Category Archives: clergy

June 3, 2013 · 5:55 am

Why We Need an Independent United Methodist Press

This link will take you to a  well done article that summarizes the relevant details of the Bishop Bledsoe episode and also examines the exorbitant costs.

Bishop Bledsoe’s response to the costs? “It is what it is . . . Obviously that money could have been used for other things. I’m not so sure, given the realities of the situation, it could have been any different.”

My first response, “Oh yes, yes it could have.”

My second response: This article is an example of simply superb reporting by journalist Sam Hodges, who was until Thursday, May 31, 2013, the Managing Editor of The United Methodist Reporter.

A storm of forces, including in my opinion, serious short-sightedness by United Methodist Women and by large Annual Conferences who chose to go completely electronic in their communications, led to the closing of this institution. This article in the Dallas Morning News offers a good history of this important and independent voice.

Now it is gone. What’s left? Well, there are a bunch of bloggers connected with the UMC.  This site aggregates many of those blogs and sends out emails to subscribers with the latest posts.  But we, for I am one whose blog is picked up by the Methoblog, are bloggers, after all. We offer opinion pieces, random thoughts, sermon notes, theological labyrinths, and clergy rants and ramblings.

We are not reporters. We are not independent–most of us are appointed clergy, serving at the pleasure (or displeasure) of our respective Bishops. While we can be controversial and ask really important questions, our focus stays with our respective charges.

Opinions are great and can be dashed off fairly quickly while tending to our primary responsibilities–but serious reporting demands full-time attention and a means of financial support.

I do not have a solution here. I do have major concerns. As a nation, the free, independent press has been an important shaping force as we’ve sought to live through this experiment called “democracy.”

Autocratic nations routinely shut down independent voices.

I hope this does not happen to us. But it may be too late.

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May 19, 2013 · 12:47 pm

God, Tragedy, Churches, Faith and Forgiveness

Granbury Tornado Damage, photo from NBCDFW website

Granbury Tornado Damage, photo from NBCDFW website

The Dallas Morning News had a front page article today about the role faith and churches are playing in the aftermath of the deadly tornadoes in Granbury.

The beginning of the article contains these statements:

In a place where so much has been lost, broken and scattered, many people in this tornado-touched town say they found something they didn’t know was missing.

“I guess you’d call it faith,” said Josiah Thompson, a 26-year-old who decided at the last minute to take his wife and two young children to Granbury Baptist Church on Wednesday night. Thirty minutes later, his rental home exploded in winds up to 200 mph.

“That proves right there that going to church can literally save your life,” said Thompson, . . . Thompson said his faith was renewed in friends and family, who have buried him in cash, clothes and food. And in God, who demonstrated quite clearly that everything important is out of our control.

Thompson, like so many others in this lake-straddling town an hour southwest of Fort Worth, said it’s impossible to live through the fury of an EF-4 tornado and not sense God’s protecting hand.

God’s Protecting Hand?

God’s protecting hand.  Oh yes.  But how about those who were killed?  Were they left out somehow of this miracle of protection?

That’s my first question here. And I’m not going to try to answer it except to say this: tragedies happen to the best of us and to the worst of us. If God is not present in all these tragedies, even those which lead to death, then God is a capricious monster and should not be worshipped. It is wonderful that the family mentioned in the article was spared. But I find it despairingly grievous to suggest that they are more special to God that those whose lives were lost.

Let’s just stop doing that.  Please.

The second question revolves around what is happening now: both local and distance churches are, as is normal, responding quickly and generously to those whose homes and lives have been ravaged by the tornadoes. Same thing is happening in West, Texas, after the fertilizer plant explosion there. These stories are written over and over again. In the face of tragedies and natural disasters, people almost instinctively turn to churches. And church people also instinctively turn to service.

Takers AND Givers or Takers OR Givers?

My question: Will those who are on the receiving end of what will be nearly unceasing acts of mercy and charity on the part of church-going folk themselves become part of a worshipping community? Or will they just expect that the church will show up at the next tragedy without their own participation?

Frankly, it is far easier to just stay on the receiving end of this type of charity than it is to become a vital part of a worshipping community, to train oneself for acts of charity, and to learn to pray, “Thy will be done” with faithfulness and hope in the face of hard and complex lives.

Several weeks ago, this spoof piece by Larknews made the rounds on Facebook, passed from clergy person to clergy person. Some, not knowing it was satire, commented, “Wish I could do that.” What was “that?” It was the act of aggressively telling people who are “takers” from church life to either get with the program and start becoming “givers” as well, or just get off the church membership lists.

I understand the temptation.

For the last several weeks, I have been on a combined vacation/study leave. Last year, when I was on Sabbatical leave, I spent every Sunday at a different church. These visits spawned my “Mystery Worship” series.

Week after week, I wandered into different churches and differing worship experiences. I chronicled what I experienced at each one. It was fun–and I also knew I’d never be back at any of those places. I would never establish the kinds of connections there that would offer real life and hope for me–and in which I could offer real life and hope in return.

I was going to do the same this year. And then, suddenly, I just could not. Utter exhaustion  accompanied me during this time away.

The intensity of the worship schedule starting in Advent and culminating at Easter, along with some significant issues at church that had to be courageously faced but which left me battered and bruised, combined with some intensely difficult personal issues had left me almost completely empty. The fact that I am still healthy physically leaves me shocked and grateful.

But the thought of walking into someplace full of strangers and seeking to be in a space where I could freely open myself to what I needed, the healing Presence of God, simply flattened me. That which I needed most I could not bring myself to do.

Although I have never minded solitude, thanks be to God, I am finding in my solitary time away greater and greater need for real community. A community that can indeed become vulnerable to God in faithful worship, vulnerable to one another in loving, accountable connections, and vulnerable to the world in sacrificial service. Just popping into a worship service cannot bring that needed connection.

Those who are on the receiving end of sacrificial service in Granbury, West, and countless other locations around the world see one portion of church life. They are essentially doing what I did on my Sabbatical: popping in and receiving.  Even so, they rightly must be “takers” for a while.

Those who seek to be givers must go much further and discover the practices the disciplines of the church. This is a lifelong process of forming spiritual connections and learning to be a part of a community.

The Nature of Real Connection

In all my years of loving and serving the church, this one main lesson stands out: we who are connected to one another by our churches are connected not because we are good, or nicer, or more generous than others. We are all exquisitely human, and full of failings. Many of our failings actually see deeper exposure by our very connection through the church.

Furthermore, we have high expectations of each other. Because of that, we fail one another not just mildly but spectacularly. That’s what makes the healthy church and spiritually-based connection so powerful. At its best, it is unbreakable because we learn what it really costs to forgive each other. Once we learn that, we are fully able to worship God, receive forgiveness, and live in grace.

I’ve blogged and thought a lot over the years about our need to be in connection with each other and especially about the situation within my beloved United Methodist Church. Our fights and disagreements with each other are threatening to tear us asunder.

Will We Forgive?

Will we forgive each other?

Will we forgive each other for seeing different versions of the truth even while affirming and humble owning our particular versions?

Will we engage in the disciplines necessary to have adequate connection so we can continue to respond to crises and tragedies?

Will we insist to others and know well ourselves that being only takers ultimately means the destruction of the soul?

Will we bow before the Almighty and Holy One and say, “Thy will be done, even if it means my own death?”

I don’t know.  I do know my concerns here add to my weariness. I do know I’m a bit frustrated with my own church community right now where too many stay on the membership rolls only in the role of taker, not giver. Too many who will not engage in the necessary disciplines to learn to know God;  too many who expect the pastor to keep them motivated rather than tapping their own motivation; too many who expect others to give generously and sacrificially but who will not even consider the power of the tithe for themselves; too many who see their own life’s challenges as needing everyone’s attention without awareness that everyone suffers.

Yet, each of these also needs forgiveness, support, and the opportunity to transform from being takers to being givers.  And I do as well. The process never ends.

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May 9, 2013 · 10:43 am

Missing Babies, Feral Males, “Smokin’ Hot Wives” and Female Appointments

Ultrasound of a female fetus

Ultrasound of a female fetus

A little background here before I weave together some threads of thought.

Sex Selective Abortions

First, look at issue of sex-selective abortions and female infanticide. These are major issues especially in India and China.  For multiple financial and cultural reasons, many families have a strong preference for male babies over female babies.  The growing availability and affordability of ultrasound technology makes it increasingly easy to abort unwanted female fetuses.  If an unwanted one makes it to birth, the child is often abandoned and left to die.

The result is a growing disparity between the number of males and females entering adolescence and early adulthood.  In plain English, there are not enough women to go around.  Here’s an article about the situation in 2001.  By using 2001 figures (it is worse now), we can see that the situation has now manifested itself in that shortage of marriage-age females.

Feral Males

Now, has anyone besides me noted the large number of news items recently about the growing incidences of mass rapes in India?  My quick analysis:  there are bands of feral males roaming the countryside full of anger about the shortage and taking out their anger on the women they cannot have.

Women are a civilizing force, even relatively powerless women, which is very much the case in India.  The decision to radically reduce the number of female infants is contributing to the destabilization of these societies.

We all know the teen-age brain is long on impulse and short on self-control.  This is especially the case in males whose brains do show somewhat different developmental patterns than females.  Risk-taking behavior without regard to consequences characterizes much youth culture, especially male-dominated youth culture.

I predict that things are going to get much, much worse in those societies that do not have sexual parity.  Even in the unlikely hope that incidence of sex-selective abortion stops immediately, it will be at least 30 years before all this sorts itself out.  Expect immense damage and continued destabilization there.

“Smokin’ Hot Wives”

Now, let’s talk about “Smokin’ Hot Wives” for a bit.  For the last several years, young, virile, charismatic male superstar pastors have made a big deal of their “smokin’ hot wives.”  It appears to be a way to let everyone knows how sexually potent these pastors are.  Here is a great post on the situation, written by someone who himself was guilty of that demeaning stances before recognizing how very, very destructive it is.

The  phrase objectifies women, placing all their worth only on their ability to be sexually attractive.  Personally, I call it “smokin’ hot pastor porn.”  It’s the first part of the book of Esther all over again.  The foolish King Xerxes insists his beautiful wife Vashti come out and dance for his drunken cronies.  When she rightfully refuses, he deposes her for her lack of submissiveness. He then systematically searches for as many young virgins as possible so he can routinely deflower them until he finds just the one who pleases him.

I do wonder what would happen if one of those “smokin’ hot” wives were to say to her pastor husband, “You are a fool and are an embarrassment to all around.”  Except they won’t because then they, like Vashti, will be labeled as “unsubmissive” and will face just punishment.  Trust me on this one.  I know that world.

Female Appointments

Now, let us talk about the apparently growing number of churches that are saying, “We don’t want a female pastor.”  I don’t know how strong this movement is, but understand that this is a problem at least in the North Texas Conference of The United Methodist Church.

These churches want men, preferably young, handsome and virile ones, to fill their pulpits.  These young men, especially when they’ve got their own “smokin’ hot wives” in tow, will solve the problem of depressed and declining churches.

They could very well be right.  Let’s face it:  pretty and sexy draws the crowds.  Always has, always will.  We live in a visual, consumer-driven society.  The call to well-formed characters, depth in spiritual understanding and practice, and complicated paths to discipleship that include following Jesus to the cross just do not fill worship spaces or offering plates.

Multiple sociological studies show that the young, the tall, the beautiful and handsome nearly always are hired earlier and with better pay packages than the dumpy, plump, and homely. I call this the Elephant Man syndrome: we have a very difficult time getting past the exterior.   Why? Probably because the young, tall and beautiful say, “Life is going on.  We will not die.  We will persevere.”

Here are the problems for female clergy:   First, when they are young and especially attractive, they very much get sexualized. Huge forces combine against taking them seriously as leaders. Second, these are their prime child bearing years.  Few female clergy are going to get away with what some high-powered women in industry get away with:  having babies and showing back up at work the next week without missing a step. Some of these high-powered ones even hire surrogates to bear their children for them.

Many older women, no longer facing the problems of being sexualized or needing to bear children while they can, have developed immense reservoirs of wisdom and the understanding of spiritual things.  But we have little value in a system that says, “only the young [and pretty/virile] may apply.  Frankly, older men do not face the same demeaning pressures.

This is our reality.  This becomes our cross to carry. And this becomes the church’s loss to bear.  So the church continues to move forward with surface spirituality that cracks when real life pressures hit.

Why can’t we do this in real partnership?  Male AND female?  Young AND old?  Beautiful AND plain?   Charismatic AND quiet? And, yes I will dare to mention this:  Heterosexual AND homosexual?  But all with formed characters, impeccable moral lives and unwavering love of God and neighbor?

Should we do this, we might indeed show the world that the church is a place where the kingdom of heaven is lived out.

But we don’t and we won’t.  And God’s heart breaks.

Addendum:  In Barry Weber’s comment below, he pointed me to a TED talk.  I thought it was so important that I have linked it here.

 

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May 2, 2013 · 3:21 pm

Straw Blankets, Ministry With The Poor

hay-blanket-peppers-smIt is cold here right now in North Texas.  Wind is blowing wildly, temperatures continue to drop and we are on target for record lows tonight.  Areas just slightly to the west and north are under a frost watch.  I suspect my own garden may get a bit of frostbite because it is on the north side, high up, with a large pasture behind it, so there is nothing to block the wind and cold.

I went out and piled straw around all the warm weather plants.  Am hopeful they won’t be damaged.  However, many gardeners and farmers may wake tomorrow to a fair amount of destruction.

As always, weather really does win. All who have reasonably well-insulated houses and functional heaters will stay comfortable. But for those who don’t . . .

These thoughts always lead me to the mandate that we are called to be in ministry with the poor.  I honor that, respect that and believe that it is nearly impossible for anyone who is reasonably protected to actually do that.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading and research this past year, trying to get a handle on what it means to be poverty-striken.  Now, there are lots of kinds of poverty:  spiritual, educational, financial, social, and cultural, just to name a few.  I think it is possible to have few monetary resources and not be poverty-striken, but those who manage that generally have rich inner resources and strong community support.  Most of the time, being impoverished in one area means the rest of the areas also suffer from the effects of poverty.

I understand that the vast majority of people in the US who end up in bankruptcy or in other terrible financial binds get there, not because of financial mismanagement or spending too much on luxuries, but because of the atrocious cost of even basic health care.  Emergencies and chronic illnesses, again much more common among those living in poverty to begin with, can send people into a never-ending spiral of greater debt, more ill-health, less ability to work, leading to greater debt, greater stress and even more ill-health.

And here is my conundrum:  how can we, particularly as United Methodists, confidently affirm that we seek to be in ministry with the poor when we have the straw blanket of fairly decent health insurance tucked all around us?

To be really, seriously, stuckly poor means no health insurance and extremely limited access to what few available means there are for medical care and the practice of habits that bring health rather than destroy health.

Last year, I had to undergo my first-ever surgery. A rapidly growing uterine tumor starting causing enough symptoms to set off alarm bells that even I would listen to.  Although I did have visions of someday being written up in a newspaper story (Headline:  ”Woman With Watermelon-sized  Tumor Steadfastly Denies That Anything is Wrong”), and after grieving that I would not be able to reach my stated goal of dying with all my lady-parts intact, I agreed to a hysterectomy.

Sure, I had co-pays.  Absolutely the hospital wanted their money up front.  It was a lot of money for me.  The insurance company paid their part (a pittance of the actual bill), and then it was over.   I was lucky. The tumor turned out to be benign, despite its rapid growth.  (One of the nurses in the hospital said, “I could not believe how much your uterus weighed!”  I tried to take that as a compliment.)  I recovered reasonably uneventfully, although I will say it is not a good idea to take an international flight just a couple of weeks after that kind of surgery.

But more to the point:  if I had not been able to wave my handy-dandy insurance card around, and whip out a high-limit credit card for my own part of this event, I would have faced these choices:  One, go ahead and let the tumor grow.  Two, have the surgery and be faced with years of paying off those bills.  And that was a relatively inexpensive procedure with no complications.

I am not rich, but I have straw blankets all around me.   I have a level of protection that cushions me to such a point that despite my real concern for those who do live in poverty, I can’t fully enter into their experience.

I do not know what it is like to live so close to the edge that a child sick for just a couple of days can have such an impact that my whole house of cards comes tumbling down.

If we are really going to do ministry with the poor, then we need to be in solidarity with the poor over these issues of health care.  I admit I do not know how to do this.  I don’t want to relinquish my own health insurance.  But I am reaching a point where I think it smacks of great hypocrisy to make that statement as a guiding principle and then live with the kinds of straw blankets around us that too many are routinely denied.

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April 24, 2013 · 9:17 pm

Called and Gifted? How about Called to Circuits?

A Circuit Rider

A Circuit Rider

The blogging world of United Methodist Clergy has exploded recently with the revelation that the Texas Annual Conference is floating a document that appears “ageist” in its suggestions as to who might or might not be encouraged to seek ordination there. I want to thank Jeremy at Hacking Christianity for this post which exposes the possible plans in the Texas Annual Conference for discouraging older people from entering the ordination process.

Now, there are lots of comments flying around. One, from someone who was part of creating the proposal, reminded us that we live in the real world and that, among other things, older clergy add to the health insurance burdens of all us the rest of us. This, of course, assumes that no younger clergy will find themselves in the midst of a horrific disease and will run up giant medical bills in response to it, a rather naive assumption.

But others are saying, and in my opinion more rightly, that just because someone senses a call to the ministry of the ordained doesn’t necessarily make them one of the chosen for this very complex and draining profession. Age, gender, able-bodiedness, race, etc. are not the issue.

Giftedness Must Match the Call

The issue is giftedness for the profession.

I wish that every person sitting on the various gatekeeper boards (SPRC’s, District Board of Ministries, Conference Board of Ordained Ministries), would take the time to read this compelling little novel called Cosmas or the Love of God.

Here’s a review:

Devout, sensitive, young Cosmas believes that he has a vocation to become a Trappist monk, but the reality of monastic life disappoints him deeply. Fellow monks are hard to live with. The life of the monastery seems worldly. He is disheartened by his own shortcomings and appalled by the weaknesses of others. If he can’t live the life, does that mean God isn’t calling him to it? What should he do? Many people—single, married, vowed, ordained—ask these same questions. Pierre de Calan explores them all in this exquisite tale of a man who learns that sanctity does not mean perfection.

Now, that statement in the review, “the reality of monastic life disappoints him deeply,” struck a nerve with me. The reality of the life of one in the ministry of the ordained surely has disappointed everyone to some degree.

Frankly, fellow clergy are hard to live with. The nature of the “career ladder” for pastoral moves, and a highly limited number of prime appointments makes us all competitors with one another more than colleagues in loving covenant.

“Worldly” is very much a word that describes The United Methodist Church. We are selling our souls down the river of numerical success. The “making of disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world” be damned. The process of discipleship simply gets in the way. It is too slow, too cumbersome, without glamour, and not at all remunerative. Seriously, no really effective discipler is going to make Time Magazine’s “25 Most Influential Christian Leaders” list.

We’ve Already Tried This

But none of that is the point. Here is the point:

The young, hotshot (male) clergy that the movin’ and shakin’ Conferences want and are actively promoting to prestigious pulpits look like clones of the very people who helped bring The UMC to the point where we are now: laboring under giant, smothering, expensive infrastructure that says, “More is better!” They are the ones who have proudly brought us to a situation where we are crushed under bureaucracy, burdened with an unworkable, impenetrable Book of Discipline, and dismayed by the fact that apparently only 15% of our churches can be labeled “vital.”

Now, time for a serious disclaimer: Every Christian generation does what seems right at the time in their call to serve the church and to love God and neighbor. Those men, and a few women, who came into clergy ranks 35-50 years ago were doing exactly what the conventional wisdom of the day said to do, and they did it with the best of intentions. Many have persevered through years of heartache, disappointment, and difficult appointments.

The Search for a Messiah

Nonetheless, we as a denomination are in a bad place. So we, in our very human state, start looking for a Messiah. But we don’t want a Messiah like Jesus, who died alone at the cross, pretty well disappointing everyone who wanted to restore “success” to the Jewish nation. No, we want a messiah like Moses who will lead us to the promised land, flowing with milk and honey, or in our case, full offering plates and stuffed worship centers.

Our current hopes as those who will be our Messiahs? Young, gifted, good-looking male pastors. There are solid reasons for this. Frankly, the ones I know that fit the description have simply an astounding level of talent and also come to their calls to the ministry of the ordained under powerful leading from the Spirit of God.

But here lies my great, huge concern: Too many of these young, gifted ones have not spent adequate time in the desert in order to competently deal with the huge pressure to succeed, i.e., save The United Methodist Church. How many of these will bring incalculable harm because their talents have not yet been joined by characters both tested and purified by fire? How many will end up like Walker Railey and Bailey Smith, just to name two of those whose talent levels were not matched with formed characters?

Moses was clearly called to leadership, to his own brand of messiahship, from birth. He was not gifted for the task until he lost everything and had to come face-to-face with his own soul in the wilderness.

Called to Circuit Ministry?

I want to make a suggestion here that I think might help: Let us consider returning to real circuit ministry. Our so-called “itinerancy” is simply a joke, a code for “some well-connected ones are going to make it big and will be powerful and famous but most of you are going to labor in near-poverty and great obscurity for your entire ministerial lives.”

It’s time to change this system.

I envision circuits this way: Churches are grouped geographically into a circuit with no more than one large membership church in any given circuit. Clergy teams are appointed to circuits, not individual charges. The teams consist of a mixture of young and energetic, middle-aged and experienced (especially those coming in as second-career pastors), racially mixed, older and full of wisdom, male and female, elders in full connection, provisional elders, local pastors and interns, some full-time, others part-time, gifted in multiple ways and with varying talents and theological viewpoints.

Clergy teams are charged with the spiritual health and well-being of their entire circuit, not individual charges. Together, they pray their way through the God-visions for the circuit. They rotate preaching, teaching, pastoral and administrative skills from charge to charge. They hold each other accountable in every area of their lives. They model for their charges the nature of kingdom of heaven living as they work out their conflicts and misunderstandings with each other. They know they are in this together and for one charge to benefit at the expense of another becomes anathema to them. Together, they seek the lost, the least, the last and the littlest, and never, ever poach one another’s “founds.”

A Common Pool for Compensation

Furthermore, all members of any given circuit share a common pool for their compensation, although it will vary among the team, factoring in experience, background and full or part-time status. The way clergy salaries are currently set should be a cause of public shame. To have it necessary for some clergy to have to enroll their children in Medicaid to get health insurance while other clergy are able to purchase lavish homes and enjoy country club memberships denies the very basis of Wesley’s understanding of itinerant ministry. At this point, the highest paid clergy may enjoy pay and benefit packages that could be as high as eight to ten times what the lowest paid clergy receive.

We are either in this together or we are not. Currently, I believe we are more “not” than “together.”

The challenge of the distribution of the compensation pool may be one of the toughest faced by each team, and certainly input from the superintendents will be mandatory.  If, however, we could do that and do it maintaining deep love and respect for each other in the circuit, then, and only then, do we evidence the spiritual maturity necessary to move into pastoral leadership.

Compensation is a very touchy and deeply personal issue.  The world tell us, “your compensation packages speaks volumes about your worth as a human being.”  But the church must say, “The love of God has already determined your worth as a human being.”  That’s what we call “grace.”

Could We Start a Conversation?

I know this is radical. I know the idea needs huge tweaks. It’s easy to start listing the issues with it.

But what if? What if we serve in life-giving connection with one another? What if we seek to honor the distinctiveness of the itinerancy by marrying it to the need for greater accountability because of our cultural context? What if we make the Discipline-mandated committee structure start working for us instead of against us, which is too often the case?  It would have to undergo giant change to make circuits work.

Could we at least start a discussion on it? Could we engage in a connected discussion where we explore whether the idea could be matured and shaped into something far healthier than we currently have?

Any and all comments are both hoped for and welcome.  I will also be happy to take emails privately.  I just want to know:  could we even talk about this?

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April 14, 2013 · 7:56 pm

Portrait of a Pastor

I received a gift this morning.  A gift so full of love and hope that I am still nearly breathless.

Several years ago, Vicki Attaway made her way to the church I serve, having heard that there was a female pastor there and that she might find it welcoming and comfortable.  Within a short period of time, I discovered that Vicki, as am I, is a graduate of Rice University. An immediate and unbreakable bond formed. There are few of us and even fewer women of our generation who can say that.

In time, Vicki’s love for God and willingness to serve became invaluable to me and our community. She arrives each Sunday morning VERY EARLY. The building sits empty and still. In that stillness, she sets out the elements for the weekly Service of Holy Communion. She keeps those elements supplied as we run low, including baking the gluten-free wafers that I and a few others must have. She changes the altar-cloths and stole colors as the liturgical seasons come and go. She puts fresh batteries in my microphone and has the mouthpiece properly threaded through the hole in the pocket of my preaching gown. She marks my hymnal with the hymns of the day, puts out the registration pads, maneuvers new wicks in the candle-lighters, cleaning them out as necessary and places fresh candles on the altar as needed. She competently handles dozens of other little noticed but vital tasks.

She prays for me diligently during our worship services. She is the unlucky recipient of the first drafts of my newspaper columns. Patiently, week after week, she reads, critiques, calls me out when necessary, sharpens the point, and then, after all that, has to clean up my many typos. I’m a fast and rotten typist.

I try to get to the building early enough each Sunday so the two of us can enjoy a few moments of quiet catch-up. Sometimes she sits nearby while I play a game or two of computer solitaire, supporting that time to clear my brain and clarify my focus.

I  was privileged to meet Vicki’s parents, the lovely George and Virginia Attaway. The Attaways, founding members of a church in Denton, loved their daughter and delighted in our friendship.  The excellent seamstress Virginia made cushions for our kneeling rails and also fixed my preaching robe so I did indeed have the right kind of pocket to hold my microphone receiver. The “holy pocket,” we jokingly called it.

Two years ago, I was stunned to receive a call from a church member and learn that Virginia had died suddenly. That church member had been working on the floor of the hospital when Virginia died, thank goodness, or I might not have found out nearly so quickly. I raced to the hospital, my own heart breaking with the broken hearts of this weeping family.

After Virginia’s death and after over 50 years of vital marriage, George, in his mid-70′s and in excellent health, sank into a deep, deep depression. No surprise–this loss was  too great. On April 3, 2013, he, too,  passed from glory to glory, almost exactly two years after Virginia’s death. Intractable pneumonia took over after a necessary surgery for a diseased gall bladder.

Right after the surgery it looked like an uneventful recovery would send him home in a few days. George and I had a wonderful conversation in which he indicated that he was ready to start living again. He would emerge from those two years of sadness. He did, of course, but not the way I or his family had hoped.

This morning as I entered the church ready to begin those Sunday morning preparations, I walked to my desk to find on it a parcel with an envelope attached. Never one to bother with the niceties, I tore into the parcel and ignored the note. What I found was this, one of two charcoal portraits:

A George Attaway portrait

A George Attaway portrait

I looked at it, tears coming so rapidly I could not wipe them away fast enough. George, an extraordinarily gifted artist, had spent some of his last months of life drawing those two portraits of me. I opened the note:

Dear Christy, 

Daddy drew these for you in December.  I never had a good time to give them for you, but now I do.  He came alive again to have a chance to draw something very meaningful to him.  It got him out of his chair, saying, “Now I have a goal”  – to draw Christy.  

He labored over it with love and worked his heart out to get it right, saying this is a beautiful woman inside and out.  His hands were literally on your face as he drew it.  

You were precious to him.  He was so glad that I had you as a friend.  He wanted to see if he still “had it” (i.e., the ability to draw portraits.)  I definitely think he did!  He drew the front of this card. 

What a gift he had as an artist.  And what a generous, kind and intelligent man he was.  So courageous in life and even in his death. 

Thank you for loving him.

Love,

Vicki

I have many moments when I wonder if make any impact for the Kingdom of Heaven. Those times when my innate tendency for melancholy colors everything I see. Those times when I am able to acknowledge only the undone and not the done. Those times when I forget the privilege I have of participating in the salvation path of so many people. Those times when necessary administrative tasks so load my desk that my Bible and prayer book disappear under the piles. Those times when I am blind to everything but the cross before me.

I struggle with the knowledge that the evaluation of my effectiveness in ministry rests heavily on two things over which I actually have no control:  how many people show up for Sunday worship and how much money they contribute. I acknowledge the necessity of such use of metrics.  But they say so little about the massive ministry that takes place within this fairly small church community. They say nothing about those newspaper articles or blog posts that are read by thousands. George Attaway was one of many who found much of his pastoral care in those articles and in many ways considered me his pastor.

But as I sat at my desk this morning, those unchecked tears pooling on the just dusted wood (I am officially on vacation as of this afternoon and ALWAYS dust my desk before leaving!), I knew a moment of pure love.

Thanks be to God!

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April 12, 2013 · 11:17 am

Red High Heels and Annual Conference

Red-High-HeelsThere has been a delightful movement started among the clergy women of the North Texas Conference whereby they are asking all clergywomen to wear red high heels on the Monday of Annual Conference as a sign of our connection and our solidarity with one another.  One quote, apocryphally attributed to Kathleen Baskin-Ball reads, “you haven’t preached until you’ve preached in a pair of red heels.”  The tradition apparently dates to wonderful memories of Cathy Bingman’s ordination.

But I won’t be wearing red high heels on that day and I want to say why.

Two Reasons: The Practical and The Theological

The first reason is simply practical:  I have difficult feet, never, ever wear high heels, must buy expensive shoes to keep my feet healthy and pain-free, and would prefer not to spend my limited clothing budget on a pair of shoes that I will not wear again.

But I would quickly discard the practical and spend the money were it not for a deeper issue.

The second issue is theological, and there are two prongs to this.

The Invisible Preacher

First, when I preach, my goal is to become such a powerful conduit for the Word of God that I become utterly invisible to the congregation as their attention moves fully to God.  Time after time, when I read in Scripture of the Presence of God descending upon humanity, I see that such Presence deserves full attention—and is so glorious that nothing else matters anyway.  The words I most prefer not to hear at the end of worship, “You did a great job today, Preacher” (or,” what color IS your hair today?”).  The words I most desire to hear, “I met God today in worship.”

Over and over, I have told my worship team, everyone from the director, to the Communion stewards, to the musicians and singers, to the people who run the sound booth:  “The better you are, the less people will notice you.  Leading in worship is not a performance, but is a window through which glory is glimpsed.”

So the idea that I have not preached until I have preached in red shoes is a bit problematic to me.  But I also understand how it works for others and I really do celebrate that and support that tradition for them.

Solidarity With Other Clergy

Second:  the issue of solidarity with other clergy.  If I understand rightly, the purpose behind the movement is to express the solidarity of our female clergy connection.  That is a wonderful, wonderful thing.  I’m deeply grateful for my female clergy colleagues.  But I am also deeply and equally grateful for my male clergy colleagues.

I came to age in a theological world that is foreign to almost all other women in this clergy connection.  The world I knew was the one that said that a woman hearing a call to preach is hearing a lie, for God would not call a woman.  Therefore a woman who hears  such a call is deceived and must be kept silent.

I know by heart all the textual arguments used to deny women a place in the pulpit or other ecclesiastical leadership roles that exercise authority over men.  At one point, I could even quote the Greek and Hebrew texts to support those arguments.

Eventually, by my own diligent study of the Holy Scriptures, I began to believe that such arguments have a deep and fatal flaw:  they elevate human interpretation over the very nature of God and the liberating power of the gospel.

Eventually, I became one of those who fought the fight and said, “This is wrong.”

I also became one of those who paid a horrific price for my willingness to speak out.

I know this:  there are women who are serving freely because I did pay that price.  I do not regret it.

What I regret is that they were willing for me to pay the price for them, but they were not willing to pay the price for others.  I was eventually expelled from that world and what little I had been able to accomplish there has long since been wiped away.

When I finally found the world of The United Methodist Church, I learned that I had been a Wesleyan long before I ever read John Wesley.  I also knew that doors were open here because other women AND men had fought the same fight I had been fighting, but, thanks be to God, with a different outcome.

All this brings me, finally, to the important conversation the female lead clergy had with Bishop McKee on Tuesday, April 9, 2013.  I heard him voice profound theological and practical support for women in central and influential lead clergy positions.  I also heard him say that at this time, he does not wish to place a woman in a position where she will most certainly fail because the ground has not yet been plowed for her, or that which had once been rich and welcoming soil has now become hard-packed and rejecting.

As the Bishop spoke, I started thinking of Ghandi’s great salt march in India.  The mining and distribution of salt, that mineral essential to life particularly in a hot humid country where heavy perspiration is a way of life, was restricted to the British.  And they made everyone else pay, and pay dearly, for that which was needed to stay alive.

At the culmination of the great salt march, man after man was clubbed down by British soldiers. Read these words from a live press report:

Not one of the marchers even raised an arm to fend off the blows. They went down like ten-pins. From where I stood I heard the sickening whacks of the clubs on unprotected skulls. The waiting crowd of watchers groaned and sucked in their breaths in sympathetic pain at every blow. Those struck down fell sprawling, unconscious or writhing in pain with fractured skulls or broken shoulders. In two or three minutes the ground was quilted with bodies. Great patches of blood widened on their white clothes. The survivors without breaking ranks silently and doggedly marched on until struck down….Finally the police became enraged by the non-resistance….They commenced savagely kicking the seated men in the abdomen and testicles. The injured men writhed and squealed in agony, which seemed to inflame the fury of the police….The police then began dragging the sitting men by the arms or feet, sometimes for a hundred yards, and throwing them into ditches. 

That is solidarity.  And such solidarity eventually led to the end of British Colonial rule in India.

We Have it Very, Very Good

Again, I want to say I appreciate red high heels. I appreciate the symbolism, the solidarity and the power expressed there.   I appreciate their beauty, and the empowerment they represent.  This is important.

I also say:  Clergy women of the North Texas Conference, we have it very, very good.  While I personally disagree with the Bishop’s decision (I think we are going to have to have more martyrs rather than already plowed ground before substantive change takes place), I also trust that this man is for us, not against us.

My own solidarity now goes to those who don’t have the kinds of privileges and support I have.  I am thinking of the women who are routinely shrouded and kept silent.  Who have brutal operations on their genitalia in order to destroy sexual pleasure and ensure their chastity. Who are shot when standing up for the right to educate girls. Who are forced into sexual slavery or into unwanted marriages. Who have bought into a world of generational poverty exacerbated by multiple baby-daddies who offer only sperm but nothing else.

callosed-feet

Were I to don footwear that expresses such support, I would actually be barefoot.  I would have to walk on hot sidewalks with no foot protection, none of the expensive cushioning and fine workmanship with which I pamper myself.  No more pedicures, no more smooth well-cared for skin, for the calluses would be my only protection from sharp stones and pieces of piercing glass.

But I won’t.  I shall stride into Annual Conference in my unfashionable shoes, grateful for every step without pain.  I shall admire every single pair of red high heels I see and cheer each one on.  I shall pray diligently for those who are barefoot, either in actuality or symbolically, and know our work paves the way for them.

And I will breathe a silent “thank you” for all those women and men who have already fought the fight, paid the price and made a way for me.

We are all together in this battle.

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March 13, 2013 · 9:56 am

Six Words

The race card project (http://theracecardproject.com/) has been inviting people to send in six word descriptions about their experience of race.

According to a story I heard this morning, this idea came from an Ernest Hemingway challenge for writers to come up with a complete story in six words. Here was his contribution:

“Baby shoes, brand new, never worn.”

I started thinking about describing the life of the pastor in six words. This came to mind immediately:

“Loves God, loves people, broken heart.”

How would your six word description read?

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March 6, 2013 · 11:31 am

A Modern Take on Luke 15–Probably Heretical, Possibly Shedding Fresh Light on a Shocking Story

Let's Have a Party--The Lost is Found!The Complaint

A group of VERY IMPORTANT church leaders began to grumble about Jesus.  “He ignores us, the movers and shakers, the ones divinely given the leadership of The Church. Instead, he takes his meals with people who don’t even give $5 a year to our coffers, haven’t partaken of the sacraments in years AND even support gay marriage and homosexuals as ordained!

The church will decline in numbers even further if they get their way.  Why isn’t he dining with us in the hotel conference room so we can form a new strategy on how to build growing, vital, money-generating congregations with metrics that make the heart soar?  How dare he?”

The Three Part Response

Jesus, hearing their complaints, began to tell a story.

Part One: The Loan Shark

One day, the owner of a loan shark business, who also volunteered in the local drug rehab facility as an non-credentialed, uneducated chaplain, noted that one of his clients failed to appear.  Till then, that client had always shown up on Friday to pay a pittance against his loan.  The loan shark looked at the long lines of the desperate who were trying to keep their heads above water with these payday loans. He shouted at them to go home and come back next week and raced out the door.

After searching every bar, pool parlor, jail and hospital in the area, he came up empty.  Finally, in the back alley behind the liquor store, he found his client, drunk and without a penny in his pocket.  The loan shark owner dragged him to his car, took him to a shelter and got him a shower and clean clothes. Then he went back to the shop and paid the guy’s weekly payment out of his pocket.

He treated his friends with a beer later saying, “Sure it cost me, but I nearly lost one today–and now he’s been found!”

Part Two:  The Housekeeper

A woman had consistently been told by her ministry board that she was not suited to be a pastor. She finally found a job as a housekeeper in a large, no-tell motel.  Ten maids worked for her, none documented US citizens. She needed all of them seven days a week in order to keep up with the grueling workload.

One day, only nine appeared.  Grateful for her rapidly increasing facility with Spanish, she questioned the others. There had been an INS raid the night before.

She knew if she left the premises, she would lose her job.

But she took off anyway, found an attorney, presented her case and got the woman released. It turned out that her husband in her country of origin had left burn scars all over her body and had told her he’d kill her if she ever showed up again.

The housekeeper took her employee home, called all her friends over and said, “Let’s have a party!  I may have lost my job, but I found the one I had lost–and that’s a lot more important.”

Part Three: The Important Businessman

A highly accomplished head of a multi-national company and active lay-person in the church had two sons. He was  grooming them  to take over the business on his death.  The younger one, impatient and disenchanted with being in his older brother’s shadow, formed a different plan.  He disrespectfully told his dad off one day and demanded his share of the business immediately, not after his father died.

That powerful businessman looked sadly at his son, knowing how complicated it would be to split his business. But he also loved his son and wanted it to work for him.

The older brother stood nearby, silent with a quiet smile on his face. The father made up his mind:  He would go ahead and give his sons the entire business now.

He broke up the company, transferred one part to his youngest son, and gave the larger section to the older son.

He also gave up all his stock options, rights to make any decisions, or even take an income from it. Finally, he retired to a guest house behind the main house. The older son and his family took full occupancy of the elegant mansion.

The father’s sadness grew as he followed the business dealings with the younger son’s division.  Eventually, the business failed and bankruptcy followed.  His son never responded to his father’s calls, texts or emails. He refused to friend him on Facebook or accept an invitation to connect on LinkedIn.

The older son took over the rest of the business and prospered financially. He assumed important leadership positions in his local church, even contributing so heavily to the Capital Funds Drive that they named the educational building after him.

His dad kept inviting the older son to the guesthouse for a dinner and conversation. However,  business, church and family duties kept his time fully occupied. He kept telling his dad he’d come by later but never made it.  He had heavy responsibilities, after all.

Years passed.  The father grew lonelier. He started doing sophisticated Internet searches to see if he could find any news of his youngest son.  Unfortunately, he did: arrests for DUI’s, vagrancy, short stint in jail for drug possession. His attempts to contact the younger son were rebuffed.

People in the church felt sorry for the dad. Rumors, starting with the holy phrase, “We need to pray for . . . ”   flew everywhere. Quietly and subtlety, these good, praying church people blamed the father for having done something indefinably wrong and also blamed the younger son for being an ungrateful wretch and silently hoped he’d disappeared for good.

The  most pious ones kept telling the father, “God has a plan here–you need to learn to rejoice in your trials and not be so sad about this.”

The older brother was held in careful respect by all, although no one really dared cross him. He was said to go into a sulk if he didn’t get his way.

One day the father, aimlessly driving around town, ended up at the local long-haul bus station.  He saw a lot of lonely people there. He started hanging around, occasionally buying someone a meal, watching kids so a harried mom or dad could go to the bathroom, listening to sad stories. In time, he learned how to connect people with local social services and help them find a place to stay or even a job.  His reward came in seeing some hope in their eyes.

Periodically, he would pray with someone, and tears would flow.

Every time a bus pulled in, he looked up, watched the tired faces as they poured out, and thought about his boy.

This work began to give his life structure and meaning.  He showed up at the bus station every day for two and a half years. He learned the names of all the staff, talked with them about his son, learned about their families, joy and sorrows, and helped out when he could.  And each time a bus came in, he looked at their faces, holding each in prayer.

One drizzly, frizzly, just-barely-above-freezing-night, about 45 minutes before the last bus of the day was due, the father, unusually weary, decided to go ahead and drive home.  Just then, one of the custodial staff asked for his help in unplugging a stopped up toilet. One of the constant problems with the aging and sometimes abused facility.

Really wanting a warm drink and a warm bed, he reluctantly agreed.  Because of the chill, he’d put on a new cashmere sweater given to him by his daughter-in-law, along with a Burberry overcoat.  He put them aside and rolled up his sleeves.

The complex and time consuming repair left them both splashed with the remains of someone else’s digestive process. They finished just after the last bus arrived.  Five exhausted people had already straggled off, but the bus driver had to wake the last passenger, and had half carried, half-dragged him off the bus.

The driver turned to the father–would he help out here and see if he could get him a place to spend the night?

Wearily, the father agreed and sat next to the traveler, by then slumped in a rigid plastic chair with head in hands.

“When did you last eat?  Do you have a place to sleep? I might be able to help.”

The traveler said, “No one can help me.  I’ve made a mess of my life.  I told off my dad years ago, lost my business and all the money he gave me, found out I couldn’t even hold a job, and decided to come home and throw myself on his mercy. Thought maybe he’d hire me to do something . . . and at least I could eat.  But now that I’m here, I realize this was a stupid pipe dream, just like all the rest of my dreams.  I can’t face him.  I’m too ashamed. I wish I were dead.”

The father sat there, quietly stunned.  This was his son’s voice.  He looked closely at the back of the young man’s head–how familiar it was!

“Son, I’ve been looking for you for years.  I have never stopped loving you.”

The father got up, grabbed that good sweater and warm overcoat, and placed them around his son’s shoulders. “Let’s go home.”

Three days later, the older son came home from business travel, first class of course,  to find dozens of cars parked both in the driveway and on the well-manicured grass around the back near the guesthouse.  He walked into his own quiet, undisturbed house and yelled out, “What’s going on? What are all these cars doing here? The place looks like a low-rent used car lot.”

His perfectly coiffed and exasperated wife said, “It’s that crazy father of yours.  I told you he’d gone off his rocker when he started hanging out at the bus station. But would you listen? Nooooo.  That rotten, wastrel brother of yours has come home. Your dad is throwing him a giant welcome home party.  I’m sure he used what is left of your inheritance by having it catered by the most expensive restaurant in town.”

The older son stalked out the back door and headed purposely toward the guesthouse. He passed groups of laughing people, many in bus company and cleaning staff uniforms.  Children ran about everywhere, loud in play and joy.

He stood outside the guesthouse door and saw his brother wearing the cashmere sweater his wife had bought his father.

“Dad, what are you doing?”

“Son!  Welcome!  Your brother is back.  Grab your wife and children and have a steak with us.  Let me pour you a glass of wine–I’ve bought the best for this. Just wait until you taste it!”

“Dad– how can you have a party after what he’s done to you?  He’s brought shame and embarrassment on all of us.  I’ve done nothing but be faithful to you and you NEVER had a party for me.  And who ARE these people you invited?  None of them has ever been to our church and they are certainly not my employees.”

“Son, anytime you wanted to, we could have partied. Everything I have has always been yours.  And today, I celebrate, because what has been lost is found.”

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February 26, 2013 · 10:05 am

Taxes, Details, Money, and Peace

????????????????????????????????????????After about five hours of uninterrupted work on my computer, I finally had to say, “Time to quit.”  Would that I had been writing an article, or composing a message, or catching up on correspondence or something else wonderfully creative!  But this task was far more mundane:  going over my 2012 financial records in preparation for the income tax deadline.

Clergy taxes are extremely complicated, as we are considered self-employed, and so pay the extra SE tax, but really are not. Every expense needs to be categorized. Good hardware and software help manage this herculean job of exacting record-keeping, but the task still nearly brings me down each year.

Intense attention to detail is needed to sort these figures coherently.  I’m not a particularly good detail person–just ask the people who proofread my work.  I miss a lot of stuff.

But there is a greater issue here than just massive detail work:  it is seeing in one place a picture of how I spent the money entrusted to me last year.

How I indulged my love of books and reading! Perhaps buying them perhaps just a bit too freely, both for myself and for my grandchildren in whom I hope to instill a love for reading.

Clothes got almost no attention, hardly a surprise for those who see me as a fashion disaster. Yes, somebody, someday is going to report me to “What Not to Wear.”

I also gave much money away, experiencing good satisfaction in those decisions.  Much freedom to be found there.

Financial freedom—people dream about it, fantasize about winning the lottery (sure ticked for destruction, by the way), and wonder what it would be like to have no money worries.

It’s hard to get there.  All sorts of forces encourage us to get into financial chains that bind us uncomfortably.  Those chains can get so tight that circulation cuts off and life disappears.

I’ve seen it happen.  I’ve experienced it myself.  An unplanned baby, a car needing expensive repairs, credit cards maxing out, unexpected health care bills, growing children, school expenses, needed vacations. Any of these things can put a family in a tough financial position.

The vast majority of marital strain and the cause of most family arguments come from money issues.  Anxiety over unpaid bills rises, one wants to save, another wants to spend, children need something and need it NOW, and tensions build, too often to the explosion level.

Little happiness or peace there.

Knowing how complex our financial lives can be, and wanting to help those who are looking for a way to handle those issues, the church I serve is offering the Dave Ramsey course, Financial Peace University.  The nine week class starts this Sunday, March 3, at 4:00 pm.  All are welcome—this program is for anyone interested, not just church members.  Registration is available on the church website:  www.thekrumchurch.com.  We’ll provide child care if it is needed.

Dave Ramsey is not going to tell you how to spend you money, or make your financial decisions for you.  Those decisions belong to you. He will give some extremely effective tools that you can use, “baby steps” he calls them, that will indeed set you free and give peace where there has been conflict before.

Millions have found this program to deliver well on what it promises.  People do find financial peace.  They start living freely in a way that they’d never experienced before. The chains fall off.  Circulation is restored.  Life returns.

Sounds so good to me that I’m taking the course myself.  I know I have things to learn.

If you want to come, go ahead and sign up.  Your materials will not arrive until next week, but it is important to start with the first session, this Sunday at 4:00 pm, Krum First United Methodist Church, 1001 E. McCart Street in Krum.

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