Most People

At a recent meeting, it was noted that, according to research conducted by the Rev. Dr. Samuel Torvend at Pacific Lutheran University, 70% of the population of the Pacific Northwest is second-generation unchurched. I suggested that we keep that fact in mind whenever we hold our community conversations during Epiphany; that each of us have an elevator speech about what the Episcopal Church is that we can deliver during these conversation. After all, there is a 70% chance that our conversation partners will be unchurced.

Someone objected to the use of that term as being negative. Others agreed. The other term often bandied about is “nones”, i.e. those who would write “none” when asked their religious affiliation. We all agreed that those two terms were negative, even if not intentionally so, and that they tended to reinforce the us-them divide.

After some back and forth about those terms and how we might better describe those who have no faith background, it occurred to me that there is a very accurate, value-neutral term that describes them perfectly: “most people.” We laughed at the time, but I think using that term can help us find the layout of church walls in our own lives.

Although we can't assume that most people have an accurate knowledge of the Episcopal church in Western Washington, most people I know have a high regard for it. Most people I know, while perhaps they can't name specifics, have told me to the effect that the Episcopal Church has an excellent reputation.

Most people I know aren't religious. Or perhaps more accurately, most people I know aren't aware that they are. Religious impulses are human impulses, and if most people don't find an existing structure or mechanism for realizing those impulses, I assure you they will make something up. I've seen that happen at every so-called “civil” wedding ceremony I've attended.

While no one is suggesting tearing down actual church walls (that would be structural, and here at OCW we don't do structure!), I think it is vital that we communicate everything we do to most people. If we don't do that, we are expecting most people to read our minds. That's not only unrealistic, its passive.

This communication can be individual, as we interact with most people we know in our own lives. It can also be corporate, as we embark on community conversations throughout the diocese in our community conversations. It can also be by example, as most people we know will be evaluating the Episcopal Church based on how they see us living our lives within the larger community of this region and the world.

Merry Christmas!
Brad

This Christmas Season

A short blog with a long linked article! OCW recently shared surveys that indicate the number of people in the United States who believe in God and who are connected to a specific religion and attend/belong to a specific church has been dropping steadily since the 1960s. A new poll from Pew Research now shows similar trends with those who celebrate Christmas as a religious holiday vs. a cultural one—also dropping over the years! This is not surprising, but in this season of Christmas it again reminds us that we who want to connect with those in our own communities of the challenge we face.

It is one thing to desire to connect with those around us; it is another thing to believe this will be an easy task with others who have the same religious Christian perspective as we do—because many do not!

Let’s all enjoy our Christmas season, remembering those we know and do not know, who struggle with daily living, and resolve to think as openly as we can in our ministry to connect with others going forward.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/18/christmas-non-religious_n_4453828.html?utm_hp_ref=christianity

Jim

Form Will Follow Function

The Episcopal Church has a problem, and so we have a taskforce. The problem is declining relevance and impact for God, and the proposed path to a solution is the Taskforce for Reimagining the Episcopal Church. You can find a recent letter from them here. The taskforce is focused on the structure of the church.

In the Diocese of Olympia we share this broader problem. Many people are searching for God-inspired solutions in Western Washington – individuals, congregations, governing bodies and commissions, diocesan leaders and staff. Outside Church Walls exists within this continuum to consider how the church can intersect with the culture and share the Good News in fresh and effective ways.

Unlike the larger church taskforce, we’re not focused on structure. Sure, we’ve talked about it at times, but it’s not really in our purview. We’re really approaching this issue from a different direction. Our questions are more about 1) how we understand our place in the world, and 2) what we should be doing, rather than about how we should be organizing ourselves. Form will follow function. Things may well need to be different at some point, but we ought to know to what end.

Within Outside Church Walls we’re clear that the only power we have is to change hearts and minds. We are not decision makers; we’re dreamers, thinkers, and models. We’re sharing with people across our church what we’re saying and seeing. We believe there is a vital future for the Episcopal Church in Western Washington, and we’re excited to be a part of listening for the Holy Spirit’s call to us.

Leaning Into The Discomfort

I was thoroughly buoyed by my first couple of conversations outside church walls. I had had a great conversation with a sheriff, a county commissioner and a parishioner of mine had started a new ministry as a result of her conversations outside church walls. No doubt about it—I was on a roll. And then it happened. I knew it would eventually.

A neighbor of mine was brutally honest with me about his experience with church.

The church had hurt him deeply. He could barely speak of it. As a man who is queer, he had been hurt. When he was younger, he had come out to a friend. The friend had told someone else and soon, this young person found himself surrounded by Christians who wanted to exorcise the demon out of him. Wanted to pray the gay away.

Just talking about this awful experience brought tears to both of our eyes.

I wanted so badly to say, “My church wouldn’t do that! We have glbt members and clergy.” My intuition however told me to just shut up and listen.

So I did. I listened. I cried. I looked him in the eye. I let silence come and sit with us in the discomfort.

May I ask for your forgiveness? I said after a little bit.

You didn’t do it. He told me. A person that belonged to the same group that I did had hurt him I told him. The least I could do is say, “I’m sorry.” I asked him if I could shake his hand. We did.

I’d like to say that it was a Kodak moment; that everything was tied together perfectly by the end of our conversation, that all was neat and tidy. However the truth is I parted from him with deep sadness and I could tell as he walked away that the conversation was far from resolved. He was still hurting and so was I.

Fear in the church for all too long has trumped grace and love.

Fear that love couldn’t possibly be present in queer people so we better change ‘em to be like us. That’s what one part of the church says. That’s fear trumping love.

And before any of us lgbt inclusive church folk get too smug, fear plays in our circles too.

While anti-gay Christians are out there doing their thing, we sit back complacent and say well, Christians have a bad reputation in our world. I better not let anyone know that I’m one of them too. I might offend someone. So we say nothing. That’s fear trumping love too.

There’s no doubt about it—having these conversations is a risk. That’s probably why must of us don’t want to do it. We’re afraid of what people might tell us or what we might hear or feel.

But here’s the thing: I think we are called to have the hard conversations, to let love trump our own fear and yes, lean into the discomfort that others have caused in OUR name.

And here’s the REAL hard part. If we are courageous to show up and have conversations with people, even uncomfortable painful ones, the real work is to just shut up and listen. Not offer platitudes, or quick fix answers. I can’t tell you how much I wanted to tell my neighbor, but my church would NEVER do that. However, that didn’t matter too much. I would have been saying that for me, not for him.

I don’t know if my neighbor will ever heal from his experience. I don’t know if my apology mattered. What I do know is that I listened. I cried with him. I don’t know what the conversation meant to my neighbor but I will say this: I am changed because of I stood with him in his pain.

Beloved, I hope that as we venture outside church walls and have conversations, we are whole hearted enough, to witness to the painful conversations, compassionate enough to lean into the discomfort and live with it. I hope we can stand in loving solidarity with our neighbors listen, weep and say, I’m sorry.

That’s how love might just win out over fear.

George

The Servant Church in New and Mutual Ministry

Last evening in our small Victorian church of St. Paul’s, Port Townsend, we happily gathered for the Celebration of New and Mutual Ministry. The occasion was to publicly proclaim the mutually discerned call and acceptance of Dianne Andrews to be our Rector and for us to continue in ministry together, with Dianne as priest among us. This Liturgy of binding offers, by turns, heart-expanding joy and deep soul searching seriousness. It packs a whallop of affirmation, confirmation and commitment pledges at us and requires from us, publicly, individual and community response.

As always, we have choices we can make. We can choose to be silent. We can choose to say “No”. We can choose to say “Yes” with our lips only. We can choose to say “Yes” with our lips, our hearts and with God’s help. Yes. . .with God’s help.

This is the Way and importance of the “church gathered”; to affirm and remember who we are and whose we are. It was a time we remember and pledge ourselves to follow in the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, our Christ. If the “Yes” we pledge to our Baptismal vows is the kind of “yes” that shakes our soul, we know that we have committed ourselves to be Christ’s disciples in action Outside Church Walls in all sorts of weather and circumstances.

I invite you, at this mid-point in our walk through the Season of Advent, to read and ponder the words of Hymn #779, “The Church of Christ in Every Age”. It was the processional hymn, gathering us into community last night. In what ways does this powerful hymn speak to you and move you to a new birth of ministry and mission in this 21st Century?

The church of Christ in every age, beset by change but spirit led, must claim and test its heritage, and keep on rising from the dead.

Across the world, across the street, the victims of injustice cry for shelter and for bread to eat and never live until they die 

Then let the servant church arise. A caring church that longs to be a partner in Christ’s sacrifice and clothed in Christ’s humanity. 

For Christ alone, whose blood was shed, can cure the fever in our blood. And teach us how to share our bread and feed the starving multitude.

We have no mission but to serve I full obedience to our God: to care for all without reserve. And spread Christ’s liberating word.

MaryAnn

Mandela

Nelson Mandela is no longer, physically, in this world. He leaves a tremendous legacy, and a huge challenge still present for the human community. There has been lots of speculation about his religious beliefs. It is known that he was once a member of a Methodist church and attended church schools, but his beliefs were never explicitly stated. Still, when you read much of his writing you cannot help but see the biblical narrative very much in the background.

In his autobiography, "Long Walk to Freedom" Nelson Mandela talked of his experience of Christianity. He wrote: "The Church was as concerned with this world as with the next; I saw that virtually all of the achievements of Africans seemed to have come from the missionary work of the Church."

This Second Sunday of Advent, the four Sundays before Christmas in the Christian tradition, we had for our Gospel reading, Matthew 3: 1-12. Here we see John the Baptist, a voice crying in the wilderness, wearing camel's hair and eating locusts and wild honey. It is not exactly a Christmas message, it doesn't match what is going on in our Western indulgence leading up to Christmas. One of the very non "I'll be Home for Christmas" lines in this Gospel is this one.

"Even now the axe is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire." It is interesting that Mandela once wrote,

"No axe is sharp enough to cut the soul of a sinner who keeps on trying, one armed with the hope that he will rise even in the end.

He knew that the Gospel is not about always being right, or always getting it right, but is instead about always trying to get it right. His greatest gift and legacy is just this, that after all he endured, after all this world could dish out to try to silence him, to change his heart, he kept leaning toward the good. And when he was finally free, he leaned even farther, showing us what forgiveness and repentance look like, proving that the "good" had to be for all, even those who had worked so tirelessly to take it away from him.

When asked once by a reporter, after all had happened to him, what had he learned, he said, "Good and evil are always present....good people must choose. He will be missed, but not soon forgotten.

Bishop Greg

The Church and the World

I'd like to address two questions that were left on the comment sheets at convention. The first one was, “What about reaching out to people who have recently been released from prison?” The second was, “How can the Church reach out to other ethnic groups- Russians, Ukrainians, Koreans and other Asians, Africans?”

The first question had contact information, so I was able to follow up. I scheduled a meeting with the person who wrote it. It was a very interesting discussion, on several levels. Obviously, such a ministry is likely to face severe prejudice from law-abiding citizens, people who have been victimized by crime, concerned parents, etc. Despite that, or perhaps because of that, Christians are explicitly challenged to minister to prisoners (cf, Matthew 25:31-46); it is simply not an option. As I thought about the tension between those two realities, I asked the person about how she had dealt with them in conversations with others. She clearly had lots of experience in that ministry, and knew far more about what the challenges and opportunities were than I did. Then it occurred to me that the more I asked, the more I realized that she was the expert in this area. I left her with the question: “What are you (the Church) going to do reach out to people who have recently been released from prison, and what can the rest of us (the Church) do to help you?” She said she would give that some thought. We've followed up and stayed in touch, and she is still mulling over the idea.

As to the second question-- about people of different ethnic and national groups-- there was no contact information, but I would answer that question in much the same way. It seems to me that someone who asks about a particular ministry tends to have a keen interest, perhaps even a calling, in that area. The questioner probably has a much richer insight into the needs of that ministry than the rest of us. How can the Church reach out to other ethnic and national groups? I am fascinated by the question, and would welcome the questioner's insights into the issue. I'll bet he or she has plenty of ideas.

As we move away from the notion of “the Church” and “the World” as being separate realms, I suggest we also try to move away from the notion that the Church hierarchy is somehow an expert on all things. It's not, and it can't be. Rather than asking the bureaucracy for guidance in areas in which it may have little knowledge or practical experience, perhaps individuals should take ownership of their ministries. Pray, think, plan, lead, and ask for help. How can the OCW team help you develop your ministry?


Happy Advent!
Brad