A UMC commercial that made me throw up one time
There was a UMC commercial a few years ago that had a family at the table in a wonderful home. The youngest daughter looked out the window and saw a man who was hungry. She got up, grabbed a card table and took her plate overflowing food, outside and invited the man over to share in the food. The family, still inside, saw their daughter and became moved by her charity and they then got up, took their plates, and sat around the outside table and invited people to share in their lawn. The voice over said something to the effect, "what if the church had no walls?".
Everyone at the conference this was shown loved it.
I threw up.
I know this is a fictional situation and these days a daughter would not be allowed to do such a thing. But the message is not about strangers and kids, but about a church without walls. I get it and I think that is great. However the message is not at all what the commercial is showing.
If you you move the table outside and still expect people to come to the table, does not mean you have a church without walls, it just means you are not requiring people to walk through a door to have access to the table.
Rather, if we want to be a church without walls, we need to be willing to scrap our tables and take the food to people rather than expect people to come to our table.
Will we in the Church get it? It is not about just putting new spin on an old model, it is about hitting the restart button and finding new models for being the Church.
Is the church leadership and laity willing to let brick and mortar close in order to open up new tables in the homes of the people? Are we willing to let our pensions go in order to ensure a church can have a minister? Are we willing to move to bi-vocational ministers?
I do not know if we are up for the challenge but I am hopeful that we will be able to see that just setting up a table outside and expect people to come to us is not an innovative way to be Church.
Church as a statue
Came across this video and I could not help but wonder if there was a connection between the statue and the church in a couple of ways.
Among many church leaders and members we still operate under the impression that we have arrived. That is to say, we have created something that is great and people will come to it because we have "good news" and the church provides for people something they could not get anywhere else. Like this statue, many in the church feel that if you just build it people will come and look at it and admire it and interact with it in "an appropriate " way.
But the thing is the world has and is changing so much that now people are much more like this playful dog than casual observers of the statue.
That is to say, people are interacting with the church differently than expected and the church is still expecting people to interact with it in ways that no longer are viable. People are wondering if the church will move and interact with the world, or if it will just sit there and continue to look pretty.
Among many church leaders and members we still operate under the impression that we have arrived. That is to say, we have created something that is great and people will come to it because we have "good news" and the church provides for people something they could not get anywhere else. Like this statue, many in the church feel that if you just build it people will come and look at it and admire it and interact with it in "an appropriate " way.
But the thing is the world has and is changing so much that now people are much more like this playful dog than casual observers of the statue.
That is to say, people are interacting with the church differently than expected and the church is still expecting people to interact with it in ways that no longer are viable. People are wondering if the church will move and interact with the world, or if it will just sit there and continue to look pretty.
Leadership in the Church
In a recent post on the Ablan Institute site, there was a lengthy post that was fantastic. I will not go into details about the content, you can read the article here.
Rather I was very interested in one section of the article:
During the era of Christendom, clergy tended to have three roles: chaplain, scholar, and part of the authority structure of the town or community. Note that neither “leader” nor “congregational leader” is on the list. Today, however, clergy must be leaders. That is, they must be capable of helping their congregations identify and make progress on their own most pressing problems and deepest challenges. Moreover, clergy must be teachers of the faith and ministry mentors. Both of these roles mean that the ministry is not done primarily by clergy (as in Christendom) but by the people of the church, the members of the congregation.
What captured my attention was the role of the minister is shifting and it seems like lay members get it but the clergy do not.
Much of my time in clergy circles places emphasis on things revolving around a ministry paradigm which is fading away. That is to say, many clergy circles I am in talk a lot about how to "do" hospital visits or what was preached last Sunday or different gossip around the conference about who is being appointed where and attempting to 'out know' others in the room in order to be the most "connected".
This is not all that clergy talk about, but I have not been in many clergy circles in which leadership styles are deeply discussed. I do not hear of many of my peers reading leadership books or taking note of some of the leadership trends or conferences around us. There is a lot of leadership language, but not much leadership conversation.
We use words like authenticity and transparency but we are not sure we know what these words mean. We strive to be liked as we sacrifice the ability to lead. Both Moses and Jesus were not liked all the time by all the people, yet they are the most pivotal leaders in our faith.
How do clergy reclaim leadership?
MLK said the church was once a thermostat to society setting the tone, but now has become a thermometer that reflects back the status quo. How do we clergy help lead the church to become a thermostat again?
Perhaps it begins by taking leadership as seriously as we take theology.
Rather I was very interested in one section of the article:
During the era of Christendom, clergy tended to have three roles: chaplain, scholar, and part of the authority structure of the town or community. Note that neither “leader” nor “congregational leader” is on the list. Today, however, clergy must be leaders. That is, they must be capable of helping their congregations identify and make progress on their own most pressing problems and deepest challenges. Moreover, clergy must be teachers of the faith and ministry mentors. Both of these roles mean that the ministry is not done primarily by clergy (as in Christendom) but by the people of the church, the members of the congregation.
What captured my attention was the role of the minister is shifting and it seems like lay members get it but the clergy do not.
Much of my time in clergy circles places emphasis on things revolving around a ministry paradigm which is fading away. That is to say, many clergy circles I am in talk a lot about how to "do" hospital visits or what was preached last Sunday or different gossip around the conference about who is being appointed where and attempting to 'out know' others in the room in order to be the most "connected".
This is not all that clergy talk about, but I have not been in many clergy circles in which leadership styles are deeply discussed. I do not hear of many of my peers reading leadership books or taking note of some of the leadership trends or conferences around us. There is a lot of leadership language, but not much leadership conversation.
We use words like authenticity and transparency but we are not sure we know what these words mean. We strive to be liked as we sacrifice the ability to lead. Both Moses and Jesus were not liked all the time by all the people, yet they are the most pivotal leaders in our faith.
How do clergy reclaim leadership?
MLK said the church was once a thermostat to society setting the tone, but now has become a thermometer that reflects back the status quo. How do we clergy help lead the church to become a thermostat again?
Perhaps it begins by taking leadership as seriously as we take theology.
Be the change by Jason Valendy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.