten Americans claim some form of Christian faith!!  80%!!!  We celebrate the church from the Book of Acts — a church that represented 4-6% of the total population in its healthiest locations!  What is our problem?  If we could get the 80% who say they believe to act like it, we could make this old world a much better place to live.

Christianity in the United States is 400+ years old.  The current cultural and educational diversity of this country is a few decades old.  The decline of the old in the face of the new is a given — it is just what happens; always has — always will.  In my mind, we should marvel that the statistics aren’t a lot worse.  Were we honest in our responses and measurement, the number and percentage of “Christians” would be much smaller than it appears — but we have no objective, fair, unbiased metrics by which to judge.  The numbers we have aren’t doing us any favors.  They make us feel bad, anxious, uncertain, discouraged, and they force us to may uncritical and short-sighted decisions.  Let’s focus on what we do have and what we can do with what we’ve got.  That makes a lot more sense to me than panicking over problems that may really not exist.

What often gets lost when we play with statistics is that they represent something — in this case, real people.  It would be wonderful if we could stop treating people like statistics and start treating statistics like people.  It doesn’t matter how many more or less we have today than yesterday.  If we are building good, healthy, strong relationships with everyone we have today, we will reach more and more tomorrow.  But we won’t reach them because they are our “target demographic.”  We will reach them because they are people, worthy of our time, energy, effort, and respect.

In the 1946 film, The Bell’s of St. Mary’s, Bing Crosby sings Grant Clarke & George W. Meyer’s, In the Land of Beginning Again.  This sappy, wistful, wonderful song fits the film beautifully, wishing for the chance to start fresh, to let go of past regrets, and to move forward with our personal slate washed clean.  It is as appropriate a New Year’s song as Auld Lang Syne.  New Year’s is the natural time to “start over,” and literally millions of people worldwide use the New Year as a marker by which to make resolutions to act differently, think differently, work differently, relate differently, and feel differently.  January 2 is traditionally the day most of these resolutions crash and burn.

Why?  Why do our good intentions slide down the highway to hell, giving us more to feel guilty about?  Well, the most obvious reason is that it is artificial, superficial, and insubstantial.  Why would we think something would be easier to do on January 1 than on December 31?  That’s like believing something will be simpler on Thursday that is too hard on Tuesday, or that bad habits will magically disappear if only we could move to a new location.  It’s never that simple — we always take ourselves with us.  Our bad habits and unpleasant characteristics are not external forces working on us, they are internal propensities that either we control or that control us.  My eating too much cake is NEVER the cake’s fault.  Drinking too much wine doesn’t happen because there is wine in the house.  Honest change begins with accepting responsibility for one’s thoughts and actions.  Anything else is disingenuous and destined to fail.  People do not change until they want to change — and there is a huge difference between “wishing” and “wanting.”  Most people wish they could lose weight or stop smoking; they don’t want to because what they really “want” is the comfort and pleasure they receive from food or tobacco.  Every substantive change happens through a simple process of values clarification — what is more important to me?  Is the momentary satisfaction worth more than long-term benefits?  Is what I can have now worth more than what I will receive later?  Here’s the rub: people can’t actually conceive a future “might” when faced with a current certainty.  Being thinner a year from now doesn’t hold the same drawing power as the “all-you-can-eat” breakfast buffet.

Let’s face it.  We are weak, by nature.  We are biological creatures created for homeostasis.  We settle for baseline health and vitality, not athleticism and discomfort.  We seek comfort and security more than we seek risk and novelty,  We seek satisfaction and avoid sacrifice.  We work as much as we have to, but reluctantly and resentfully.  Most admit they wish they could have more leisure time.  Most human beings only want to be as good as they have to be, not as good as they could be.  And that’s where faith comes in.  Christianity, at its very best, is a counter-cultural, super-natural pursuit.  It challenges and calls us to reject cultural norms and rise above nature.  It calls us to be better than good enough and to strive for continuous improvement.  It subverts our laziness and pushes us toward higher goals (perfection, anyone?).  It continuously pokes us right in the comfort zone and yells at us to “DO SOMETHING!”  It can be irritating as all get out.

We’re in a tough place in the church today.  Cultural values and the biological imperative have displaced what it means to be “church.”  Too many of us adopt a complacent faith, defend a passive faith, hide in a personal and private faith, or pretend we have a safe faith.  These are all well and good, but none of them are Christianity, regardless of our feeble attempts to slap a “What Would Jesus Do?” bracelet on them.  We are in a time and place to make a decision: will we begin again?  Will we work to become the Body of Jesus Christ for the world and stop worrying so much about the “reputation” of The United Methodist Church.  Will we proclaim the good news instead of marketing the merely mediocre news?  Will we move beyond the dividing walls of hostility to a healthy, holy, all-encompassing, all-embracing global community?  Will we stop trying define ourselves by our buildings and programs and pastors and instead be known for our witness and compassion and positive impact in the world?

What do we really want?  Too often all we do is wish — we wish God would do for us what God put us here to do for others.  We wish we didn’t have numeric decline and financial woes.  We wish we could attract more people and do more good.  But what we really want is to be taken care of, safe and warm and content in our little pious, provincial faith-forts.  We need to change what we wish into what we want, and that isn’t going to be easy.  It will take more than well-intentioned resolutions for the New Year.  It will take leadership.  It will take vision.  It will take courage to point at much that we are doing and say “No, this is wrong!”  It will take a shift of focus from those who demand we take care of them to those whom God directs “take care of these, my children.”

Okay, sermon’s over.  My intention was to deliver a message of hope for a New Year, and instead my little cynical brain took me someplace I wasn’t expecting to go…  We have so much promise and possibility.  I believe we can make the deep, substantive changes we need to make, if only we really want to.  It will be hard.  It will take time.  But it will be worth it.  We simply have to direct our eyes to the future and not be so consumed by the present and anchored to the past.  Happy New Year.  Hopefully we can make 2010 a beacon of hope and promise for all.

Is our faith a blessing or a burden?  Are the practices of prayer, worship, fasting, giving, serving and studying gifts or obligations?  The way a person answers these questions is very telling as to the role and value of faith in her or his life.  It is continuously fascinating to me to talk to people about prayer, and to find out that the majority of Christians I know view prayer as a task rather than a joy.  I know for myself that there are times that I can’t wait to get to pray — I look forward to quiet, reflective time with God (usually the first thing after I get to my office in the morning).  What I experience is relief and calm, and many days it is the absolute high point.  I’m not sure I could cope with much of the minutiae of the morning were I not centered and focused.  I don’t feel like I “have” to spend time in prayer, but that I “get” to spend time in prayer.  Too many of my colleagues feel burdened by a need to pray, and prayer time is the first thing to go when their schedules get a little hectic (which, for some, is all the time). 

Now, I have to be careful when it comes to worship.  I’m not talking about attending services (which often does feel more like an obligation than a blessing to me), but I’m talking about those wonderful times of spiritual fellowship where attention shifts to God — giving God thanks and praise and basking in the wonderful sense of God’s presence.  This comes to me most often in smaller, more intimate circles where true community defines the gathering and the sense of unity and oneness is strong.  Retreats and ongoing small group experiences offer this kind of worship more than once-a-week congregational gathering.  I am not exactly sure why I don’t seek this experience more, other than the fact that I’m too lazy.

Christian service to others falls into this category as well (the too lazy category).  I love mission trips and prison ministry and working in soup kitchens and shelters, but the number of times I have done it in the past couple years can be counted on the fingers of both hands.  It is fascinating to me how “church work” gets in the way of “Christian service,” in my own life.  I am working 70+ hours for the “church” most weeks, yet I am all-too-rarely giving aid to the poor and marginalized of our society.  What’s up with that?

Fasting.  What can an overweight, middle-aged, white American male say about fasting that isn’t disingenuous and defensive.  I don’t do it on a regular basis, though I have experienced wonderful spiritual and physical benefits from those times in my life where I was much more disciplined and committed.  Times of retreat for fasting, prayer, meditation, reading and walking have been glorious experiences.  I think of them fondly and wish for them frequently, but then I don’t make them happen.  Like Paul, “I do not understand my own actions.  For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” (Romans 7:15)  Or maybe I’m just a big fat liar.  Maybe what I really want is to do what I want when I want without having to feel guilty about it…

Giving is another tough spot.  I am a soft touch.  I will give to just about anything.  But it has been year’s since my wife and I have had an established church home, and our giving is sporadic and all over the map.  We don’t have a something to commit to.  I give to literacy programs and to hunger relief and to crisis shelters.  My wife is a generous giver to charities as well.  We give to every church we visit, and man, do we visit a lot of churches, but our giving isn’t focused or vision-driven.  We like giving, we would love to conquer our debts with an eye toward giving even more, and we are not selfish people (at least financially), but we both would like to be more mindful in our giving.

Ah, study, here is where there is no hint of duty, obligation, sacrifice or hardship.  I read almost 400 books each year, and I am constantly seeking and digesting new information.  I read everything — even things I know I will disagree with.  I try to sample all that culture reveres, including a bunch of junk.  I also spend a great deal of time with the classics, with great literature, with science, with philosophy, and with Spider-Man comics.  My mind churns constantly with new ideas, old ideas, good ideas, and bad ideas.  I am a study junkie, and proud of it.  And this extends to the Bible as well.  I dig into — and get lost in — scripture almost daily, and I love to look up original word meanings and historical and cultural contexts and think about how these things translate across time, place, and worldview to today.  This is where I feel most unequivocally blessed.

How can we as congregational leaders bring joy, excitement, enthusiasm, and voracious hunger to the pursuit of spiritual disciplines in our communities of faith?  How can we till the soil to help people embrace spiritual practices with passion and vitality?  What might we do to transform a sense of burden into blessing?  This will be one of my regular pursuits in the new year — not only for myself, but for those with which I lead and serve.

I saw a heartening article in USA Today on Christmas Eve.  Jews and Muslims in the Detroit area were joining together to do charity work on Christmas Day to help compensate the lack of Christians who would be off celebrating their holiday instead of working in soup kitchens and food banks.  This marked a first for Muslims to join the Jewish community in what has been called “Mitzvah Day” in southeast Michigan.  The Mitzvah (“good deed,” or commandment) Day has a twenty year tradition, and it was with some pride and goodwill that the observation included Islamic participation this year.  A wonderful witness, right?  Well, here are some absurdly unenlightened comments I pulled off the web today in response:

What’s the matter with those people?  Don’t they have their own holidays to celebrate without trying to undermine ours?  What could be their possible motive accept (sic) to make us look bad?

Where are they the rest of the year?  Obviously, this is nothing more than a grab for attention.

Do they really think this makes up for anything?  We know that they want to overthrow America and all it stands for.  They make a mockery of everything Christian, including charity!

Well, it won’t hurt for them to atone for all the evil they do, but one day a year isn’t going to make much difference.

“Those people,” “they,” “them?”  I am constantly shocked and amazed at the residual animosity and hatred many Christians feel for the whole generic categories of “Jew” and “Muslim.”  We go to school together, live in the same neighborhoods, shop in the same stores, work side by side, but something still divides “us” from “them.”  Oh, it isn’t our God — same God, understood differently.  Mostly it is misunderstanding, poor information, lack of reliable facts, and an unwillingness to play nicely with anyone who doesn’t think, believe, and act the same way we do.  My one and only Habitat for Humanity project was a UM group with Hindus and a biker club building a house in East Nashville over a decade ago.  Once we got over our idiotic fear and mistrust of each other, we realized we were “one” in purpose and humanity and we got along fine.  Three incompatible “us-es” found a way to discard our “them-ism” to become a brand new unity and oneness.  I am so glad that my Christ demands that I acknowledge that Jesus broke down all the dividing walls of hostility that true unity might emerge.  Too bad this same Christ isn’t as strong as 21st century human fear.

Two recent “terrorist” attempts on Delta flights raised the hackles of God-fearing Americans coast-to-coast.  Suspicions abound, and already claims of profiling and unfair treatment of foreigners are beginning to increase.  Two-thirds (66%) of American Protestant clergy agree with the statement “I believe Islam is a dangerous religion,” according to a recent Lifeway (Southern Baptist) Research poll of more than 1,000 church leaders.  Evangelicals are more likely to agree than mainliners (77% to 47%), but further surveying and interviewing reveals that most opinions are based on hearsay, misinformation, and just-plain lies.  Comparative analysis of the Koran to the Hebrew scriptures indicates that Islam is no more violent or dangerous than Judaism or Christianity.  It all depends on how the scriptures are interpreted and taught.  Bombing abortion clinics and killing doctors is no less “terrorism” than bombing a subway or hotel (unless of course you agree with Robert Weems, who said, “It’s not the same.  We only go after sinners!  They go after innocents.”)

Why don’t we spend as much time looking for commonalities as we do differences?  Judaism, Islam, and Christianity are all faiths grounded in faithfulness, charity, compassion for the stranger, spiritual discipline, and doing good.  All promote the upbuilding of community and the common good.  All seek reconciliation and peace.  Oh, sure, this vision of mutuality is pick-and-choose, but why can’t we pick-and-choose the good elements instead of the awful ones?  Why couldn’t we strive for a true, universal inter-faith ecumenism that might have the power to heal a broken world, and create a vital, healthy future?  Why can’t we strive to love those we disagree with, while being as lovable as possible for those who disagree with us?  Couldn’t Christians take the high road and work for unity and peace instead of demanding to be right all the time?

Faith, hope, and love abide — these three — but the greatest of these is love.  Do we believe this?  Do we even want this to be true?  Everyone says they want peace.  Everyone says they believe in justice.  Everyone desires a world that is better, kinder, and more loving than the one we have.  But most of us blame the failure of our world to be peaceful, just, kind, loving and compassionate on “THEM.”  When do we wake up to the fact that there is no “THEM?”  It’s just us, sharing a planet, competing for a future, and needing to be better — and the only way we will truly be better is if we are all better — all of “US.”

Driving past a church this morning, I noted that the Nativity scene was already down (sorry Wise Men — snooze, ya’ lose.  Wouldn’t want to honor Epiphany by accident or on purpose…) and Mary and Joseph were laying face down in the snow and the baby Jesus was buried under a stack of wood and hay; one small hand reaching out for rescue from the crushing load.  It struck me as an “on-the-nose” symbolism of our cultural relationship to Christ and Christmas — honor the holiday event for a few weeks in December, then strike the set and put the props away until next year.  And Jesus, for many, is just that — a prop.

When I was a child I once asked my mother why we wrapped Jesus in paper and put him in a dusty box and shut him in a musty, dark closet for eleven months and 25-30 days each year (we didn’t add Jesus to the crèche scene until Christmas Eve, then took things down the week after Christmas.  Our wise men arrived around December 10 and just sat on their camels shooting the breeze with Mary, Joseph, the angel, the shepherds and the animals for a couple weeks — but everyone looked appropriately reverent the whole time.)  There was something disrespectful about shoving Jesus to the back of the closet when we were through with him.  Out of sight, out of mind.  My grandmother actually listened to me, and she left the baby Jesus from her Nativity scene on the fireplace mantle all year ’round.

At my local coffee shop, the “Keep Christ in Christmas” sign that’s been in the window for the past month is already gone.  Along the roadways, denuded Christmas trees lay abandoned, waiting for pickup.  There is no more “Joy to the World” to be found.  Once more, we are done with Christmas.  But how many of us are also done with Christ?  One headline I saw on a news-site says it all: “Soldiers Take Up Arms as Christmas Ends.”  Christmas ends.  It’s all over.  Peace is done, time to kill.  Good cheer is finally no longer expected, we can stop pretending to be nice.  The Valentine’s candy is already out at the local CVS and Target stores.  (And just where is the Martin Luther King, Jr. candy?)

A vacation ad for a Caribbean post-holiday getaway shows Jesus and Santa clinking glasses on a pristine beach, reindeer and camels playing beach volleyball in the background.  It seems that Jesus and Santa can’t wait for all the Christmas craziness to end, either.  (How an adult Jesus gets the vacation a day after his birth is a bit confusing, but then I didn’t know reindeer could spike…)

Keeping Christ in Christmas seems like only half the battle.  The real work begins when we try to keep Christ in the rest of the year.  Too many of us drag Jesus out to pay attention to once (or twice) a year, then shove him into a dark corner until we need/want him next.  This is a challenge for our communities of faith.  Helping people keep a focus on Christ’s role and place in their lives — individually and collectively — is a full-time, year-round task.  It brings to mind one of the more startling and discouraging findings from the worship research I did a few year’s back.  Two of the interview questions we asked were “What did you learn about God?” and “What did you learn about Jesus?” in sermons that people had heard the same day.  One-in-eight (12%) could name something about God and one-in-eleven (9%) could identify something about Jesus, though 71% said that the sermon was “about God” and 86% reported that the sermon was “about Jesus.”  We know that worship is somehow about God and Jesus — two safe answers in most churches — but we don’t always pick up exactly what preachers are saying about them.  And, did you notice I didn’t mention the Holy Spirit?  Well, if you want to hear anything about the Holy Ghost you shouldn’t be United Methodist.  One-in-thirty-nine (2%) remember the Holy Spirit being mentioned, but only one-in fifty-five (<2%) can remember what it was.  It is only during the Advent season and Christmas, Lent and Easter, that the majority of people can recall specific messages and stories about Jesus.  Messages get a little more generic during Kingdomtide.  And the trend of our larger, “popular” churches is to preach about people’s needs rather than God’s will.  I recently watched a few minutes of a United Methodist church broadcast that would have made Joel Osteen proud — the pastor raved about the untapped power of prayer to help us attain our deepest heart’s desires.  Prayer, he admonished, is a tool we have been given with which to build our dream-life.  If we don’t have the life we want, it is because we aren’t praying for it.  The only mention of God in the entire seven-minute sermon was as the dispenser of goods to those who pray well.  There was no mention of Jesus.

Where does Jesus go after Christmas?  Wherever we put him.  If we set him aside, store him in a box, dump him in the shed under a bale of hay, pack him with the other “decorations” down in the basement or out in the garage, it may actually be symbolic of what we do with him in our lives.  I need to be careful to keep him out where I can see him.  I need to hold him in my heart as easily as I can hold a Nativity figurine in my hand.  I need to see him, attend to him, reflect on him, pray to God in his name, walk with him, talk with him, etc., etc.  I can’t do that if I set him aside in the dark recesses of my heart.  I need to keep Christ central in my non-Christmas life so that I might live Christmas a little bit more in our non-Christmas world.