If God Calls, Who Can Answer? (Dialogue Column 10.20.09)

I wrote this for The Dialogue, the newsletter of First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in St. Joseph, MO. Often, I'll post here on the blog my columns for the weekly newsletter.

Recently I participated in a job fair for high school sophomores from all over northwest Missouri sponsored by the St. Joseph Chamber of Commerce. The idea behind the event is a noble one: expose high schoolers to a large variety of careers so that they can know what possibilities may await them if they stay in school, graduate, and then attend college or vocational training. Someone had the idea of having a clergy booth with area ministers at it to talk with youth considering a career in ministry. I agreed to do it, but I was doubtful about 15 and 16 year-olds talking with somebody like me. I’m glad to say that I was flat out wrong. Over the course of two days there was a steady stream of teenagers asking about what a career in ministry might be like.

Along with me, clergy from the Presbyterian Church USA, the Episcopal Church, Disciples of Christ, Southern Baptist and non-denominational evangelical churches talked with the teenagers about career possibilities in ministry, such as an ordained minister, educator, social worker, ministry with children and youth, camp director, missionary and others roles. Reactions to our presentations ranged from mild interest to some of the teens seriously talking about whether God might be calling them to work in a ministry setting.

I once read an op-ed by a Christian writer and former minister who stated that if he could go back to his early career as a minister, one of the things he would do differently would be to challenge every youth he met to at least consider vocational ministry as one of her or his career choices. He admitted that it is God who does the calling of the men and women who choose to become ministers, but looking at the dearth of quality ministers in so many denominations, it appears that either God is calling fewer people or more likely, many people who are called don’t answer.

There are many reasons for the shortage of clergy. In mainline denominations like ours, it is a valid question why anyone would want to throw in their lot with an institution becoming less and less relevant by the day. The suspicion of institutions in general and religious ones in particular has also had an effect. Also, the steady stream of clergy scandals, especially ones involving child molestation, has degraded the profession’s worth in the public eye. Many people with familiarity with churches know that the ministry can be a difficult career path; churches and religious institutions can and often do mask abuse of their employees (ordained and otherwise) in a religious guise that is perverse and difficult to guard against. Finally, there is the matter of money; with some notable exceptions, you will not get rich in ministry. Although I believe the profession is still respected in general terms, gone are the days when the local ministers were automatically granted moral influence in their communities.

Yet, there I was talking with teen after teen about what options are out there for those who wish to work for a church or religious organization. Given the religious landscape of our area, many of the youth came from conservative churches, where I suppose ministers are still held up (appropriately or not) as role models. Inevitably the discussion turned to eligibility issues. I had to level with a lot of young women that their particular denominations placed limits upon what kind of ministry women could perform. Given their religious background, most of the young women accepted this fact as the norm, although I was glad to see some of them bristled at the restrictions. I made a point of telling every one of the young women I spoke with something like this: “I’m not trying to turn you against your church’s practices, but you should know that there are plenty of denominations that have no restrictions upon women serving as ministers. In these churches, women serve as pastors and not just the children’s pastor or the wife of the minister. If you feel God leading you in the direction of becoming a minister, you should know there are options for you out there. My personal advice would be that you listen to God and go wherever God leads.”

Similarly, I had one young man ask if gay people could be ordained. I let him know that most churches consider homosexual behavior to be a sin, but there are some who do not. I shared with him my own belief that being a homosexual is not sinful and shared about some of the denominations that allow for gay clergy (United Church of Christ, ELCA, MCC, UUA, etc.), along with some but certainly not all of the churches in the Disciples of Christ. He seemed surprised and pleased, but when I asked him if he was gay and thinking about the ministry, he started and mumbled that although he was not gay he had friends who were and who might be interested.

I walked away from the job fair with mixed feelings. I was pleased with the number of youth who were interested in ministry, but I was also struck anew about the church’s restrictions upon who could answer God’s calling and who could not. For my part, I will continue to put professional ministry out there as a worthwhile vocation, just as I will continue to fight for the right of all who are called to have the chance to serve.

Grace and Peace,

Chase

The Secretive Spirituality of Dan Brown (Dialogue Column 10.6.09)

I wrote this for The Dialogue, the newsletter of First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in St. Joseph, MO. Often, I'll post here on the blog my columns for the weekly newsletter.

When Dan Brown’s novel, The Lost Symbol, hit bookstores, I was quick to pick up a copy. I had read and enjoyed two of his previous books: The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons, although I was more than a bit skeptical about his research concerning the history of Christianity. I had high hopes. Brown is not a writer of great literature; his work is meant for a mass audience, but he does have a knack for ending chapters in such a way as to leave the reader unable to resist plunging on ahead to the next one. Also, after the hullabaloo about The Da Vinci Code’s depiction of a secret and alternative history of Christianity, there were a ton of opportunities to get people who would not normally talk about such things thinking about the Bible and how we got it, the reasons some early Christian writings did not make it into the canon, Christianity’s role in the oppression of women and so on. I was hopeful that Brown’s new book would not only be a fun read but also a tool to provoke thought about religious belief.

I was disappointed on both counts.

Dan Brown’s new book is so boring that I could barely finish it. It felt like a poorly written college term paper where the student had done a lot of research and couldn’t help but stick it all in, even if it wasn’t relevant. Even after the climax of the book when the bad guy is vanquished there is still something like 60 pages to go filled with mind-numbing speculation about the universal consciousness of humanity, the merging of science and religion, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. Ugh!

The plot of this novel centers around the Freemasons and their influence upon American history. Although there were some interesting tidbits about architecture in Washington, D.C. (did you know Darth Vader is carved in bas-relief on the exterior of the Washington Cathedral?), I liked the story the first two times I saw it in the movie National Treasure I and its sequel. At least when Nicholas Cage was running around D.C. solving mysteries left by the founding fathers there were car chases and explosions to keep me awake. I don’t know much about Masonic rituals (from what I’ve read Brown keeps things more or less accurate), but where Brown goes off the deep end is in his seemingly endless ruminations upon humanity’s ability to gain god-like wisdom.

Whether it’s Brown’s lead character, the Harvard professor Robert Langdon, or the tattoo-covered sadomasochistic bad guy or some other character in the book, each of them spends a lot of time speaking or thinking about the “ancient mysteries,” which are secret knowledge possessed by one or all of the great ancient civilizations (Egypt, Sumer, Babylon, Greece, etc.) but hidden through the ages until the present time. This secret knowledge is spoken of in the sacred texts of all religions and has been carefully guarded by secret societies until humanity was ready to embrace it.

If this sounds familiar, it is probably because it is the same idea peddled in hundreds—probably thousands—of books generally labeled “New Age” or “Metaphyisical” found in your local book store. It seems that Brown read most of them as “research” for his latest novel. Each claims to possess the secret knowledge that will unleash the human potential hidden in our brains and/or souls and bring about a new age of universal harmony and peace, and of course this knowledge is available to you if you will only buy the book, series of audio recordings or lectures on DVD. In Brown’s novel, it is the Freemasons who have the secret knowledge and they are waiting for the right moment to spring it on the world.

At least in The Da Vinci Code, Brown’s abuse of historical information and basic Biblical knowledge could spark discussion about why men have used religion to control women and other worthwhile topics; his misuse of scripture served a higher purpose. In The Lost Symbol, his prooftexting of Hebrew and Christian scriptures (and I assume Hindu, Islamic and the texts of other religions) could spark no worthwhile discussion at all. The worldview of his characters closely resembles that of early pseudo-Christian movements generally labeled as Gnostics. Centuries ago, they too argued that the Bible was just a set of symbols that only the enlightened could decipher and only they could shed the limitations of their earthly bodies. Such a view denies the very obvious commands of Jesus to love God and neighbor which are offered as the keys to spiritual fulfillment. The ancient Gnostics, Brown’s characters and perhaps even the browsers of the New Age section at book stores alike seek a spiritual knowledge available to only the elite. I’d rather have the love of a God who makes it available freely to all of humanity.

Grace and Peace,

Chase

Your Presence is Requested (Dialogue Column 9.29.09)

I wrote this for The Dialogue, the newsletter of First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in St. Joseph, MO. Often, I'll post here on the blog my columns for the weekly newsletter.

The Buddhist master and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Thich Nhat Hanh, once stated, “The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence.” As Christians, we tend to intellectualize our faith, understanding it as a set of beliefs we somehow hold or possess. Or perhaps we view it as a membership that we claim as in a club or an organization. Leave it to a Buddhist to remind us Christians that our faith should be about “presence.”

More often than I would like to admit, my wife Jennifer catches me staring off into space and asks me, “Where are you right now?” She does so, because in such moments I am not present mentally with her and our sons at dinner or around the house. Instead, I have to admit to her and to myself that my mind is still focused on something that happened that day at work or something soon to happen at church. I am chagrinned to admit that I am not fully present with the ones I love most.

Similarly, because we are not fully present or mindful in important relationships, we are likewise not present for God. Since we understand our faith as something other than a relationship with God, we give little thought to being present to God or allowing God’s presence to make a difference in our lives. Our prayers are one-sided and given hurriedly in desperate moments rather than as chances to connect with the divine. With no time for reflection upon or reconnection with God, it is little wonder that our days can feel lacking in purpose and meaning.

When we fail to understand the difference our presence makes, our attention turns inward in an unhealthy manner. In the Christian life, community matters; it matters that we are present for others. It matters that we gather together as believers to worship God, to care for one another, to grow in our faith and to serve people in need. When the gift of presence is neglected something results far worse than empty pews; the individual, the community and even the world are robbed of opportunities for God’s grace to flow, simply through the gift of presence. If there is any truth to the idea that God’s Spirit dwells within each of us, then a person’s absence from a faith community denies others the chance to experience God in a particular and wonderful way.

This fall we are in the midst of a stewardship campaign that is unlike past ones here at First Christian Church of St. Joseph. The Stewardship Committee has worked hard to make the point in a variety of ways that being a steward or trustee of what God has given us is about more than money. There are financial realities that cannot be ignored, but being a part of a church is about being present to other members of the community. Simply by showing up for worship, your presence whether you realize it or not makes a difference to those around you and to the feeling in the room. By sharing of your time and energy for one of the ministries of the church, you are giving the best thing you have to give. In worship and in The Dialogue we are taking extra time and space to make sure new and long-time members alike know what the different groups in our church are doing, so that each member can know how he or she can join in with others who share the same passions.

First Christian Church of St. Joseph is unlike most churches I’ve known in many wonderful and positive ways, but in other ways it is just like every other church I’ve experienced. There are certain people who step up and do the bulk of what needs to be done. Whether by temperament, humility or obligation, certain souls will do more than their fair share of things at church and most other folks will gladly let them do it for any number of reasons. Such a way of operating robs everyone involved of the joy of being present in one another’s lives and the joy of being an instrument of God’s presence.

As your minister, I encourage you as a member of First Christian to think about the gift of your presence. Whether it is serving on a committee, ministering to a person in need, teaching children or youth about the faith or helping set up for a special event, your presence makes a spiritual difference beyond the actual tasks accomplished, because you are doing it as a part of a community of believers. This is not a call to add one more thing to your “To Do” list, rather it is a call for you to be intentional with the greatest gift you have to offer: your presence.

Grace and Peace,
Chase

FCC St. Joe is Excellent in Evangelism! (sort of) (Dialogue Column 9.29.09)

I wrote this for The Dialogue, the newsletter of First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in St. Joseph, MO. Often, I'll post here on the blog my columns for the weekly newsletter.

Last week I received an envelope from our denomination’s Office of Evangelism which contained a very attractive certificate declaring our church is a recipient of an “Excellence in Evangelism Award.” “Huh,” I thought, “Who would have thunk it?” After reading the fine print, I discovered that the award declares that out of churches of our size (101-250 participating members) for the year 2008 we were in the top 10% for number of additions of new members.

I next checked our records and found we had 23 new members last year—20 of them transferred their membership from another church and 3 of them made first time professions of faith. I guess that qualifies as “Excellence in Evangelism” in our denomination (among churches of our size, in the year 2008, etc. etc.). A cynic might scoff at what passes for “Excellence in Evangelism” in a shrinking denomination like ours, but I’m not cynical. Although it is nice to be recognized—for as much as such recognition is worth, each of these 23 additions last year—along with the 18 we’ve had so far in 2009—is meaningful to me because he or she represents a commitment to follow Jesus as a part of the community of faith that is First Christian Church of St. Joseph.

The letter accompanying the certificate made a point of qualifying what the word “Evangelism” means in such an award. It clarified that awards for additions were not necessarily awards for evangelism, at least not strictly speaking. The paragraph-long explanation is a little wordy and vague, but I took from it that evangelism is really about people making first time professions of faith (new Christians) rather than people transferring their membership from another church. So, I guess we really have an “Excellence in Adding New Members who are Already Christians but Whom were Either Inactive or Dissatisfied in their Previous Churches” award.

Based on what I know about the backgrounds of those who joined last year, here’s what I can tell you statistically:

· 3 made first-time professions of faith;
· 5 moved to St. Joseph and were looking for a church;
· 7 lived in St. Joseph, had belonged to a church in the past but had not been active in some time;
· 8 were active members of another church in town and for various reasons were looking for a new church.

So maybe we deserve an “Excellence in Adding New Members who Made a Profession of Faith, Moved to Our Town, or Felt a Desire to Find a New Church” award. A cynic might dismiss some of these new additions as examples of “sheep stealing” or “church shopping,” but I’m not cynical. For me, each of these people who have chosen to join First Christian Church is a person who was looking to deepen their commitment to Jesus Christ and was led by the Spirit to our church. There are many reasons why a person might go looking for a new church and many reasons why he or she would end up at a particular congregation. I choose to believe that those who have joined our church over the last few years have done so, because our members have made a concerted effort to allow God to work through them in some exciting ways.

Some folks have credited my coming to First Christian as the reason our church is adding new members; I tend to think that is an extreme overstatement. I believe that over the last few years we have done a better job than in previous years of letting people in our community know about the kind of faith community we are. Based on who has joined over the last two years, it is about evenly split between those who visited the church due to our marketing campaign and those who visited because of a direct invitation of a church member. Whether it was through a TV commercial, a postcard in the mail or from a personal invite, people have gotten the idea that we are a special kind of church that welcomes all people and values people of various beliefs coming together to serve God and others. Once they got in the door, another special thing happened—they felt welcome and cared about. Many of the new members have shared with me about their first interactions with church members on a Sunday morning. They felt they were greeted not merely out of politeness but with an eagerness to show hospitality and concern. They felt like this was a church that cared about them and then came to feel that through this community of believers they might be able show care to others in Christ’s name.

So, maybe we should have received an award for “Excellence in Welcoming Strangers and Helping Them to Connect with a Community of Faith.” I think I like that title best of all.

Grace and Peace,
Chase

Church. . . It's Complicated (Dialogue Column 9.15.09)

I wrote this for The Dialogue, the newsletter of First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in St. Joseph, MO. Often, I'll post here on the blog my columns for the weekly newsletter.

Each week Jen and I watch The Soup, a TV show dedicated to making fun of trashy reality TV shows, snarky talk show hosts and poorly acted cable series. Their tagline is “We watch it all for you, so that you don’t have to!” The show is often hilarious and it allows us to keep a toe in the scum-covered waters of pop-culture without actually having to watch all this stuff (although sometimes even a half an hour of The Soup makes me despair for humanity).

One of the reality shows made fun of on The Soup is called Denise Richards . . . It’s Complicated. Richards, who once played a girlfriend for James Bond and was also once married to actor Charlie Sheen, is not what you would call the sharpest tool in the shed. From what I can gather from the clips of her show I’ve seen, the only thing “complicated” about her life is how she ever got her own show in the first place. Yet, this reality show that Jen and I have never really watched has given Jen and I our own inside joke. Now whenever anything is difficult, we like to add to it “. . . It’s Complicated.” Such as, “Parenting. . . It’s Complicated.” “Long Division. . . It’s Complicated.” “Programming the Remote Control. . . It’s Complicated.”

I want to share this inside joke with you, our church, as we begin our stewardship campaign this year. I haven’t run this by the Stewardship Committee yet, but I’ve thought about hanging up a banner that says, “Church. . . It’s Complicated.” (Of course, then I’d have to explain the joke to all the people that don’t read my newsletter column, so perhaps, I’ll just skip the banner.) As much as I the minister or other leaders of the church might want to make being a part of a community of faith convenient and easy, the fact is that being a part of a church is. . . well. . . “complicated.” It demands commitment, time, effort and sacrifice—that is, if it really is going to resemble anything like following Jesus.

Recently, I read a sermon by Peter Marty, well-known Lutheran minister and writer, that makes my point well. In it, Marty uses two Quakers as examples of how the call of Christ actually complicates rather than eases the life of a believer:

The late Quaker philosopher Elton Trueblood understood this complicating nature of the Christian way. "In many areas," he wrote, "the gospel, instead of taking away peoples' burdens, actually adds to them." On a number of occasions, Trueblood told the story of John Woolman, a successful Quaker merchant in the 18th century who lived a wonderfully nice life until God convicted him one day of the offense of holding slaves. After that, John Woolman gave up his prosperous business; he used his money to try and free slaves and even started wearing undyed suits to avoid relying on dye that slave labor produced. Says Elton Trueblood, "Occasionally we talk of our Christianity as something that solves problems, and there is a sense in which it does. Long before it does so, however, it increases both the number and the intensity of problems."

What a powerful way to think about how complicated it can be to follow Christ in our culture!

As each of us at First Christian consider our own finances, talents, time and energy, we cannot escape from the fact that we must give of all of these things in service to God and people in need—at least not if we want to be faithful to Christ. In the midst of a busy schedule, how can I make time to volunteer to help others? With medical limitations, how can I give of myself to others? Out of the things that I want to buy in the coming year, what would I be willing to give up or forego to support my church and its ministries? Are there things in my life I don’t really need (an extra latte, a more expensive cell phone, one more purchase on Ebay, etc.) that I could let go of in order to use that same money to supply the basic needs of someone in my community (Open Door Food Kitchen, Juda House, Royal Family Kids Camp, etc.)? These are the tough questions that stewardship time should force us to think about?

Jesus never promised that following him would be easy or even fun, although he does promise that doing so will be fulfilling and joyous. How can that be? Well. . . “It’s Complicated.”

Grace and Peace,
Chase

100,000 for Health Care Reform

The United Church of Christ--a partner denomination with the Disciples of Christ and a denomination I have ministerial standing in--is gathering 100,000 "signatures" in support of health care reform. I signed it, so that means only 99,999 to go.

Be Careful What You Pray For: A Parable about Prayer (Dialogue Column 9.8.09)

I wrote this for The Dialogue, the newsletter of First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in St. Joseph, MO. Often, I'll post here on the blog my columns for the weekly newsletter.

A good friend of mine named Sterling Severns is the pastor of Tabernacle Baptist Church in Richmond, VA. Sterling and I went to college and seminary together and he is a dynamic person and minister. His church has changed dramatically over the last year in some amazing and entirely unexpected ways. I thought I would share the story of those changes with you as an example of how I believe God wishes to surprise all of us with opportunities to serve people on the margins.

Tabernacle Baptist Church looks the part of a stately, white, urban congregation in the “Capitol of the Confederacy”. In its heyday, Tabernacle was a thriving city church with a sanctuary offering seats for thousands each Sunday. With the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention only a few short blocks away, Tabernacle was the site for missionary commissioning services that connected it with the entire world. Times changed and so did the neighborhood around the church. Families moved to the suburbs and the rowhouses around Tabernacle were often subdivided into apartments. They filled up with yuppies, hippies and college students, few of whom were interested in a traditional Southern Baptist Church. The church membership dwindled to a small group of older members and those who remained were heard to joke, “The last one who dies needs to turn out the lights.” They prayed for God to bring them new members, especially ones with children.

Five years ago, my friend Sterling was called as their pastor. His two children doubled the size of the Sunday School. As the Southern Baptist Convention became more and more conservative, the church chose to affiliate with moderate to liberal Baptist groups which helped it be more open to the community around it. Sterling’s considerable gifts also helped to draw in new members. Things began to seem less desperate and more hopeful. Still they prayed for God to bring them new members, especially ones with children.

One day, an associate minister of the church received a call from an acquaintance who worked with refugees. She was asked if there were any Baptist churches in Richmond that would work with a growing population of Burmese Karen refugees that were being settled there in increasing numbers. Of course she mentioned Tabernacle. The church looked at the Karens as a mission opportunity and considered options of how to help these strangers in a strange land. At the beginning, the Karens were one group in need among many in Richmond. Meanwhile, Tabernacle members prayed for God to bring them new members, especially ones with children.

The Karen Burmese are a minority in the country of Burma (renamed Myanmar by its oppressive military government). They have experienced ethnic cleansing at the hands of the brutal government forces, who often ethnically cleanse villages and rape any women they find. The Karen in America came here legally as a part of international refugee resettlement programs. The problem is the groups put in charge of helping them find new lives are often underfunded or incompetent; such is the case in Richmond. Most refugees arrive speaking little or no English, with very little money or job skills and no knowledge of how to navigate the currents of American society. Interestingly, many of the Karen are Baptist thanks to the work of early missionaries in the 18th century, so their American brothers and sisters in Christ at Tabernacle found themselves gravitating toward these strangers who sang traditional Baptist hymns in their own dialects. Slowly but surely, the church members found themselves helping get children signed up for school and driving whole families to doctor appointments. Then they started an ESL class to teach the Karen English. Relationships quickly formed and the Karen began showing up on Sunday mornings at Tabernacle.

The members of Tabernacle Baptist Church began to realize that the families and children they had been praying for had arrived. But instead of the Caucasian middle class families of previous generations, God had provided families and children from Southeast Asia with a long list of needs. I’m happy to report that the members of Tabernacle opened their arms wide to the families God brought to them. If you visit on a Sunday morning, you will find around 175 people (around half Caucasian and half Karen) attending a service offered in three languages: English and two Karen dialects. Rather than looking in a bulletin or on an overhead screen, the members sing old Baptist hymns in their separate languages; the melodies have offered a common experience. Their Sunday School and youth group contain Caucasian and Karen children. Their meals and times of fellowship allow for adults to cross boundaries of language, nationality, and class. Together they are striving hard to be one church.

Grace comes in many forms, so be careful what you pray for.

Grace and Peace,
Chase