vicemodblog

Off to Arktexhoma!

After being at home for about two and a half weeks, I'm gearing up for the longest Vice-Moderator trip to date. From May 30 - June 7 I will be itinerating in the Synod of the Sun (Arkansas, Texas and Oklahoma). Below is my schedule:

Saturday, May 30

* Travel to Little Rock, Arkansas

Sunday, May 31

*Preach for three worship services at Second Presbyterian Church in Little Rock

*Visit with Young Adult Sunday School in-between services

*Hosted for a reception by Presbytery of Arkansas/Area congregations

Monday, June 1

*Travel to San Antonio, TX

* Preach for the Synod of the Sun Assembly meeting opening worship service at Beacon Hill Presbyterian Church

* Give a PCUSA update with Q and A that evening

* Reception and Q/A session at Saint Andrew Presbyterian Church

Tuesday, June 2

*Rest/Free time morning and afternoon

*Travel to Dallas/Fort Worth, TX

*Dinner hosted by Grace Presbytery and Synod executive leadership

Wednesday, June 3

*Visitations within Grace Presbytery and receptions

*Travel to Waco, TX in the evening

Thursday, June 4

*Grace Presbytery meeting at First Presbyterian, Waco where I will participate in worship.

*Travel to Tulsa, OK in late afternoon

Friday, June 5

*Tri-Presbytery meeting at the University of Tulsa. Will preach for opening worship

service; Group discussion on the topic of being a connectional church, and give 

 a plenary address on "Equipping Disciples for Faithful Service".

Saturday, June 6

*Tri-Presbytery meeting - give a follow-up plenary address

*Free afternoon

Sunday, June 7

*Visit First Presbyterian Church of Sand Springs, OK. Town Hall meeting 

 with members and preach the morning worship service

*Return to Raleigh in the evening.

As you can see I will be very busy and on the move! Not everyone can say that they preached six times in a week ;) In any event, this is a exciting but long trip and I will not be on my blog ;(  Please continue to keep me, my wife Regina and son Andrew and my congregation in your prayers and if God willing, I might even see you!!  

What worries you about the church?

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I know for myself I tend to worry a lot about the church - that is my particular congregation I serve. I think the saying is true that the church is a "jealous mistress." Hardly a day goes by that I am not thinking about the hopes, failures, and dreams for this congregation. I worry about a lot of things - older congregants that statistically don't have much longer to live; how to introduce others to Christ and bring them in to our community of faith, analyzing long-standing barriers to growth in ministry, etc. Always something to think about. However when it comes to the larger catholic church, I really believe that we have some real things to worry about, especially through the eyes of those who are newly trained and ordained into ministry. 

As mentioned before, I was at a Lilly-funded Pastoral Resident consultation which you can read here with pastoral residents from a variety of denominations. As one of thier assignments before the consultation each of them had the opportunity to answer three questions on reflections of ministry. The one question that was asked was "Name one thing that worries you about the church." I took the liberty to quote directly from some participants that will give you some insight as to where their worries are:

"I worrry that the church can easily become self-absorbed and curved in on itself."

"The church has to nurture its malleability and its ability to accomodate (instead of assimilate) new members . . . I do not mean that the church should reject its traditional practices (as those are also desired and needed) but be more willing to be a "both/and" instead of an "either/or" church."

"I am worried about the hypocrisy in the church - as in the hypocrisy of not living out the Good News in word and deed."

"In a quickly-changing world, we are challenged more than ever to continually discern what is most essential about our traditions, and what forms must be left behind in order for us to continue to be vital and exciting communities of faith."

"I am worried that the church is losing its effectiveness."

"Our church is still missing a large segment of the population. People of my generation, who are active in their communities and passionate about social justice, are not interested in the church." 

"The lack of Biblical/theological awareness and exposure worries (me) most about the church right now."

"One thing that worries me about the church is the increasing tendency of people to buy into the idea that spirituality can exist without engagement with the institution."

"The 'shrinking' of the church within our country - in numbers of people, in financial resources, in vision, in power to be agents of transformation."

"One thing that worries me about the church is how we will effectively take stands on issues and yet, still minister to all people."

"The church doesn't always have a lot of patience for that actively creative God."

"The general inability of the mainline (churches) to meet people at their most basic needs."

As I read through these and many other responses, these wonderful, intelligent new pastors have touched on some basic worries that we all have about the church, irrespective of denomination. What are some of your worries about the church? What advice would you give someone who is facing these or other issues? I would be interested to know what you think!

Is it "hard to be a Christian in America?"

For the next few posts I want to give you some reflections from my time at the Transition into Ministry (TiM) event May 4 - 7 in Indianapolis -

"It's hard to be a Christian in America." That is one of the themes I kept reading in Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove's book The New Monasticism: What It Has To Say To Today's Church . During his keynote presentation at the event, he mentioned how much harder it is to be a pastor these days. He gave four reasons:

1. The Church has a Status Problem - Ministry has taken a few knocks. Suffers from people's egos as well as their pocketbooks. Ministry is also not financially supportive for denominations that traditionally focused on full-time ministers.

2. Institutional Maintenance - Church is difficult to maintain. We are worrying about how we are going to make the budget work or other factors/issues that serve to maintain the institution.

3. "Emerging" Adults - we live in a low commitment culture.

4. "Low Confidence" faith - Church has gone so wrong and has been bad news for some people. Hard to stir up a movement or regain that passion the church once had.

Surely these are but a few factors that may lead to the difficulty of being a Christian in America today. What do you think? Do you believe that it is difficult to be a Christian today? What are some things that lead to you believe that this statement is true? If you don't agree, what do you say?

Chillin' in Indy with Pastoral Residents!

 

Last week I had a great time hanging out with Pastoral Residents at the annual "Transition Into Ministry" Consultation at the University Place Conference Center on the campus of Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IN). The Consultation is a program that is funded by the Lilly Endowment and coordinated through the Fund For Theological Education  (FTE) which is based in Atlanta, GA. The purpose of this program is to provide resources to recent seminary graduates to help them in their earliest years. This event brings together recent seminary graduates who are currently in Pastoral Resident programs in churches of different denominations. These residents serve in these congregations for two years and can be ordained while residents. The overall goal is to ease the transition from student to pastor in order to keep good ministers in the local church because we all know that this transition can be very difficult and lead to burnout and people leaving the ministry.

We had a total of 97 people in attendance from different denominations - Presbyterian, Lutheran, Methodist, Episcopalian, United Church of Christ, Baptist and Disciples of Christ (Christian). I was invited by my friend Trace Haythorn, the President of the FTE. We co-lead a workshop on "The Importance of Pastor as a Public Leader" and I led a discussion group following our keynote addresses. We began with dinner and introductions on Monday evening, May 4th. The next day we heard from our keynote speaker, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, an associate minister at St. John's Baptist Church in Durham, NC and a leader in the new monastic movement. He spoke from his recent book New Monasticism: What It Has To Say To Today's Church. I highly recommend the book for your reading because I think the mainline churches can learn a great deal about new monasticism. On Wednesday Trace and I co-led three workshops (yes - THREE!) and the whole group relaxed with a night out on the town at Rock Bottom Cafe. After a short plenary with worship we ended the next day.

Overall I had a great time! In my ministry I truly enjoy getting to know and helping first-time young adult pastors. From all denominations, this group of pastors were very sharp and attuned to the world around them while at the same time respecting their own denominational traditions. I can say that I have hope for the future ministry of the Christian church! I am especially thankful to David J. Wood, the outgoing Director of the Transitions Into Ministry program as he answers a new call to the Glencoe (IL) Union Church this July and the staff at the Lilly Foundation as well as my friend Trace and his staff at FTE. I am also thankful for all the great pastoral residents at Bryn Mawr, Second, Central, and Fourth Presbyterian Churches as well as those from the Company of New Pastors. May God bless all of the pastoral residents in their ministry!

Presbyterian Bloggers Unite April post: POVERTY

 

 

This month I have joined up again with the Presbyterian Bloggers Unite crew as we discuss Poverty. Our instructions are below:

• how would you define describe POVERTY and its impact in your community?
• how has or has not your community of faith addressed issues of POVERTY?
• what are the greatest hopes and challenges that you think face your community, larger church and the greater society in dealing with issues of POVERTY?

Just out of curiosity I searched the U.S Enviornmental Protection Agency (EPA) website to check our their definition of poverty. It read:

Poverty Level:
An income level below which an individual or family is considered poor. The U.S. Census Bureau defines poverty level based on a set of money income thresholds that vary by family size and composition. If a family’s total income is less than that family’s threshold, then that family, and every individual in it, is considered poor.

In addition I would take that definition in another way - spiritually. I would define spiritual poverty as one who has a low level of identification with God's Holy Spirit which causes one to be devoid of the workings of God in one's life and in turn we are not able to use our gitfts to help another.

Our church is in downtown Raleigh which is going thru a redevelopment. We have upscale condominiums/townhomes that are upwards of $250,000 - $500,000 two blocks from the church but a few blocks away on the other side we have people who are either homeless or defined as the "working poor." Because of this displacement combined with meeting the needs of those who have difficulty, it presses our church into action.

We do some things as a congregation but can do more. We provide a food pantry to those in need every 2nd and 4th Thursdays of each month. We also conduct clothing drives about once a quarter. What we need to do better is identify and address the institutional and systemic root of poverty itself. To me this is also the greatest challenge and hope for us as a denomination, local community and world. I believe that we need to live by the Chinese proverb -

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."