Hoops & Hurdles

One of the frustrating things on the road to achieving our goals is that there always seems to be some sort of requirement that needs to be fulfilled to satisfy someone else. While these requirements are often put in place with the best of intentions they can easily become bureaucratic hoops that take more time and energy to jump through than they are worth.

The report from the chair of the Evangelism Committee took less than a minute of the council’s time. “Most of the people in the neighborhood are either black or Indian, and they have their own churches they like to go to, so there isn’t much for the Evangelism Committee to do.”

I sat up in my seat, ready to take the chair of the Evangelism Committee to task for missing the whole point of evangelism. Besides, there was a less-than-subtle hint of racism buried in his observations. The pastor of the congregation, who was sitting next to me at the table, pressed his hand against my leg to get my attention. He silently mouthed the words, “Not now,” and shook his head ever so slightly. Reluctantly, I held my tongue.

For my Contextual Education class I had been assigned to an urban church on the north side of Minneapolis. It had thrived in the city expansion of the post-war 1950’s. But in the 1960’s and 70’s an exodus of people to the suburbs started a steady congregational decline. The people who moved into the neighborhood didn’t look or live like the affluent suburbanites that returned to their home church every Sunday morning. By the time I was assigned to the church in 1989, the beautiful sanctuary that was capable of seating over 400 people, regularly hosted about 60 every week. Most of the Sunday school rooms had been repurposed for special groups since only four of them were used for their intended purpose. The gymnasium echoed with emptiness every time I passed by in the hallway.

The point of contextual education is similar to teaching practicums for people who are studying to become teachers. Even though everyone has been in a classroom as a student, being the teacher is quite a different experience. Sitting in a pew every week and teaching a Sunday school class is different than being a pastor. Since the seminary is responsible for training qualified pastors, making sure that people know exactly what they are getting into is important. Contextual Education is the way to do that.

But Contextual Ed assumes that a person has never been on the business side of the church. For many people this is true. But some people came to seminary with years of experience in congregations. They were aware of the behind-the-scenes squabbles, the infighting and the politics of local congregations. They had years of teaching and leading experience. Yet they too were required to work with a church.

I was probably somewhere in between. I had experience with the inner workings of a congregations having spent so much time in churches. What I needed was experience leading the leaders. Leaving someone unchallenged when they were so clearly in the wrong about the church and about the people who lived in the neighborhood was not the kind of training I needed. This was a teaching moment for everyone at the table. It demonstrated the kind of thinking to which so many churches adhere. Unfortunately, the chance to inspect the speck in our own eye, so to speak, silently slipped by.

With any experience in life there is an opportunity to learn. I met some wonderful people in that congregation who were genuinely loving and worked in unofficial ways to reach out to the surrounding community. But there were some in my class who didn’t need Contextual Ed experience because they had it before they came to the seminary.

I will admit that some requirements for certification or graduation that felt like hoops at the time ended up being valuable learning experiences. I don’t always know what’s best for me at the time. But creating one-size-fits-all models of education can waste a lot of valuable time and energy as people find themselves jumping through hoops and fulfilling requirements that don’t teach what they are meant to teach. It’s simply a way of making it fair to everyone. Creating individual learning programs for students is more work for the educators but it is not impossible.

Maybe it’s time to stop putting hoops and hurdles in front of people and calling it faith development. Maybe we, as a church, need to find ways to let life teach its own lessons if we are willing to learn.

Detours

Following the path we believe God sets out for us doesn’t always take us straight where we think we are going. Sometimes we go a different way on our own and sometimes we are forced to take a detour we wouldn’t choose for ourselves.

I love physics and engineering. I am absolutely captivated by the way things work. But I’m really bad at math. I think in words instead of numbers; metaphors instead of symbols. So I naturally gravitated towards English as a major in college. Because I like to live in my head instead of the external world I added minors in philosophy and psychology. Having finally come to terms with my call to ordained ministry, this seemed like a pretty good education in preparation for seminary. What it wasn’t good for was finding a job right after college.

When my dad attended seminary I witnessed the difference between the second-career students and those who attended immediately after college. Those who had been out in the world of work and careers seemed to have a different perspective than those who had been in school their entire life. In addition to being more mature and world-wise, the second career students didn’t seem to get as caught up in the theory and theology. They seemed to be more connected to the people in the pews, so to speak; to know the side of life where church was a piece of, but not the whole, puzzle.

I decided that I wouldn’t go straight from college to seminary. I would take some time to work, to gain some “real-life” experience and to begin paying off some student loans before accruing some more. Additionally, Amy and I were getting married the summer after I graduated and she was taking classes for her Master’s Degree while working full time. My plan was to get a job in the publishing field or as a technical writer and work for a few years before going to the seminary.

The problem with the plan, I quickly found out as I began sending out resumes, is that companies don’t want technical writers with English degrees and a fascination with the way things work. They want engineers who can write well. And the publishing field wanted people with editing skills not someone who could talk about the nuances of a novel and its meaning.  This would have been great information to have prior to my graduation but I hadn’t even thought to look for it.

Two weeks prior to my wedding I was shopping for gifts for my groomsmen when I noticed a “Help Wanted” sign at a sporting goods store in the mall. I couldn’t bear the thought of getting married while being unemployed. No, that’s not completely honest. I couldn’t bear the thought of looking my father-in-law in the eye on my wedding day if I didn’t have a job. So I filled out an application, had an interview a week later, and began working as a stock boy exactly one week before I got married.

After the wedding I continued to look for a job that was worthy of a college graduate but I kept running into dead ends. The few interviews I got all ended with, “We’re really looking for someone with other qualifications.” Meanwhile, at the store, I was working 9-5 with weekends off and I could wear jeans to work and no tie. I unloaded trucks, organized the back stock and was responsible for inventory.

One day the district manager called me into the office to ask if I would be willing move out to the sales floor as an area manager. I accepted and began selling weight lifting and exercise equipment. I learned about the other departments and became a certified ski tech and a certified bowling ball technician. (That’s right. I have skills now.) Within a year I was promoted to Assistant Store Manager and transferred to a different store about an hour’s drive away. 

Working in retail management wasn’t part of my life’s plan. But it kept me out of a career where I would be working in a secluded cubicle and got me to interact with strangers on a regular basis. As a natural introvert I needed that experience. I learned management and motivational skills. I found out that people like choices but don’t want too many of them. (Next time you’re in Wal-Mart notice how they have lots of things but only a couple of choices for each item.)  I met con artists and thieves and I learned about the politics of business when the union went on strike. I learned to give people a chance to prove themselves when I hired them and I learned that some people will work harder to get out of working than if they had just done the job in the first place.

I eventually brought all these lessons with me when I started ordained ministry. And it’s a good thing because I’ve needed them all. Accepting and keeping that job in the sporting goods store was difficult and humbling for me. But in the end it proved to be exactly what I needed.

From Authority to Resource

This is the fourth post in a series about ways that I have missed the mark as a pastor. It is a response to several articles about why young adults are leaving the church. You can begin here if you want some background to this current article.

For believing that the one-size-fits-all model of spirituality and piety was ever a real thing that could be attained with enough training or persuasion, I apologize.

As I go through this week I am finding that writing these gets harder and harder. I have been struggling with this one for years and I find that I am not the only one who has trouble with it. Lay people are struggling with this one too.

In a wonderful TED Talk about learning through our mistakes, educator Diana Laufenberg shares how her grandmother attended a one room school house to be educated. She went because that’s where the knowledge was: stored in the teacher’s mobile memory device (her brain). When Diana was a student her parents bought a set of encyclopedias. She didn’t need to go to the library anymore to get information for a report since she had access to a reliable memory device at home (books). Today, with computers and even smart phones we no longer have to go where the information is. It comes to us. Instantly.

This change in where we store and retrieve the knowledge we need to learn and grow means that the principal role of the educator has changed. A teacher is no longer the authority who carries information in order to pass it along to someone else. A teacher is now someone who facilitates interactive, self-directed learning. It is a process that avoids rote memorization of facts in favor of learning by exploration.

The same can be said about church. I was trained to be the local authority on spirituality, scripture and doctrine. People came to church to learn what God said through the scriptures. Pastors and priests taught spiritual practices that reinforced what they said from the front of the church. We even wear clothes that symbolized the learning and authority we had acquired. (The clerical collar is a modernized version of the old doctoral collars worn by professors. In some denominations the pastor’s robe is similar to a graduation gown.)  

The thing about teaching a large number of people at one time is that you have to find a way that reaches everyone in the group. Basically, you have to find a one-size-fits-all piety. Then you try to cram everyone into that shape. You repeat it over and over from the front of the congregation. You back it up with bible studies printed by your denominational printing house. You invite other authorities with the same view point to “give a fresh perspective” to the congregation. And you limit the knowledge that you pass on, in part because you yourself have limited knowledge and in part because it's easier that way.

But in a world where finding information about other spiritual traditions and beliefs is as easy as typing a question into a phone or computer, people don’t need an authority. I am no longer the mobile memory device for spirituality in the community. I am another resource in the spiritual journey of each individual. At best I can serve as a trusted guide as people explore their own spiritual path. One size does not fit all in this new world. It probably didn’t in the past either but we all make do with what we are given.

In my ordination I promised to uphold the doctrine of the church (with the assumption that my tradition was the one who did, in fact, hold on to THE correct doctrine of all that is holy). I promised to be an authority. But now I see that what the community needs is a trusted resource. The transition from an authority to trusted resource is a humbling and difficult transition. In many ways it feels messy and out-of-control.

Moving from authority to resource means stepping away from the front of the community and walking with people where they are. It means letting go of the need to control details. It means being available when an individual is ready, not making them be ready when I am available. It’s a lot more one-on-one. It’s an overwhelming task in a large congregation. As people walk their own path they will make mistakes. They will venture beyond the bounds of “correct doctrine.” As they serve in the church community as part of their spiritual journey they will pass along bad ideas and misinformation about the faith. But they will also inspire others and give birth to new ways of understanding the mystery of the Holy.

Many lay people resist this transition because it means they have to be responsible for their own life of faith and that's a difficult thing to do. So I feel caught between the people who want me to serve as guide and those who want me to serve as authority. I find that doing both is impossible. I flip-flop back and forth and am aware that this isn’t helping. I am hearing God’s call to make the transition to resource/guide but don’t know how to do it. I’m still waiting to see how that might happen.