Father's Day, Expanded

Chris and I have stuck our Father's Day cards in the mail, and I've explored father-to-be options for Chris for this Father's Day, but I wanted to write a few words about how I think we're called to celebrate this day as Christians...and why...

This came to mind this week as I learned that we had only had enough gifts made to hand out this Sunday in church for, well, biological fathers. I hadn't asked before (I hadn't asked for Mother's Day, which is, it turns out, why we'd run out of gifts by the second service) because I had considered it a theological imperative, I guess, to recognize all men on Father's Day. After all, Christianity has long held singleness to be a totally valid path to discipleship, and long gone are the days when (most) Christians would call a childless marriage any less successful than a child-bearing one. After all, a lot of child-bearing marriages end in divorce, so I mean, how would you define "success"?

My own thoughts on this were formed early, and actually due, I think, to my own father's approach to the holiday as I say it played out at the church be served in Baltimore. There was an older could at that church, Chinni and Sununda, who had immigrated to the US from India, having grown up as Christians, and somehow (I cannot remember how) they ended up connected with this church in Baltimore.

Chinni and Sununda were awesome, kind, loving people who loved all the children of the church. They gave generously of their time, love and resources. Chinni has spent much of his life as a teach at a prestigious boys school in the city. But they never had children of their own. They not only care for the children of the church, but in Sununda's later years (she died several years ago) they took care of a niece and her family until that family could get set up here in the US.

It would have seemed radically awkward, really, not to recognize these loving people when we recognized parents. And so it was that we always did. We always recognized all men, or all women, on Mothers and Fathers Day. How else could it be? Certainly Christians value families and family values, but aren't we supposed to reach further, and understand our place in God's family. It just never occurred to me that church would so any less.

I mean, when you think about the important mother or father figures in your life, I bet you'll list people you're not biologically related to, and probably even a few with no kids of their own. All of these people are gifts got has given to use, and all ought to be celebrated!

Trust Clause Follow Up

So those who read my blog regularly--and thank you if you do (and I'm sorry for the rambling that most of my posts are)--I wanted to follow up regarding the issue of the trust clause, specifically as it was in the news recently because of the situation at Sunnyside.

Based on what I gathered from the Bishop speaking at last week's annual conference session, the parties involved have come to an agreement (along with some sort of confidentiality clause which I'm not sure what that hides, but I guess that's the point) in which Sunnyside gets to leave, and will buy their building. Now that I think of it, the confidential part may be the amount they're paying, since this is one of the problems the conference trustees have run into in the past--a congregation leaves, then the district committee sells or rents the building for a fraction of the price--there are even rumors of past such sales of churches for $1, which hardly seems to validate the spirit of the trust clause. At any rate, I have no idea what the amount was, though I can only hope it was a fair market price. At any rate, I must commend our conference leadership, the DS and the Bishop, who were far more gracious in this situation than was required.

The question of the trust clause remains, though, and was given bolstering recently with a judgment in a case involving Episcopal churches in VA--a big deal for United Methodists since our trust clause is much more legally strong than theirs.

Check out this story from the Washington Post

Nine conservative congregations sought to break away from the denomination over conflicts involving the ordination of LGBT persons to the Episcopacy--this is a different issue for their denomination because their call system allows for the ordination of LGBT priests without all churches being require to accept them. Therefore, the issue is not as present for all churches when it only allows for LGBT priests as it does for LGBT bishops. It is different for the United Methodist church because of the appointment process--a church could not simply NOT hire an LGBT minister, therefore, the issue for the UMC, I suspect, will be resolved long before the election of a bishop is the issue. But, hey, stranger things have happened.

That said, the unanimous appeals decision doesn't straight forwardly reinforce the trust clause, but says that the lower court mis-applied it in this case. The article says things are not over, just getting a lot more messy as these congregations seek to leave and take their property with them.

A Man Fell Into a Hole...

This Sunday's sermon is the final in our "Rethink Church" series. The question is "What if church could lighten your load?" and Pastor Ken will be preaching on the text of the parable of the Good Samaritan. We've decided to use the story from West Wing (the same story is told in different ways in different stories) of a man who fell into a hole. I just thought I'd share it to get you thinking in prep for Sunday as an opportunity to reflect on how we as church light be able to lighten each other's and others' loads...

In #32 Noël, Leo tells Josh the following story (Josh refers to it when talking to Leo in "Bartlet for America"):
    "This guy's walking down the street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep he can't get out.
    "A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, 'Hey you. Can you help me out?' The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole and moves on.
    "Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up, 'Father, I'm down in this hole can you help me out?' The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on
    "Then a friend walks by, 'Hey, Joe, it's me can you help me out?' And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, 'Are you stupid? Now we're both down here.' The friend says, 'Yeah, but I've been down here before and I know the way out.'"
(Passage as quoted here: http://westwing.bewarne.com/queries/story.html)

Interfaith Marriages

There are a few websites that I check out regularly...if not daily, then at least a few times a week. These include The Pew Religion news page and Duke's Faith and Leadership page, which in additional to featured articles, also highlights news stories each day. Often, there aren't many stories that catch my attention, other times there are. Usually is I post about the stories at all, it's to share them on Facebook and share a few reflections (already this morning I've posted a story from the Washington Post about people protesting a possible (i.e. in development) show about Jesus living in NYC today--and why I think there are probably better things to worry about for Christians.

Then I checked out the Faith and Leadership page and came across this article about how the rate of interfaith marriages is increasing, but that these marriages are also failing at a higher rate than the average population.

Here is the article.

I think one line really start to get at the issue for me as a pastor..."But couples don't want to hear that, and no one really wants to tell them."

When I do premarital counseling with couples (and I haven't really done any true interfaith weddings, more like one person is way more interested in church participation than another) I do not tell couples what they should do or not related to their religious lives. I suppose some pastors would criticize me for this, but I find the setting to be too charged--these people just want to get through these sessions so you'll marry them. I'm afraid they'd be prone to say whatever they think I want to hear. So my speech on religious life goes something like this: "Look, I'm not going to tell you what to do. But I will say this. Early in a relationship, religion can seem like a non-issue for many couples. Your schedules may not really allow you to go to church anyway, and at any rate, you may simply have expectations for the future. You need to talk about those now. Because religion WILL become an issue if not before then, then when you have children. Don't make your kids resolve this for you. Deal with it now. Discuss your views, especially how you see religious life being (or not being) a regular part of your lives, and if you want to find a church community and get more involved, it may be easier to do that now than when you have a young child and are adjusting to that."

We live in a pluralistic world, and many people are able to make such relationships work. But many people are not.

One of the big things people try to assert is that their religion does not exclude others. I have yet to find one for which that is true--precisely because each faith's beliefs are so unique so as to not be able to be interpreted in any way other than their "native" way. For a Buddhist to say they accept Christianity would be to reject the Christological claims of Christianity generally. Christianity does not accept that Jesus was simply a prophet, so Islam cannot be fully reconciled with Christian beliefs. Christianity does not believe in reincarnation, on and on. It doesn't mean we all have to fight, it just means you can't believe everything at once.

Check out this quote from the article:

But the effects on the marriages themselves can be tragic -- it is an open secret among academics that tsk-tsking grandmothers may be right. According to calculations based on the American Religious Identification Survey of 2001, people who had been in mixed-religion marriages were three times more likely to be divorced or separated than those who were in same-religion marriages.

This same article even points out that differences not only amongst denominations, but also the degree of the couple's religious involvement (i.e. one spouse worships regularly, the other does not) also seems to increase the rate of divorce.

Or check out this quote about how well-intentioned couples can still face difficulties:

Even among those who have tough conversations, says Joshua Coleman, a psychologist and co-chair of the Council on Contemporary Families, a nonpartisan research organization, religion can become a serious point of contention later on. One parent may agree to raise the children in the other's faith, he says, but then that faith "becomes repellent" to him or her. Coleman doesn't think that people get married with the intention of deceiving their spouse; "they just have no idea how powerfully unconscious religion can be."

So at any rate, I thought the article was interesting, though not predictive for people (after all, there are still a lot of interfaith marriages that don't end in divorce). What do you think?

Reflecting

Whoa. So it's been a super long time since I've blogged. Yikes!

I remember in college, as a history major at Gettysburg College, we often used primary sources for our papers (the way real historians do, and as I later learned, not how everyone--sadly--does history). At any rate, for one project, we looked at civilian life in the town during the Battle of Gettysburg. One can only imagine how well researched this topic is by GC students alone!

We found one woman (I cannot now remember her name) who wrote quite a lot before and after the battle, but not during. And actually, even her writings afterward don't shed the glaring light on that time as we'd hoped. Of course this led first to a discussion in the class about how disconnected she was. Our professor countered with the view that I like to hold (at any rate I like it better): this was so real an experience. During it, who could blame her for not having time to write (we'd learned from other sources that this same young woman had helped with the medical care which filled the town and nearly all its buildings). And after that (and it was a long while before anything like normalcy returned) how exactly does one describe that experience, where would one start.

At any rate, then, I hope my lapse in writing here does not in any way signal any lack of interest in the happens of the world, community, church or my own life in between. In fact, a TON has happened since my last post, and I can only hope to be more regular in my postings from now on (at least until my next regrettable lapse).

I've been reading Stanley Hauerwas' autobiography Hannah's Child lately, thanks to the ease of the Kindle app on my iPhone (I'd rather read a few pages than play a silly game--most of the time at least). I have really enjoyed reading my former professor's reflections, and have certainly learned a lot--and remembered how much I missed the theological discussions of my seminary days. But also powerful to me has been how Hauerwas tells his story--as others have noted of the book, he has filled it with references to people...people he worked with, knew, read, etc. He certainly sees himself as the product not only of his experiences, but also his acquaintances (though even such a note sells his theological views on the matter short). At any rate, it has made me reflect upon the people in my life and how they have shaped me. In fact, Hauerwas' story is also a part of mine--so that when he tells of particular views he developed in interaction with a particular person, I recall how my views on that were shaped by Hauerwas, and I thus learn both of us were shaped by this other person, on and on. I will never forget the first day of our intro to Christian ethics class when Dr. Hauerwas explained that he was not going to endeavor to help us to think for ourselves--it was his class and his goal was to have us think like him. I suspect i have fallen somewhere in between.

Hauerwas' explanation of his own family (his former wife's mental illness was nothing of a secret around the Div School though I knew none of the details till reading Hannah's Child) not only resonated with some similar experiences (similar in very vague and different ways albeit) in my own life, but his relationship with his son Adam also made we really wonder for the first time about my own child (hopefully children) as Chris and I anticipate our first child's birth in the latter half of November. I once had a counselor tell me (God bless colleges that provide free counseling to their students) that sometimes all parents can do is do their best and start saving money early for their children's future psychiatric care. That sounded less flippant, yet still humorous in context, but as a soon-to-be parent, I suppose it bear (probably constant) attention...how do our choices and lives affect our children?

For me, one of the things I think about is the way my and my husband's vocations will impact our children. It is perhaps unfair to say that a pastor or camp director's children are more impacted by their parents jobs (I can imagine any person's job having a significant impact on their children depending on how they handle it) but there is something to be said for the sheer physical presence a child of such a parent (let alone one of each) has in their parent's "work" world. I don't think such a situation is necessarily traumatizing (if I did I wouldn't even venture submitting a child to such) but I do know it can be done terribly wrong, which gives me the hope it can also be done quite right (or at least as well as possible).

I suspect one of the key factors is the extent to which a child feels there are expectations placed upon them solely because of a parent's job. And further, the extent to which they feel their lives are in some way a possession of the community. Now, as a Christian, I cannot help but hold that we are not our own people, and we are only most truly living as disciples when living in a community to whom we are accountable. But for many PKs (pastor's kids, and I suspect often true for camp director's kids) the healthy aspect of this gets swallowed up when parents simply do not have good boundaries for their own lives. Of course, discerning good boundaries is precisely the difficulty, but for many, simply asserting that there should be some boundaries is probably a good place to start.

Further, in an attempt, I suspect, to mitigate the negative aspects of poor boundaries and having people too involved in a child's life, some pastors and camp directors seem to deem their work setting as the appropriate place for their child to learn basic manners. As if it is routinely the altar committee's job to keep one's child from running amuck, or the Bible study group's job to simply ignore the child you dragged along. We all need grace, and parents need support, but church or camp cannot and should not replace a parent's responsibility to properly raise one's children. There's something to the Apostle Paul's guidance to Timothy (1 Timothy 3:12) about church leaders managing their children well. Pastors don't have perfect kids (what does perfect mean anyway?), and shouldn't be expected to, but they ought to be able to "manage them" well. At least well enough so that they are not a burden to others. No one likes a bratty kid, and when it's the pastor's kid, it becomes more difficult for people to deal with. I know a lot of kids who are well behaved (all kids are, well kids, but there's a difference)...and some of these are even PKs, so I believe there is hope.

All this said, I'm aware that it's one thing to say it, and other to do it. It's also easy as a parent who is a pastor or camp director (and I suspect this is the root of most problems in such families) to lay aside family time and priorities in favor of the many and limitless good things to be done. A pastor who wants to find a way to fill his time will have no trouble doing so. And many a clergy family has died a slow and painful death as their relationships have fallen prey to others' needs. I'm not advocating for self-indulgence (that is, after all, sin) and I do think it's quite important for children to learn that there are a lot of people out there and the world doesn't revolve around themselves. But there's a point where this good lesson becomes a punishment. And that is the point where these vocations of ours can become dangerous.

So, as we prepare for a child, Chris and I continue to discern how we are called to find a healthy balance in our family. We are helped along because we have done this all along--talked and prayed about how to balance our relationship and our callings, and how to keep all our relationships healthy. I was blessed by parents, who for whatever other challenges we faced as a family, I found them to be very interested in letting each of us be ourselves, and not simply an extension of my father's ministerial office. I was not raised to feel I was simply the possession of the church, and thus it was meaningful for me to give my life over to the church's service--it was indeed a choice and not an inevitability. That is the same choice I want our children to have.

So we'll see...just as I shall continue to see the many ways the people in my life shape me, and no doubt, the ways those same people and others shape my children's lives...

The Path Laid For Us

It is always a treat to learn about the history of a church. In fact, it is certainly an essential task of any pastor to be constantly learning about the people and church one serves. What I always find even more awesome as I learn history is how much it teaches you about the "soul" of a place and a people.

Yesterday, I was invited to one of our women's circles to speak about our new worship service, Koinonia. Since we're still in the building phase of that service, we haven't done a thorough job getting the word out about that, especially getting the reasoning behind it out. We need to do better, and these small groups are a great way to have conversation (otherwise, it becomes us talking AT people, and that's never fun, and often leaves important questions unanswered).

So it truly was a treat to fellowship with these women, and get to share some of our vision and passion for continuing to expand Calvary's ministry in new ways. I talked about how starting a new service is not an attempt by us to "fix" anything--indeed all experts agree that a church starting a new service to fix itself is about as good of an idea as a couple who has a child thinking that will fix their relationship. Bad news. Some experts talk about a church as having DNA. You don't want to replicate churches with bad DNA, only those with good DNA. And so for us, starting a new service is precisely because we think we have something great to offer as a congregation, and we want to reach new people in new ways.

I also shared that we will continue to grow ALL our services. Our current services welcome visitors every Sunday, and we are growing! New members are joining each month, and we hope that will continue and even expand! This ministry is a way of reach those people we aren't already reaching.

I could go on and on, and I hope that if you have any questions, you will invite me to your group, or just schedule to meet for coffee sometime! It is important that we get your feedback, and it's also important that you have the full story so you can really make an educated judgment about what we are attempting.

But back to those wonderful ladies I was with yesterday. As I told them that we were seeking to continue the amazing work that Calvary has done throughout the years by reaching people in new ways (a church that has moved so many times? And can you imagine being the pastor who walked into a council meeting and proposed knocking down the church and building a new one on the same spot?!)...I heard more stories about people being on the frontlines of the latest in church "work".

For example, one woman talked about the beginning of Calvary's tape ministry--this conversation had started as a discussion about how much of a gift Ray Stroh is to our congregation and how we (truly) need to celebrate all the behind the scenes work he does with our sound system. Do you know that our tape ministry started long before we could record through our sound system? Yep, they got a tape recorder and the minister's job was to hit "record" as he was beginning his sermon. They used a basic tape machine to make copies, and people hand delivered the copies to shut-ins. Today, we still make recordings to tapes and CDs, and people can also listen to our sermons online through iTunes!

This is just the latest in the long line of amazing stories I have heard at Calvary. Calvary really has been on the forefront of the newest in church stuff...and the next year will certainly push us to continue to do that. There are exciting and challenging opportunities on the horizon, and we will need your prayers and support and guidance as we seek to honor the legacy we have all been given--if a people never scared to do whatever is needed to reach God's people.

That's the path that has been laid for us. May we walk it faithfully.

On Things New and Old

This week, I had an opportunity to participate in my first conference call. I know, I must be behind the times, right? As I hear it, these days conference calls are standard for many business people, and I have to admit I understand that they save tons of money and time by getting their teams/groups together via phone.

I have to be honest, though. I found it pretty strange. Very impersonal. That may sound weird coming from someone who is online as much as I am--I don't consider myself a technophile or expert, though I guess I am online more than some people. There is TONS of stuff about technology and the internet that I don't know, and I"m not always on the cutting edge of things (i.e. I'm simply not that cool). I finally got an iPhone after Easter (which I'd planned to do in June but my Blackberry's unfortunate--and yes, I swear, accidental--dip in water spend that up). However, I didn't rush into getting apps (to the confusion of my husband) since, upon discovering I could download a Kindle app on the iPhone (and thus saving hundreds of dollars) I spent my free time for a week reading Malcolm Gladwell's What the Dog Saw.

I'm not a fan of technology for it's own sake, and I DEFINITELY think that simply using (or not using) technology says little about your/our ability to interact authentically with people. I am still convinced that people are largely the same online as they are offline (once they learn how to use a tool). For example:

• Someone who shares too much information online, probably does the same thing in face-to-face encounters.
• Someone who interjects awkwardly into other people's lives in person, is probably doing the same thing on Facebook.
• Someone who is way too impressed with themselves in person is probably Twittering way too much about themselves.

That said, there are certainly bad developments in technology, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that there are some new technologies that are more prone to misuse than others. I believe that teleconferencing may be one of those. Think about it. Okay, a blog may be a fairly impersonal thing, but you can still get a person's tone from it, and you read it like you would any written material. It's like a letter written to a bunch of people. Like those Christmas letters that half the world seems to send. But you know what it is and what it isn't (and if you don't, that's not the writer's fault necessarily). But spoken communication--what about all that stuff about 70% of communication being non-verbal. Now, that's hard enough to deal with in a regular phone conversation, but with ten people on the phone? Gee! You don't even know who is talking half the time. You can't gauge the group's sense like you could if seeing their faces, and it gives too much permission for people not to participate. Video conference would be better, but gosh, how I longed for a good old-fashioned face-to-face meeting after that conference call!

We all have those things that seem to weird for us, don't we? And we all take some new things and some old, and really any of us are prone to get stuck on some form of technology (my transition from a Blackberry to an iPhone was somewhat of a "long" process...i.e. it took me like 3 months to decide I wanted one). Things change much faster these days (experts tell us that, I'm not just making that up) and we have to constantly be on the cutting edge of everything. Whether that's technology, music, media, social media, cultural trends, whatever, we don't have to just follow the trends like lemmings, but we cannot stop learning and changing.

About a year ago, my husband started using Animoto to create videos for camp, etc., after seeing it used at a conference. We've really liked using it, though until today, I hadn't used it for probably six months or so. And you know what's happened in that time? They've added the ability to insert videos, even stock videos into the videos they create for you. This is a minor thing (and something we saw coming), but that one change totally changes what you can do with this tool.

That's how things are today. Constantly changing. And keeping up isn't really an option. Keep up, or your old fashioned. So maybe that's the thing...maybe I'm not old fashioned at all. My preference? Video conferencing. Next step, gotta admit I expect that someday we'll get to have holographic conferencing. Seems so far off, but then again, a lot of things once did...