Talk of the Forbidden

“To insist on unanimity is as unBaptist as to cower in silence.” -Frank Tupper

The quote above was taken from a post that went up on Homebrewed Christianity’s website today. Dr. Frank Tupper, a Professor of Theology at Wake Divinity School, had submitted a proposal for a workshop that would create some open conversation among Cooperative Baptists at this week’s CBF General Assembly Gathering in Houston July 2-3.

A few months prior to this week’s gathering CBF decided that this sort of conversation could best be addressed in local churches rather than at a General Assembly gathering. As a Cooperative Baptist minister I am not surprised by this. I am, however, disappointed.

I can appreciate to a certain point CBF’s justification that this is a local church conversation. That’s a very Baptist response. However, as Tupper argues in his post, creating space for church leaders to discuss it, and wrestle with how to bring the conversation before their congregations is the missing link in local church conversations about homosexuality, same-sex unions, and sexuality in general.

I can tell you as a CBF minister that conversations concerning homosexuality within the local church have the greatest potential to end one’s career. Yes, even among moderate Baptist congregations, “acceptance” still has a very clear and often impenetrable barrier. Leaving the conversation up to the local congregation in my opinion is a cop-out. What’s worse, it leaves CBF ministers exposed — especially if they happen to be outspoken about embracing homosexuals as people made in God’s image.

I am disappointed that CBF leaders are misusing the Baptist distinctive of local church autonomy to avoid a responsibility to lead out in genuine conversation about a significant challenge that faces the church today. What’s more, they taint that principle by setting their ministers up to fail should they raise the conversation on their own. This makes it easy for congregations to assume they’re dealing with the will and whim of an individual, as opposed to their being participants in a larger conversation deemed important by their CBF community of churches.

Conversation about homosexuality, and even sexuality as a whole, have always been a source of significant anxiety for Baptists. Denying their importance and simply leaving it up to ministers to face on their own amidst already insecure congregations (due to decline and the culture shift) is a recipe for disaster.

I have a significant amount of respect for CBF, and have been a part of that fellowship for over a decade. However, as in any good friendship, speaking the truth can be painful. CBF, you are letting me and others like me down by not having the courage to make space for conversations about homosexuality & sexual identity as part of the national CBF discourse. Yes, its a messy and challenging conversation. Conversations about human dignity, relationality, and the scandalous love of God always are. Yet openness to receive the other and enter into dialog is what sets us (CBF) apart from other organizations that prefer to dictate doctrine and practice. Which brings us back to the quote at the beginning of this post.

Be not afraid CBF! You were formed in exile as a people who sought to preserve Baptist freedoms at a time when they were being taken away. Help us exercise that freedom by making space for the difficult conversations facing the church today regarding homosexuality and sexual identity.

For those of you interested in following the proposed discussion by Dr. Frank Tupper, he will be running a series of posts at the Homebrewed Christianity site.

“I’ve got to be unstoppable!”

Eugene Cho has a thought provoking post on this video over at his blog. You should check it out.

Most of the time its downright dangerous to stand out, speak up, or rock the boat. Then there are moments when the music inside just won’t stay hidden. Like our friend the “Dancing Man” above, also known as Collin Wynter of Calgary, Canada. Ignoring the warnings from his friends and nearby onlookers that his performance was being recorded by countless others in the crowd, Collin persisted in getting his groove on.

Between the bombastic beats, the lyrical chant; “I’ve got to be unstoppable,” and Collin’s uninhibited performance something began to happen within the crowd of onlookers. A mob of spectators slowly became a group of participants. One can only speculate as to why the second guy got up and joined Wynter. Perhaps he thought it would be cute to mock him? Perhaps his fear of what others might think eroded at the sight of Wynter giving himself fully to the dance? We don’t know. What’s apparent is that he opens the door for the others. Shortly after welcoming the third dancer, an avalanche of dancers begin running to the scene. Its like they were waiting for a chance to break out from their confinement to the status quo of, “look cool, unaffected, and in control.”

Am I making much ado about nothing here? Certainly! But the visual illustration is a beautiful one nonetheless. If followers of Jesus want to be the answer to Christ’s prayer, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” then they will need to start dancing out in the open for all to see. Just any ole beat and lyrics won’t do either. The tune needs to be that which Christ embodied — the tune of love. A love that is most definitely “unstoppable.” A love that drives out fear — that gives good news to the poor, release to the captives, sight to the blind, and freedom to the oppressed. A love that liberates us unto what it means to be humans, made in the image of God.

The SBC is facing declining membership. What’s the Plan?

Yep…thought so.

In case you missed it, Back in April of this year, LifeWay published its yearly report on the state of Southern Baptist churches. The news was grim amid reports that SBC church membership was down 38,400 from the previous year. The previous year saw losses upward of 40,000. You can read more here. You can get the raw data here.

Ed Stetzer was the first to voice concern and offer some appropriately critical comments about why the SBC is facing decline. You can read about that more here.

As you can imagine, going into this year’s annual convention, SBC-ers are faced with some significant challenges. The rhetoric swirling about this year’s convention in Kentucky, remarkably dubbed “Love Loud,” has been a call for a “Great Commission Resurgence.” Language used by Stetzer in his response to the LifeWay report.

Judging from the motions coming from the floor it would seem that the “weapons of mass distraction” have won the floor–or at least closed the space to real discourse about real problems within the convention. Motions are certainly not set in stone, but they do reflect the vocal base of the SBC. If this is where their concerns lie, they may want to go head and lay out the design of their denomination’s headstone.

I don’t think the SBC’s problem is a failure to follow the Great Commission. Having grown up in an SBC church and gone to and SBC seminary, I thought they focused too much on it. Or at least on a one dimensional interpretation of it. The problem is the convention’s failure to live from the Greatest Commandments. The SBC has forged for itself an identity of exclusivity, bigotry, self-righteousness, and gross out-of-touchness. (I’ll ask Len Sweet for a word to capture out-of-touchness.) Such an identity has betrayed the very gospel message of God’s love that I am sure most SBC-ers believe in. Will they own this indictment? Hell no. And they will go down with their ship of denial.

Judging from the mass of tweets coming out of the 2009 SBC Convention, you can follow them here, the scapegoating and fear-mongering many of us have experienced since 1979 remains the mantra of the day. The sad reality is that many younger, innovative ministers and church planters are feeling the squeeze. If the SBC isn’t careful, it will alienate the very mass of young creatives that may help deliver her from decline.

Pastoring As Friend: What could it look like?

I was asked to follow up on the last post with some tangible suggestions. I’ll confess that its a bit difficult to offer a lot of concrete application here because the space wherein to pastor as friend is still quite small. Specifically in a traditional church context. I’ve found some spaces to do it, and I’ve imagined some ways that it could be nurtured and given room to grow.

The greatest space to pastor as friend is in your own home. My foray into this began when I was campus minister. During the summer months we would have students who were enrolled in summer school over for dinner every Monday night. We would have upwards of 25 college students pouring out of our little Cape Cod, hanging out on the porch, playing Bocce Ball, or congregating on the deck. Seeing your house as a space for mission and ministry places those types of “churchy” programs in a safer relational context…for you and for others. They might expect to see you in a suit in the church building, but that would look really stupid in your house. In other words, you can be yourself in your own home, and others will allow you to do that. This creates avenues for greater, dare I say, more authentic conversation about life, faith, and so on.

Another way to pastor as friend is to office once or twice a week in a public space like a coffee shop, cafe, or bookstore. Preferably a space with free wifi and free coffee refills. This is something you will need to work out with the rest of your staff and possibly with your personnel committee. Its a good way to meet with folks for pastoral conversations that do not demand a high degree of confidentiality. Its also possible to promote that time as a community chaplaincy. You should talk to the business owner before doing something like that. They may even help you promote the time you are available. I recommend doing this after you develop a rapport with the owner and staff. My first go at this was at a coffee shop that had free wifi and free refills on Thursday if you brought your own mug. After getting to know the owner and some of the staff, I asked if I could use their art gallery space to do a weekly sitting meditation for 30 minutes every Thursday morning. After talking it over with the gallery director, we were doing Lectio on prayer cushions at 7:30 AM every Thursday surrounded by local art. I was given permission to promote it using rave cards on tables, and posters on bulletin boards and bathroom stalls. What’s more, most of the people who came were not Christians.

A third space to pastor as friend is virtual space, specifically through social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Blogging is also another venue. None of these are a substitute for relationships of physical presence, but they are a supplement and a “front porch” kind of venue for friendship. All of these mediums of social media were indispensable in my work as a campus minister, and I have found just as much application for them in a traditional staff context. I’ve done Sunday School classes that have a blog for weekly conversation on topics and themes brought out in the Sunday morning conversation. Facebook and Twitter are also both great venues for sharing news, starting reading & conversation threads, sharing links to resources, and on and on. Additionally, there are people you do not know who may view your profile, read your posts, or follow your tweets. The potential for new relationships and connections are abundant. Herein again the expectations are not as constrained as they are in the church.

The above suggestions are not new, but they do require time and adjustments in the typical pastoral schedule. All of these ways of pastoring take place outside of the church. Mainly because that’s where there is space. There is space that can be made within the church that will take time to develop, but they will come slowly and only after a clergy person has developed trust within their congregation. The core of these changes has to do with decentralizing power in the church. Specifically decentralizing clerical power structures. As long as these structures remain, the expectations of church members for staff to inhabit those structures will remain.

One structure that can be decentralized over time is the liturgy/worship service. The word “liturgy” means “work of the people.” Unfortunately its been the work of the staff, and most often, the work of the music or worship minister. Contrary to traditional assumptions, worship is public property. You won’t get to that mindset any time soon in a traditional Baptist church, so baby steps will be required. The ideal in my mind is to get to a place where staff and members, either through a worship team, or community conversation, discuss the thematic direction and liturgical elements of a given service. What’s more, again speaking ideally, the practice of worship would involve diverse voices, spoken or sung, wherein the pastor(s) is but one of many. Part of becoming a pastor as friend is dismantling the invisible wall of separation that exists in every sanctuary after you pass the front pew and approach the podium stairs. The architecture of our liturgy, and of our sanctuaries lends itself to our clergy being higher, distant, and set apart. That way of being is ritualized and thus forms the imaginations and identities of our community members.

A second structure that will need to be decentralized over time in order to pastor as friend is staff hierarchy. From pay scale to roles and responsibilities, most traditional staffs travel up a pyramid of leadership with the senior pastor at the top. Not only does this hinder pastoring as friends, it often hinders working as friends, especially for younger clergy. A decentralized staff allows its leaders to serve from healthy self-acceptance that comes from being able to speak, create, and share on a level playing field. It allows the for the kind of vulnerability that’s necessary for good collaboration because you’re less likely to be made anxious by criticism from a peer. You also have confidence that whatever disagreements or challenges you face together, no one person’s neck is on the line. Thus you can meet challenges with greater confidence, rather than have new ideas, or creative projects sabotaged by the one with the most to lose, i.e. the one at the top. You take your wins and loses together. When you can work as friends, you can pastor as a friend. Practically speaking, I imagine that if your co-equal group of pastoral leaders agrees that you all want to do more pastoring as friend, it has a higher likelihood of happening. You’ll work with one another to make it happen because you are in the habit of sharing responsibility and being accountable. Plus, its easier to relax and be yourself with your members when your weekly work practice allows you to do that same thing.

Like I said above. There is still a lot of flesh left to be put on these ideas. There is space out there to pastor as friend. It may not be in the church you serve right now, but there is plenty of space outside and in the virtual world. Explore these options, but make sure your church knows and understands what you are doing. You’ll kill any way forward by running off and doing these sorts of things without letting anyone know. It will look like you’re shirking responsibility to most folks.

As for changes on the inside of the church, Jesus said it best: “This kind can come out only by prayer.” (Mark 9:29) I don’t ever read “prayer” as the passive supplications of those consigned to let God do the work. Prayer is our allowing the Spirit of God to speak into our imaginations and inherent creativity so that we can bring the kin-dom of God on earth as it is heaven just as Jesus prayed. It will take time. It will require investing in relationships, particularly with those who do not trust, and are afraid of this new world that is emerging. It will require that some doors be opened within the various structures that still exercise a fair amount of control and influence in Baptist life. It will also require survival skills for those on the lead edge of what will, over the next 50 to 100 years, become the new incarnation of what it means to be church in the 21st century.

A Parable of Hospitality

My friends at Homebrewed Christiainity have podcasted a sermon that I gave at my church on April 26th.

You can listen to it here.

Pastoring as Friend: an emerging struggle.

I have been thinking a lot lately about the source of tension within my vocation as a church staff person, i.e. professional minister. There are a lot of annoyances in church work, just as there are in any job. However, as a fundamentally relational being in the most relational of vocations, the greatest struggle for emerging clergy is the nature of church relationships. Here’s what I mean.

Within the church of the modern era there emerged a relational matrix. Largely guided by modern theological and social assumptions. Assumptions like, “The pastor is the spiritual shepherd of the flock,” or “The pastor is the visionary leader of the congregation.” (Basically the same assumption as it has adapted its language from the mid 20th century into the 90’s) In other words, Pastors and ministers are autonomous individual leaders (mostly men) who existed above the community. What’s more, there developed an assumption that a certain measure of distance between clergy and laity be maintained. I remember being told in seminary never to develop close friendships with church members.

The proof of such base assumptions on the part of traditional or established churches is in the structure of staff job descriptions. To be blunt, they keep you so busy you don’t have time to get to know anyone; especially anyone outside of the church or outside of the faith. What’s more, members will all too frequently complain about a minister who appears aloof or impersonal. All the while ignoring the fact that structurally most pastoral staff are precluded from making real connections with people. To emerging clergy who are inherently relational in their approach to the vocation of ministry, this is frustrating if not altogether toxic.

In a lot of ways, this dynamic reflects modern theological assumptions about God; distant, all powerful, authoritative, in control, approachable but only on “his” terms.

As a pomo-kid I really didn’t buy into that vision of church leadership (or of God). I still haven’t, and therein is the rub. For those of us in traditional church contexts the modern matrix of church leadership still holds sway. For the most part, established churches want visionary individuals who will bring numerical success at a safe distance. Meanwhile, many of us emerging ministers long for nothing less than authentic friendship with the people to whom we are called. To know and be known together in the presence of God and to walk with on another in a life-giving exchange of stories, prayers, practices, and projects.

Perhaps emergence for established churches begins by creating space for emerging clergy to pastor as friends.

We’re the good guys…right?

I have been captivated by parables recently. I am not alone either. The content of Jesus’ parables are striking and evocative. What’s more, the structure and artistry of a good story that invites participation has really caught my attention. The parables of Jesus are the one form of communication and instruction wherein the structure and the content are guided by the same ethic — inclusion.

The reason we gravitate towards good stories is because they invite us inside. We get lost in the story. You’ve probably said that before about your favorite book. Jesus’ parables invited his hearers in because the characters are people they could identify with. At the same time, the content of the parables were about those whom God was including in the kin_dom. A parable welcomes you into a new landscape. For Jesus, that new landscape provided for new ways to see God, one’s self, and others.

No one leaves unscathed by Jesus’ parables. Particularly those in Luke 15. In that chapter, the parabolic teaching is prompted by a complaint by the Pharisees concerning who Jesus was sharing table with. Its really easy for us to assume that the Pharisees are a bunch of self-righteous, legalistic, exclusivists. I’m sure there were people like that among their ranks. Historically, however, Pharisees were simply good Torah-abiding followers of Yahweh. Some even argue that this is the very tradition Jesus emerged from. I think in many ways, the best idea about the Pharisees we can interpret the Bible with is that they were good church folk like you and I. Perhaps their self-righteous and legalistic flaws are mostly projections of that which we refuse to take responsibility for in our own selves.

If Jesus were addressing these parables to whiny conservative Baptists, he would have been at the table with homosexuals, and atheists. If Jesus were addressing these parables to whiny liberal/moderate Baptists, he would have been at the table with the Religious Right, and skinheads. To be fair, If Jesus were addressing these parables to whiny emerging Baptists, he would have been at a Wal-Mart McCafe networking with white male denominational executives on a PC.

The irony of parables is that most readers assume they vindicate their own cause, when actually they implicate us for our participation in injustice. If we interact with Jesus’ parables honestly, we see that all of us have a “them.” A group or groups of people we draw outside of our circle. People we would be loath to invite to our table. Our resentment of God’s inclusion of them leads us to temporary amnesia about how we ourselves are received by God. Parables can shake us out of that stupor by including us in the story, and inviting us to see our folly in the story’s characters.

As we wrestle with emergence, and the conflict and struggle inherent in that, parables will be indispensable. Parables will keep us honest by not letting us off the hook concerning our own prejudices and hubris. They won’t let us off the hook regarding those who are not emerging and how we relate to them. When we are tempted to assume we’re the good guys, Jesus’ parables will make us ask good questions of that assumption.

Parables expose us. That sort of self-discovery is vital to our becoming, or emerging, more like Christ.

Note: The use of the generic term “guys” in the title has to do with how this phrase is understood in the common vernacular, and not a product of laziness as regards gender inclusivity.

#EVDC09 – Emerging Distillations

If anything is conclusive, its that this past weekend’s gathering of Emergent Village leaders was, in a word, “intense.” So far, only four participants have recovered to the point of being able to blog about their experiences. Julie Clawson (@Julie) was the first to share which, as reported by @emergentvillage, was ironic due to Julie having lost her voice by the start of the gathering. Shortly after Julie posted, Makeesha (@makeesha) posted her thoughts over at her blog Frenetic Peace. The next post came from Tim Snyder. Last but not least, Sarah Notton shared her thoughts via Faceboook note.

There will be more to come I am sure. As I have read these, I find a good bit of resonance with my own concerns, questions, & hopes for Emergent Village. Much of which I shared in my April 24th post here at Baptimergent. So far I like what I read simply because it honors the process of emergence. We’re still unsettled. We’re still entangled more with questions rather than answers. We’re still moving. We’re still hopeful and anticipatory. Most of all, we recognize our role in a bigger kin-dom/historical picture.

I believe clearer distillations will be forth-coming, especially when we honor our commitment to generative friendship and conversation, and to imagination and incarnation. As a group that takes its identity primarily from the Greatest Commands, this sort of timely discernment will likely be a regular ritual; both at the national and the local level. Gatherings like this lend credibility to a movement that claims to be fundamentally relational in contrast to more triumphal movements of Christianity’s past. I am encouraged by EV’s course, and you should be too

Since posting this earlier today, several more perspectives have come in from the EV gathering. Read about Moff’s experience here, which offers a great metaphor; and Travis Keller’s post which asks some good questions about feeling at home in the Emergent Village.

Staying up to date with the voices coming out of the EVD09 gathering last weekend, here’s a great post from Mike Clawson who, like me, is really happy about the make-up of the participants. By far, my favorite post is Mike Stavlunds “Poems of Emergence.” He writes two poems that emerged from his experiences over the weekend.

Where is “emergent” going?

This weekend chair-members and leaders of Emergent Village are gathering to discern how the movement will continue its evolution. In case you’ve missed the news, you can read the post on the EV site and Tim Hartman’s explanation there as well.

I posted on Twitter yesterday that I believe the word “emergent” is suffering from the classic postmodern distaste of the familiar and over-done. I noticed this in early 2008 when I started seeing “emergent” bloggers writing to that end. One in particular confessed a frustration with how the word had become a marketing label for books published in the “emergent” genre. That this was taking us down a road that did not seem to fit with who we are.

This touches on a concern I have always had for the emergent movement; how do we continue emerging and define ourselves at the same time? Initially, for me, this meant avoiding mainstream popularity or being willing to critique it when it arose. Recently another understanding has emerged alongside that. I believe “emergent” must embrace its mortality.

I don’t mean that as an ending. I’m a resurrectionist (is that a word?). What I mean is that emergent must embrace its transient status as a generative nexus of creative people-of-the-way who are participating in a birthing process. A process that is bigger than the church. And as we all know, birthing is a process with a time-limit.

If we take seriously our place in history, we know that we’re roughly 50 years into a 150-200 year period of transition out of “Western Civilization” and into something that’s not clear yet. That means our instituting, structuring, and organizing will be messy, transient, and sometimes painful, but no less necessary and important in shaping what’s to come. But when “what’s to come,” gets here we’ll need to be able to move on with it, or allow those after us to move on with it.

One thing the story of Moses tells us is that leaders & movements emerge to bring people through transition, but often fail to experience the fruit of their labor. This is what I mean about embracing our “emergent” mortality. Could it be that we are here at this point in history simply to creatively navigate a wilderness transition? To bring the church to the edge of the Jordan and send her with our blessing?

Emergence is a global phenomenon. Its not our place to structure or control it, but rather to find those spaces where we can participate in it. Perhaps our discerning should be in the area of who and where we’re to be in this global process — then to go to those places and do it as people made in God’s image. Heck, you don’t even need a name for that.

I wish my emergent friends in Washington all the best this weekend. Thank you for your willingness to adapt and move. Blessings on your deliberations this weekend.

Cynicism as Relational Apathy

“The opposite of creativity is cynicism.” – Esa Saarinen

This Lent, I’ve put some things under the microscope of personal introspection. The central question I’ve put to myself has been this; “You (me) can conceive and articulate a relational way of being and knowing, but how well, if at all, do you (me) embody it?” This is quite honestly an over-intellectualized way of asking myself how well I put flesh on the great commandments.

One thing that has emerged during this reflective process has been a serious critique of cynicism. That’s right, cynicism. The default posture of the post-boomer Gen X culture. As I have thought about it over Lent, cynicism has shown itself to be non-relational, and at its worst anti-relational.

Cynicism is primarily a response to assumption about an other. Chronic or habitual cynicism is a choice to relate to assumption rather than what is actual. Cynicism is satisfied with reductions of others. In this way, it dehumanizes the other. Its why we love parodies and satirical humor. It lets us off the hook for having to truly know an other as a whole person.

Cynicism is also a stand against having to trust. I believe this has much to do with the fact that trust involves risk. To be fair, the post-boomer generations have many legitimate reasons not to trust. However, I believe we need to consider the consequences of our collective inability and unwillingness to trust. Without trust there can be no relationship. Relationships require self-giving and vulnerability. Cynicism is a posture that protects against having to be vulnerable — against having to take any risk in relating.

“What is a cynic? A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing” -Oscar Wilde

These are all things I have observed in myself, and they are all things that do not jive with my relational understanding of God and reality. Of the things that stand in the way of embodying a relational posture, cynicism is chief among them. As a self-avowed postmodern, cynicism betrays a cognitive dissonance in my own perspective. A cynic categorizes others in a truly modern fashion. What’s more, its hyper-individualistic in the sense that its categories are based on subjective assumptions about others. In many ways its a narcissistic ritual of self-righteousness. Its easy to be a cynic because you never have to leave your world to face reality.

As a follower of Jesus, cynicism is an even greater affront to the ethic of the kin-dom, and the movement of God toward us in self-giving love. Had God been cynical, we would have been written off a long time ago. Had Jesus embodied that cynicism, he would have been one more self-righteous activist who pleased some and alienated others. That’s not the good news we find in our collective narrative. What we do find is a God who is willing to be vulnerable to the point of being present and then murdered. What’s more, that kind of self-giving, risk-taking love is unable to be conquered. It is eternal. In Jesus we see that such a relational paradigm involves pain, loss and disappointment, but on the other side of all of them is a resurrection. A new life. A new beginning.

As I have critiqued my own cynicism during Lent, I have reached some distillations for myself.

1. I cannot trust in a resurrection reality and be a cynic.

2. I cannot relate to others who are not like me and be a cynic.

3. I cannot embody the great commandments and be a cynic.

4. I cannot, with integrity, consider myself a postmodern follower of Jesus while at the same time categorizing others according to a hyper-individualistic template. That’s just not pomo-cool.

5. I cannot truly work for the redemption of ALL things and be a cynic.

“I prefer credulity to skepticism and cynicism for there is more promise in almost anything than in nothing at all.” - Ralph B. Perry

This has broad reaching implications for those of us post-boomer folks who find ourselves serving churches and running into challenges. In transitional contexts marked by collective anxiety, uncertainty, and emotional gridlock, cynicism is a handicap and perpetrator. It will prevent a good leader from imagining a way forward that includes everyone, and will thwart one’s ability to patiently persevere. Cynicism will serve its own needs rather than what is right for the community of faith as a whole.

While asking questions and carrying a measure of existential doubt are assets in the process of discernment, they are not equivalent to a cynical approach to others or even systems. If we desire to be the creative re-imaginers of today’s church for tomorrow, we’ll need to give up our cynicism and courageously engage the diverse range of others in our churches. Especially those whom we “assume” stand in our way.