Thoughts on transitional institutions
My friend Ken, is in a place a lot like me, in Washington State. He wrote this great email to me recently and I want to post it and respond:
Other than installation [recent formalization of relationship with congregation] things are going well. Our membership is down from 76 when i started to 57 now. We used to have a 6 elder session but now only have 5 because so few people are willing or able to serve. A forty year member just left the church over what he considered to be apostate moves of the GA. And someone just drove do-nuts on our side lawn of the church in an attempt to spray mud on the church. they did a pretty good job. i tried to see it as a Pollock type art work but our grounds guy didn’t see it quite that way. as i said, things are going well cause i try not to pay too much attention to numbers.
we are in the midst of trying to hire a part time youth worker. I’ve been more involved in some community organizing and our group is trying to move towards starting a community newspaper. also, i just finished a retreat where rick ufford-chase led about 20 ministers in our presbytery through some good discussions. he really is an impressive guy and his passion really provides some hope for a denomination that is sorely lacking for passion over anything not related to relationships with too many y or x chromosomes. our presbytery is coming up on a big vote in regards to a response to the GA’s actions and I’m not excited about it. however, i was asked to give a few minute speal on why I’m Presbyterian after the vote to try to offer some hope in the midst of the struggle. I’m thinking about starting my testimony with Maryanne’s quote, "our system is the worst one out there accept for all the other ones." what do you think about that? I’ve found that quote oddly comforting until i saw how the Amish responded to the tragedy inflicted upon them. man, i would love for my kids and our people to respond with the same forgiveness of that community and the same boldness as that little girl who offered her life in an attempt to save the other girls. now that is a community that realizes what it means to really belong, body and soul, in life and death not to themselves but to Jesus Christ.
Seek first the kingdom. Not a self-righteous way of seeking but an integrated way of loving more than the church as a reason to stay “in” it. I think you could do much with this in response to the PUP.
Like you, I’m sure, I’m so tired of church renewal language or neo-(fill in the blank) or post-(fill in the blank). Already, 8 weeks into designate pastorate, I am struck at what we all want the denomination or brand-institution to pour into that blank for us. We want it to leave something behind for us, to guarantee for us, to deliver us from, to give us… Who in the 2/3rds world has such a “right” to church? Where in the bumbling emergence of the early church were they shown a self-preserving institution/faith-statement. I think that "our system is the worst one out there accept for all the other ones" does get at this but fails to really answer, why any of these?
I’m struck by a helpful metaphor from (surprise surprise) art… It came to me when we were were starting an emergent cohort here in ATL, a friendship/conversation-based ecumenical theological discussions (except evangelicals come too).
We realized it is like a guild, a place for artists to practice and hone their trades and, at times, to share resources out of a love for what the trade becomes- for the beauty of it all. This is not to say music can be separated from the musician or that the only reason people write and perform is to deposit a disembodied “song” into space. No, musicians like singing, we like writing, and we love what we make.
The reforming guild of the connectional church: Any connection of practicing congregations would benefit from a similar appreciation of (1)what we are (co)creating- the beauty of the kingdom of God, and (2)some common agreement of practices/disciplines/concepts that contribute to the generation of such beauty- shaping and being shaped. What beauty do we seek? How do we shape our sacramental life by the gospel narrative to becoming embracing people and, visa-versa, how is knowledge of the gospel narrative inter-penetrated by our sacramental life lived in this not-yet-fully embracing world.
Metaphors like this make space for disagreement, concessions, and preservation but organize all these virtues around an eschatological hope, they root the reason for church in something bigger than our own self-security and assuredness. This PC(USA) might be just as good as any other game in town but only insofar as it can equip the sent community to go.
Here’s a quick sports analogy (I’m weaker at these, I admit): Rallying under "our team can ball too" is not the same as "lets take the game seriously enough to value this team and make much out of it." This breaks down, of course, when you realize that our definitions for "game" have hardened since our team’s heights in the 1600s and the 1950s. But that does not mean that simply forming a new team or forever downloading new skins or pod-casts until you have your very own self-serving definitions of teams and games frees you from the real task of relearning the game week after week, generation after generation.
Here’s the test for Presbyterianism, and the jury is still out for me. Can this institution of Presbyterianism –or Presbyterianism at all– function in a semipermeable way. Can definitions of the church’s participation in the kingdom of God mature or are they necessarily law? Do they serve, forever, as only a tutor and prisoner (Galatians)? If so, then we need to reform- with gratitude, beyond our parents’ best efforts, into another yet-to-be-reformed definition of the team… For the sake of the game For the good of God’s creation redeemed in Christ.
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Comments
“Metaphors like this make space for disagreement, concessions, and preservation but organize all these virtues around an eschatological hope, they root the reason for church in something bigger than our own self-security and assuredness.”
Holy smokes, I couldn’t agree more! I just finished a huge research project on this very topic and that was basically the conclusion of my research.
Anita and I have missed your services for the past three weeks–the simple excuse is exhaustion. Regardless, we both felt that there was something special and genuinely Spiritual about the services we have attended at St. Andrews. I have to say that the theme of this post stuck a cord with me as something that has been on my mind all fall. For example, I recall a conversation we had in which I both acknowledged the need, and lamented the ongoing development of an emergent institution/organization. The problem with institutions and organizations is that they formalize power, legitimate some voices while silencing others, and they, ultimately, arbitrate truth. For me as a Catholic, it is terribly troubling because I question the modern authoritarian orthodoxy of the institutional Church and Pope Benedict while at the same time I believe that the universal catholic church (small c) is the body of Christ. Thus, I am extremely distressed when the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops issues statements that sexually active homosexuals or pro-choice politicians should not take communion. I wonder who is pure enough to cast such a stone? Is not supporting a pre-emptive war, or polluting a river, or burning gas going to work every day, or throwing away a plate of food in a starving world just as sinful? For me, I choose to think of the church as the body of Christ and as the body of Christ as Perfect Love; the Trinity. Thus, regardless of the rules, the doctrine, the politics, the power, and the institutions called church, there is love, there are Saints! I saw one the other day–seriously. Anita and I slept in really late on a Sunday morning two weeks ago. As a result, we decided to go to Mass at All Saints Church in Dunwoody. Imagine, seeing a Saint in All Saints Catholic Church in Dunwoody, Georgia. Of course, I have no position other than my own opinion to describe someone as saintly or not (I did ask Anita this question: “Is not a Saint always a Saint even before they are officially declared a Saint by the Church?). Anyway, back to the story. There was a a guest at the Mass, Father Richard HoLung, founder of the Order, Missionaries of the Poor http://www.missionariesofthepoor.org/
Father HoLung sang, danced, smiled, and prayed (all at the same time) and eloquently spoke about his work and the work of his order, now over 400 brothers, feeding the hungry, taking care of the sick, educating the young, housing the homeless in Uganda, Jamaica, Haiti, the Philippines and India. And, regardless of whether he is a Saint, or even if one believes in Saints, he is a man, in my belief, that that understands what really matters.