Since discerning that it is not
my calling to be the Bishop of New Jersey, the Synod went through a three-day
time of discernment that led to the calling of a new Bishop, Christa Compton. Thanks
be to God!
As I recalibrate from that year
long time of discernment, there are still some irritants, clutter that is
keeping me from being fully present. In the spirit of “better out than in” here
are pieces of my discernment I think are worth lifting up for the sake of the
wider Church one last time. They might even be useful for folk discerning what’s
next at the coming Churchwide Assembly.
Closures:
A bunch
of congregations are going to close, and that will affect the life of the
congregations that remain. This includes the scramble to integrate as many members
of the closing congregation into surrounding congregations and helping them
process their grief. It also includes navigating the fight or flight “I don’t
want to be the last person who turns out the lights of our congregation”
reactions of leaders in remaining congregations. For local Pastors it means something
like 6 extra funerals a year, and these will be “anonymous Lutheran” funerals—funerals
for people with whom you have no prior relationship, but will expect the
pastoral attention of their now non-existent home pastor.
For all those reasons, I think a “local
tithe” from closing congregations to the Cluster or District the congregation
was in ought to be considered as an informal closure policy. Don’t get me
wrong, I’ve benefited from the
EMU program, which was funded by a closed congregation, and our camp
ministries certainly use money from closed congregations faithfully. It just
feels like moving a bunch of money from the peripheries to the center can
create painful tensions that don’t need to be there.
Retirements:
From my
observation, one of the hardest things a pastor can do is retire. The ways in
which we grow to love our people, and sometimes get enmeshed with them, the
weird routine of being a pastor, the amount of self we offer up to this
vocation, the rush of capturing people’s attention for 20 minutes on a Sunday
with the act of confession of our faith, and the evaporation of our name and
its replacement with a title, “Pastor”—can make us, to quote the Shawshank Redemption,
“Institutionalized”; it’s hard to be on the outside, hard to be a “civilian”, a
lay person. And as such there is a propensity to get squirrely.
In fact, I’d go so far as to say half
the retired pastors I know are actively plotting to make changes in the
congregation they no longer serve or are hyper-functioning in a negative way at
the congregation in which they worship. That’s not to say I’ve had solely bad experiences
with retired pastors—in fact, some of the wisest mentors I’ve met are retired
ministers who were able to take off the collar and throw themselves into a new
adventure, or have found ways to be useful to the wider church in their
retirement.
What do
you do with a problem like Maria… or rather retired pastors?
On one hand, there is some personal
responsibility involved in all this that should be cultivated before retirement—an
ongoing returning to the font—baptism not ordination is your primary identity.
Personally, I try to have at least one meaningful life project going on that
has nothing to do with my ministry, and my wife is a sort of accountability
partner in that, nudging me when I veer toward “institutionalized” behavior.
On the other hand, retired pastors need
to be listened to. I think regularly running a retiring pastor listening panel
(maybe a “Last Call Theological Education” event) based on the Wisdom books, so
a slightly shifted version of my “Wisdom
From” Bible Study, could be a healthy thing for the church writ large. It
would compile generational snap shots of retired pastors’ wisdom, and also be a
sort of circuit breaker for potential bad behavior.
And finally… The 4Ds
It is
my conviction that the Church’s job is to engage with the world as it is, in
order to share the Gospel believably. A solid conceptual framework for
understanding what’s right in front of our nose is the 3Ds—Decentralization,
Demographic Shift, and Disestablished. A good description of a believable
gospel in this 3D world is the 4th D, we are Disenchanted—our habits
are wholly secular so the holy is unbelievable—believing the Gospel in a 3D
world will look like Re-enchantment.
In a
Decentralized world, we must be Nimble. Imagine a roving Church—imagine the wider
church decamping in a congregation’s backyard for a week, a good old fashioned
Lutheran Revival! A Church where Dinner Church and other forms of public
ministry are common, and local congregations are healthy and empowered.
In a Demographically
Shifted world, we must embrace Authentic Diversity. No more the day when Lutheran
automatically means Lake Wobegon, and also no more beating ourselves up with a
wet noodle because we minister in a less than diverse context, instead of
recognizing the kinds of diversity that ARE there and trying to reflect it.
In a Disestablished
world, we need to intentionally make Partners. The old web of connection—boy
scouts, toast masters, ethnic clubs, is broken and not coming back, but that
doesn’t mean there aren’t groups and organizations that have cropped up who
would be amenable to working alongside the Church. One place where this sort of
work is being done is Philadelphia, where Partners
for Sacred Places is leading the way.
Finally,
in a Disenchanted world, we ought to be Re-enchanters. We ought to be a people who
practice holy habits, so we can still point to God—our confessions are not
abstract, but grounded in God’s good works revealed to us. We are a people of prayer and friendship, beauty and gratitude, rest and passion!
And
there you have it, my view of things, the Church is dealing with making endings
healthy and holy, as well as chasing the Spirit to practices and places that
allow the Gospel to be received as trustworthy and true.
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