Good NEWS and extroverting

Nextchurch2015

We are listening to the immeasurable Diana Butler Bass who is greatly illustrating her theories on church and culture, when the news breaks on twitter a little before 7:30 (she started at 7).

Its a amazing, its wonderful.

I text the news to my parents.

I can’t believe it.

Twitter is going crazy.

The real question is Can we interrupt Diana Butler Bass?

7:28 pm @miheekimkort suggests “@revJohnRussell at 7:30 lets stand up and scream”

I tweet @bookkats “Feel the pcusa urge to stand up and proclaim the good news even tho its rude to interrupt awesome DBB” at about the same time

I wait for 7:30, sure someone will do it…

THREE agonizing Holy Spirit Bubbling minutes later (7:31) I realize no one has….

Then she talked about the fourth awakening, and its true realization (as in any realization) is when social justice comes into play, so I’m like “Ok, and now she’s talking social justice. Holy Spirit help my extrovert.”

I am totally bursting with the news. This is good news! This is my job to tell good news, and I have REALLY GOOD NEWS, and texting my parents isn’t going to do it!

@jledmiston says Can someone ask Q@dianabutlerbass for a brief space to acknowledg the PCUSA’s big news?

We were awaiting authority, in Nextchurch, which I love to define as the organic and hands on ideas of what is next for the church …irony….

So I’m like, maybe a quiet way is better (I guess I’m getting better at practicing some restraint) I Tweet “Stand up and hold up your phone maybe?”

This is the time, I realize, Diana Butler Bass is talking about the no going back change, the revival at the point ofsocial justice: what a moment to tell the news!

Meanwhile I hear rustle, rustle, rustle, everyone is looking at their phones

@mollyfid nails it on the head “Y’all, I”m about to Burst! UNfreeze yourselves presbys! Surely DBB will pause for a cheer”

Then I realize…I’m in the balcony, I’m in the first row. This is totally not awkward (I mean heck I’d love to do it from the most awkward and silliest position ever)….I’m the extrovert.

Oh my God….its me…I’m the one who is called into this place at this time to do this….its me, and I’m going to LOVE it

I stand up and (rather timidly) raise my hand. “Excuse me Diana….Sorry to interrupt, but we are just bursting here. We just passed 14F, all people can marry”

And I see it……from the balcony, everyone stands up and hugs and cheers in an almost disordered fashion….

It was beautiful, it was holy

my sister is trans…

I burst into tears

Diana Butler Bass asked my name and then said “The Episcopalians welcome you” 🙂

The amazing moment when God uses my no-hold-barred extroverted self who happened to sit in the front of the balcony at that moment…on the day when Brian preached about acceptance in the morning in the evening where the Presbyterian Light people were already planning their reception.

What do you call that but holy?

Holy

And then, we listened as best we can to Diana, hearing all the better her critiques because we were in a better place as church (claim the entire denom has failed, no problem : )

And then, we went and did church! The planned 80 people who went to the Presby Light & Covenant Network Joint reception were way…way…more….

Too many Presbyterians, after a long day, did church that night at a bar.

We have become a fuller church, how can we include people next, is Belhar Confession around the corner?

We did church, then and there with loud music and too many Presbyterians and drinks and food…

And we told each other the good news.

Amen. Alleluia

.

God and Paperwork

As I finish up another Congregational Annual Report (14 pages long for each congregant) this is back on my mind

katyandtheword's avatarkatyandtheword

Have you ever found things bogging you down?

Sometimes, as a pastor of a small church, I find myself amazed by how much of my job is paperwork. Especially since most of it is created by myself. ACK! There’s the bulletin, my sermon outline (which I hate doing, because then I feel tied down to it), contracts (we also are landlords), meeting agenda, worker checklists, rules, regs, letters to tenants, letters to congregation members, newsletters, applications/registrations for all the junk I need to be at, grants, fundings, thankyous, checklists, calendars for myself, the congregation and the building use etc. Sometimes I think the only thing I don’t write down on a regular basis are my extemporaneous prayers.

Image

In an age of holding people accountable, and in a denomination where if its not written down it isn’t real (otherwise known as Presbyterian), I find that needing to do millions of paperworks…

View original post 299 more words

#churches and #family the Socio-economics of #churchattendance

Warning: this will be rant-ish.

Know how churches don’t like that families and church no longer come first? How it is hard to get the typical family to church more than once a month?

The socio-economics of the situation are tricky, with little national health care and extremely expensive daycare it is difficult to have the time/money to invest in church. Either you are a stay at home mother/father with no extra funds or time or your one of two full time working parents who don’t have enough time to see your children and take them to all the extra-curriculars they “should” be doing.

The socio-economics are crazy, because most people can’t work a regular 9-5 job and are in and out of the house at crazy times working crazy hours.

Plus who knows if you’ll have that job or even be able to live in that city in 1 or 2 or 3 years from now.

Not to mention that most young families can barely afford to have a house or to not put in crazy extra hours or to work multiple jobs including babysitting or whatever other odd jobs they can find.

This is the reality.

So…understand, when churches do not support their staff taking care of their family. Whether it be to go to a family funeral, take care of a personal illness or to take maternity/paternity leave, that we are contributing to the very socio-economic problem we complain about day in and day out. Families who cannot take the time to take care of one another, who have to work instead of putting their family first, will have trouble making it to church.

Pastors are one of such staff…pastors are always on call, do not work 9-5, oft have to make meetings that cause delays of or missing of putting their children to bed. The hours are haphazardly put together depending on the congregation’s needs. Its a flexible job in some ways and very stringent in others.

Some typical (although not absolute) examples: if someone is ill, dying or in extremis you must be there…you may take sick days…as long as they are never when you are scheduled to preach

I know churches can ill-afford pastors, maybe its time to borrow other pastors, pay the choir director a little more or use a lay leader. Maybe its time to do a daily prayer service instead of a formal “traditional” service.

But if we can ill-afford pastors we absolutely CANNOT afford to not take care of those in need in our church…Think about that for a minute…the church claiming they can’t afford to take care of children and ill-ones…..

Thus: We can’t say we want more families to come to church–and then not support our families.  We can’t claim to be choosing God’s path and then not take care of our sick and our little ones.

(feel free to read paragraph above a couple of times)

Do we need an act of Congress to do the right thing?

I think we can do better.

images

Clothing Fast Update

I have not put away all of my clothes…

This is a hoped for result of wearing what amounts to only 3 outfits.

I have been doing more laundry (to keep my clothes clean)

And I have a conference to go to…so I know exactly what to pack for clothing (strangely)

I do oft wear 2 sets of clothing on Sunday–my day off…

That’s it so far

#God #time #daylightsavingstime #philosophy (you know little concepts)

Why Daylight Savings Time, Why?

Most people don’t like Daylight Savings Time, I will admit that as a pastor it is a little terrifying to know that if I get the time wrong I’ll miss doing my job (yipes)

However, my kids have already adjusted their systems (at least 10 days ago) do the new time. Yep, they’ve been getting up and going to bed earlier. Apparently they have great cicada rhythms. So in some ways it will be easier for me.

On the other hand, we humans love time. We calculate it, we keep it, we try to control it. Daylight Savings Time & Leap Year serve to remind me that Time is a human measure.

Consider creation, we all still don’t know what “a day” to God was, but probably God experiences time differently than us.

When I was in Seminary, a Spiritual Practice I tried to remember when I considered deep theological questions, was the fact that God is timeless….God does not need to measure things in time. Because we do, I’m sure God does take it into consideration, but the taming and capturing of moments is a human need, not one that God has…

Puts me in mind of two beautiful concepts

Wrinkle in Time/Tesseract

Tesseract

and Dr. Who

timey-wimey

Go forth. Spring Forward (or fall back)

And think deep thoughts about God….Time…..and Humans relationship to God, Humans relationship to to time, and how we all fit together…..

Open to relationships

My colleague Rachel Young wrote an interesting piece about being missional http://pres-outlook.org/2015/02/can-introverts-missional/

which reminds me of an ongoing conversation that I have with people.

I try, try, try to practice trust, and yet still be safe. Its a particular balance. It means that sometimes your credit and debit cards get stolen right out of the church office, because you tend not to lock. I am still uncertain whether I was being too trusting or not….I now only lock when that particular group is in the church.

However, I think that the only way to build trust is to give it. You treat people with suspicion and the likelihood is they will return the favor. Plus if you don’t take chances its hard to have a relationship. You have to say hi, you have to share about yourself. Eventually you have to share your address if you want people to come over.

Basically, I feel like that trust and grace go hand in hand. In order to trust someone you have to be gracious with them, trusting that they are doing the best that they can and being gracious when people can’t live up to your standards or do things differently

Henri Nouwen calls this forgiving people for not being God i.e. all knowing and perfect.

It doesn’t mean being stomped on either, it means calling people into account, whether its because they are disrespectful to you during a meeting or they leave a mess in the church or they siphon money off the church’s accounts.

So much of my job is being open to be in relationship with people, whoever, however and whatever state they may be in. That takes trust, and graciousness and hope. It means worrying a little less, setting safe boundaries and then building a community of people who can help you if the relationship does not work out.

But I think that is a good way to describe being a minister.

Open to being in relationship with the church, the community and the world…..That is true ministry..and one in which everyone can get in on.

No Strings Attached

no-strings-attached_2

http://www.mbird.com/2009/06/theologian-of-glory-vs-theologian-of/

Ok, so according to this I am more a theologian of the glory than a theologian of the cross…sad day…wonder if these terms should be more of a balance (its the mainline thing, I like compromise)

Thoughts? Its def. a good reframing, but I’m trying to figure out the truth of it (I tend to take preaching the Good news part of my job very seriously)

Clothing #Fast: #lent

So for Lent I am fasting on my clothing.

for so many reasons

1. I am very attached to my clothes

2. I own too many

3. Laundry is not my strongpoint

The deal is you pick a certain number of outfit clothing (i.e. you can wear socks, underwear and coats) and stick to it for 40 days.

Confession: I don’t know if I could do this if Sundays counted, I tend to wear “dresses” on Sunday and don’t feel like I could wear the same thing every Sunday.

I chose 10 pieces, because the suggested 6 didn’t really include sweaters and brrrr!!!! its been cold and I’ve def. been layering and wearing sweaters inside and outside (i.e. just not as a coat accoutrement), so 3 pieces a day instead of 2 makes 9. Then there is the fact I have three small children. I sometimes get spilled or even peed on, so I feel like having a random piece of clothing for such emergencies is wise.

so here’s what I have

1 pair of black nice pants

2 pairs of yoga pants

1 blue sweater

1 black/gray sweater

1 tunic black sweater

1 red long sleeved shirt

1 black and white work blouse.

1 black sleeveless shirt (with lacy straps)

So far I’ve been doing it for a week and I’ve kept up with the laundry and I think I’ve already worn all of the different combos.

I also had the awkward moment when I wore my “really” nice clothes for the session retreat on Sat and had another Session meeting on Weds (about the budget…eeek!)  that I was running and I didn’t want to wear the same thing/but I wanted to look professional. I ended up wearing the black shirt, the blue sweater and big silver earrings.

So far so good, I’m hoping this will give me an excuse to wash and put away ALL the clothes I own, and maybe give away some more, but so far its just made me keep up with doing everyone else’s laundry so my stuff is clean (altho I’m not to folding yet).

Here Goes 30ish more days….