Hi. I’m Greg Rhodes, and I’m a Christian – because of grace. Grace – that completely unmerited presence and love of God. It fills my life. Like many (I presume), I think I recognize only a fraction of it, and even that fills my life. I want to receive grace, embrace it, and share it. That’s why I am a Christian.
We’ll come back to that.
I’m Greg Rhodes, and I am here on behalf of Outside Church Walls. Some of you heard about us last year, and some are new to this story. We are a group formed on behalf of our diocese to spend the past two years considering the intersection of our church and culture, and how God might be calling us to respond.
It’s been interesting work, hard, frustrating, confusing – enlightening, enriching and faithful. And as our name implies, we’ve been roaming around Outside our Church Walls. In our two years we’ve held every meeting someplace besides church. Because, of course, all places are God’s; we’ve just chosen to join God out in there in the world.
We appreciate those who have followed our blog – both of you. If something you hear today sparks your interest, feel free to go back and review the blog. Things on the internet last forever, or at least a lot longer that Outside Church Walls will.
Last year at convention we brought you a document called “Initial Propositions.” There are copies on the table. We still affirm those propositions, and believe they say important things to the church. Look it over – again, if you saw it last year. By the way, you’ll find our blog address on the back of that paper. And while I’m mentioning the blog again, let me note that I’ll post this address there.
Last year we also introduced Community Conversations – ways for individual congregations to reach into their neighborhoods. About 200 people tried to pack a room to learn about it, but unfortunately the room only seated 80. We’re sorry about that. But we were really excited about the energy and interest.
We heard from a number of churches who took on the conversations. At least one reported that the process and interactions were transformational for them. Some other churches reported frustrations either connecting with community leaders or knowing how to use the information they gathered.
We’re grateful for all the people and congregations who felt called to try, and trust that the Holy Spirit will make all of the efforts worthy for them. Those materials are still available on our blog as well, if your congregation is interested.
I think that brings us forward to 2014.
As we’ve worked our way through this past year, there are three things have we have felt called to say here. In one way or another these have been on the table from our earliest meetings. We’re going to mention structure, leadership, and Why.
Structure first. Technically this was not part of our mandate, but here you are anyway. If you’re a church geek, you probably know that the mother ship – the big EC – has a “Task Force for Reimagining the Episcopal Church.” That means that most of the energies of the powers and principalities of our tribe are focused on designing a new structure – without much consideration of what God is calling forth from us regarding mission.
We don’t think that’s where our diocese should spend its energy. We believe we’re better off focusing on what the Gospel calls from us in this time and place. However, we do want to say this about our structure: it’s going to be in the way. In some cases it may already be. In a culture allergic to authority (rightfully so), in a time when God calls forth new expressions and forms of leadership and ministry, it’s going to be in the way.
Now is the time for the good and faithful people who comprise our structure to begin to pray, study and explore what it would mean to get out of the way, to release energy and open ourselves to new ways of being the church, grounded in the best of our tradition.
Okay, if that made a few people uncomfortable, let’s see if we can’t loop in the whole room.
We’d like to say something about leadership.
We have to do better. Everyone.
I have to do better, which comes as no surprise to anyone who knows me. Bishop, you have to do better. Our clergy have to do better. And our lay leaders don’t get a pass – we have to do better. In case you think I’m talking to the person sitting next to you, you’re a leader if you’re in this room. People from your congregation or your group chose you to represent them here, to listen and speak on their behalf.
What does better look like?
Well, it doesn’t look like our historical, rigid positional authority that we have used – and at times abused. It certainly doesn’t mean pushing through a personal agenda by force of personality or influence.
Effective leaders as we envision them are faithful and authentic, courageous and vulnerable. Unlike some of our leaders of the past (and perhaps the present), they encourage people to hold them accountable in constructive ways; they seek critical feedback and create structures for it. This doesn’t mean that leaders get to be targets for our discontent; healthy leaders need healthy feedback.
Effective leaders build their roles upon trust, a trust rooted in God, humbly pointing to something beyond themselves. They behave in ways that allow people to trust them, and they trust people in return. It must go both ways. They understand that ministry is mutually held between lay and ordained, old and young, new and experienced, and all the ways we are unique and wonderfully God’s. Powerful ministry is based upon all people having room to use their best gifts.
We need leaders who can communicate a vision in compelling, articulate ways. We’re a church that loves its words. But we can run into trouble here. Just because a leader can speak well doesn’t mean it’s about a faithful vision, and a big personality is not the same as leadership. This is why constructive accountability and critical feedback are so important.
Also, just because you don’t see yourself as a public communicator doesn’t mean you can’t be an effective leader. This may need to be your growing edge. You might be one of those people who doesn’t have much to say until the subject of your passion comes up. Loud leaders make space for other voices, quieter voices, who are passionate and compelling when given the space.
Finally, leaders have to own the job. They might not have created the circumstances they now inhabit, but they own them – along with the others involved. They spot opportunities and take initiative, inviting others into the process of discerning God’s will in a busy, noisy, and often chaotic world.
So there you have it: faithful and authentic, open and accountable, trustworthy and trusting, dedicated to mutual ministry, articulate and willing to own the job. These are the leaders we need. Easy, right?
Where can you improve your leadership? And where do you need to ask for help?
I haven’t asked the bishop, but I imagine he’d much rather be buried with requests for help to improve our leadership than listen to the silence while lay and ordained leaders and their congregations struggle. Let’s be the diocese at the forefront of leadership because we took seriously God’s call to be leaders in a new time.
Okay, let’s take a deep breath…
And loop back to the opening, to my claim of why I’m a Christian. These past two years with Outside Church Walls have included a side journey for me to that statement. I’m a native Washingtonian and a cradle Episcopalian; my culture taught me it was impolite to impose my beliefs on others, which I translated – like perhaps many others – into not talking about my faith outside of Church much at all.
Recently I found this quote by Malala Yousafzai, the 17 year old Pakistani who recently won the Nobel Peace Prize: “I don’t cover my face because I want to show my identity.” That’s an incredibly powerful statement, and challenging to me. She insists on showing herself, her identity, at real risk. Conversely, I have hidden my identity, partly because of some perceived social risk – “What will people think of me if they know I’m a Christian?”.
There’s something deeply spiritual and important about personally claiming why I am a Christian. It’s not about making sure I have the right answer; there is no single right answer. My statement is imperfect and in process – and probably will be for my whole life. But it puts me more deeply in touch with the faith journey I’m on, and it’s hard to tell people why they might join me in seeking God if can’t articulate why I’m doing so in the first place.
As the bishop mentioned yesterday, we spent a pleasant morning in May with an avowed atheist. Bob told us his issues with believing in God, honestly but not insultingly. We told him about our understandings of God, without preaching. Much of the time we talked about the many things we had in common. And as you heard, he gave us the favor of some really honest feedback: Our elevator speech sucks.
In two hours not one of us had made a simple, clear, compelling statement of our faith, and we’d been given chances to do so. We said some beautiful things, things that would have received an “A” from an apologetics professor at seminary. But we weren’t at seminary.
Bob wasn’t criticizing our belief in God; he was telling us we couldn’t communicate passionately and clearly about it.
It’s not that we’re peddling shower curtain rings. We don’t need an elevator speech to make a sale for God. But we should be able to explain our faith in clear, understandable language. When we use complicated, churchy, insider language, we’re not connecting with the majority of people who have no church experience. We’re not clearly expressing our “why” in that context.
Our breakout session a little later this morning provides an opportunity to explore your personal “Why.” Perhaps you have a statement and would like to test or refine it. Perhaps you don’t yet have a statement you’re comfortable with and might like to begin the process. All are welcome. Using the text from our convention Eucharist, we’ll hold a Bible study that can provide the foundations for a personal statement.
If you were part of room-pocalipse 2013, where we tried to cram those 200 people into a room that couldn’t seat half that, take heart. We have a much larger space this year, and we are hoping to see many of you there.
<As I move toward my final comments, I’d like to ask the OCW members to make their way up here.>
Personal whys are foundational, and as members of a community these need to mesh into some congregational “whys,” courtesy of the Holy Spirit. We brought up this subject last year, in our Initial Propositions, the need for clear and compelling “whys.”
This summer we sat in a Seattle Tilth garden, on one of those glorious August days that make February bearable. We were talking with Eldon Olson, the consultant conducting the MMR with the bishop and standing committee.
Eldon said there had been lots of previous consultants and studies that led to great recommendations, but nothing seemed to happen with them. He was asking what people thought of that.
Our answer was this: those recommendations were full of “hows” in search of a compelling “why.”
Passion and energy come from purpose. When our purposes, our “whys,” are aligned with the Holy Spirit and supportive of each other, they are full of vitality.
Let’s be honest: most every group has a “why,” stated or unstated. Often that “why” includes preserving the group and those things that make its members comfortable. That’s not good enough for God’s church. As the saying goes, the church is the one institution that exists primarily for the benefit of people outside it.
We live in a new age. The expressions of church God may be calling forth, even with “Episcopal Characteristics,” may look dramatically different than we expect. We will likely be disrupted, uncomfortable. We may experience a sense of loss and need to grieve. As we seek to live the Gospel with real people in real situations, we most certainly will be called to take risks. What are we willing to let go of – and what actions are we willing to take – in order to embrace our faithful future?
The Good News is that we are not alone. Corrie Ten Boom, the Dutch Christian who was imprisoned by the Nazi’s for hiding Jews, said, “Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.” That future is unknown only to us. God is already there, and God is working to take us there. To us the future may seem uncertain or risky, but at its heart is the peace that passes all understanding. Praise God!
I’m Greg, and I’m a Christian because of grace.
No comments:
Post a Comment