To me Church is like a Wedding, a Memorial and a Grand Opening, it’s like a party,
like a neighbor welcoming you in for cookies (fresh baked) and like a playground for children. It should feel like a space that can be sacred and quiet and joyful noise-y.
Church should feel like there is no “right” way to behave, just respect, love and mutual upbuilding. It should feel like a place to ask questions, to stumble and fall (figuratively and literally). It should feel active, alive and full of stories. It should feel imperfect and incomplete (because we all are), it should be rich in tradition yet lacking in all stuffiness. To me church’s should feel more like AA, College Ministries and
Children’s Museums. It should feel like birthdays and Christmases, Yoga and Meditation, Gardens and Sunsets. It should be full of music and laughter, whispers and wahoos, hugs and kisses. Every single door of the church should be wide open, it should be advertised on craigslist and facebook, there should be huge signs welcoming everyone thru the door, and it should be as easy for crawling babies to find a comfortable spot as those in wheelchairs or who have to pace constantly.
It should be a place to find surrogate grandparents, helpful aunts and uncles and annoying brothers and sisters….It should be a place where interruptions are welcome, surprises are a good thing and change is associated with growth! Church should be Home; at least that’s what it is for me.
Category: Ministry
Things people have trouble understanding about ministry
Things people have trouble understanding about ministry
As he said, these don’t all apply to everyone, but my favorite today is
“9. Ministry is a hard job. Sometimes it’s said as a joke, sometimes it’s said in anger, that ministers don’t work very hard. That it’s a cushy gig. If that were true I doubt I’d know so many ministers who have quit swearing never to return, including myself. The best way I can think to explain why ministry is hard is to compare it to being the parent of a young child. From the outside it might not look like a lot of ‘work,’ but from the inside it’s the most exhausting thing you’ll ever do. Because it’s not just about the amount of things you do, it’s the total emotional drain of it. It’s worrying all day every day about the people and programs you’re in charge of, being on call and not ever feeling really free to be away, feeling like you live in a fishbowl with hundreds of eyes watching you all the time and never really knowing what they are all thinking of you (unless they complain, which some of them do with regularity). It’s caring for people to the point that you have nothing left for your own family when you get home, yet expecting that they show a certain spiritually-put-together face to the church (because the church expects that). It’s often feeling empty, yet pretending to feel full. It’s presenting yourself and your work to hundreds of people, several times a week, for evaluation, and often getting no feedback except ‘constructive’ criticism. And after all of this, after years of this, it’s looking out at the people in your church and seeing little or no change. Ministry is very hard, albeit perhaps in a different way than your job is hard.”
Your a millenni…
Your a millennial pastor, how do you get millennial’s to come to church?
You don’t, you go out and meet them where they are and love them and serve them
But how do we get them here?
::Sigh::
Its like asking an expert for advice and then ignoring it…..
“You’ve got to be kidding me”
What to do with visitors–lesson one!
So, I’m working on my manuscript for a book on belonging, and I’m writing about the rituals of going to church from an outsider’s perspective. Because that’s what I felt like my first year at a new church: an outsider, a newcomer, a loner.
I’ve been thinking about ways we can make our faith communities more hospital to outsiders. Last week, I wrote a friend on staff at my church to ask, “Why do we print the Apostles’ Creed in the bulletin but not the Lord’s Prayer?” It’s awkward enough for a Catholic like me to say “trespasses” in a sea full of “debtors” but how on earth is someone who’s never uttered an “Our Father” not supposed to feel like a total dunce when everyone’s reciting it as spot-on as a teacher’s pet?
Since I’ve been attending church for the last year without my husband, I’m also…
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SQUEEE ROBIN McKinley is doing Spiritual Direction!!!
“So I’ve been at this Christianity lark for ten months now. The first eight months or so were all about the run up to Lent and Easter—Christmas is fine, Christmas is all jolly, except for the long shadow of events to come—Easter, I was worried about Easter. But I got through that and . . . gleep. It’s like looking up from picking your way down a very narrow stony path with a chasm on one side and dragons on the other and realising that it’s not just dragons and bottomless ravines but you’re lost in a universe-sized jungle AND YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHERE YOU’RE GOING. Where does the narrow stony path go? Is that where you want to go? Is there a beautiful sunset and a cup of tea at the end of it or a larger dragon?” Robin McKinley’s Faith Journey!!! LOVE FANTASY AND FAITH” from http://robinmckinleysblog.com/2013/07/24/microsoft-outlook-and-spiritual-direction/
WHy Church is not about Belief in JESUS!!!!
Just in time for the great post about unbelief http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/07/really-listening-to-atheists-taking-nonbelief-seriously/278069/ “Nowhere does Taunton posit the most obvious conclusion one may reach about the growing prevalence of atheism today: namely, that the tenets in which the Christian tradition demands faith may have ultimately appeared to young people to be untenable. Christianity requires that we, in the twenty-first century, after having mapped the human genome, sent probes to Mars, and discovered the Higgs Boson, believe in human parthenogenesis and tales of a man turning water into wine, calming raging seas, curing lepers, and raising the dead. “
Every time we talk about belief in the Bible, the word is actually faith.
WAHOO! LET THE REVOLUTION BEGIN: religion is about belief, whereas it should be (and spirituality really is about) faith.
For a handy chart with some scripture click here
Here is the deal
Beliefs are the limit of human capabilities, they allow us to stretch. Knowledge takes us only so far, beliefs are what we can do beyond knowledge
Faith is letting go to what we know or even believe, and letting the fullness of God to enter our lives. It is beginning to understand that God is beyond our ken, and there is something we live in
Belief is individual, its something you say to define who you are. These is why beliefs are so hard to change, because they are about who you are, and you have reasons for the beliefs you hold. A person…
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An absolutely r…
An absolutely real conversation had *last week* between a pastor & a congregation….
Pastor: and why did you think about making this big change?
Congregation: well…we wanted young families
Pastor: Why do you want young families?
Congregation: Because we need them…..we won’t survive without them
Pastor: Ok, that is a really practical reason, but what are you doing for young families?
Congregation: um…
Pastor: Do you provide services they need? Are you helping them with their debt, or economic problems? Do you give them a break from their kids? Are there places that address their spirituality?
Congregation: um…we never thought about that…
Pastor: I would encourage you, instead of think of why you need young families, think about what young families need from you….
Congregation: That is an interesting point
Pastor: Remember, desperation isn’t attractive…providing care is…
Overhearing Real Ministry Conversations..or why http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2013/07/27/why-millennials-are-leaving-the-church/ hits the nail right on the head.
Why millennials are leaving the church
YES!* (maybe the problem is THEOLOGICAL) Point and Case Example https://katyandtheword.wordpress.com/2013/07/28/an-absolutely-r/
Jesus’ primary message was NOT, “Try harder; the kingdom of God is here.”
https://katyandtheword.wordpress.com/2013/07/21/church-is-not-about-belief-in-jesus/ Exactly the kind of theological thoughts that I refer to in my post about Jesus, belief and how Christianity is doing it backwards.
Here is an interesting theology that is truly a new trend.
We can see it reflected in Fantasy (which I think is primary a mirror of spirituality in the world)
Narnia, Tolkien’s elves, Oz, etc. posited that technology and progress was “taking over” and “obliterating” magic, and so magic had to be hidden and kept safe (this is also true in “Flight of Dragons!” love that movie)
Urban Fantasy (Charles de Lint and Neil Gaiman, etc) and Harry Potter signal a new thought which is that the magical/religious world is parallel to and layered with the “real” world, and once you discover it, you realize its been there all along….sounds like a conversion experience doesn’t it 🙂
I am living in parallel worlds, and I am a parallel girl…..hehehe
Jim Palmer writes “Jesus’ primary message was NOT, “Try harder; the kingdom of God is here.” Nor was it, “You have a lot of growing to do before you can ever expect to experience God’s kingdom.” Instead, Jesus said, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is here.” The word “repent” (metanoia) means to change your mind or to see things in a way you have never seen them before.” This theology of the spiritual and physical world both paralleling and overlapping in such a way that your eyes are opened to them is exactly the turn fantasy has been taking recently.
HOW COOL IS THAT!!!
The language of transformation often works against us. We sometimes speak of “spiritual growth.” The idea of “growth” implies that spirituality is a process of stages in which we make improvements or progress toward becoming something more or different than what we are right now. Consider the possibility that you were born out of the image, likeness and being of God. The image, likeness and being of God is the underlying, unchanging, and fundamental essence of who you are. The truth is that there is nothing wrong with you the way you are. You cannot be improved upon, and there is never any diminishment of who you are. There is nothing more secure than your true Self and it is never threatened.
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Dear Pastor Search Committee,
Thoughts on the Pastoral search process
katyandtheword 