Tribal Church

I’m frustrated that sociologists have decided there is a new term for adults in their twenties. Financial stability and marriage has been an indicator of adulthood in our country, yet a new generation has not been able to become financially stable and many have not gotten married. So sociologists [9/6 edit, thanks to Gould: and psychologists] have come up with new terms: the odyssey years or emerging adulthood. Just as an adolescent is not a child or an adult, the emerging adult is not quite an adolescent or an adult.

The problem with this is that the odds are stacked against a new generation. Each generation has their own set of financial difficulties, but for those in their twenties and thirties, “financial independence” is very difficult to achieve. Because of the high cost of education, students often have to take out large loans. And with a difficult economy, their eventual incomes often do not outpace the debt. Many very responsible young adults move back into their parents’ homes, in order to pay down their loans.

Add to this equation that we now have a society that is based on two incomes, but a societal expectation that men and women need to be “financially stable” before they get married. Under these circumstances, many adults are unable to get married. Often people are in same gender relationships, and others choose not to get married. Does this make them less mature?

As a society, we set up these traps. Now, we look at a new generation who is caught in them, and claim that they are not-quite-adults. We wonder why they can’t settle down, or maintain stable careers or relationship. We wonder what’s wrong with them, while we don’t take responsibility for the hardships that we have caused.

With our definition of adulthood depending on solid careers, financial stability, mortgages, and marriage certificates, we will all have a difficult time. We know that many Baby Boomers have been laid off and had to change jobs. Many don’t have adequate retirements will be moving in with their sons and daughters in years to come. Do they lose their status as adults?

We need to change our definitions. We need to have more understanding of the financial and social dilemmas of a new generation.

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When I was in Cajun Louisiana, serving as a pastor, I learned about traiteurs. When people would get sick, they would go to the doctor and to the traiteur, just to make sure all of their bases were covered. Many of my neighbors, friends, and members of my congregation would say, “I was suffering from arthritis. I went to the doctor and I went to the traiteur, and now I’m healed. You can decide which one made me better.” And as they said it, I always got the feeling that I was voting for the doctor, and they were voting for the traiteur. The traiteurs were healers who lived in the swamps. I tried to research them, but there was very little written on them. They have a few pages in Cajun history books, and now there’s a wikipedia article on them. I never went to one, but I was pretty fascinated by them, so I was always asking people for stories.

They seemed to have combined some of the religious voodoo practices that are common in New Orleans with the liturgies of the Catholic Church. Some of the herbal treatments reminded me of the medicine men in Uganda. And then there were some interesting practices that seemed more magical. Like if you came to be healed from a wart, they would rub a dime over the wart, then they would tell you that when you spent the dime, then the wart would be transferred from your hand to the person you gave the dime to.

Their hands often radiated heat. When they were healing a dislocated shoulder, the patient could feel the burning coming from the palms of the traiteur’s hand. For the most part, traiteurs were men and women of prayer. They had a book of prayers that they would whisper, hardly audible for the person who came for healing. People didn’t pay them with money very often. They paid with food–chicken, shrimp, fish, or vegetables from the their gardens.

And one of the most interesting things that I learned about the traiteurs is they had an intricate system of passing down their miraculous knowledge. According to wikipedia, if the traiteur was a man, he would teach a woman. If the healer was a woman, she would pass down her knowledge to a man. One by one, the healer would teach the prayers to the apprentice, and when the apprentice would learn the prayer completely, then the teacher would lose power over that particular prayer. The prayer became the student’s, and no longer the teacher’s. Through many years, they would go through this ritual, until all of the prayers belonged to the apprentice. For almost 250 years, since the Acadians settled Louisiana, this ancient tradition has been kept alive through this process.

The magic tied to this process reminds me of the idea of legacies and inheritance in our Scriptures. There were two offices in the Old Testament, two kinds of religious jobs. One was that of a priest—and the priest would maintain the temple or the synagogue. He would keep the offerings burning on time and made sure that the rituals were followed correctly.

Then there was a prophet, a person who often caused chaos. When everyone was fat and happy, the prophets were there, reminding them that God’s punishment was just around the corner. When people were lamenting and in anguish, prophets were there, tearing their clothes, sitting in ashes, telling people about the mercy, grace and love of God.

In the Old Testament, there was a system of identifying and training prophets, usually within a family. They would look for the next generation of leadership, and they would anoint their predecessor. When a prophet found another prophet, he or she (there were women prophets. We know about Deborah, the judge and prophet, so there were probably more) would take a horn of oil, and pour it over the head of the predecessor to mark them. Often when a holy person died, he or she handed down their “mantle.” Or there was a blessing that was passed on. There was a sense that something miraculous was exchanged between the two people. This is what happened with the exchange of power between Elijah and Elisha. Elijah and Elisha are incredibly fascinating characters. Elijah was a prophet, and Elisha was his apprentice. They’re kind of funny, kind of magical, and kind of scary.

In many ways I was lucky to start my ministry in South Louisiana, because this idea of apprenticeship was not only alive in the Cajun culture, but also in the African American culture. And so as I began my first years as a minister, several Methodist pastors took me under their wing. I was a 26-year-old feisty feminist, and these men who had been pastors for fifty years. And yet they took time with me, once a week, for an entire afternoon, to study Scriptures and give me advice. I was, at first, infuriated by what was happening. I thought it was pure patriarchy! I was always respectful to the men, but every week after we met, I told my husband that I wasn’t going back. I felt like just because I was a young woman, they were going to sit around and tell me what to do all day long. As if I had nothing to contribute to the conversation. But I kept going back.

Then I really started needing their help, and they were there, teaching me how to navigate the difficult terrain of a small church. Telling me when to take sides in a congregational conflict, and when to act as the mediator. Pretty soon, I became less angry about the injustices that I had to endure as a woman, and I began to empathize with my colleagues who served faithfully in communities where segregation and abuse was still very much alive. And, I’m not sure how to explain it, but they put recordings in my head that I’ve played back for a dozen years as I’ve served as a pastor. They established a foundation for me that I walk on every day. And I’m incredibly thankful that they took the time to drink thick black coffee, and teach me how to be a pastor.

I don’t know what I would have done if I started out here, in D.C. It is a sink or swim place, in our profession. There is rarely the expectation or vision among colleagues that we mentor each other. And, our schedules are so packed that it takes weeks to get a lunch appointment. It seems that it is not just in this particular religious community, but it can be all over.

We have lost the sense that something magical happens when we share our knowledge with someone who is starting out. We have lost this sense that we have a mantle, a legacy that we can pass on. Sometimes we do not know how to look at the next generation, not as a threat or competition, but as a hope that they will achieve greater things than we will. That they will make the world a better place.

Sometimes I worry that we have lost the art of teaching the next generation in our country.

I am not sure why, but maybe it’s because we used to be an agrarian based culture, where the hard labor had to be shared—especially with those who were younger and stronger. Therefore, knowledge needed to be passed down as well, or we could not eat. There were family farms and family businesses, and so it was important for each generation to entrust their knowledge to their sons. Then, as the industrial revolution replaced the agrarian culture, and the tech and service industry replaced that, we entered into a time of competition. Instead of sharing the work so that all might be fed, we entered an economy that realized that keeping secrets was much more important than sharing them. Professions were not passed down from one generation to the next in the same way. People began to go to college to become trained. And sometimes, the academic pursuit of a profession was removed from the practical implementation. It seems that apprenticeships were replaced by internships.

D.C. is run with interns. We’ve had interns at our church. It seems that internship are highly competitive to get into. But they are too often about young, college graduates who have way too much student loan debt, are yet they expected to work for free without health insurance, paying rent in expensive cities, and going into more debt. Often it sets up a system of privilege so that people who have parents who can afford the internships, can do them. Many times internships are about doing the grunt work, and not learning the important skills and knowledge that the organization has to offer.

Don’t get me wrong. A good internship is a wonderful thing. Yet, for many college students in our country, they are expected to work for free for at least one year in order to get a decent job. Imagine if you had to live in DC, when you’re just starting out, without any income, for at least one year. (I’m sure many of you don’t have to tax your imagination too much, because you’ve already been through an internship, or you’re in one now.) This system is putting students into debt, and it’s eating away their parent’s retirement savings.

Now, I know that our city would probably shut down if there were no interns, but in this difficult economy, could it be time to start thinking about what we are doing to people in these situations? They’re in no place to complain, because they typically need to get a job out of it. But in this time when recent graduates face rising school debt, stagnant salaries, high rents, and lack of jobs, should we be expecting that they work without pay for so long? Often, it seems like an undue burden for those who desperately need a lighter load. We may need to ask some questions. If an intern is, in essence, contributing to the politician, office, church, or NGO a year’s salary, are we giving them more than just a foot in the door? Are we training them, mentoring them, and spending time with them? Are we setting up a system where people who do not have families with means are getting that much farther behind than those with means?

It’s not just in D.C. When I was teaching at a conference for campus ministers this week, we started talking about internships, many of the pastors agreed that this has become very damaging to young adults in our country. One campus minister even compared it to slavery.

Too often, we have lost the sense of building up new leaders, of leaving a legacy to the next generation. And I don’t just mean money, but I mean investing the time, the wisdom, and the secrets. I mean taking that metaphorical bull’s horn of oil, and seeking out that particular person. The one who will become greater than you are. And when you look back at your career, you can point to that person and know that a double portion of your blessing is still living in them.

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One of the amazing things about our congregation is that I look out on it, and realize that I would be friends with a good 85% of the people there, even if I just met them out on the street.

You know how it is. As a pastor, you love people. You learn to deeply appreciate them. And often, you grow these wonderful friendships with men and women whom you would never ordinarily interact with. That’s the beauty of church. But, for some reason, I am now in a very enviable position of being around people whom I love, appreciate, and would be friends with.

At the church, our book club picks out books that I would read. Groups get together for theater nights to see shows that I would pick out. And… I feel a bit guilty about this… but… we probably vote the same way. Most of us get outraged about Styrofoam cups, our medical system, and exclusive language for God.

I have never been in a church like this. Most of the time, I have been the pastor who’s making a big deal out of the war when everyone else is boycotting “French” fries.

It makes me extremely thankful for the church that I serve. When I was looking for a congregation, I read Let Your Life Speak, and realized that in the next call, I needed to pastor a church that I would ordinarily attend. And now I do.

As much as it makes me grateful for the congregation that I’m in, strangely enough, it also makes me thankful for the congregations that I served in previous years.

I was a skilled pastor, and yet I was a good thirty years younger than most of my congregation. I was continually reminded of the palpable longing for the retired interim who came before me. I thought that it was because he spent every afternoon in each person’s home—and so I would try to keep up with the visitations, but it would never be enough. I was trying to redevelop the church, and that’s difficult to do if you spend every afternoon with the elderly women in your congregation.

It wasn’t just about the number of hours in each living room. I know now that it wasn’t just the daily visitations for which they longed. It was also the friendship. A friendship with someone who was at the end of his career, working out what he was going to do with his retired days, whether he was going to take a trip to Europe this year or the next. In contrast, I was a scrappy young pastor with a child who was trying to figure out how to pay for her utility bills. He lived in a swanky neighborhood, instead of a starter home, in a city my parishioners looked down upon. He was an equal, a friend, in a way that I never could be.

And as much as I was frustrated by it then, I am feeling thankful that they welcomed me. They must have really enjoyed having a pastor who was a friend. Not in the forced sense, but in that comfortable sense. They read the same books, they went to the same theater, and they probably voted the same way. They would have been friends with him if they had met him on the street. And yet, they gave a gift to the next generation of the church by hiring me.

We are in a particularly difficult point in our denominational life. We have churches that are dwindling, and fewer of them can call pastors. The average age of our parishioners is getting higher each year. We have a lot of retired ministers who are reluctant to let go of their jobs, because they have a great deal to offer, and because they receive tremendous financial incentives to hold on to their positions.

On the other hand, we have many, many young pastors who are looking for calls. And if we’re going to be a faith that is proclaimed from generation to generation, we cannot neglect to hire, support, sustain young pastors, even if current congregants feel uncomfortable with them. Even if they would not normally be friends with them.

Why? Because youth attracts youth. Young pastors will reach out with ease to their friends. If they are allowed to flourish, many ministers are able to bring people into their congregations who look like them. That might be a scary proposition for many older church members. But, if they are able to put their own need for pastoral friendships aside, then their church will gain a life beyond them. It could be a very selfless gift for the next generation.

Photo by Teddy

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Alright, those of you who know my writing realize that I’m a feminist who typically decries the fact that women are not cracking through the stained glass ceiling. Through personal experience, through watching friends bust their heads, through seeing women before me work hard and not get far, I realize that we’ve got a long way to go before we can fully claim that “in Jesus Christ there is no Jew or Gentile, male or female, slave or free.”

But… I’m curious of another trend of late. Something that goes against my “guys float through this profession easily” attitude. Men–young men–are not making it through the PCUSA ordination system. I mean, the kind of intelligent young men that would make John Leith bust with pride, are somehow not making it through. They are dropping out from frustration, irritation, lack of support. Many of them are the primary bread winners and need jobs before they can get through the hoops.

Do you hear me? Louisville? Something’s wrong.

There is a pattern for some of the men. Often they are conservative when they leave for seminary, and they end up broadening their thinking a bit. They become imaginative regarding what they think the church should look like orthey become more inclusive on their views on homosexuality.

It seems like, for some Presbyteries, we have gotten to a place where we not only reject LGBTs, but we reject anyone who might accept them.  If this continues to be the case, we can pretty much write off the next generation of pastors.

Not all are liberal, many are conservative. Like any broken family, it seems like our worst dysfunctions are being played out upon our weakest members–our candidates. At a time when we are about to lose a huge number of retiring Boomers, we are doing all we can to discourage our up-and-coming pastors. It makes no sense.

Of course, I only have anecdotal evidence, but it’s pretty overwhelming. And perhaps there are just as many women and I don’t know about them.

But I really don’t like the pattern. A lot of women are resourceful, we have learned how to work whatever system we are in, and we can be compliant to get what we need. Is this the characteristic that’s helping us get through easier?

Tell me. What’s going on?

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I’m in Jackson, Mississippi, for a UMC Clergy Leadership Conference. Last night, I went out with a group of wonderful clergy, and we had an animated discussion over dinner about young adults and debt. At the heart of the conversation was this:

I would say that many young adults have to go into debt because of low wages, increased housing costs, and student loans.

But, some of the young clergy were talking about the Dave Ramsey programs that they are taking part in, and they were saying that the reason why young adults are in debt is because they want to live like their parents right out of college. They don’t realize that it took years and years for their parents to build the wealth. (I’m pretty that this was the same thing my grandmother told my mother….)

I said this was a myth. I mean of course it’s true in many, many cases. People often go through the reality check of finding out how little they can actually afford, and that their expectations were too high.

But, when my parents were my age, they owned a home on the beach of Florida and they were adding on to it to double its size. They went to really nice interior decorating stores for all of the new furniture, and they had a decorator consulting them. My dad had a 40-hour per week government job and mom was a writer. They were very comfortable.

Compare that to my husband and me. We live in a fabulous house, but we could not dream of owning it—even with 2 full-time professional salaries and a small income from writing. We only own two-thirds of it, and our church owns the other third. We rarely ever have more than one car.

Our furniture is a strange array of things that we have picked up at thrift stores and flea markets. Ikea and auctions. I waited seven years before buying a dining room table. And that I got because of an insurance settlement.

Am I whining or saying that I have it terrible? Of course not. I have health insurance and a pension. I am very, very blessed. But…when I look at my friends who cannot imagine owning their own homes, who started out with 35K in student loan debt, who are picking up their furniture at Goodwill, it’s hard for me to say that the only reason they aren’t making it is because they want to start out where their parents ended up.

That may be the case for some. That may be the case when a person’s first starting out. But, I’m not sure that it’s generally the case for an entire generation. We know we are going to be much worse off than our parents. Most of us figured that out pretty quickly.

I just remember starting out, being extremely frugal and not being able to make it. Buying groceries on the credit card, freaking out every time the car broke down. Then I would hear things like, “You just want everything your parents have, and you don’t want to work for it.” I believed the line and berated myself for a long time. Too long, really. Then I finally looked at the economic realities of my generation, and figured out that it wasn’t so simple as that.

But, of course, I get defensive, and the truth is probably somewhere in between. What do you think?

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So, the Head of Staff and I were talking about ideal staffing arrangements in a congregation….

Let me begin this discussion by saying that officially/denominationally I am an Associate Pastor, but the church just calls us both “pastors.” When I’m introduced by people in the congregation, I hear “This is our pastor” most often. I sometimes hear, “This is our co-pastor” or even “co-director.”

All that to say, it’s not like the HOS is wielding a great big power stick around, telling everyone that he’s the boss. We have a very collegial relationship, where my ideas and opinions are encouraged.

That said, when the HOS and I were talking about ideal staffing arrangements, the HOS repeated that he does not like the idea of Co-Pastors. At all. He listed a variety of solid reasons. Most of them were practical—i.e., when churches have tried the model in the past, it has often fallen apart. Then, they have gone back to HOS/AP models.

(It is a disconcerting trend… are many churches thinking in the CP model much any more? Is it failing? Or did it just fail in such high profile cases that it seems like a failing model?)

For me, if I had my choice, I would rather be a CP than an HOS. I’m not afraid of power, I am a natural leader, and I like being in charge of things. It’s just that I like a team leadership approach better.

And there may be more to it than that. I’ve got to say, I have seen many women become APs for life, even when they wanted to move into a different role in the church. In my years, I have seen women discriminated against over and over again in the HOS selection process.

They have tremendous abilities and gifts, but they have not been able to move into HOS positions, even when their less qualified male colleagues have. After ten years, the statistics in most denominations become quite startling. Men often move up, women often do not. Then if the women stay in AP positions, they often make half of their HOS, even with comparable education and experience. After banging their heads on the stained glass ceiling, soon, women drop out of parish work, and become chaplains or something else.

Many women are not serving in the positions that I am, a collegial situation where my experience and gifts are valued. Instead, on a multi-staff congregation, many female clergy are seen as the pastors to the women and children, and therefore, they (the pastor, the women, and the children) are worth less. Maybe I just want a bit of justice for them.

We can’t force churches to accept female Heads of Staff. We can’t force congregations to have keener imaginations, and see that sometimes the best man for a job is a woman. But, maybe we can begin to re-imagine our church staffs. Instead of paying one person twice the amount for doing all of the “big jobs” (preaching on Sundays) while we pay the other person less for “little jobs” (doing pastoral care, Christian education, and caring for children and moms), we could begin paying on the basis of experience and education.

Instead of having an HOS who stays at the position for decades, getting (well deserved) pay increases every year, while the AP gets chewed up and spit out every couple of years, ensuring that the position will stay at the minimum salary, we could create congregational environments where all of the pastors are valued and appreciated. Not just the tall-steeple pastors (whose demographic make-up seems to be very homogenous). Perhaps that would create a bit more equity in our congregations and our denominations. I certainly think they would create healthier church systems.

What do you think? Would you rather be an HOS or a CP? What are the problems with the CP and HOS/AP models? What are the advantages? Is there a generational shift occurring (people under 45 tend to appreciate less hierarchical models)? A cultural shift? Is this a shift that the church should embrace? Would a flattened-out model help gender inequity? Or would it just be a bogus liberal attempt to create a false equality?

Photo by L Plater

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JusticeSeeker from Presbyterian Bloggers interviewed me for their book club. Here’s a copy of the interview. You’re also welcome to go to the PCUSA blogger site and comment.

I assume that your Mother keeps a copy of Tribal Church on her coffee table, but does your Executive Presbyter?

I’m not sure if my Exec has read it, I saw him carrying a copy of it once. There was a bookmark in it… but he’s never said anything to me….

The Presbytery hosted a Tribal Church event and I was asked to speak to our council a few weeks ago. I’ve been invited to lead discussions at a number of Presbyteries (next month, I’ll be in the Presbytery of Charlotte). The book has done well, not only with Presbyterians, but also in Methodist, Episcopal, Brethren, Quaker, and even Jewish circles. So, yes, the institutional church has been very receptive to it. I was also surprised to find out how much it is read internationally. I often get correspondence from people in Canada and Australia about it.

Overall, I think people are concerned for the church. We look out on our congregations and we see a group of people who probably won’t be around in twenty years. We love our faith communities, and it’s very scary when we think about our long-term futures.

There is another concern that is arising. People are not only asking, “How can our church grow? How can our denomination survive?” As important as these questions are, people are also beginning to have real concern for young adults.

When we begin to look outside of our own survival, we start asking, “How can we communicate the love of God to a new generation? How can we reach out to them? What do they need? What do they want?”

Those are the kinds of questions that generate a love and desire for understanding. When we begin asking those questions, then we’re no longer just an ingrown denomination, looking after ourselves, but we create an environment where fruitful ministry will take place.

It’s that gentle shift from “What can they do for us?” to “How can we be the hands and feet of Christ to them?”

Have you seen any tangible applications of the ideas in your book that you find particularly interesting?

The most immediate application that has been really amazing to watch has been within individual families. I often get parents who write me or talk to me at conferences and say, “Thank you so much for helping me understand my son.” Or, “I could never figure out why my daughter was not settling down, until I read this.” This was certainly unintentional, but I’ve been very pleased that some generational breaches are being mended in our own families.

I live in a very different part of the country from the coasts. We have a very low cost of living, housing prices are below reasonable (yes, you can buy a small, older but decent house with fenced yard for five digits), people here without family or other cultural roots tend to be older adults not younger, also serious financial problems tend to cluster in the 50+ crowd. So, I had a hard time seeing large parts of your book as being about younger adults — as opposed to older ones. Now that the book has been out a little while, have you seen discussions of these ideas being applied to more than just young adults?

Wow! A house for five digits! That’s great. We all need to move to Oklahoma City.

There are certainly characteristics in our generation that have been in every generation. Americans have always moved around a lot. The elderly in our congregations lived through dire economic times, and they had no credit cards to hide the suffering. The extreme debt that has plagued our generation is now becoming more apparent across the country, and so communities of understanding and support will be crucial during this difficult time.

As we see areas of common ground between generations, the careful work that church leaders will need to do is to make sure that we don’t shrug them off and say, “So what? We went through the same thing when we were young. That’s just life!”

Instead, we can begin asking, “I remember going through that too. What did I need when I was in that situation? What helped me through it? Was there anything that the church, my friends, or my community did that really made me feel connected and supported in a desperate situation?”

In South Louisiana, I often heard people talk about growing up in the Great Depression, and they would say, “We didn’t really miss the money that much. We knew that it was bad, but we had our family, our friends, and our church. That’s what really mattered.” But a new generation is going through some difficult times, and many of them do not have families, friends, or churches to support them.

You are preaching this Sunday on Fear. For those of us who have never written a book but have always thought we would like to, where in the writing process have you been surprised by fear?

For about ten years, I wrote. I filled journal after journal. I began four books (a how-to book about being a woman in ministry, a book about my grandmother’s death, a thinly-veiled autobiographical “fiction” book, and a children’s book) and, of course, I wrote sermons.

The difference now is that most of what I write gets published. And, for some reason, that small difference conjured up a lot of fear.

I know people who are sure that every word that comes out of their mouths is true and right. They have all kinds of confidence. I am not one of those people. I’m not only unsure of myself, but I also hate conflict. Internal conflict, external conflict, it doesn’t matter. I just don’t like it.

So, I was fearful the entire time I wrote Tribal Church. I come from a family of very conservative evangelicals, and I thought for sure that they would completely disown me when they read it (they didn’t, but I’m pretty sure it’s not on the coffee table either!).

But it wasn’t just my family. My brain cooked up a new fear every morning. I didn’t have the proper credentials (because everyone who writes a book has to have a Ph.D.). I wasn’t cool enough to speak for my generation (all emerging authors are edgy, and I don’t even have a tattoo). I’ve never been the pastor of a big church (after all, you can’t write about ministry until you’ve had a mega-church). On and on it went….

Then, I thought about the critics. I began to think about every seminary professor who told me that I was a poor writer and I remembered every rejection letter I got from a magazine. I thought about the fact that in this day and age, everyone’s a critic. Even if a person cannot complete a sentence, he can post a nasty review and give you one star on Amazon and it will affect how many people will buy your book.

All of these things loomed large in my mind as I wrote (and they still do), but I keep working through them.

My husband often tells me, “You live in your head too much.” And he’s absolutely right. The thing that helps me to get out of my head and muster up some courage to write is that I have a sense that God’s calling me. When I can’t stand my internal, fearful conflict, or I become afraid of the criticism that I encounter in seminars and workshops, I go on a walk and pray through the fears. Then, I know that there is something outside of my head that’s pulling me in my vocation, and I become renewed in my passion—imagining how we can lead effective and vital churches in a new generation.

Are you planning another book?

Yes. I’m writing another one for Alban and I’m getting close to finishing the first draft. The working title is Reframing Hope, and it’s about many of the cultural shifts that we are going through and how the church can engage and respond.

Is there a question that you are surprised you don’t get asked more often?

Yes. In Presbyterian circles, I often hear the question, “How can we get our confirmands back? How can we keep our children in the church when they grow up?” But the question that we don’t always ask is, “How can we reach out to a new generation (regardless of their ecclesial or social background)?”

I was in a Presbytery meeting recently, and a candidate described how her great-great-grandfather laid the cornerstone for their church. There was an audible gasp of approval that erupted from the presbyters.

Of course, it’s a beautiful story, a narrative of a church that connected from generation to generation. But in this time of denominational upheaval, I wonder, can we begin to expand the narrative to include others?

When so many young adults have not been raised in a particular tradition, we may not be able to wait for people to have the right pedigree before they can feel appreciated in our churches. If we want to welcome young adults, we need to have that same sort of excitement and admiration if a person stands up and says, “I grew up in a Pentecostal Church. No one in my family went to college. My parents were divorced. And I was a truck driver before I went to seminary.”

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Kathleen Parker says that the GOP needs to give up on G-O-D. She says that ”shifting demographics suggest that the Republican Party — and conservatism with it — eventually will die out unless religion is returned to the privacy of one’s heart where it belongs.”

Her point seems to be that the Religious Right may be able deliver, but they can only deliver old white men, or white families with children. They have alienated diverse, younger voters. So her solution is that the Republican Party needs to lose their religion.

The problem with Parker’s viewpoint is that Democrats were kicking themselves a few short years ago because we couldn’t seem to come up with a candidate who could say “God” without looking like his spine had just been suddenly replaced by a Popsicle stick. The icy cold fear that seemed to grip him was out of place in a country that was… well… pretty religious.

No one expected the candidate to have a walk on the beach with Billy Graham, or to have “born-again” tattooed on his sleeve, but it would have been nice if they could relate to people of faith, a little bit, and, you know, just give them a bit of respect. The Democrats have done well–not when we have lost our religion–but with the Clintons’ church-going and Obama’s “awesome God in the blue states.”

The problem was not with God. But there was a problem. I’ll point out a couple of reasons why I grew up in a Religious Right Republican household, and now I have nothing to do with either affiliation.

First, they lost me because they were fighting for the wrong things. They were warring against abortion in the public sphere, while their daughters were making early-morning appointments at the nearest clinics. (Of course, I have no statistical proof of this. Just lots of anecdotal evidence, which I would never, ever write about. This is a fascinating article though.)

We can say statistically, that conservative Christian teenagers are more promiscuous. They become pregnant more often. Pregnant teenage girls end up trapped in a lifetime of poverty. And I will tell you that it gets very difficult to keep crying out “murder” when you’re sitting next to the formerly-pregnant protester’s daughter, watching the anguish that she is going through.

It made no sense that they were fighting for the sanctity of human life when it came to abortion, but denied it when it came to the death penalty or war. And then there was the torture….

There were things that the Bible was very clear about—relieving poverty, feeding people, taking care of creation, and loving your neighbor—that the RR seemed to be fighting against. I mean, when you’re part of a movement that claims to be faith-based and then opposes health care for poor children… then something is wrong. Clearly the “compassionate” has been far, far removed from the “conservative.” My problem with the RR and GOP was not God, it was that they appeared to be rather godless in so many of their policies.

Second, they lost me because the GOP and the RR quit listening to a new generation. The extreme technological ineptness on the GOP’s part was just the beginning. They had a hard time hearing young Christians as well. The demographics are shifting, and young evangelicals are much like the rest of their generation. They are more progressive… but there is also an influx of diverse Catholics, so that could have been very good news for the RR.

But is the RR listening to them? Are they opening up to their concerns of a new generation?

No. They are giving them a spanking. They’re using that “tough love” parenting that’s “not for cowards.” They are “daring to discipline.” James Dobson, the RR patriarch has rolled up his sleeves and taken off his belt. Just check out the Focus on the Family’s apocalyptic scare letter that was circulated right before the election:

The 2008 election was closer than anybody expected, but Barack Obama still won. Many Christians voted for Obama – younger evangelicals actually provided him with the needed margin to defeat John McCain.

What Dobson needs to realize is… we may be your sons and daughters, but we are no longer children. We think for ourselves now. We vote for ourselves too. And, frankly, we would rather not turn out like this.

This is a religious country, and we know that faith does not end in the heart, nor will it be contained by one political party. Christians have always been men and women of action, even action in the public sphere.  People of all faiths allow their beliefs to inform policy.

Our conscience, our faith, our religion should not be relegated to one party–Democrats or Republicans. The Religious Right (though still a powerful force) brushed God aside too many times to get more influence within the Republican Party. I left both the RR and the GOP, because my faith meant too much to me.

 So, what do you think? Have you switched party affiliations? Why?

photo is by madolina

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Presbyterian News Services issued a report about Spiritual But Not Religious (shortened to SBNR) people, based on the research of Linda Mercandante, a minister who teaches at a Methodist Theological School in Ohio.

There are three points that I would like to discuss. First, the article states:

One of the common assumptions — that many spiritual but not religious people had bad experiences in the church — is simply not true, Mercandante said. “I was surprised, but there was very minimal reporting by people that they had been hurt in or by the church.”

I’m a person who has written about the pain that church has caused, and I do hope that this point is not completely disregarded. As a pastor, I have heard story after story of mistreatment in congregations. It is there and I hope that we don’t ignore it.

Second, Mercandante points out that people react against stereotypes of the church like:

• churches claim to “exclusive truthfulness — that they have a corner on the truth market”;
• churches demand that personal beliefs be abdicated;
• churches demand conformity to a “corporate mentality”;
• joining a church means a loss of personal integrity;
• churches demand commitment “to things that have no meaning”’
• churches demand commitment to disagreeable codes of conduct; and
• churches profess arbitrary or implausible beliefs.

“I heard the same arguments over and over again,” Mercadante said of her research. “I don’t know where this script comes from — no one knows any real churches that fit this profile or stereotype.”

Let me explain where the script comes from. They are describing many Evangelical/ conservative congregations in our country. Since the WASPs left power forty years ago, our political power and media coverage has highlighted Evangelical congregations as the norm in our society. And many of them (not all, of course) live up to the stereotype perfectly.

It does not describe many mainline congregations, but that has not been the predominate religious voice in our country for a couple of decades now.

Third, Mercandante highlights Wuthnow’s important research, highlighting our assumption that people will join the church after they get married and have children. But then showing the realities of many Americans:

• delayed marriage (Americans are marrying at a later age, on average) and increased divorce rates;
• fewer children born later in their parents life;
• less job security, therefore greater financial insecurity, making commitment less likely;
• higher levels of education, which decreases “unquestioned belief”;
• “loosening relationships,” resulting in less community involvement;
• Globalization, producing less homogeneity and greater diversity; and
• the “information explosion,” which creates “broader spiritual horizons and therefore looser religious identification.”

“I think it’s clear that much of the problem organized religion faces today is not really the church’s fault,” Mercadente said.

This is the most important piece I think that we need to look at.

Of course it is our fault. We have expected people to become married, with children, secure, financially stable, and (sometimes even) white before they can be welcome in our churches. We have not reached out to the world around us, we have expected people to become something that they are not before they enter our doors.

That’s like saying it’s not GM’s fault that they are going under, even though they kept pushing SUVs when our planet was clearly in trouble. It’s like saying it’s not the McCain campaign’s fault that they lost the election, even though they were talking about the “real America” when most Americans are urban and diverse. That’s like saying it’s not the mortgage companies fault, even though they were lending huge amounts of money, with ballooning payments to people they knew could not pay it back.

When we cannot face the realities around us, it is our fault.

I have great hope for our congregations. But…let’s not let ourselves off the hook too easily. We have much to confess before we can change our ways.

What do you think? Do you agree with Mercandante’s research? Would you want her to know about people who are SBNR?

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There are so many important things to write about since Barack Obama won the election. So much crowding the horizon.

Like, how about all of those young volunteers who are fired-up and organized? What will they be up to next? What will our churches look like when we begin to engage them in meaningful ways? Surely, we will watch them change the world… and I can’t wait to see it happen.

What will happen in Iraq? What is the exit strategy? I’m not completely naïve in thinking that we will pull out in January. We started this, and now we have to figure out the best way to end it.

And what about the environment? And the bailouts? Should we be giving bailout money to GM, when they have been spending the last decade manufacturing and pushing bigger and bigger cars? They were making so much profit off of them, that the money made them blind. They couldn’t see the future that was clearly at the end of their noses. Our petroleum dependence is going to have to come to an end. The rising price of oil has made us dump our SUV monstrosities and fall in love with cute Hybrids. How could they not see it happening?

Of course, I’m not with those who are outraged that autoworkers make $50,000 a year. Our workers should be protected.

And what about Sarah Palin? I was fundamentally opposed to almost every word that came out of her mouth.

Okay… maybe I’m exaggerating. It was every word that came out of her mouth. And the “Drill, Baby, Drill” chants that she loved to incite still haunt me in my worst nightmares.

But, I have to say, to listen to the ogling for the last couple of months–to hear how beautiful she was, how passionate she was, and what a wonderful cheerleader she was, and then to listen to the same people do an about-face, and call her a diva who throws temper-tantrums…. Well… I’m not sure that’s quite fair.

Sarah Palin was not chosen for her lofty intelligence or her thick resume. She wasn’t even chosen because she could tell the difference between Africa the continent and South Africa the country. She was chosen because McCain knew that she could shake up and excite the Religious Right. She could get people out to vote. She could inspire the “real America” while pointing out “those people are not like us.” She could throw all kinds of nastiness and lies at Obama while McCain’s people could shrug in innocence and say that she was “going rogue.”

Palin, in fact, did her job. A job that I find detestable. A job that backfired. A job that was ill-conceived. But she did it.

Should she have ever been chosen for the job? No. Was she ready for it? No. Were the American people right in not voting for her? Yes. But she did it. And now she’s being skewered, on grounds that sound awfully sexist.

McCain is known for his hot temper. Are people calling him a Diva? No. Are people talking about his “tantrums”? No. Is anyone talking about a wet McCain in a towel? Um… no. Thank God.

I could worry about all of these questions. I could look at the mess that’s been created, and wonder if Obama—or anyone, frankly—could possibly be up to the task at hand. I could worry about whether an impassioned, progressive, young generation will become quickly disillusioned. But I’m not. I’m still reveling from last Tuesday. The racial barriers that have been broken, the inspiration this has brought to so many. I’m still smiling from it all.

Yesterday, we went down to the mall, walked along the Vietnam Memorial, read the sad letters that sons and daughters left for their dead fathers. We visited Abe Lincoln, sitting on his grand chair, and we took our one-thousandth photo of us standing on the step, in the spot where Martin Luther King delivered his dream speech. I tried again to soak up some of his preacherly courage.

Then, we stopped and wrote down blessings for Obama on an impromptu wall that had been constructed. It was full of good wishes from all over the world to our President-elect. Beautiful words of hope.

My daughter crouched in front of the crowd, and scrawled something on the bottom of the wall. In small letters, between the good thoughts of so many, she wrote, “God is here.”

In the midst of the scribble and the mess, I think she’s right. God is here, indeed.

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