However, regardless of my feelings about the specifics of the general church’s Call to Action, I am not surprised to see a second wave of leadership decisions made using the Call to Action as a justification for difficult decisions while having only the most tenuous connection to the findings of that document. The two most prominent for me arose this week in the statement by the Southeast Jurisdictional College of Bishops calling for the merger of the Tennessee and Memphis Annual Conferences, and a document being shared by some members of the cabinet here in Tennessee outlining a new procedure for congregational accountability which directly and overtly links clergy deployment with the full payment of apportionments.

In both cases, the writers of these document make a case for their proposals based in the justification that somehow they are driven by the Call to Action proposal and will contribute to making vital congregations without ever directly demonstrating or describing how these initiatives will serve the purpose of helping congregations or church leaders. In both cases, the ultimate concerns are in fact financial, not missional, and while at least one of the proposals represents a change in structure that could have missional roots, in the end the concerns are with improving efficiencies without evaluating the impact on ministry. I will be writing more about the specifics of these proposals in a later post.

What concerns me is that it feels like the Call to Action has quickly become the point of justification for pretty much ANY structural change that a Bishop has wanted to implement in the past regardless of whether these changes truly enhance the ability of local congregations to become vital. Yes, I would agree that many structures need to be changed, but those changes should be based in their own justifications, not brought forth in some sort of vague appeal to adaptive challenges and the Call to Action. There are likely good reasons for the merger of the two annual conferences (although they aren’t yet clear to me) but those reasons likely have little to do with our efforts to create vital congregations. Congregational accountability for paying apportionments is needed (and a long time coming in our annual conference) but the concerns there are the effectiveness of our connectional system, not the five drivers of vitality. The Call to Action isn’t some sort of miracle drug that can be pulled out in every situation. And yet, our leaders have made it into a shibboleth to define who is in and who is out, what is right and what is wrong, and whether one is “on board” or not.

When will we as a church be honest about our actions and intentions rather than drawing on some sort of outside justification for what we do?

It simply works….

Pros: High quality picture, Great value, Easy to use, Easy to set up, Compact, Built in Wi-Fi, Video selection

Best Uses: Bedroom, Primary TV

Describe Yourself: Technophile, Netflix fan

I first picked up a Roku to get some content to my daughter’s bedroom in lieu of paying for another cable outlet. It worked so well that I found myself longing for one in the den on the HDTV for Netflix, and more importantly Amazon Instant Streaming. The only thing that would make our experience better would be for real-time network streaming so that we could go ahead an cut off the cable entirely.

Our unit is compact, and works well, but part of that is due to being in the same room as the wireless router. There are occasional server issues with the Roku store, but generally everything works as advertised, and it is very much worth the price in our eyes.

(legalese)

(c) 2003 by Jay Voorhees

Singer needed badly, along with a fiddle, guitar, and mandolin break!!! But since I wrote it, I might as well share it.

The Baby Was Born

In previous settings I have had access to video projection equipment and have used visuals to great effect, but the church I now serve hasn’t progressed to that yet (we’re working on it). We don’t have a drama contingent, and so the challenge becomes sharing a familiar story in a way that connects with the kids.

This year I have enlisted the help of a creative layperson who will join me sitting in the front of the church in easy chairs telling the Christmas story, interspersed with carols and special music. It is, in fact, lessons and carols, but wit the lessons written in kid friendly language and told as stories, not presented as “scripture readings.” We will be inviting the kids to sit up front on the floor around us and inviting questions and comments along the way.

One of the things I struggle with is that most of the carols that our kids know (in a traditional, organ hymn based church) are pretty . . . traditional. For many of them, that isn’t a problem. However some are musically a bit more challenging and in some cases don’t really jibe musically with the air of celebration that we are looking for in the service.

I find that especially true with the hymn “My Soul Gives Glory To My God,” (words by Miriam Therese Winter). Lyrically it is a wonderful adaptation of the Magnificat, which I want to include as part of Mary’s story. However musically (and yes this is a matter of personal taste) it’s in a minor key and while pretty, doesn’t seem to capture the audacity and energy that would be coming from a teenager singing about God’s blessing upon her and her beliefs about who this child will be.

So leave it to me to take a perfectly beautiful song and mess with it to make it more contemporary….

This is a bad, first draft recording on the computer with one harmony track added for fun. It ain’t going to win any awards, but I think it will work for our intentions on Saturday night.

SongofMary

As I have thought about it these years, I believe I was captive to the false gospel ofGnosticism though one could perhaps speak of Donatism. Gnosticism is found in every churchbasement, and no seminary is free of it. Among other things, Gnosticism is our dualistic longingfor a pure church and our unwillingness to believe that God works through the messy, often unfaithful, flawed body of those people we behold every Sunday morning. It is finally a denialof the Incarnation. We see the church’s fleshy ways but are blind to its wonder and joy. In aword, I believe I suffered a form of unbelief, sophisticated as it was.

via A False Gospel and the Church [Randy Cooper].

HT to Gary Wake

I confess that I have often bounced between translation options in worship. Generally the “official” standard in the United Methodist Church has been the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), and every church that I have served has a large NRSV on display or on the pulpit (they also usually have a large King James lying around, but that’s an issue for another post).  The NRSV is certainly a fine translation, representing excellent scholarship, and is perhaps the most poetic in language of the modern translations, but the reading level tends to be higher and the language choice is more formal (I often say more British in character to my ears) and can easily slip by the modern American reader. My preference has tended toward the New International Version (NIV) which feels more American in the use of language, and seems to be written at a lower reading level that is more accessible. However, the NIV (like all translations) has a theological bias that can sometimes be problematic in word choices, especially in regards to gendered language. As a means of dealing with some of the problems of the “traditional” NIV (1984 era) I have used the Today’s New International Version (TNIV) with good success. I’ve likewise very occasionally used Eugene Peterson’s The Message, but I’ve had enough folks feel like it is the “way out, hippy bible” that I only use that for specific purposes.

When the CEB came out, I decided to give it a shot. Our practice is to print the week’s scripture reading in the bulletin so that we can all gather around the same text in a common translation, and the knowledge that most mainline folks tend to not haul bible’s with them to church. We DO have NRSV pew bibles, but I find that are not often used, and in printing the scripture in the bulletin we ensure that they will have a visual reinforcement of the reading before them.

What we have discovered is that the CEB seems to be integrating into our worship with no problems. The language is easily accessible, but familiar to modern ears. In comparing the translations with the NIV and NRSV I find more accessible language but always in the pursuit of clarity of meaning. The feedback that I am receiving from the congregation is that they are getting more out of the scripture readings, and that there is a clearer connection to the sermon which follows.

There are a few caveats. I find that the CEB sacrifices poetry for clarity, and so in those cases where we are looking for a more poetic rendition (such is in praying the Psalms or other liturgical forms) I may be more likely to draw on the TNIV or the NRSV. It feels to me that the CEB is better for teaching than for liturgics, but that may come from my own familiarity with the language of the Psalms and a dissonance between my past experiences and the new language.

Our experience with using the CEB in worship is positive, and I believe that this translation is opening up the scriptures to our congregation in new ways. They are hearing and experiencing things they have never heard before, and I believe this is bringing them to new places in faith.

Hands four!
Head couples cross over.

Balance and swing your partner
(with the look and the smile, and the centrifugal force of two bodies spending fact, ending in the perfect position for the next move).

Long lines forward and back
(most of the time crooked, but sometimes straight and in time to the wonder of all).

A quick breath at the end of the set,
as hearts beat fast, and a quick word is shared.

Then jump in again,
heading in the other direction,
moving,
swirling,
walking,
dancing,
until the caller ends it all
and the rush to find the next partner for the next dance begins.

I had hoped that I could call on one of my old dance buddies to lead the dance so that I could just play guitar, but it turns out they are all booked, and so I have been brushing up on my country dance knowledge and skills knowing that I’m going to have to teach something I haven’t done for a while. In the midst of that I came upon a post I wrote in 2003 which described the role of the caller and asked if similar skills weren’t needed for ministry. At the same time I’ve continued to think quite about about the movement in our United Methodist communion toward a plan of action with a particular set of expectations for church leaders, and the split I’ve seen between those who question the direction we are headed and those who suggest that we have to do SOMETHING, and this is at least some positive movement. As dance and ministry have bounced around inside my brain, I’ve found myself wondering about whether the task of forming disciples is an art or a science.

What I think I’m beginning to discern is that part of the disconnect between those who question the assumptions of the Call To Action initiative in the UMC and those who embrace it whole hog is based in this difference in orientation – right versus left brained, artists versus accountants, intuition versus analytics. Each group brings a different way of thinking and a different set of assumptions about the nature of our mission . . . assumptions which fuel how we respond to programs like Call To Action, a project which aims to systematize reform in the United Methodist Church.

Those of us who are creatives shouldn’t be surprised at the systemization of religious practices, for that has been part and parcel of the American religious story for many years. Some could argue that John Wesley was the first mover of this in the development of a movement that brought a systematic approach to forming disciples through classes, bands, and a set of general rules which laid out a clear path to discipleship. Wesley (and the Methodists who followed) certainly were “methodical” in their approach to faith, but I argue that they left room for creativity in utilizing a structure which allowed for creative freedom – the band meeting which allowed for relational space to address issues of faith individually, drawing on the experience of others in creating communities of mutual accountability and support. The far broader influence throughout American Christianity however was Charles Grandison Finney, and his belief that revival could be systematized into universal practices which would guarantee success again and again. Finney and the revivalists who followed drew on the tools of the modern era to create repeatable rites which would become traditions which lost their moorings to the original purpose – to form true disciples of Jesus Christ. These systems – such as the altar call  — became their own ends, so that the goal became to get the most people to come forward at the end of the service, not necessarily to adopt the radical lifestyle that Jesus asked of his disciples. This systematization of religious practice became the norm, and has driven the church in America ever since.

If you are a left brained accounting type, the systematization of faith can be a comforting thing for it provides lists of things to do and measures of accountability. Yet, when the fundamental assumptions of that system begin to erode under the weight of cultural change, we find ourselves in crisis, for the system no longer works the way it should. For ministry “scientists,” the response often involves trying to develop ways to make an outdated system work in a new world in the belief that the system can’t be wrong – the world is.

Right brained ministry artists often struggle under the weight of the systematized approach to ministry, but find equilibrium in the system as long as we have some flexibility to exercise our creativity. However, there is always a tension for at our core we know and believe that each congregation, each disciple, is a work of art, not something stamped out on an assembly line. We believe that beauty is as important as efficiency and that they way we get there is as important as the final destination. Discipleship is less about creating widgets and more about being on a road trip to an unknown destination confident that will tell us we’ve arrived when we get there.

We struggle as a church with the two approached to being church for the scriptures themselves model both ways of being. On the one hand Jesus is portrayed as being primarily focused on relational disciple making, using creative storytelling and sign acts as means of teaching his followers the stuff of the Kingdom. On the other hand Luke’s story of the church in Acts is not hesitant to report numerical success and note that “…many more were being added…” to the community of faith.

The question we are faced with today is whether our responses are based in the assumptions of modernity with a trust in a system which no longer has meaning in a postmodern/postcolonial world, or if we are in fact responding to our cultural situation toward the adaptive change necessary for relevancy.

The fear among some is that we are focusing on accounting rather than creativity to address our eroding system, trying to use science rather than art to help the church be faithful.

What do you think?