Nobody Really Has It Together...

Nobody really has it together. There are a lot of us who kind of pretend we have it together. Who have a nice façade of “togetherness” but some where there is a soft spot, a problem or a life difficulty that isn’t really all together.

I have often taught what I call the storm principle. The storm principle states that everyone is in one of three places in their life. They are either in the middle of a storm, just finally coming out of a storm or in that brief calm before the storm. A lot of our storms are not even of our own making, they are the result of other’s actions that impact our life. The storm is always nearby, so if you are in the calm place, enjoy it while you can.

This brings us back to the statement above about nobody really having it together. I guess a truer statement is that at any giving time everything that you have together can fall apart. The law of entropy takes over and things really do tend to move to a state of disorder. I know of not less than three competent, capable and respected professionals that in the past couple of weeks have been told, for no apparent reason, that they were being laid off. These are not the people that that kind of thing happens to. These are the “go to” people who come early, stay late, and go above and beyond. These are the people that their coworkers turn to in times of difficulty and trouble, but decisions above their pay grade were made to eliminate them from their respective organizations. They thought they had it all together and it fell apart. The storm came, seemingly out of the blue, and it hit hard.

Others of us have been asked to endure the storm a little longer, or indefinitely. We discussed opportunities and options that never occurred. Our ability to trust has been diminished and we feel like we are forgotten or at least taken for granted. Our storm is not one of crashing waves and lightening, but one of being stranded in the middle of an endless ocean with no breeze in our sails and no pull upon our lives. It is a storm of deafening calm, of waveless waiting and of mirages on the horizon that turn out to be nothing more than hopeful figments of our imagination. So you sit and pray for a breeze, a direction, a destination.

I used to think I knew people who had it together. Who never faltered, who never doubted or who never struggled. But, eventually, even they had a storm that, at least for awhile, overtook them. They to were caught unaware and unready for the unexpected blow from the storms of life. Nobody really has it all together.

We travelers in the storm, what do we do? How do we continue when the skies are dark and the rain is cold? Today I do not have words of encouragement, I only have words of the one who promised to be a light into a dark world. Today I am looking for the light and hoping that the light I see is not a train at the other end of the tunnel. I remain…

In the Storm,
Marty Cauley

Gracious God who comes to us in the storm, bring light into the darkness and peace into the midst of the storm. In the name of the One who endured a storm beyond compare, Jesus, I pray. Amen

The Problem with Theodicy

There is evil in the world. That much is true. I seriously doubts that anyone with any sense of reality would deny the presence, even the seeming omni-presence of evil in the world. Whether we call it original sin or the condition of the human heart yearning to please self over the common good, evil is present.

I have been struggling, however, with theodicy. Theodicy is the vindication of divine goodness and providence in view of evil in the world. Rather, the idea that eventually, God and good will win despite the incredible cruelty that this world dishes out. This is particularly true in light of the past several days. In the last ten days I have been utterly confused and jaded by the church vocationally, Danelle has failed to have her teaching contract renewed after three years of stellar reviews and evaluations, it seems that evil has won at every turn and today one of the back windows just fell off of the van. Its like its not enough that we have both experienced the equivalent of vocational rejection, we had to have some just plain old personal aggravation as a side dish. Yep, there is evil in the world and sometimes it is present in a window falling off.

So I have spent hours trying to figure this out. Trying to understand if there is some lesson that I should be getting or some profound message that is being sent. I have struggled with whether I have done something recently that has unleashed a torrent of evil in my families direction, though I know that is the perception of a flawed theology. None the less, you know you think it too when a bunch of stuff happens to you. I have asked, what have I done to deserve this? I have given my life over to helping others get closer to God, Danelle has given herself over to helping young people discover their passion and embrace their future. These are vocations that would seemingly be replete with opportunities for selfless giving and long hours but would provide abundant blessings, yet evil seems to beset us on every side.

I understand Lamentations and the lament Psalms when the writers spoke of the enemy surrounding them and prospering while all they had to eat were tears. I also know that the best lessons are the hardest learned, yet that does not diminish the pain of the present. I will just have to endure a little longer. I remain:

In the Desert,
Marty Cauley

Gracious God, I know that you are a Savior in the desert who leads His people through. Give us the strength to learn without becoming hardened and to grow without becoming jaded. In the name of the suffereing Saviour, Jesus. Amen.

Reformation is an Inside Job

The Church is at a crossroads. Maybe its time, every 500 years there is usually a major shift. There is a seismic change in understanding; an overturning of power and a restructuring of the world. Mainline denominations, whose foundations were laid during the fifteenth and sixteenth century, are starting to crack and crumble. They are all losing members to other churches, schisms and to the vast depths of unbelief. Maybe this will be the generation that sees another Reformation.
Reformation is an inside job. It begins from within. Luther, Zwingli, Calvin and Wesley knew the Church. It was part of their lives. They all had theological training. All but Calvin were ordained. They all sought to call the church back into vitality. Luther’s theses were a call to change. Wesley remained an Anglican priest until the day he died. They all sought to stimulate the church to action, to realize what was going on inside the church and around them in the culture and to do something about it.
There are several key points about those Reformations and the ones that are starting to form on the horizon of today’s church that need to be considered. First, they all broke with the past and innovated. Secondly, they were all solidly anchored in the text. Next, they sought to communicate to the culture using the vernacular. Additionally they believed that practical application of belief was essential. Also, they did not seek to abandon tradition and they had a thorough understanding of historical theology. Lastly, they embraced the sacrament as transformative mystery.
The past is comforting. We understand the patterns and expectations. Breaking with the past requires loosing the ties that bind us and drifting into the unknown. That is not nearly so comfortable. We must break with what is comfortable and expected and begin stretching and innovating. This is already happening with churches, some of them quite large, that refuse to tie themselves down with real estate and indebtedness. They devote their resources to mission, not maintenance. This kind of innovation makes the establishment uncomfortable. It seems unstable and irresponsible. To those who practice this radical faith, it is a call to fiscal freedom and mission availability.
The reformers went to the scripture for insight, courage and inspiration. They looked again at the ancient stories and read them with new passion. The emergent church is seeing scripture with fresh eyes as well. They are digging deep into the text and uncovering meanings usually hidden by commentaries and interpretation. The stories are coming alive all over again with fresh meaning that calls them to a deeper level of discipleship.
Translating the Bible into the vernacular was a radical idea for the reformers. Reading it in the vernacular during public worship was even more radical. They could not envision a day when most people have a couple of dust covered Bibles laying around unopened because the text was such a precious gift. What will it look like to communicate to a culture that virtually ignores the Church? I have often stood within sight of a downtown church and asked passersby where it was and they had no idea we were standing in its shadow. Emerging churches are struggling with how to communicate to the culture in ways they understand. They are re-discovering art and icons as means to communicate. The lines between sacred and secular are blurring with the realization that the segmented lives of modernity are hollow and empty. Communication is moving beyond words to become embodied into the entire life of the believer.
This brings to mind practical, life application. The reformers had clear expectations of how the believer should live. Calvin had fines for missing church. Wesley had class meetings to monitor lives of the faithful. Today’s churches on the edge also call their fellow travelers into lives of accountability and sacrifice. Some move into low-income neighborhoods to provide a Christian haven amidst the struggles and trials faced by underprivileged children. Others live lives of radical generosity, living on half of their income so that they can give the other half away, they dedicate their lives to AIDS orphans in Africa or volunteering at underperforming schools. Living out their faith becomes their life, it moves beyond a segmented hour on Sunday to being a lifestyle of obedience.
The touchstone for the last reformation that must not be forgotten was their grounding in tradition and historical theology. They did not forget the shoulders they stood upon. They had read Augustine, Benedict and Tertullian. They were familiar with the desert fathers and the mothers of the faith who had faced persecution and martyrdom. In pursuit of innovation and change, it is vital that the reformation occurring today does not neglect to learn from those who have gone before us, those who gave their lives for their beliefs. Today, beliefs are cheap. You can embrace any idea without worry of trial or tribulation. The coming reformation, like the ones before it, must dig its roots deep into the soil of tradition and historical theology so that it is not blown over by the wind of challenge.
For decades one of the major controversies of the Church was what happens during Eucharist. The controversies of the holy meal segmented and divided the Church, but no matter which side of the argument they stood, they did agree that something powerful happens through the Lord’s Supper. I have been amazed at the passion and faithfulness and the serious study and attention that is being give to the Eucharist by emerging churches. Many of them practice the sacrament weekly and include it as part of the functional lives of their congregations. Sacramental renewal is bedrock of the coming Reformations.
Will we benefit and thrive from these reformers calls to the church or will we enter into another era of divisiveness and division? Can we as the Church united around a common table, hear the Word proclaimed in the vernacular, change our lives to live out our faithful sacrifice while keeping our faith firmly rooted in the text and historical orthodoxy? I pray that God will use me to be part of these reformations so that the Church can, once again, reach a culture that it has abandoned.

Gracious God, who calls us to be all things to all people whereby some might be saved, use me to be your voice and vessel through the one who came that we might have life, Jesus Christ, I pray. Amen

Jenga and Church Change

I am not a Reformation minded theologian. As I am taking a class in Reformation era history, culture and theology, it occurs to me that change comes in the church world much like kids play Jenga. I used to think that Martin Luther came up with his 95 thesis in a vacuum or by some source of divine revelation. Then, when he nailed them to the door, they caused a tidal wave of change to sweep across the theological landscape. The more I read about the era, the more authors and sources I discover from the years before Luther and Calvin, the more I realize that they were just the linchpins to a change that began hundreds of years before they came on the scene.

When kids play Jenga, the pull wooden blocks from the bottom of a stack and place them carefully on top. As they continue to pull from the bottom, of course, the structure becomes unstable. Eventually, the instability of the structure becomes irreversible and it tumbles over in a loud crash. To the outsider it seems like the person who pulled the last piece was the one at fault for then collapse of the entire structure. However, everyone playing the game and removing pieces is really, equally at fault. So it is with change in the Church.

Just like Luther may have been the one who visibly pulled out the last block causing radical change in the pre-existing understanding of the Church, he was not the cause of the overall change. He was simply the one holding the last block. His ideas were informed by many others before him. Change in the church may often seem revolutionary when it has been, in actuality, evolutionary. The evolutionary nature of the change is not at a steady pace, rather it moves slowly forward and occasionally takes a lurch forward.

In local churches, like yours and mine, a similar truth prevails. It seems like change may not be coming. Change can be good or bad. Change can meet ecstatic growth or slow decline. From the outside it may seem that the change experienced by the Church is sudden, but a careful study unveils the previous groundwork that was laid prior to the radical outcomes. The blocks were being pulled out long before you or I arrived. We just get to be the one holding the last block.

What has this taught me? First, to be slow to take credit for the great things that are happening in the church I may be serving. Those great things had a history that probably pre-dates me and may even pre-date my predecessor. Secondly, not to escape accountability in anyway, but be careful not to accept all of the blame for everything that goes wrong. This is even harder for me. While I don’t have a problem not taking the credit, I tend to take all the blame. The troubles also have deep roots. Roots that, unless somebody takes the time to pull them out, will crop up again and again.

So, change is like Jenga, and like Jenga you have to play. So, go ahead and pull out another block, it could be the one that releases amazing, God-directed change! I remain:

Consumed by the Call,
Marty Cauley

Gracious God, who is the cause of all change and whose very word called forth creation, the greatest change that has ever existed, help me to be bold in following your call to lead and love as Jesus lived and loved. Amen

The Certainty of Uncertainty

I hate uncertainty. I don’t mean to say it makes me a bit uncomfortable, I mean that I hate uncertainty. Having been raised in aura of uncertainty by a single wage earning mother and absentee father bred in me the desire, actually the need, to find some place of certainty. When I was called into ministry God saw fit to use the United Methodist Church as my place of spiritual grounding. It is, essentially, the only denomination that guarantees every ordained pastor a place to serve. I thought I had finally found my place of certainty.

Now, again, I am living in uncertainty. I want to know what is next but I do not. My wife and I are standing in this place of being in the between times. We did not anticipate the level of uncertainty at this point in our lives. We had thought that I would serve where I serve, she would teach where she is teaching, but now all we have is uncertainty. She is having to reapply for her current position as it transitions to becoming “tenure track.” I am struggling with whether what I am doing fulfills my ordination vows to make disciples and serve the church through “service, Word, order and sacrament.” We have both been praying for God to give us clear direction about our life’s directions. I have been waiting on the burning bush, but so far all I have is uncertainty.

I know the spiritual lesson here is to trust God. I am personally eating my words for every time I have told that to somebody else. It is a lot easier to give that advice than it is to take it. It is a lot easier to sit in a place of certainty and security and encourage others to step out in faith and to live in the spiritual certainty that God has it all under control. Now I’m on the other side of the equation, putting all of my faith into trusting God and pushing aside the demons of uncertainty that keep whispering in my ear, I understand how tough it is to hang on and push through. How difficult it is to wait, watch and listen for God to speak in a still small voice the direction and call of the future. Yet still I wait, in uncertainty.

There are a few things of which I am certain, however. I am certain that God wants me to do a work that fulfills my call to lead in some part of the United Methodist Church through “service, Word, order and sacrament.” As I have finished another DMin class, studying American cultural issues and how they relate to the Church I am more convinced that the Church is the hope of the world. It is the place where there is a chance for the world to find redemption, both personally and corporately. It is uniquely positioned at the crossroads of the economic, political, cultural and spiritual spheres of influence an can marshal the people and resources to make an impact on problems like poverty, at least on some microcosmic scale.

I am certain that Danelle is called to continue working with young adults. The impact she makes through her classes, counsel and concern for their well-being grounds them during their difficult college years. She is a source for unconditional love and guidance in a sea of ambiguity and indifference. Her passion truly lies in giving herself to help others discover their life’s path.

Lastly, I am certain that these two callings were meant to compliment each other to further the Gospel. Not that we may be called to work together (which would be awesome) as much as we are called to assist each other in our own individual endeavors. Our work has often created a sort of synergy when we combine our talents. I know that God has brought us together for a reason and a purpose, and now we wait to figure out what that is.

I still hate uncertainty. Thanks be to God for the few things in life for which you can be certain. I remain:

Consumed by the Call,
Marty Cauley

Gracious God who walks with us through the valley and the shadow of death, be a lamp unto my path through this time of uncertainty. In the name of the one who is the Light of the world, Jesus, I pray. Amen.

Deserts and Burning Bushes

I went to a conference with some friends in early November and told them I was looking for a “burning bush.” That is to say I was seeking clarity about the future of ministry for me and a clear path to what God wanted me to do and be about. This, of course, comes from the story of Moses coming across a burning bush that was not consumed in the wilderness and God giving the reluctant prophet clear instructions about his ultimate task in life. Four different speakers during those two days mentioned burning bushes. It become such a recurrent theme that one of my friends looked and me and said, “you know I paid for this conference too.” The problem is that I’m still not sure how to get out of the desert.

I pulled out my Bible and backed up a bit, before the burning bush narrative and had a profound, if not disappointing realization or two. First, Moses spent a lot of years in the desert before his path was clearly laid before him. This was not very encouraging actually. Forty years is a long time to spend with sheep. When Moses left Egypt it wasn’t under the best of terms. Then he spent years of his life, having gone from a prince to an employee of his father in law, essentially doing what he needed to do to survive. I am pretty sure that during his time herding sheep and chasing off bears, he may not have been living ‘his best life now.’ He was doing what he needed to do to survive. He was, however, learning essential lessons about desert survival that he would not have known if he had stayed in Egypt. He was learning how to live as a nomad, rather than as a settler. Surely this lesson would prove invaluable when we would spend another forty years wondering around the desert.

Another thing I realized is that Moses wasn’t really looking for the bush when it found him. He was not praying to understand God’s will or to figure out how to invest his life to make a the biggest difference for the Kingdom, he was just going to work every day and doing his job. I have spent a lot of time trying to hear God, and all Moses, the preeminent leader of God’s people did, was “tend the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro.” We live in a culture that tells us to create opportunity. To “make things happen.” I like that idea, that I have the ability to make things happen. That I can make my plans and work out a strategic path in order to obtain a goal. I like seven habits of effective people and master planning my way to success, but so far it hasn’t worked for me. Every time I make a plan, it falls apart. Like the biblical author wrote, “there is a way that seems right to a man but that is foolishness.” Here is the amazing thing, the bush found him. Surely he had been by that area before, he had passed the Mount of Horeb many times and there was nothing extraordinary about it, but this time the bush was ablaze and not consumed. It seems to have been a confluence of timing, training and Moses ability to hear the call. The timing was right for God to lead the people out of Egypt, Moses had learned what he needed to learn from his desert experience and now had the ability to hear the call of God. Waiting on divine confluence is extremely frustrating. God does not work in accordance with our Daytimers, rather God’s time is perfect and call is sure.

Thirdly, when God gave Moses the instructions, he wasn’t all that excited about them. How many times have I benignly prayed, “God, if you will show me what to do, I will do it”? Really? If you spend any time at all in the Scriptures, there are a lot more reluctant prophets and leaders than there are people who are pursuing leadership. Actually, those who pursue and cling to leadership (ie. Saul, Herod, etc.) are usually those who should least have it. When God told Moses of the destiny before him, he repeatedly told God why he was NOT the right guy for the job. Maybe that is how you know when it is God, when the calling is so big and overwhelming everybody knows that you can’t do it alone.

God asked Moses what was in his hand. Rick Warren did a great job with this. He explained that in Moses’ hand was a shepherd’s staff. What we are is most often defined by what we “carry around.” In this case the staff defined identity, income and influence. It was essentially the three gifts God gives each of us that allow for some degree of self-understanding. Identity, the staff told of Moses position in the community. Income, lets face it, when we are identified in the community, everybody had a general idea of how much we are worth, at least in the world’s eyes. Influence, position carries with it the ability to influence. The words that keep ringing in my ears are “what is in your hand?” I do not know how to answer that? What unique skills, abilities and talents do I have “in my hands” and how is God calling me to use them? What is it I need to put down to allow God to use?

Lastly, God’s instructions were going to be darned inconvenient and costly. I have some understanding of this. I have never taken a significant raise to change ministry positions. A couple of times I have even moved backwards financially. Where I am now I am moving backwards with astounding consistency. I have not even received enough of a raise in the three years I’ve been here to make up for the rise in fuel costs to get to work. Moses was about to sacrifice stability for insecurity. Sure he had a tough job, but working for Jethro had its advantages. There was food, shelter, a warm bed and a wife to come home to. I can’t even imagine the conversation with his wife when he told her a bush told him to go back to Egypt and get a few hundred thousand people and walk across the desert to a “promised land.” This isn’t the life of the prosperity gospel proponents. This is a life of costly discipleship.

So, where does that leave me? In the desert I’m afraid, trying to figure out what is in my hand and waiting on God’s sense of timing. Every time I think that God is giving me a sign, it turns into a disappointment. We are humans are ‘meaning makers.’ We create meaning even when there is nothing there. Perhaps that is what I have been doing, trying to make meaning and get direction. I guess I’ll just keep wandering.

I must say, I’m a little sheepish about the prospects. I remain:

Consumed by the Call,
Marty Cauley

Gracious God, give me the strength to live in the desert with the sheep and to see the burning bush when you put it in my path. In the name of the One who calls us to follow, Jesus, I pray. Amen.

Profit or Prophet: Measuring Ministry by the Bottom Line

Beginning Dec. 1 where I currently serve we will begin measuring ministry by the bottom line. Everything we do will be weighed on a profit or loss spreadsheet. How often is ministry profitable? How often do people generate profit by raising money for missions or serving youth? Are we simply feeding the consumerist nature of our culture by making ministry another commodity to be bought and sold?

I live to make a difference in people’s life. I know where my heart is, and it is in helping people realize and go after their God-shaped destiny. I love to see the light go on and the passion ignited when somebody realizes the amazing impact each of us can have upon the world. My call is realized when dozens of youth kneel at an altar of worship to declare themselves fully devoted followers of Christ. My call is affirmed when I consult with a congregation and a church awakens to the fact that they exist for something beyond their walls. They exist to serve and save the world. The world around the globe and the world right outside their doors.

In 1992 I left the “for profit” world. I left to follow my heart’s call and serve God in vocational ministry. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are amazingly effective “ministers” in every vocation. There are those who serve God best in auto body shops, in sales, in executive positions and in political office. My calling, however, was to equip those saints to serve. To spend the capital investment of my life pouring into others so that they could do ministry wherever God called them. Essentially I traded “for profit” to be a prophet.

Now I am at the place again. Maybe I had been in denial up until today. Maybe I had not fully realized the direction of the organization, but today as I read a briefing on “rebranding” and saw that my email address would change from a “.org” to a “.com” it struck me that I would be working for a company and not a ministry. That is rather disturbing because what companies do is serve their customers for the primary purpose of making a profit. The profit becomes the goal, the reason they exist, the central factor in all decisions. Microsoft doesn’t measure changed lives and Target doesn’t count professions of faith, they count dollars. These companies even make a selling point out of their contributions back to the community. Most recently Target has been saying, essentially, shop here and by doing so help your community. Another example of commodifying consumerism.

Awareness always generates the need for a decision. Can I sacrifice being prophetic for profit? Can I measure my ministry by the bottom line? I hear the words of Jesus ringing in my ears, “"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money.” Matthew 6:23-25

Gracious God, who calls us to be in the world but not of the world, guide me in discerning what is profitable and what is prophetic. In the name of the one who gave the ultimate sacrifice, Jesus, I pray. Amen

Painful Worship

I have discovered why the mainline church is in decline. I have made a revolutionary discovery! I have uncovered the problem that, if solved, could reverse the drain upon local church attendance and return them to vitality and effective ministry. The problem is painful worship.

There was a time, even before I was a minister, that I had the philosophy that I didn’t “have to go to church,” I “got to go to church.” That worship was the most exciting and empowering part of my week. To gather with a body of believers who were radically devoted to following Jesus, who sang songs of praise with passion and intensity, who listened intently as the Word was preached with integrity and interest caused my heart to leap. I knew that my life would be challenged, my soul stirred and my eternal perspective restored allowing me to face another week as a disciple. I am afraid that those days are gone.

I have visited literally dozens of churches, mostly United Methodist and almost all mainline. In nearly every one of them worship is simply painful. Either the music is so bad that earplugs should be issued upon entrance or the people so distant and internally focused that it felt as though I was invisible or the preaching so disjointed and disconnected it could not possibly be called a sermon. My most recent experience was to hear a twenty minute (which felt like an eternity) lecture on being prepared for a disaster. That I should have six months of income in my savings account, gallons of water in my basement and lots of canned food on hand in case of emergency. I spent the entire message waiting for it to come back to the scriptural text or relate to living life as a faithful disciple but it didn’t. Richard Lischer of Duke Divinity School always said make sure you know how you are going to end your message, then you will always know where you are going. This preacher (dare I say he was preaching?) just abruptly stopped, no conclusion or challenge, just lurched to a homiletically disconnected ending about like slamming on brakes in the middle of the highway. It is a good thing too because I was just about to fall asleep.

So how do we overcome painful worship. I have a few suggestions that you can take with a grain of salt.

1) Do what you do well. This sounds obvious but at church we insist on doing things we do badly, over and over again. If your music isn’t strong, limit it. If you can’t do children’s messages, then don’t. We all have strengths and weaknesses. We spend way too much time trying to become average at our weaknesses when we should focus on becoming excellent at our strengths.

2) If you preach poorly, preach briefly. How do you know if you don’t preach well? Have somebody you trust will tell you the truth to evaluate you (not your spouse or your mom, they will lie!). We are not all great preachers and that is okay, we all have different pastoral gifts. If preaching is not your primary gift, find ways to make it bearable for your parishioners. Focus on the text, preach the Word clearly and succinctly. The Word will not return void!

3) Do not embarrass guests. I could not believe that the pastoral team wanted my wife and I to raise our hands so everybody would know who the first time guests were, as if they didn’t already. In this small church we had already been visited by both pastors, the president of the United Methodist Men, a representative from United Methodist women and four other random people. It was clear that we were outsiders. Then, from the pulpit during announcements, they wanted us to raise our hands. I am a church person and I don’t like being pointed out, can you imagine what it would feel like for somebody just test driving their faith to be singled out in a group and pointed to? Most people want to blend into a crowd the first time, not be given special attention. Acknowledge the with personal contact not impersonal pointing!

4) Watch the “Metho-speak.” My wife was raised Roman Catholic and still has trouble translating into Methodist language or “Metho-speak.” The bulletins at the churches we have visited were full of it. Women’s groups called “circles,” charge conferences and interior names for committee meetings. If you are going to print it, explain it. If you don’t need to print it, then don’t. Please do not fill up fifteen minutes with self-serving, internal announcements. Nothing turns an outsider off more than the feeling of being an outsider.

We are killing ourselves by unawareness. We are dying the death of oblivion. I do not think fixing these obvious problems will suddenly cause massive United Methodist revival, but I do think they will keep us from scaring away the people who want to learn more about us. Worship should not be painful! Worship is the time when we set aside time to gather with God’s people and enter into God’s presence. It should be a time of awe and inspiration, not aggravation and napping. God forgive me for all of the painful worship services that I may have planned without taking time to consider the eternal consequences that the service might have upon those in attendance. I remain:

Consumed by the Call,

Gracious God, who calls us to gather, give our praise, bring our sacrifice and worship you fully, grant that we who are given charge of your precious children may take seriously their care and devote ourselves to helping them encounter you faithfully and frequently in worship. In the name of the one we worship and adore, Jesus, I pray. Amen.

The Sin of Acceptable Segregation

Acceptance of diversity is a myth. I am coming to believe that when the church says it is “accepting of diversity” what it is really saying is that it is practicing acceptable segregation. As I have been reading Jonathon Kozol I have become increasingly aware of our willingness to practice acceptable segregation. To segregate and silence the voices of those who we do not want to hear. To set aside the lives of the poor, the abused and the addicted and to discount any concern they may present.

I was raised poor. Working poor. Free lunch poor. Turn in bottles for dimes poor. Diversity in my neighborhood wasn’t an option it was a fact of life. You didn’t embrace it, you lived it. People who were different than you, who saw life through different eyes than you lived next door, down the street and around the block. Even though we lived in close proximity, worked in the same places and attended the same schools we parted ways in our relationships. We lived together but we didn’t play together. We worked together but we did not worship together. We practiced acceptable segregation.

Tolerance is un-Christian. Tolerance is the root of acceptable segregation. No where did Jesus instruct us to tolerate one another. Jesus told us to love one another. Love is a conscious, directed act of the will that involves decision and sacrifice. It is wrapped in empathy and centered in respect. Tolerance, on the other hand, is usually wrapped in disdain and centered in mistrust. Tolerance is what leads to acceptable segregation. It allows us to exist together without ever letting our lives touch, much less intersect. Tolerance allows for keeping people in their place, which usually means out of the way and in the background. As a matter of fact the church should be the most intolerant place on earth. It should be intolerant of racism. It should be intolerant of sexism. It should be intolerant of classism. It should be intolerant of injustice, prejudice and paternalism. Tolerance is what allows these things to continue, even to thrive.

So what are we to do? We who strive to be faithful followers of Jesus, what is our response to acceptable segregation? I believe we need to follow the example that Jesus set. First of all we elevate people as creations made in the very image of God. Jesus constantly and consistently elevated people above their social status based upon gender, class or race. Women became heralds, servants became masters and Samaritans became heroes. Secondly we must embrace people as equals. We must realize that their eternal value is exactly the same as our own, regardless of their status, skin color or standing. Jesus died for them just like Jesus died for us. Lastly we must encounter people who are different than us. We have to see them. We are selectively blind. There is somebody in your life, and in my life, who is invisible because they make us uncomfortable. It is time to open our eyes to our acceptable segregation.

I have a few heroes in my life and one of them is Laura Early. Laura refuses to practice acceptable segregation. She elevates people most of us don’t even see, she embraces them with complete, unconditional love and encounters them every day of her life. She weaves her story, the story of a middle class, well educated white women, in with their stories. Stories of impoverished children, invisible minorities and battered persons struggling with addiction. She sees Jesus in everyone she meets, even people like me who sometimes think they have risen above their circumstances.

Gracious God help me to see others like Jesus sees all of us. As divine creations of an ever-loving Creator. Forgive me for the practice of acceptable segregation in my life and guide me to practice a life of love. In the name of the One who made heroes out of Samaritans, Jesus, I pray. Amen.

David vs. Goliath...kinda

So when I heard that the Miracle Theater in Pigeon Forge, Tn. was taking on Kathy Griffin after she insulted most of mainline Christianity the other night on the Emmy's I was surprised. It is not often a business, any business, takes on anything the least bit controversial. Kudos to them for actually taking a stand, especially as an organization that does a Passion Play as its centerpiece.

If you would like to see their HUGE USA Today ad or sign their petition against discrimination against Christians visit http://miracletheater.com/

I remain:

Consumed by the Call,
Marty

On Love & Work

We spend most of our time pursuing our vocation and yet most of our art focuses on love. This is the core revelation I have had today. I have watched a few movies this weekend with my wife, Danelle, and it occurred to me as we watch Becoming Jane how much of our art is about love. It weaves its way into visual arts, plays a significant role on the stage and screen, its melodic vitues and tales of its trial and tribulation fill our IPODS and airways. Even the great stories illustrated by ballet and dance are centered upon the pursuit, acquisition and continuance of love. Yet in our daily lives, how much time do we spend maintaining or nurturing love.

Most of our time is filled by the pursuit of vocation and the acquisition of resources by which we “make a living.” But is making a living the same as making a life. We spend more than two thousand hours a year working. Whether it is sitting behind a desk, shuffling paper or doing back breaking labor, far more of our time is spent working than loving.

Not only does work sap us of time, it drains us of joy. How many meetings have your truly left with a profound sense of joy about what has just occurred? How many days to you rise out of bed and count the moments until you can be at work? Our identity is wrapped up in our position and success at work and yet work is a fickle mistress. One day you feel as though you are on the top of your game, making sacrifice after sacrifice for its pleasure only to discover that she is equally pursuing others. Actually, she prefers others regardless of your sacrifice. You, who have wrapped your identity in your vocation, are then left alone, sitting at your desk wondering why you made these sacrifices to begin with. On the sidelines you see love, sacrificed upon the altar of vocation.

Can you imagine what a relationship would be if it received two thousand hours annually of nurture and care? How much more joy would be in our lives should we devote more time to love than to vocation? To relationships that will survive the fickle hand of vocational downsizing and re-alignment. After suffering from yet another vocational disappointment I am beginning to think that my life would be better invested in love and in work.

Problems or Heroic Opportunities

I hate problems. I grow tired of solving problems. I especially hate other peoples problems that become my problems. But here is what I know about problems, they are usually heroic opportunities. If you help somebody solve a problem, if you create solutions where there don’t seem to be any or find ways around obstacles you become a hero. Now you are not a hero in the Supeman understanding of heroes, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, but to the person who was struggling you become a hero. A hero is defined as, “a person who, in the opinion of others, has heroic qualities or has performed a heroic act.” It is, therefore, a matter of perception. Some people see problems as obstacles, others as heroic opportunities. Some see them as a chance to pass the buck or avoid work or find an easy way out, others as a chance to “make some one’s day” or improve the lives of others, even if for only a short time.

My friend Tawana looks for heroic opportunities. When a problem lands in her lap, she marshals her resources, makes phone calls and does everything within her power, and sometimes beyond her power, to solve the problem. Some of the problems may be small, like helping a youth worker find a computer to use to check email from home or making sure their room has extra towels, but other problems can be much more serious. Like the time when one of our speakers needed a glucometer to check their blood sugar because they were diabetic or when a staff member was struggling with problems at home. In either situation she saw their problem as her problem and found ways around obstacles to find solutions.

I know another person, Jim Mousemount we will call him (not his real name) whose primary talent if finding problems and complaining about his problems. Then, instead of finding solutions, he attempts to pass the buck. He doesn’t see a problem as a heroic opportunity as much as a chance to fall short and make excuses. “We don’t have enough money.” “We don’t have enough staff.” He has a “we don’t” attitude and it infects everybody he comes into contact with. What is particularly aggravating is when the organization he works for internal problems become problems for their clients. When, instead of finding creative solutions, he attempts to pass his problem along to the person who is paying him to solve the problem. This, my friends, IS a problem!

I have this ridiculous notion that a client’s problem should be our problem and that our internal problems should NEVER be the client’s problem. That the reason they come to us is to help them find solutions and to provide them with answers to their needs. and their problems If we fail to be creators of solutions then we will have a problem, since then our clients/customers will find another place to solve their problems.

So, where does that leave us? It leaves us in positions to become heroes. I demands that we find creative solutions, explore unheard of ideas and open the box of our minds to possibilities that have never been tried before. Like I said earlier, I hate problems, but I love heroic opportunities.

Missing Church

On Saturday I visited St. Lukes United Methodist Church, Lubbock, Texas. I stood in the sanctuary. I stood in the sanctuary, like many other sanctuaries built in the 1970’s with is wooden curved pews and comfortable cushions, its rich new carpet and hardwood altar. It smelled clean, like polished wood and candles and had the feel of three decades of prayer soaked into its beams. There was a giant cross and a choir loft off to one side that seems to be waiting for the resonating sound of the baby grand piano to strike a worshipful chord. The rich, dark wood pulpit with etched cross stood on the left with the communion table centered against the wall under the cross. I could not bring myself to climb the six or seven steps up to the chancel area and look out over the congregational seating feeling that its pull may overwhelm me. I sat in the third row and just listened to the stillness of the worship space that would fill with worshippers less than twenty four hours from then. I sat there a few moments until I saw something drop upon the legs of my slacks and realized it was tears from my eyes. Then I felt the hot tears streaming down my face as I sat there waiting upon my host to do some last minute tasks to prepare to lead music the following morning. I got up and went out into the foyer to insure that he did not see me in such a state. I stood there looking out the front door at the weathered parking lot and tried to get myself back together.

I sat down this morning and tried to figure out why I had that response to being in a church. I have been in dozens of churches in the past three years since I left the pulpit to work at Lake Junaluska. There was something familiar about the place, something about the way it looked and smelled that triggered some powerful pastoral memories. Whether it was the look of Trinity UMC in New Bern or how it smelled like the sanctuary at Trinity UMC in Fayetteville or just how it felt to be in a church that really felt like a church again? I am not sure. So, I made a list of what I miss, and don’t miss about pasturing a local church.

Things I don’t miss:
• Contentious church members.
• Endless meetings.
• Charge conference forms.
• Colleagues with a competitive mindset about ministry, always comparing worship attendance and offering numbers.
• Proofreading bulletins.
• Vacation interruptions.
• Budget meetings.
• Tax headaches.
• Hospital visits at 2 a.m.
• Temperamental music leaders and staff conflict.

Things I miss:
• Knee hugs from children on Sunday.
• The smell of fresh flowers in the sanctuary.
• The taste of communion bread soaked in grape juice.
• Rehearsing and rewriting my sermon in an empty sanctuary on Friday or Saturday afternoons.
• Doing funerals for the saints of the church.
• The smell of infants on the morning of their baptism.
• The hugs of new members who found a church that they can feel loved and accepted in.
• Reading Christmas stories to pajama clad children before Christmas Eve worship.
• Good Friday worship ending in darkness and bolting the door.
• Weekly Eucharist and holding the loaf up and breaking it.
• The rhythm of the church year.
• The pressure to write a better sermon this week than last week, fifty-two times a year.
• Writing sermons in coffee houses and asking myself at the end of all the work, “so what?”

My call is here, now. So here I will serve until Christ leads me to another place. Until then I remain:

Consumed by the Call,
Marty

God, who makes the rough path smooth, and the winding path straight, grant me the ability to be fully present in the ministry I am living out right now. Show me what you would have me to do and be and keep me from vain ambition or change for the sake of change. Light my path with the light of the One who knows the way, Jesus. In whose name I pray. Amen.

Highest and Best Calling

Arlene Hewitt sat in her office one particularly reflective, dreary afternoon and said, “So I often wonder, is this the highest and best calling for this time in my life?” We had been discussing our work and our institutional frustration, irritation with bureaucracy and just the vocational angst that often accompanies those in ministry. If she had taken out a sock, put a brick in it and hit me in the head it would have been no less jarring. That was an incredible question. The question is far deeper than it initially seems.

First, is what I am doing my highest and best calling? Is it the most God-honoring thing I can be doing (highest) and is it the most effective use of my time (best)? What would the highest calling look like? Would it be constantly certain that I was in the presence of God in all that I do?

My highest calling, it would seem, would be actions that lead to eternal results. I mean, my job is to engage youth and young adults in matters related to their spiritual formation facilitate significant faith decisions and put them on the road to being fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ. That seems pretty significant, even if I rarely get to actually see the fruits of my labor. I have stacks of commitment cards from last summer indicating that serious decisions were made, yet the question remains, is this the highest calling for my life? Is this the vocation that resonates with my heart song?

Next, is it my best calling? Am I doing what I can do most effectively to yield eternal results? Does ordering two-thousand Hawaiian leis count as a spiritual venture? Am I playing to my strengths and fully engaging my spiritual gifts? A lot of what I do does seem counter-intuitive to my gifts. I spend a lot of time in meetings and doing administrative tasks which are certainly not life-giving for me. Additionally, I spend precious little time communicating and teaching. Being one whose primary joy of the local church was the time I spent leading Bible study or preaching each week, it seems that I don’t often get to do what I used to love to do. Actually, I have even begun to doubt my abilities in these areas, partially from being out of practice I am certain, and also due to simple exhaustion. Is this my best calling?

The other part of the question is just as impactful as the first. When she said “for this time in my life,” it called into account our mortality. How often do I live my life certain of tomorrow? I’m not being morbid but I do have to realize that at 42 I am more than half done with the active, functional time of my life. Let’s say I make it to mandatory retirement for the United Methodist Church, 72. I essentially have only thirty years to make whatever mark upon this world I will make. When you are sixteen, thirty years seems like a lifetime. When you are 42 it looks significantly shorter.

There are books to read and, maybe, books to write. There are sunrises to see break through the dark of night and reflect upon God’s continual testimony of hope. There is laughter to share and tears to shed. So, is this the highest and best calling for my life right now? I honestly don’t know. I do know that it is what I am called to do at this moment and I will continue to honor that calling until God shed light upon the next path I am to travel because I continue to struggle and remain:

Consumed by the Call,

Marty

Gracious God, lead me in Your highest and best calling for my life for this time in my life, in the name of the One who lived that out with every breath, Jesus, I pray. Amen

Vocational Redemption

What is the most important result of your work? At the end of the day, week, month or year, if you have accomplished X then you will know that all of the time and effort has been worth the sacrifice. Is it a positive number at the bottom of the profit and loss statement? Is that the most important thing? Is it the lives that have been improved by your product, service, church or ministry? Is it the building of a building or the care of the poor? What is the most important result of your work?

You don’t know do you? Most of us don’t. We are seldom given clear direction and information about what we should consider vital and essential to our daily tasks. That is highly frustrating, especially for those of us Type A personalities that like clear objectives and goals. We spend nearly 2,000 hours a year (more for us work-a-holics) at our vocation without clear institutional priorities. Our supervisors try to give us “pep talks” and motivate us but their objectives are ambiguous. Yes profit is important, but so is quality and service. Of course we want you to make other’s lives better and serve the poor, but only if a profit can be generated in the process. Make disciples and make money, yeah, that’s your objective. We have carefully crafted mission statements, purpose statements, and value statements. We then have statements about our statements. Definitions about the words in our statements, reformatted vision statements. Most of these statements in placed carefully on the cover of a three ring binder or hanging on the wall over the entrance or water fountain and promptly forgotten. Then we go back to work and try to please everyone, customers, supervisors, CEOs and board members, never quite sure who is the most important master because it changes by the day.

Didn’t Jesus say something about not being able to serve two masters? Don’t I recall something about you will love the one and hate the other? He didn’t define which was the “right one” and which was the “wrong one,” just that one will resonate with your heart song and the other will annoy you and cause you heartburn.

So what is the answer? If we aren’t going to get a divine pronouncement from above about what is vital and essential, what do we do? There are a few things we can do to help us keep the main thing, the main thing.

• Focus on your passionate strengths: Marcus Buckingham does a great job teaching people to play to their strengths. He advises us that we should spend 50-80% of our day doing things that “strengthen us.” We should do things that we love, that resonate with our heart song, that are the reason you took the job in the first place. Now very few people can spend all of their time playing to their strengths, as he says, that’s why they call it work. But if we can spend some significant time each day doing things, activities, tasks and building relationships that we enjoy and are passionate about, it makes the other stuff bearable.

• Define what is important to you: This is key. If nothing you do during your daily existence really seems important and vital to you, then you either need to reformat your vocation or change it. You can starve your soul to death by simply doing things that drain it and empty it day after day. If it doesn’t matter then why is it being done? The days I feel best when I return home are the days when I feel like I have accomplished something important. It might just be one thing, one phone call, one contact, one task, but that one thing was important to me and it puts the rest of the day in perspective. On the contrary, on the days when I go home without feeling like anything I did mattered, like I just went through the motions and filled the seat behind my desk, then I feel worthless.

• Plan your day: You need to know your rhythms. Are you a morning person? Then do what you love at the time you are best, save the email and mundane tasks for your least productive time of the day. I am freshest and most productive in the morning. That is when I need to do things that require my utmost attention. I go into a slump around 2 pm. That is when I should answer mundane email, go through the mail and do things I dread. Why waste my optimal time doing the most dreaded tasks. But that is exactly what we do isn’t it? We go into work, if we are morning people, full of caffeine and energy for the day and then get bogged down with email and busy work, forgetting to utilize our best hours of our most enjoyed tasks. Master your day, make a plan.

So, how do I deal with lack of real, institutional priorities? I have to set personal priorities and work from there. Working from my strengths, knowing what is important to me personally and making an action plan will redeem the time and allow me to deal with the frustration of the lack of true institutional priorities. So my goals will be:
• To spend the first hour at my desk writing and reflecting every day.
• Begin defining the task that is most important for me to do that feeds me each day.
• Spend fifteen minutes each day to maximize the important and minimize the mundane.

How about you?

Consumed by the Call,
Marty
Gracious God, who grants me 1,440 minutes each and every day, help me to live in the awareness that You should define what is most important in my day and help me live in the shadow of your will. In the name of the One who lived every day on purpose, Jesus the Christ, I pray. Amen

Theological Foundations of Ministry with Young People
To navigate the passage from attempting to do ministry in the middle to transformational ministry with young people a theological foundation is essential. A well-defined theological foundation provides the under girding for solid transformational ministry. Being United Methodist, the appropriate beginning of a solid theological foundation begins with finding the balance and living in the tension between Scripture and reason, tradition and experience. It must fight the tendency, especially in youth ministry, to polarize the two opposing ideas that salvation and spiritual maturity comes from “faith alone,” often represented by emotionally made decisions during events and rallies, and “holy living” and mission activity, where social justice and righteous causes are substituted for real faith development. Therefore, my theological foundation has five key components:

1. Graceful: grounded in grace and the realization of God’s unconditional love toward all of humanity.
2. Incarnational: beliefs and practices that reinforce the imago dei, the understanding that all of humanity is created in the image of God.
3. Transformational: willing to embrace and struggle with mystery.
4. Missional: balancing proclamation of the gospel and social action.
5. Communal: formed in the context of community where the whole people of God are welcomed.

Grace, God’s unconditional and underserved love toward humanity is foundational for a theology that will govern ministry at the crossroad. It is at its most basic, “God’s gracious activity…has been and is being offered to every human being.” Being grounded in grace means, as Lesslie Newbigin wrote, “we shall expect, look for, and welcome all the signs of the grace of God at work in the lives of those who do not know Jesus as Lord.” This theology embraces that understanding that God is already working in the lives of those outside of our “camp” or “group” and is present and beckoning every person, indeed all of humanity, into a relationship with God through Jesus. A relationship that is welcoming and stable in a world of instability. A theology of grace that expresses God’s desire to be in a real, intentional and ever-present relationship stands as an answer for the acute pain of abandonment so often felt by emerging generations. Grace, as God’s self constantly and consistently extended as love toward humanity, fills in the void left by human relationships and their inherent frailties. A theological foundation that is graceful embraces God’s continual movement toward humanity.
Not only is grace essential to a theology that serves in the crossroad, but also so is the understanding that all of humanity is created in the very image of God. Indeed, practicing the idea of imago dei requires that it is understood that we see something of God in every heart, hear something of God in every voice. That Psalm 139’s voice rings in our ear that God knows every person from his or her mother’s womb. That every person is known by God fully and completely and is not beyond God’s constant and consistent love and concern. A theological foundation that affirms the presence of the imago dei in all of humanity affirms its presence in the most difficult individual. It embraces them with the same unconditional love and affirms the presence of God, pre-existent in their life, no matter what their actions or life-choices may indicate. Indeed, as Dean reminds us, “the imago dei remains faint but visible.” Essentially “to every human life God is antecedently and enablingly present.” Our theology must recognize God’s presence in all of humanity, but more vitally, in each individual. An incarnational theological foundation seeks and find’s God’s presence even in, perhaps especially in, those far from God.
The struggle with mystery and transformation is vital element in a solid theological foundation for youth and young adult ministry. It allows and embraces a struggling with mystery and realizes that true transformation is a work of God. The mystery involves that struggle that occurs through the transformational nature of the sacraments where God’s presence is evident and encountered in ways that are not rationally explained. In the Eucharist, for example, there is “a physical taking of bread and wine, and a spiritual appropriation of the true body and blood of the Lord.” The struggle with mystery means that, particularly with young people, we may be “moved ecstatically beyond the boundaries of the self to the posture of awe.” The embracing of mystery allows us to “fill the existential cavern—Pascal called it a ‘god shaped void’: that is present in every person. The pursuit of transcendence and the seeking of the eminent presence of God in us and through us can only be found by embracing mystery. It is in the embracing of mystery and the allowance that everything of God is not so easily explained where transformation occurs as an essential element of a sound theological foundation.
In addition to struggling with mystery, a theological foundation of ministry with young people must be missional in nature. It is easy to focus on the experiential and powerful expression of ministry that mystery provides and neglect the moving beyond self to self-sacrifice. To balance this, a solid theological foundation of ministry must strive to form missionaries and not simply spiritual consumers. Reflecting back to the need for this theology to be graceful in practice, to be missional is the realization that God’s grace comes through “words and deeds that [meets] the person’s deepest needs and [offers] that person salvation.” By missional in nature, the practice should not be the self-serving practices where we are actually “meeting our own needs (wanting to feel good about what we do) rather than truly serving others.” Often, especially in youth ministry, activities reinforce the idea that we have a “superior sense of what the world needs.” “We have to affirm that redemption is never salvation out of this world (salus e mundo) but always salvation of this world (salus mundi). Being missional requires that we respond to two central “mandates.” They are “the commission to announce the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ; the second calls Christians to responsible participation in human society including working for human well-being and justice.”
Lastly, a solid theological foundation of ministry must be communal in practice. This, like the call to be missional in nature, is a counter-cultural ideal. It must move beyond a religion of me that reinforces the consumerist nature of our culture to seeing the individual as part of a greater, divine whole. The theology must struggle with the revelation that no one is self-made. Indeed, as Stanley Grenz writes in A Primer on Postmodernism, “Individuals come to knowledge only by way of a cognitive framework mediated by the community in which they participate.” We are formed and transformed by a God who models living in perfect community and whose story is the foundation of our belief. Community, by its very existence, invites the sharing of stories. A crossroad theology is one where our stories are shared. We, as the people of God are called to be narrators of our stories, or as Newbigin states, “The human story is one which we share with all other human beings—past, present, and to come.” It is these stories, shared in the midst of community that is the locus for transformation. “God’s chosen location for transformation is the Christian community.”
A theology of ministry at the crossroad holds many factors in tension. It strives to be graceful, incarnational, transformational, missional, and communal. It is a theology that is informed by scripture, honors traditional, allows reasonable discussion and doubt and allows credibility to be given to the experiential nature of faith. All of these factors mold a solid theological foundation for ministry with young people.

Ministry in the Middle

Today I had a revelation about why real ministry is so hard. It is hard because it involves living in constant tension. It is what I am beginning to call “ministry in the middle.” Ministry in the middle requires that you stand treacherously in the middle of a four quadrant plane and attempt to balance seemingly opposite forces delicately so as to be both effective and faithful.

The first balancing act is between sound, orthodox theology and pragmatism. To do ministry in our postmodern, deconstructed culture there must be a balance found between right teaching (orthodoxy) and practicality. If one errs on the side of being overly traditional, the messages and ministries of the congregation are completely irrelevant to the community. On the other hand, if one sacrifices foundational beliefs to connect with the community, then the integrity of the community is at stake. Real ministry has to be both theologically grounded and practically designed.

The second set of scales balances the mysterious and transformational nature of the sacrament with the desire to be culturally relevant. If you become overly focused on the mysterious and sacramental nature of ministry, you loose all contact with the world beyond your monastic walls. On the other hand, if you become so culturally relevant and “hip” that you loose all sense of mystery because your are busy being “in the world” you loose footing on your faith and end up doing ministry by holy sound “to do” lists and end up with a self-help philosophy rather than a transcendent faith.

So we stand in the middle. Being pulled by four forces that we must hold in tension. Keep the faith and hold fast to ministry in the middle.

Peace,
Marty

Gracious God of tensions who lived in divine tension give me strength to be both theologically sound and practical, to be both sacramental and relevant so that Your Son Jesus might reach me and mine for You. In the name of the Savior who held humanity and divinity in tension I pray. Amen.

Work and Worth

I get my self worth from my work. I’m not proud of that, it has been a constant struggle since I can remember. I started working when I was thirteen, scraping dozens of black-green shutters in ninety-degree weather for about $2 an hour. I hated the work, but I needed money for school clothes and, at the end of the day, there was something that was different in the world because I exerted effort. School was, or maybe still is, the same way for me. Worth is derived from the papers produced and the grades earned. While my grades were never perfect, they were always good. The effort produced a positive result. It was measurable and determinable.

I liked things that were measurable when I was growing up. I liked things that stayed the same and could be understood. So much of my life was not understandable. I didn’t understand why I was the only kid in my class with no dad in the house (or at least it seemed that way), why we never had money to do the fun stuff or why I sat in the library during class trips (also because there was no money). Life was complicated, but work, work was simple and understandable. By the time I was in fifth grade, I began to understand that the marks on the report card were definitely correlative to the effort you put forth. I hated vocabulary tests and math tests, but I would spend hours making flash cards, memorizing facts and figures trying to get the best grade possible. Maybe then my life would be better. Isn’t that the deal? If you get good grades you grow up to be a success, have plenty of money, live in a big house and buy what you want?

All through high school, I continued on fostering my addiction to work and its support of my worth. I found other ways to work, I could join clubs, work with the student council, participate in plays and choral ensembles, all while working thirty hours a week at a grocery store and trying to keep my grades up. I was busy, and I equated busy with valuable.

I still work hard and find myself believing that how productive I am equates to my self worth. That financial remuneration equals value. Since I have been working with SEJMYP I have had to have a gut check on that, however. For two of the years I have been here we have had a freeze on raises, not even give cost of living raises. For somebody that grew up believing the harder you worked the more you would get paid, this has been a hard blow. Does lack of financial reward equate to worthlessness?

Additionally, results in this job are hard to measure. When you do events, you never see if there are any long-term results. You do everything you can to facilitate life-changing decisions, but you don’t get to go home with the youth and see if they stuck. You negotiate contracts, go to meetings, plan and implement the plan with no ability to determine whether your job matters, whether my job matters.

Of course, this is not different from pastoral ministry. My days in the parish had a similar ring. Change in the hearts and minds of a congregation, or an individual for that matter, are often slow to manifest themselves and when you are closest to them you can see it the least. Those of us in ministry, heavily influenced by the American culture of productivity feel as though we need to produce a product rather than facilitate discipleship. In the church I attend the pastor spent last Sunday describing a cold mechanical process that the church was implementing for stamping out disciples. He used the metaphor of the Toyota plant he recently visited and how they stamp out cars out of sheet metal. I don’t want to be stamped.

So how should worth be measured? I think that perhaps it should be measured by proximity to the Holy One of God. The closer I get to Jesus, the more aligned I will be with what God wants me to be about. That is so much easier said than done. It requires a re-writing of a forty-plus year old internal script. It requires a re-centering of my life. It requires a re-alignment of my focus. For me not to measure my value with my paycheck and the numbers who show up at the events I arrange will be a radical departure from my definition of success. I am not sure I can do it and I know that the process will not be fast. It will be slow and painful but if it can be done, I will be closer to God than I have ever been before. Until then I will struggle with finding my worth in my work. I remain:

Consumed by the Call,
Marty

Gracious God who defines us as Your children and as keepers of the Imageo Dei, give the ability to re-define who I am by your measure. In the name of the Holy One of God, Jesus, I pray, amen.

Youth Culture: Struggle, Identity and Community

Youth culture is about struggle. It is a complex confluence of historical influences, societal forces, developmental stage and the need to settle two primary needs in the young person’s life, the need for identity and the need for community. This confluence of forces has created a youth culture that forms and shapes youth into seemingly indecisive, self-absorbed individuals who can maintain seemingly opposite views and beliefs simultaneously. They are struggling to self-identify and to discover a place in community where they fit. “Youth culture,” therefore, it literally a season of struggle.

Historically, the move from childhood to adulthood has been much clearer than it is today. With the removal of rites of passage and clear lines of demarcation, the adolescent is often left to self-determine the definition of adulthood. While certain lines are still part of the overarching culture, such as obtaining a driver’s license and the ability to vote, we have moved away from a definitive mark of adulthood. To complicate the loss of lines of transition, the Baby Boomer generation grew up as the first group of young people with time and money to waste, the ability to delay, as long as possible the acceptance of adult responsibilities and the ease and availability of dependable birth control. The current youth culture is the product and offspring of the Baby Boomers. They have continued the pattern to delay adulthood as long as possible. It is now acceptable to delay the acceptance of full adult responsibilities until the late twenties or early thirties. What this means to youth culture is that they have the “privileges” of being an adult (ability to drink, have sex, etc.) without the previous generations constraints (marriage, children, mortgage, etc.). They can put off commitment and obligation for more than a decade. The struggle that used to last only a couple of years to make the breakthrough to adulthood can now last a decade and a half. That is a long time to struggle.

Societal forces also influence the youth culture that emphasizes struggle. Society rewards accomplishment. Standardized testing focuses on measurable, concrete objectives rather than abstract thinking. At the same time, society is formed by the non-competitive ideals of the 1960’s & 1970’s where everybody wins and everybody is “special.” There are exceptions to every rule. Even though everybody is “special” there are always those that are more “special” and who get privileged treatment. Societal structures have proven, like family structures, to be unreliable and inconsistent. Their struggle continues as they attempt to determine what is fair and just amidst changing societal targets of success. The seeming invincibility of the United States was threatened by a small band of radicals. The President “gets away” with having oral sex with an intern. Society speaks about consequences but inconsistently applies them. There is always an exception. Youth culture is fueled by the tension between everyone winning and there being only one winner, between non-competitive sports one day and high school coaches encouraging victory at all costs the next. The struggle continues.

The adolescent life stage is also a time of struggle. The hormonal changes, occurring younger and younger, along with improved physical health and early maturation prove to force the young person into appearing more mature than they actually are. They struggle with an unparalleled level of sexual temptation fueled by dozens of sexualized images per day in media. While they seem physically to be an adult, the delay in their cognitive functioning and inability to think abstractly means they have the ability for sexually function like an adult without the full awareness of all the consequences, emotionally, spiritually or psychologically. This combined with the normal move of personal allegiance from parents to peers, as part of the adolescent stage of life, creates even greater struggles. They struggle with parental boundaries and peer influences.

Lastly, the struggle culminates in the tension between the young person’s need to discover their own identity and their need for community. Clark is partially right when he observes that youth culture is a reaction to abandonment. Young people are looking for stable structures after watching both familial and societal structures crumble. They are desperate to discover a holistic community of hope and care that will embrace them for who they are without the desire to sell them something or make them into idealistic clones. While struggling to find community they are also struggling to discover their own identity. To find the person they are and where they are truly unique in the world. How is it that they can be so different from everyone else and so much the same? How can they feel so alone in the world and be surrounded by others sojourning on the same path? They cluster to find community. They blog, pierce and tattoo to express identity.

Youth culture is struggle. Struggle with maturation, socialization, historical forces and the need to find identity and community. It is struggle and crisis. Out of the struggle will come adults who will face the world either fearfully or fearlessly, but the season of struggle cannot be avoided.

The Starbucks Experience
Lessons We All Could Learn From Coffee!

By my own admission I am not a Starbucks fan. I usually prefer the funky, fair-trade coffee shop to the large chain. This book The Starbucks Experience, though, has really opened my eyes to the total package of a large corporation Starbucks represents. The more I read this text, authored by Joseph A. Michelli, the more passionate I become about the importance of this book, both in my work at Lake Junaluska, but also about how the Church works to connect with those normally outside of its bounds. This book is a word in due season, not only for businesses struggling to understand the “experience economy” but also for those seeking to build bridges to the postmodern world.

The book highlights five seemingly simple, but important principles that guide the coffee giant:

1. Make it your own.
2. Everything matters.
3. Surprise and delight.
4. Embrace resistance
5. Leave your mark.

While I wont’ go into detail about each of these, I will say a word about “Everything Matters.” This principle is the most forgotten, both in ministry and in business. We forget that it is the details that make the difference. That both success and death are in the details. In the book, and on Michelli’s podcast, he talks about the decision to continue using two-ply toilet paper rather than saving thousands of dollars by switching to one-ply. Starbucks understands that every moment of the experience, even the one’s most overlooked by the business, make an impression.

This chapter reminds me of another blog I wrote a couple of years back about what I learned from Walt Disney World. How they manage every moment of your experience, down to the moments you spend in line waiting. They have understood these five principles longer than anyone! Where else can waiting be part of the adventure?

It is time for us to realize, in the Church world, that everything matters. That the thing you didn’t think of is the thing that will cause your downfall. The little thing you think will go unnoticed is what causes the biggest problem. Surely, if running out of wine at a wedding mattered to Jesus, shouldn’t the details of every experience matter to us? I remain:

Consumed by the Call,
Marty

Gracious God, who knows every detail of our life, help us to realize that everything matters. Make us people who create experiences that open the door for soul transformation. In the name of the one who knows me, Jesus, I pray. Amen