Not long ago, I blogged the news that it’s better to give than to receive. Now comes the news that going to church is good for you. It’s almost like there was some kind of supernatural agency that wanted us to know how we could have better lives. (I blogged this on the web site at my church, but the original article was in the NY Times.)
Mess of Pottage Blog
The professional blog of Luke Jones
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The Seminary Bubble
From the Aquila Report, but I heard a UMC Bishop making essentially the same point 10 days ago:
Imagine an institution that requires its leaders to attend not only college, but graduate school. Imagine that the graduate school in question is constitutionally forbidden from receiving any form of government aid, that it typically requires three years of full-time schooling for the diploma, that the nature of the schooling bears almost no resemblance to the job in question, and that the pay for graduates is far lower than other professions. You have just imagined the relationship between the Christian Church and her seminaries.
Read the whole article. (Its title of the piece is a reference to the “Higher-Education Bubble,” the broader problem of which seminaries appear to be a piece.)
To complaints in this article I would add another. While I understand and approve of an educated clergy, the period of seminary education necessarily removes the student from the context in which his or her gifts for ministry were first manifested. Since we’re all about contextualization, a key aspect of the missional church movement, it hardly makes sense for the normal case to enforce decontextualization.
A Great Time to Be a Pastor
I’ve recently come across two articles that illustrate why this is a great time to be a pastor. Or, for that matter, a follower of Christ.
Presbyterian leaders in Pittsburgh reeling from latest exodus:
At least 200 other churches have similarly left the 1.9 million-member Presbyterian Church (USA) since 2007. The most prominent issue was acceptance of local option on gay ordination, but those departing say that changing sexual standards reflect a broader disregard for the biblical authority. Defenders of the changes compare them to earlier reinterpretations of scripture involving women’s ordination, divorce and slavery.
Tod Bolsinger’s blog: Hemorrhaging Pastors:
Three. In one day. On Monday, I heard of three of my pastor friends who all resigned this week. No affairs, no scandal, no one is renouncing faith. But three, really good, experienced, pastors all turned in resignations and walked away. Two are leaving church ministry all together.
…
I have been hearing from more pastors these days. Some of it is related to my work with TAG Consulting, a lot of it is because I am, well, one of them. We chat and email and text and the common thread is always the same: “The church is stuck and we don’t know what to do.”
For the record, I’m not planning to resign anything. I like my work and my church. But that doesn’t keep me from seeing the problems. Problems in my denomination, problems in the local church, and my own problems as someone trained to lead a church that no longer exists.
The Church is in crisis. People who don’t see it are kidding themselves, especially pastors. The lay leaders in a congregation ought to know, or certainly ought to suspect. The church as we know it is dying.
But in a perverse way, that’s good news. As Samuel Johnson put it, “when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”
A few weeks after World War II began, the English writer C.S. Lewis gave an address to students at Oxford University called “Learning in War-Time.” In it, he said this:
War makes death real to us, and that would have been regarded as one of its blessings by most of the great Christians of the past. They thought it good for us to be always aware of our mortality. I am inclined to think they were right. All the animal life in us, all schemes of happiness that centred in this world, were always doomed to a final frustration. In ordinary times only a wise man can realise it. Now the stupidest of us knows. We see unmistakably the sort of universe in which we have all along been living, and must come to terms with it. If we had foolish un-Christian hopes about human culture, they are now shattered. If we thought we were building up a heaven on earth, if we looked for something that would turn the present world from a place of pilgrimage into a permanent city satisfying the soul of man, we are disillusioned, and not a moment too soon.
The same is true of the church. In North America, the Church is in a crisis like nothing it has experienced before.
But God is still in his heaven, and Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Jesus told Peter that was the rock upon which he would build his church, and the gates of Hades would not overcome it.
Christ’s Church endures. The programs and buildings and even the friendships we have mistaken for the church may not endure — or let’s be honest: many of those things certainly will not. But it’s not our church, it’s God’s. “Many are the plans in a person’s mind, but the Lord’s purpose will prevail.”
When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie,
My grace, all-sufficient, shall be thy supply.
The flames shall not hurt thee; I only design
Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.
—“How Firm a Foundation”
This is a truly horrifying crime, and not just because I work in a church.
An elementary school music teacher shot his ex-wife while she played the organ during church service and, after leaving briefly, returned and shot her again to ensure she was dead, police said.
Congregants eventually overpowered Gregory Eldred, ending the shooting Sunday at the First United Presbyterian Church of Coudersport, about 140 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.
Stained Glass in a Small World
I don’t know who did the stained glass at Turnagain United Methodist Church in Anchorage, Alaska:
but it looks a lot like the stained glass at Desert Hills Presbyterian Church in Yucca Valley, California:
New Call!
I’ve accepted a new call. Assuming that all the denominational processes work themselves out, then effective March 12, 2012, I will become pastor of Jewel Lake Parish in Anchorage, Alaska.
You can’t photograph a church, but here’s the building they meet in:
(Click to enlarge).
Kristof on Human Trafficking
Nicholas Kristof has another column about the awful reality of human trafficking. (Reader discretion advised.)
So for those of you doubtful that “modern slavery” really is an issue for the new international agenda, think of Srey Pov—and multiply her by millions. If what such girls experience isn’t slavery, that word has no meaning. It’s time for a 21st-century abolitionist movement in the U.S. and around the world.
I agree. I don’t know how to solve that problem, but I like the work that Gary Haugen is doing at International Justice Mission. If you’re looking for an unconventional Christmas present, or a charity to support before the year-end, consider them.
(Via Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution, who sadly concurs with that “millions” factor in Kristof’s article.)
Pray for Yousef Nadarkhani
Have you heard about Yousef Nadarkhani? He’s a Christian pastor in Iran who is facing state-approved murder for the “crime” of apostasy.
Apostasy is turning away from a belief, either to another faith or to atheism. It’s a crime punishable by death in some (all?) countries with Islamic legal systems. In civilized places, it’s a free choice people exercise daily.
As it happens, Yousef Nadarkhani isn’t even an apostate. He never was a Muslim. But Iran set its barbarism knob to “11″ back in 1979. Their so-called judges say, that’s okay, because Nadarkhani is of Muslim ancestry. Even though he never was a Muslim, some of his ancestors were, and his “apostasy” consists of turning away from the faith of his ancestors. (Seems to me there was a fellow in Mecca in the 600′s who did that, PBUH.)
What can be done now? First, we can pray for Nadarkhani and his congregation. Pray for all Christians suffering under the heels of repressive governments, and pray that their oppressors develop a conscience.
Second, we can publicize his case. Jesus said “All who do evil hate the light” (John 3:20). The Iranian clerics judging Nadarkhani think they can perpetrate this evil in the dark, with nobody seeing. They’re wrong.
On Mission Statements (Why Waste Time On ~)
In another article, I talked about our new mission statement (“Sharing the Life of Christ”). I’ll be saying more about it later, but first I wanted to answer the obvious question: “Why a mission statement?” Mission statements are infamous wastes of time. People sit around hashing them out, they’re announced with great fanfare, and then, most of the time, they’re abducted by aliens and we never see them again. So why bother?
Chip and Dan Heath pass along an example of a mission statement. In it, Herb Kelleher, the longest-serving CEO of Southwest Airlines, explains his company’s mission to be “THE low-fare airline”:
“Tracy from marketing comes into your office. She says her surveys indicate that the passengers might enjoy a light entree on the Houston to Las Vegas flight. All we offer is peanuts, and she thinks a nice chicken Caesar salad would be popular. What do you say?”
[The interviewer] stammered for a moment, so Kelleher responded: “You say, ‘Tracy, will adding that chicken Caesar salad make us THE low-fare airline from Houston to Las Vegas? Because if it doesn’t help us become the unchallenged low-fare airline, we’re not serving any [expletive] chicken salad.’”
—from Made to Stick, p. 29
In the case of Southwest Airlines, there’s nothing wrong with the Caesar salad. It’s a good idea, and the customers would like it. But it doesn’t help Southwest achieve its purpose, so they don’t do it. We have a mission statement because we can’t do it all either.
We’re a small church in a small community and we have very real constraints. We have a small staff. (That would be me. My doctor says it wouldn’t hurt if I were 20 lbs smaller still, but that’s another discussion.) Our church has a number of wonderful people who help out in all kinds of ways, but there are only so many of us, and everyone has other things going on in their life in addition to what they’d like to do at church. Our budget is finite, and so are our facilities: seating and parking and so forth.
Since we can’t do it all, the mission statement reminds us what we’re trying to do. Our mission is to share the life of Christ. There are lots of places we can do that: in worship, in fellowship, in spiritual growth, and in evangelism and works of compassion. And there are lots of ways to share the life of Christ. But the methods and places are tactical. However good those things are in themselves, they are not our ultimate end, but only means to it.
The Apostle Paul wrote about how he had “become all things to all people” (1 Corinthians 9:22). But that wasn’t his mission. He didn’t do that because he thought God wanted him to be a chameleon. What Paul said was, “I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some.” His mission was to save some people. He was willing to be a chameleon to do so, so he became all things and used all means to carry out his mission.
I’d like to hear your thoughts. If our mission is to share the life of Christ, what are some things we do that advance our mission? What are some things about our church that are like chicken Caesar salad: not bad, but not helping us carry out our mission? What changes could we make to them so they did help us share the life of Christ?
Sharing the Life of Christ
I heartily approve of the mission statement recently adopted by our Session: “Sharing the Life of Christ.” The first reason I like it is that it’s concise. I used to work in big companies that had those horrible mission statements nobody could repeat or even knew existed, half a page of fashionable buzzwords strung together, like “strategic,” “teamwork,” and “partnering.”
By contrast, our new mission statement passes what I call the “Tee-Shirt Test”–it’s not too big to fit on a Tee-shirt. (Another simple test: which is easier to say: “our mission statement” or the mission statement itself? If it’s not a toss-up, your mission statement needs to be shorter.)
The second reason I like “Sharing the Life of Christ” is that it’s a mission statement. It tells us what we’re doing as a church. There’s a reason God put us here, and we’re doing it. Even if we fail, we’ve done our best, but hopefully, our mission statement will help us succeed.
The Bible records many places where Jesus gave instructions to his disciples. The most famous, perhaps, is the Great Commission in Matthew 28: “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all I have commanded you.”
There are any number things we could be doing to fulfill the Great Commission, but, given our size and our limited resources, there are probably only a few we can do well. The entire Christian church can and should go to all nations, but if we attempted to do that as individual Christians, we’d spend our whole life in airports, and not have any time for making disciples or teaching them to obey Jesus. A mission statement helps us decide where to focus our efforts.
I’m excited to have this new tool to help us be faithful in our calling to be disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, and I hope you are too.
Over the next several weeks, I’ll let you know what I think it means for us to share the life of Christ. I’d love to hear what you think. What is “the life of Christ?” How do we share it? Who do we share it with? Let’s talk!
(Cross-posted at the Desert Hills Presbyterian Church blog.)