Rachel Held Evans's Blog, page 18

I don’t always tell you

I don’t always tell you about the mornings I wake up and feel the absence of God as though it were a presence—thick and certain, remembered all over again the way you remember in the morning that someone you love has died. 

Or about the days when the idea that a single religion can stop the CNN crawler from reporting one more missile strike, one more downed plane, one more bombed hospital, strikes me as freshly stupid, dangerously naïve. 

(They keep using words like “unthinkable” and “unimaginable” to describe the violence, but let’s be honest, there’s nothing unthinkable or unimaginable about all this. It’s as routine to us as eating, as breathing, as hating. We dream this stuff up all the time.) 

I don’t always tell you about how sometimes I’m not sure I want to bring kids into a world like this one, a world so full of suffering. 

Because that sort of thing doesn’t exactly sell off the shelves at Christian bookstores, does it? 

What do you do when the religion that is supposed to give you comfort and direction is the cause of your pain and confusion?  

What do you do when religious people respond to your questions by calling you names? By mocking you? By casting you out? 

I don’t always tell you about the depth of my doubt. 

I don’t always tell you about how the cynicisms settles in, like a diaphanous fog. 

Or about how sometimes, just the thought of reading one more Christian book I only half believe exhausts and bores me. 

There is no need for a diagnosis. This isn’t the sort of clinical depression with which so many good people struggle. Privileged as I am, I can cut off the flow of information—shut the laptop, turn off the news, and head outside—and my mood lifts. I can gaze into the dizzying blue of a clear sky and believe in God again, because at least for me, that sky isn’t filled with missiles or bombs. I have the luxury of forgetting. 

Sometimes it frightens me, how effortlessly I can move from belief to unbelief as one would move from room to room. 

Kathleen Norris called it acedia, the noonday demon, a religious and relational apathy that “makes it seem that the sun barely moves, if at all.” 

That sounds about right to me— stuck in the unforgiving glare of midday when every truth has a sharp edge. 

I don’t always tell you, because when a reader says, “I love it when you write something VULNERABLE!” I wonder if she really means it, if she really wants to know that the demon whose voice she thinks she's quieted in her own heart is screaming like hell in mine, and that the scariest thing about being VULNERABLE, about exposing myself to the world without a religion or a platform or a “brand” for protection, is that I might lose them for good...or, perhaps, learn that I can breathe without them. 

And that’s not exactly the sort of born again experience the publishers pay for. 

Sunday Superlatives 7/27/14

Around the Blogosphere…

Most Thoughtful: 
Brenda Salter McNeil’s thoughts at the Marriage & Family Summit
 

“In the story of the woman at the well, the very first thing the woman says to Jesus is, ‘you’re a Jew.’  She says, ‘You are a Jewish man.  And I am a Samaritan woman.’ Those parts of their identities are important.  They have significant meaning and context for this exchange… As counselors, you cannot attempt to be color-blind or gender-blind or anything-blind.  When a person comes into your office, you should never ignore those aspects of their personhood.  It should, in fact, be one of the first things you notice.” 

Most Relatable: 
David Schell with “Unacceptable: What It’s Like to be a Liberal Christian in a Sea of Conservativism”

“When my conservative Christian friends and family ask me questions, it’s not to find out why I believe what I believe. It’s to fix me or help me realize that I’ve gone off the rails and am wrong.”

Most Practical:
Amy Joyce at The Washington Post with “5 Tips on Raising Kind Kids”

“Parents tend to prioritize their children’s happiness and achievements over their children’s concern for others. But children need to learn to balance their needs with the needs of others, whether it’s passing the ball to a teammate or deciding to stand up for friend who is being bullied.”

Most Sobering: 
Infographic: Palestinian Children Killed in Gaza Conflict, Through July 21

Most Inspiring:
Lisa Napoli at NPR with “A Growing Movement To Spread Faith, Love — And Clean Laundry”

“Shannon Kassoff, one of the organizers of Laundry Love in Huntington Beach, says it's about more than just free laundry. This group was formed by people who became disillusioned with traditional church, and started taking over this laundromat once a month. ‘This is our church," Kassoff says. "It is probably the best way to be involved in other people's lives, not just handing out food in a soup kitchen, or whatever. We get to know them very well, and that's probably the best part of this whole deal.’”

Most Enlightening: 
Karima Bennoune with “When people of Muslim heritage challenge fundamentalism”

 

Best Interview:
BioLogos with “Not So Dry Bones: An interview with Mary Schweitzer”

“One time I was visiting a church and the pastor got up and started preaching a sermon about people not being related to apes, and he started talking about this scientist in Montana who discovered red blood cells in dinosaur bones—he didn’t know I was in the audience—and it was my research he was talking about! Unfortunately, he got everything wrong. I just got up and left. I don’t feel that I’m discrediting God with the work I’m doing, I think I am honoring him with the abilities he’s given me.”

Best Storytelling:
Beth Woolsey with “On Messing Up and Finding Grace”

“We’re on Day 2 of 5 Days of Day Camp which obviously means we barely made it to the buses this morning. And, by barely, I mean the buses were rolling, friends – engines sputtering and PULLING AWAY from the curb – while four of my kids ran at the front of them, following the directions I’d barked in the car on the way there…”

Best Idea:
“Inglorious Fruits and Vegetables”

Best Perspective: 
Rod Snyder with “The Shifting Landscape on LGBT Issues in the Evangelical Church”

“I'm a gay Christian from a conservative family fighting for a progressive cause. Compassion and understanding don't weaken my argument for equal rights; in fact, they strengthen it. Openness and respect for differences don't weaken my faith; in fact, they strengthen it.” 

Best Cartoons:
The Naked Pastor with “A Day in the Life of a Christian Blogger” and John Atkinson with “Anatomy of Songs” 

Best Point: 
Benjamin Corey with “So Listen– It’s Not Religious Discrimination Just Because You Can’t Discriminate”

“It’s not discrimination when we are prevented from doing the discriminating. It’s not persecution when we are prevented from doing the persecuting. It’s not bullying when we’re told that we can’t bully others.”
 

Highlights from #FaithFeminisms…

Austin Channing Brown with “Loving Eve and Ham” 

“My feminism will always live at the intersection of race. It recognizes the Divine within all black women, all women of color, all women, all people. It doesn’t erase me from the Bible or make me the scourge of it. It proclaims the innate goodness of womanhood.”
 

Abi Jordan Bechtel [at Thirty Seconds or Less] with “As Myself” 

“Feminism gives me permission to fully engage in the “as myself” part of  “loving my neighbor as myself.” Because of feminism I can stop trying to make myself smaller and more attractive and more modest and more conformative and instead celebrate my body as an image of God. I don’t need to shrink myself down to fit into a socially acceptable mold. This unruly, unsubmissive body is the one God made for me, and when I am secure in that knowledge I can turn to my neighbors and love the misfits and the outliers in all their unruly, unsubmissive glory too.”
 

Mihee Kim-Kort with “On God Talk” 

“I had been asleep, maybe dead for awhile, until I began to speak about God – to speak about faith and church, my family, and about racism and sexism. I spoke about my life, and I didn’t need to qualify it or explain it, defend it or have someone else affirm it. And speaking brought logos-life to my bones, and the resurrection somehow meant more when I saw that God was not man or a white man but someone who shared in my humanity right down to the core of my struggles. God became possibility, the ground of all being, חסד (the Hebrew word hesed – “steadfast love,”  “kindness,” “loving-kindness,” “mercy,” “loyalty”), continuous and constant presence, Wisdom and grace, giver of life, flesh-and-blood passion and love, and beyond-words.”

Adriene Throne [at Thirty Seconds or Less] with “Their Legacy of Faith and Feminism”

“As the great granddaughter of a slave woman who loved God and believed in abundant life for all people, faith and feminism are intertwined for me. With a mama and play mamas spoon feeding me faith like the grits and gravy I grew up on, I have to preach abundant life for women and girls in particular. God’s nurture is in women’s bodies around kitchen tables. God’s power is in women’s bodies around communion tables. I thank God for Sarah, Hagar and Rebecca, for Eva, Hilda and Marilyn and their legacy of faith and feminism for my daughter.” 

Bethany Stolle [at Thirty Seconds of Less] with “Yellow”

“Nude pumps: traditional. Red flats: cute and practical. Yellow heels: flashy. Black Toms: comfy and philanthropic. I’ll be speaking to ministry types. And I wonder… do my male colleagues spend this much time getting dressed? Debating how their shoes will impact their credibility? How their appearance will affect others’ attention? Why is there no way to be an “unmarked” woman? Especially in ministry, where being a woman alone sets me apart. Silencing my questions, I stride away, my feet a blur of neon yellow.”

Suzannah Paul with “I Believe in Inequality” 

“I believe in inequality. I’m seeking confirmation that you believe in it, too – that you believe me – that together we may work to subvert hierarchies and birth another Way. Can you acknowledge people as experts on their own lives and experience? If people of color, women, and/or LGBTQ voices speak up about discrimination, will you write us off as bitter, toxic, or humorless? Do you assume we’re overreacting, uneducated, or being emotional? Are we ‘playing the victim’?”
 

Check out the 100+ submission to the Faith Feminisms synchroblog here. 

On the Blog…

Most Popular Post:
“We Need Feminism…”
 

Most Popular Comment: 
In response to “We Need Feminism…” S. Kyle Johnson wrote: 

“I need Feminism because I'm tired of men being hurt by a culture that tells them their self worth is bolstered by their conquests of women, their power, their domination, and whose sense of self is so small because they are taught that sharing authority with a woman is a humiliation.”

***

So, what caught your eye online this week? What's happening on your blog? 

Leaving Home: Escaping the Stay-at-Home Daughters Movement (by Samantha Field)

© 2013 Donnie Nunley, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio

When I was doing my research for A Year of Biblical Womanhood , I encountered the stay-at-home daughters movement within fundamentalist Christian circles.  People often describe such staunchly patriarchal movements as "fringe," but what many fail to realize is that, though movements such as these certainly veer from the mainstream, they are immensely popular within certain subcultures, generate quite a bit of revenue and create their very own "celebrities," and have profoundly affected the lives of many thousands of women across the country. 

So today I’m pleased to share with you an eye-opening and powerful guest post from Samantha Field.   Samantha grew up in the Independent Fundamental Baptist movement and was deeply conservative until she started asking questions about faith and God and religion that her friends and professors couldn't answer. After three years as an agnostic theist, she eventually found her way back to Christianity; today she blogs about the intersection of theology and feminism, and works to educate young Christians about sexuality and consent.

***

My freshman year in high school, I mentioned my dream to become a marine botanist to my best friend, our pastor’s daughter, and she laughed.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “You can’t be a scientist. You have to be a keeper at home.”

Keeper at home. 

It’s a phrase from the King James translation of Titus 2, and we interpreted it to mean that it was against God’s laws for women to be employed. Our church, however, took it one step further: if all a woman was allowed to be was a “keeper at home,” then it was utterly pointless for her to try to be anything else. Pursuing an education, or longing for a career could do nothing but harm her with shattered dreams. For that reason, young women in our church were asked to be “stay-at-home daughters.” 

I gave up my dreams. I sacrificed them on the altar of biblical womanhood, fervently believing that the only way I could be blessed by God was to follow the clear guidelines laid out in Scripture. I was committed to remaining at home until I was married, when my father would transfer his ownership of me to my husband, giving me away at the altar with his blessing after a brief, paternally-guided courtship.

Occasionally, a snatch of a dream would intrude. No, Samantha. My inner voice would be harsh, echoing my Sunday school teachers and pastor’s wife. Do not be tempted. That’s just the Devil trying to trick you away from God’s plan. I looked to the other women in my life for inspiration—the other girls were filling their hope chests, meeting together to learn new recipes, learning to crochet and knit and sew. 

I tried sewing. I almost broke my mother’s machine. 

I learned how to crochet, but hated the feeling of yarn scraping around my fingers.

I took up cross stitching, but gave up when all I got was a snarl of silken tangles after weeks of trying.

I became a halfway-decent cook, but my heart was never in it.

As for cleaning-- I perniciously avoided laundry, dusting aggravated my allergies, dragging around the canister vacuum was torture, cleaning toilets made me gag, and dishes? Dear Lord, I hated anything having to do with dishes! Learning to enjoy housework, to “take pride in the homemaking arts,” was a complete and total bust.

The one thing I was good at was playing the piano. I’d started lessons when I was six, and was playing congregationally by thirteen. I devoted myself to becoming a pianist, and my mother joked that she couldn’t tear me away from the piano with a crowbar. They did everything they could to support my fanatical interest—buying a piano at a time when they could barely afford one and paying for lessons with the best piano teacher in three counties. 

My senior year in high school, my piano instructor asked where I’d applied to college. When I told him I wasn’t going to college, he stared at me, dumbfounded, the lesson jerking to a dead stop. “What do you mean you’re not going to college?! Of course you’re going to college! Talent like yours can’t be hidden under a bushel.”

I haltingly tried to explain about being a stay-at-home-daughter, a keeper at home, but that just seemed to confuse him more, so he dropped it. I couldn’t stop thinking about his reaction, though. I knew he was a Christian, but he didn’t seem to have heard of being a stay-at-home daughter; while I knew our church was more conservative than most, I assumed that a concept as plain as “keeper at home” would be obvious no matter what church you went to.

The fact that it wasn’t clear to a person I respected, who I knew had a deep faith and was incredibly intelligent . . . bothered me. 

It didn’t stop bothering me until I decided I was going to look into this. I typed “stay-at-home daughter” into Google, and found my way to a review of the documentary "Return of the Daughters," a film I’d seen and that was exalted by most of the women I knew. What I read gobsmacked me—in the review and the comments, hundreds of conservative Christian women lambasted the principles taught in the film, arguing against the Botkin’s narrow interpretation of Scripture. Arguing against my interpretation of Scripture.

I didn’t have to remain at home until I was married. I could go to college. It was too late for me to become an marine botanist, since I had abandoned any study of science or math in high school, but I could do something. I could get the piano performance degree my teacher was encouraging me to pursue. 

As a compromise, I applied to a fundamentalist Christian liberal arts college not that far away from home. I should not have been surprised by the reaction I got when I announced my acceptance at church, but I was. I was hurt by their vindictiveness. I wasn’t ignoring what I’d been taught. I wasn’t selfishly chasing what my “deceitfully wicked heart” wanted. I just … wanted to study piano, to eventually become a housewife who taught piano lessons out of her living room. Was that so wrong?

I went anyway, ignoring the pleas of my best friend and nearly every woman I’d ever respected not to do something so totally opposed to “biblical teaching.”

I went, and I blossomed.

My sophomore year I decided to switch to a secondary education degree because I realized I didn’t want to spend my entire life at home. I wanted to be able to get a job. I spent the next few years fighting with nearly everyone back home about my decision, ignoring all the packets and booklets offering me more “biblical alternatives” like taking “at-home college-level courses in biblical homemaking.”

My senior year I completed a teaching internship and realized that I loathed almost everything about being a teacher. I woke up, brutally aware that I’d spent thousands of dollars and four and half years earning a degree that I’d never actually wanted, all because the people I’d grown up with had told me I couldn’t be anything else except a housewife who could use her teaching degree to homeschool her children.

So I found an English graduate program that would accept my credits and applied. When I told the people from my childhood who were still in my life, they tsked. One told me that she would be praying that I would be “led back to God’s true will for my life,” and that he would use my “errant heart to teach me his ways.” Another accused me of openly rebelling against God.

It hit me the hardest that my parents, who up until this point had fought for my right to go to college if I wanted, suddenly and inexplicably withdrew their support. When I showed my mother the university I wanted to attend, her only response was a solemn “you’ll need to ask your father.” My father’s answer was disheartening. He did not like the idea of me going to a college so far away from home, so far away from the “umbrella of his protection.” Why couldn’t I stay at home? Take online courses if I wanted a master’s degree? My attempts to explain online literature courses aren’t what I want were met with more reservations and protests. It wasn’t fitting for an unmarried daughter to live on her own.

I was accepted into the program, but they didn’t have any spots left to become a graduate assistant. Without any way to pay for it, I went home. I didn’t give up, though. I started taking online courses and began pocketing away all of the money I could—I would get to grad school, one way or another. Eight months later, the director of the GA program called me: a spot had opened up, was I interested?

So nervous I was sick, I called my father—and after eight months of him watching me work and save and study and read and write, he’d changed his mind. I wanted a master’s degree, and that was enough.

Graduate school was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. Being thrown into an environment so different from what I’d known as a fundamentalist Christian was overwhelming at times, and I spent those two years catching up on everything I should have learned but never had the opportunity to.

In that time, my parents also left Christian fundamentalism and the stay-at-home movement—my mother even got a job, working “outside the home,” and she loves it. It’s been a bumpy road at times, but we’re the better for it, I think.

Today, when I hear stories about young women forgoing college in order to “serve their fathers” or “study to be a good wife,” my heart breaks. I had people in my life who pushed me into considering college, but not every stay-at-home daughter has that.

For most of my life I was utterly convinced that staying at home was what I wanted, a personal conviction that I had. It took me six years and two degrees in order for me to fully realize that it wasn’t something I ever would have chosen for myself if I’d been truly allowed to consider any other option.

Looking back at everything I went through, I realize now how important it is for women to be able to explore all of who they really are, to claim their spiritual gifts and God-given talents. 

***

Be sure to check out Samantha's blog for more! 

Good work, SBC!

When we find ourselves at odds with our fellow Christians over issues that are important to us, it’s easy to slip into the habit of expecting the worst in one another, forgetting just how much we have in common as followers of Jesus. 

As much as I disagree with the Southern Baptist Convention’s positions on gender and sexuality (among other issues), it’s been really encouraging to see the SBC partner with Christians of other denominations in advocating for a humane and loving response to the flood of child refugees crossing the border into the U.S. to escape violence in their homeland.  

I’ve been especially encouraged by the words and actions of Russell Moore, president of the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission of the SBC, who took a trip to the border last week and who wrote a really powerful challenge to Christians regarding their response to the child refugees. Says Moore: 

The Christian response to immigrant communities in the United States cannot be “You kids get off of my lawn” in Spanish. While evangelicals, like other Americans, might disagree on the political specifics of achieving a just and compassionate immigration policy, our rhetoric must be informed by more than politics, but instead by gospel and mission.

I’m amazed when I hear evangelical Christians speak of undocumented immigrants in this country with disdain as “those people” who are “draining our health care and welfare resources.” It’s horrifying to hear those identified with the gospel speak, whatever their position on the issues, with mean-spirited disdain for the immigrants themselves....

This is much more than a “political” issue, abstracted from our salvation. Jesus tells us that our response to the most vulnerable among us is a response to Jesus Himself (Matt. 25:40). God will judge those who exploit workers and mistreat the poor. No matter how invisible they seem to us now, God hears (Isa. 3:15; Amos 4:1; Jas.5:4).

My prayer is that such a unified response among Christian leaders around this situation will not only lead to a loving response to these children but also to all who suffer, all who need of a home, all who come to the U.S. seeking a better life. 

May we continue to find common ground standing in solidarity among "the least of these."

Juliette: The Bravest Little Girl I Know

Photos courtesy of Jason and Amanda Erickson

She’s only 4½ months old, but little Juliette Erickson of Seattle, Washington has already taken the world by surprise. 

Her first surprise was arriving more than two months early, in an apparent effort to share a birthday with her big brother, Bennett.  Mom went into labor on March 11, at just 31-weeks, an event made even more frightening by the fact that Juliette was already known to have a serious heart defect. 

After heart surgery

When Juliette emerged via c-section at a slight three pounds and six ounces, it was discovered she also had a large mass on her soft palate and in her nasal cavity, which severely impeded her breathing. So her second surprise was simply surviving those first few days—a tiny, pulsing life at the center of a tangle of doctors, nurses, tubes, and machines. 

The weeks and months that followed were filled with both heart and ENT surgeries, infections and desats, blood transfusions and plunging heart rates, intubation and extubation, thousands of prayers and some very scary moments. 

We followed along via Facebook, beginning and ending each day with prayers for our dear friends, Jason and Amanda, who in the midst of all the turmoil and sleepless nights, have maintained their characteristic playfulness and humor as well as their resilient faith. 

A recent portrait 

After 20 days in the NICU, Mom got to hold Juliette for the very first time. 

And just last week, Juliette made her first trip outside. 

Jason, Amanda, and Bennett have been living in the Ronald McDonald house ever since March. (I will never eat a Big Mac without donating to that wonderful charity!)  All this time in the hospital, many miles from their home, has placed an understandable strain on their ability to work and of course on their finances.   So if you’d like to donate a few dollars to this fund for the Erickson family, I know it would mean a lot to them. They’re pretty much the coolest, kindest people you will ever meet - the type who are always quick to help everyone else, no strings attached. 

Obviously, we're all hoping Juliette’s next big surprise is that she’s well enough to go home. There are still some hurdles to clear for that to happen, and Juliette continues to deal with issues related to her heart condition and what’s left of the teratoma on her palate.

Please pray that Juliette’s secretions would subside, that her breathing would improve, and that her lungs and heart would grow stronger. And pray for the rest of the Erickson family—Jason, Amanda, and Bennett—that they will find strength, joy, and rest as they continue in this long journey together. 

We’re all cheering Juliette on, praying that she will continue to surprise us for many years to come. 

[Donate here.]

We need feminism…

© 2008 ManOnPHI, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio

Because feminism is the radical notion that women are human. 

Because, worldwide, more girls have been killed in the last fifty years, precisely because they were girls, than men were killed in all the wars of the twentieth century. (source) 

Because nearly 1 in 4 American women between the ages of 18 and 65 has experienced domestic violence. (source) 

Because the U.S. State Department estimates that between 600,000 and 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders each year, and eighty percent of them are women and girls trafficked for sexual exploitation. (source) 

Because girls like Malala Yousafzai deserve an education and should not be threatened with violence for pursuing one. 

***

Because women make up 51% of the US population, but comprise only 20% of congress. (source)

Because Hardee’s can’t seem to sell a hamburger without objectifying a woman’s body in the process. 

Because eighty percent of 10-year-old American girls say they have been on a diet, and the number one magic wish for young girls age 11-17 is to be thinner (source) 

Because pornography is a $570 billion industry worldwide. (source) 

Because in the time it took you to take a selfie with a sign declaring that the world doesn’t need feminism (about four minutes) two more American women were sexually assaulted, nearly 100 American women were abused, four women worldwide died giving birth, eight little girls were trafficked for sexual exploitation, and 6,781,920 people looked at naked women online. 

***

Because women need look no further than the billboards on the highways, the magazine racks in the check-out aisle, or the advertisements on TV to know that our worth in this culture is measured primarily by our appearance. 

Because 20-25% of women in college in the U.S. reported experiencing an attempted or a completed rape in college. (source) 

Because 70% of women in the U.S. workforce are mothers; yet we have no national paid leave child care or flex time policy. The U.S is the only major industrialized nation without paid family leave. 

Because in 2011, only 11 percent of protagonists in films were female. (source)

Because fewer investors are willing to put their money behind a woman entrepreneur than a man, even when they share the very same idea, concept, business and sales pitch. (source)

Because feminism celebrates the freedom of women to choose to enter the workforce or pursue homemaking and to make decisions that best suit the needs of themselves, their communities, and their families. Feminism does not oppose homemaking, marriage, and motherhood, but acknowledges them as among the many vocations of which women are capable. 

***

Because every year, complications from pregnancy and childbirth claim the lives of nearly 300,000 women worldwide and permanently disable many more. (source) 

Because access to contraception would dramatically improve those maternal and infant mortality rates.  (source)

Because one third of the world’s girls are married before the age of 18, and 1 in 9 are married before the age of 15.  Girls who marry before 18 are more likely to experience domestic violence than their peers who marry later and girls younger than 15 are five times more likely to die in childbirth than women in their 20s. Pregnancy is consistently among the leading causes of death for girls ages 15 to 19 worldwide. (source)

Because over 135 million girls and women have undergone genital mutilation and 2 million more girls are at risk each year. (source)

Because legalistic gender roles, and the objectification and marginalization of women, harm both women and men. Feminism isn’t about hating men. Feminism is about restoring the dignity of women for the betterment of society. And so both men and women, both parents of little boys and parents of little girls, can and should be feminists. 

***

Because women who were raped are still asked, “What were you wearing?” 

Because I can’t count the number of times I’ve been called a whore, bitch, cunt, slut, or feminazi because of my theological or political views. 

Because feminism has given women in the U.S. access to higher education, the voting booth, contraception, and property rights, and is still so misunderstood that women themselves say they have no use for it. 

***

Because the message that women who are not virgins are “damaged goods” persists. 

Because the message that women are not capable or called to preach the gospel persists. 

Because the message that women must dress to please men persists. 

Because the message that women should endure abuse persists. 

Because the message that women’s bodies are inherently problematic persists.

Because the message that women are to be "conquered and colonized" during sex persists.

Because the message that men who do housework are failures persists. 

Because the message that men must out-earn their wives to be "real men" persists. 

***

Because patriarchy is not God’s dream for the world. 

Because we are no longer bound by the Curse, but are compelled by the resurrection of Jesus Christ to build a kingdom in which the old power structures dividing Jew from Greek, male from female, and slave from free are dismantled and replaced by mutual love, submission, and grace. 

Because feminism is the radical notion that women are human, and that vision hasn’t been fully realized yet. 

***

This post is a response to #WomenAgainstFeminism and a contribution to the #FaithFeminisms series, which you can learn more about here. 

For more, check out my womanhood tag. 

So, what are some other reasons why we need feminism? 

Sunday Superlatives 7/20/2014

Around the Web…

Most Likely to Kick Ass:
Kacy Catanzaro--the first woman in America Ninja Warrior history to qualify for Mt. Midoriyama

Most Practical (and Sacramental): 
Cody C. Delistraty at The Atlantic with “The Importance of Eating Together” 

“The dinner table can act as a unifier, a place of community. Sharing a meal is an excuse to catch up and talk, one of the few times where people are happy to put aside their work and take time out of their day. After all, it is rare that we Americans grant ourselves pleasure over productivity… In many countries, mealtime is treated as sacred. In France, for instance, while it is acceptable to eat by oneself, one should never rush a meal. A frenzied salad muncher on the métro invites dirty glares, and employees are given at least an hour for lunch. In many Mexican cities, townspeople will eat together with friends and family in central areas like parks or town squares. In Cambodia, villagers spread out colorful mats and bring food to share with loved ones like a potluck.”

Most Thoughtful: 
Drew Hart with “’Around the Way’ Ethics: Have you felt the clash of dominant cultural sensibilities?” 

“Whether living water for the woman at the well, a word of liberation to an oppressed people, or utilizing shepherd language to communities that understood about grazing sheep, Jesus’ engagement was ‘fluent’ and adaptable because of his willingness to occupy marginal spaces and their modes of being.”

Most Powerful: 
Christena Cleveland with “Rethinking Communion” 

“If communion is supposed to represent the cross-cultural solidarity of the cross, then why do we practice it within the not-so-cross-cultural safety of our homogenous church groups? If the cross was costly and self-sacrificial, then why do we commemorate it in such a painless and convenient way?”

Most Helpful:
Marg Mowczko with  “Egalitarian Books and Resources on Marriage” 

Most Profound (nominated by Joanna Dobson):
Richard Beck with “Hebel, Grace and the Art of Andy Goldsworthy – Part 1, Part 2, Part 3” 

“When I encountered Goldsworthy's work my first thought was this: That is what the Christan life should be like. This artform is the perfect metaphor for how we should move and act in the world. Here's what I mean. Today each of us will wander out into the world. And around us we'll find all sorts people and all sorts of situations. It's a fractal, messy, and chaotic world out there. And it's not all bad. There are beautiful things, like flowers, out there. But there is also sadness and brokenness, conflict and deadness. And what we'll try to do today (or what we should be doing today) is very similar to what Goldsworthy does. We will try, given what we find out there, to bring grace and beauty into the world.”

Most Heartbreaking: 
James Guay at TIME with “My Hellish Youth in Gay Conversation Therapy and How I Got Out” 

“I was 9 years old when I recognized my attractions for the same gender. Praying to God every night and pleading with Him to take my feelings away didn’t work. Practically living, eating and breathing the Bible didn’t work. I tried repressing and denying who I was—but nothing changed inside of me. I was taught by my pastors, parents and peers to hate myself—and that worked.”

Most Colorful: 
Chris Heller at The Atlantic with “A colorful time lapse of the world’s largest balloon festival”

Most Eye-Opening:
Sonia Nazario with “The Children of the Drug Wars: A Refugee Crisis, Not an Immigration Crisis” 

“The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees recently interviewed 404 children who had arrived in the United States from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico; 58 percent said their primary reason for leaving was violence. (A similar survey in 2006, of Central American children coming into Mexico, found that only 13 percent were fleeing violence.) They aren’t just going to the United States: Less conflicted countries in Central America had a 712 percent increase in asylum claims between 2008 and 2013. ‘If a house is burning, people will jump out the window,’ says Michelle Brané, director of the migrant rights and justice program at the Women’s Refugee Commission.

Most Intriguing (nominated by Chris Baca): 
Brian Zahnd with “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and The Eucharist”

“Instead of a battlefield where the four horsemen of the Apocalypse ride in vicious repetition, Jesus calls the world to a table where he offers humanity his flesh and blood.”

Wisest: 
Joy Bennett with “Independence: The False Gospel Destroying American Christianity”

“The false gospel of independence teaches that needing or requesting help is either a symptom of some other sin or a sinful attitude in and of itself.”

Cutest: 
Pets Interrupting Yoga

Best Lecture: 
Rev. Sunitha Mortha with “Culture and Accompaniment” at the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast Synod Assembly (this is really, really good)

Best Perspective: 
April Fiet with “The Reality of Rural Poverty”

“…Though urban ministry and rural ministry have a lot in common, rural ministry faces poverty challenges that are nearly insurmountable. Because there are no large employers in our community, and because most jobs are a sizable distance away, someone looking for a job not only needs the skills for the job, but also reliable transportation that can handle driving an hour each way to work every day. People with children also need access to affordable and reliable childcare options. And with no community agencies to help with these things, people who are struggling have nearly no options...”

Best Idea: 
Conor Friedersdorf with “The Case for Subversive Monuments in Washington, D.C.” 

Best Series (nominated by Matt Saler): 
Rob Bell with “What Is the Bible?” 

Best Reflection: 
Shawn Smucker with “Johnny Cash Singing at St. James Episcopal” 

“I realize that accepting one another as we are is one of the most profound things we can do as humans and as Christians. I know how it made me feel when Father David didn’t shame me in any way for not controlling my children during communion, when I wasn’t made to feel like an outsider at his church. I, an Evangelical, was accepted and loved there. That means a lot.”

Best Question: 
Fred Clark with “Whatever happened to the clobber texts for slavery?” 

“A century and a half later, it might seem like Barnes’ argument was vindicated. Apart from the lunatic fringes, you won’t find any credible American theologian, pastor or biblical scholar who would say that the Bible ought to be cited in defense of slavery. Seek out the most belligerent “defenders of the authority of scripture” and “inerrancy” and you won’t find any dispute over this. Everyone agrees that citing the Bible to defend slavery would be wrong. Everyone agrees that slavery itself was wrong. And everyone agrees that the Bible-quoting defenders of slavery back in Barnes’ day must have been wrong. Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, and all those other still-influential “eloquent Divines” must have been, somehow, wrong. But that doesn’t mean that everyone agrees how they were wrong, or why they were wrong. That’s not something we like to talk about.”

Best Sentence: 
Jonathan Merritt in “What the Pope’s popularity says about American culture” with— 

“Most people dislike Christian jerks because they are jerks, not because they are Christian.” 

 

IRL…

It was such a delight to participate in the TOKENS show, hosted by Lee Camp, which came right here to my hometown of Dayton, Tennessee and the famous Rhea County Courthouse this week.

The evening was filled with fantastic music, comedy, and interviews, and I had the chance to meet several of you before and after the show.

Best of all, Dan and I enjoyed some amazing hang-out time with Richard Beck and his wife Jana. (Richard is in fact wearing a t-shirt in this picture. It’s just flesh-toned…at least that’s what we’re telling everyone.)

On the Blog…

Most Popular Post Last Week (because I forgot): 
“Five Ways Progressive Mainline Churches Can Welcome Disenfranchised Evangelicals” 

Most Popular Post This Week: 
“Why I Use Birth Control: 11 Women Speak Up” 

Most Popular Comment (with 230 “likes”!): 
In response to “Why I Use Birth Control…” The Pink Superhero wrote:  

"These are great stories, though I would have loved to see a few more featured in the line of 'I use birth control because I want to, I can, and it's none of your business.' Women don't need to 'earn'  the right to use birth control through medical complications.

***
 
So, what caught your eye online this week? What’s happening on your blog? 

From the Lectionary: “Without a parable, he told them nothing…”

© 2008 Laurent Jégou, Flickr | CC-BY-ND | via Wylio

I'm blogging with the lectionary this year, and this week's reading comes from Matthew 13:24-43:

He put before them another parable: 'The kingdom of heaven may be compared to someone who sowed good seed in his field; but while everybody was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and then went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared as well. And the slaves of the householder came and said to him, ‘Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? Where, then, did these weeds come from?’ He answered, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The slaves said to him, ‘Then do you want us to go and gather them?’ But he replied, ‘No; for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.’

He put before them another parable: 'The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.'

He told them another parable: 'The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.'

Jesus told the crowds all these things in parables; without a parable he told them nothing. This was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet: 'I will open my mouth to speak in parables; I will proclaim what has been hidden from the foundation of the world.' 

Then he left the crowds and went into the house. And his disciples approached him, saying, 'Explain to us the parable of the weeds of the field.' He answered, 'The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man; the field is the world, and the good seed are the children of the kingdom; the weeds are the children of the evil one, and the enemy who sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are angels. Just as the weeds are collected and burned up with fire, so will it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will collect out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and they will throw them into the furnace of fire, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Let anyone with ears listen!'

In the Gospel reading for this week, we learn that in the time between Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and the events leading to his death and resurrection, the travelling teacher communicated through stories.  Matthew goes so far as to say “without a parable he told them nothing.” 

It is an astounding detail when you think about it: The God of all creation, the One who knows every corner of the cosmos and fathoms every mystery, the One who could answer every theological riddle and who, I suspect, chuckles at our volumes of guesses, our centuries of pompous philosophical tomes debating His nature, when present in the person of Jesus Christ, told stories.  

Stories about farming. 

Stories about kneading bread. 

Stories about seeds and trees and birds.

Stories that somehow, in their ordinary profundity, “proclaim what has been hidden from the foundation of the world.” 

Jesus, who certainly could have filled volumes, favored riddles to lectures, metaphors to propositions, everyday language, images, and humor to stiff religious pontification. In a strange burst of joy, Jesus even exclaimed,  "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.”

Religious education is good and important, certainly. But it’s not as important as paying attention. It’s not as important as seeking the Kingdom in the quotidian rhythms of the everyday. It’s not as important as obedience. 

After all, Jesus didn’t come for the rich, the educated, or the right. Jesus came for those with listening ears and open eyes, those who are hungry for righteousness and thirsty for God, those comfortable with metaphors and similes and “almosts” and “not yets,” those content to understand without knowing fully, those with dirt in their fingernails and flour in their hair. 

In Matthew 13, we encounter several parables all packed in together, each one worthy of a thousand different reflections. (The one about the seed that grows into a tree is one of my personal favorites.) Each of these parables features Jesus’ very favorite subject, the thing he spoke about more than any other: The Kingdom. 

The Kingdom is like a tiny mustard seed, Jesus said, that grows into an enormous tree with branches wide and strong enough to make a home for all the birds. It is like a buried treasure, a delicious feast, or a net that catches an abundance of fish. The Kingdom is right here, Jesus said. It is present and yet hidden, immanent yet transcendent. The Kingdom isn’t some far off place you go where you die, the Kingdom is at hand—among us and beyond us, now and not-yet. It is the wheat growing in the midst of weeds, the yeast working its magic in the dough, the pearl germinating in a sepulchral shell. It can come and go in the twinkling of an eye, Jesus said. So pay attention; don’t miss it. 

This Kingdom knows no geographic boundaries, no political parties, no single language or culture. It advances not through power and might, but through acts of love and joy and peace, missions of mercy and kindness and humility. This Kingdom has arrived, not with a trumpet’s sound but with a baby’s cries, not with the vanquishing of enemies but with the forgiving of them, not on the back of a war horse but on the back of a donkey, not with triumph and a conquest but with a death and a resurrection. 

And yet there is more to this Kingdom that is still to come, Jesus said, and so we await a day when every tear will be wiped from every eye, when swords will be beaten into plowshares and spears shaped into a pruning hooks, when justice will cascade like a river down a mountain and righteousness like a never-ending stream, when people from every tribe and tongue and nation will live together in peace, when there will be no more death. 

On this week when our newspapers reveal the ugly reality that evil and good grow alongside one another—in the world and even in our own hearts—the parable of the wheat and the weeds seems especially weighty. As reports of civilian casualties mount, we see that, just as Jesus warned, human attempts to “root out evil” on our own, by force, result in the destruction of innocent lives. 

Every. Single. Time. 

Like it or not, this parable challenges, (perhaps even mocks), our notion of “precision airstrikes,” of getting rid of the “bad guys” without hurting the “good guys.” The fact is, we don’t see the world as God sees it. We are not equipped to call the shots on who deserves to live and who deserves to die, who is evil and who is good—especially when, if we’re honest, we can feel both impulses coursing through our own bloodstreams. 

While we could certainly digress into an eschatological conversation about exactly what Jesus means when he talks about throwing evildoers into the fire, the instructive call of this parable remains the same: to let God do the farming. God is the judge—not you, not me, not kings, not presidents. 

“Without a parable, he told them nothing.” 

Yet still we struggle to understand. Still we struggle to obey. 

Two-thousand years after Matthew recorded these parables about seeds and wheat and yeast, we’re still combing our theology books for answers. We’re still talking about airstrikes and minimizing civilian casualties. We’re still seeking power and vengeance, knowledge and stuff. 

In Walking on Water, Madeleine L’Engle tells of a young woman who told the author, “I read A Wrinkle in Time when I was eight or nine. I didn’t understand it, but I knew what it was about.” 

That’s often how I feel about the parables of Jesus. I don’t understand them exactly, but I know what they’re about. 

L’Engle concludes: “…One does not have to understand to be obedient. Instead of understanding—that intellectual understanding which we are so fond of—there is a feeling of rightness, of knowing, knowing things which you are not yet able to understand…As long as we know what it’s about, then we can have the courage to go wherever we are asked to go, even if we fear that the road may take us through danger and pain.” 

The God of the universe has beckoned us into His lap to tell us a story, to teach us to pay attention. 

Let those with ears hear. 

***

 if you’ve written a post around any of this week’s lectionary texts, do share it in the comment section. 

Pastors and the “F-Word”: A Conversation with J.R. Briggs

According to J.R. Briggs, “the elephant in the room for pastors is that many of us are afraid of failure, and we don’t feel as though there are safe spaces to talk openly about it.”   Which is why J.R. organized the Epic Fail Pastors Conference and why he authored one of the most important books I’ve read this summer, Fail: Finding Hope and Grace in the Midst of Ministry Failure. 

J.R. serves as Cultural Cultivator of The Renew Community a Jesus community for skeptics and dreamers in Lansdale, PA. He is the founder of Kairos Partnerships an initiative that partners with leaders, pastors and church planters during significant kairos moments in ministry. As part of his time with Kairos Partnerships, he serves on staff with The Ecclesia Network and Fresh Expressions U.S. and coaches leaders, pastors and church planters across the country.

I’ve long admired J.R.’s take on ministry, so it was honor to talk with him about what it means for pastors to serve with faithfulness, regardless of the outcome, in a culture that idolizes celebrity and success. I hope it will be an encouragement to all of you, but especially those of you in ministry. 

***

RHE: First of all, thank you so much for this book. I know it’s not easy to write with such honesty and vulnerability about your own struggles and failures, but it’s such a gift to people who would otherwise feel alone in their experience. This has to be especially true for pastors, who are often held to impossibly high standards and for whom “success” can be especially hard to gauge. I think you’ve started a really important conversation here, and it took guts to do that. 

So, to start, tell us a little about the Epic Fail Pastor’s Conference. What gave you the idea to do that? And what was the first one like? 

J.R.B.: Thanks for your kind words. I do hope the conference, and now the book, can prompt honest and significant conversations among pastors (and truthfully, among all people) regarding failure and how we respond to it with hope, grace and freedom.

The Epic Fail Pastors Conference came about almost by accident. Previously, I was on staff at a large church in a very visible role. By all accounts, people would have believed I was “successful.” Then, God called my family out to plant a church with little resources and few people. It was an incredibly dark and painful season for me. The thoughts of failure were right in front of my face. 

During that time, I realized that most of the ministry conferences around the country were oriented for – and run by - “successful” pastors at “successful” churches. I found myself leaving these conference feeling either guilty that I wasn’t doing church “the right way” or like I couldn’t relate to the speakers and their context in any way. I am sure they were kind-hearted and loved the Lord deeply, but I wondered if what we were doing, whether we knew it or not, was worshipping at the altar of our American-defined ideal of success, only in the setting of a local church. 

Shortly thereafter, I wrote a satirical blog post suggesting that someone host an “Epic Fail Pastors Conference” where we put our “worst foot forward.” I wrote that instead of talking about our successes, the speakers should be required to only speak of their failures – and, to follow up, share how God showed up anyway in the midst of the failure. I suggested in the blog post that no speaker should be a pastor of a church larger than 200 people, that we should call our speakers “Experts on Failure,” and that there should be no green room, lanyards, merchandise tables or honoraria, and that we would end the event with communion. 

Ironically, the satirical idea took off. People contacted me from all over the country asking when and where we were hosting this counter-intuitive event. It shocked me. We had no serious plans to do so, but after talking about it with a few ministry friends, we decided to pull the trigger. We hosted our first event about four years ago in my community, a northern suburb of Philadelphia, in the upstairs of a gritty bar that used to be a church. It was a raw and beautiful experience of healing and grace. So beautiful, in fact, we felt we needed to steward this idea wisely and continue to host these spaces. We’ve hosted Epic Fail events around the country over the past few years and continue to do so. (For more, check out www.epicfailevents.com).

RHE: I have to say, the statistics from Chapter 2 of Fail shocked me. I had no idea how many pastors struggled with depression and frustration regarding their ministry roles. You write that 80 percent of pastors (and 84 percent of their spouses) are discouraged in their ministry roles, that 40 percent say they have seriously considered leaving the pastorate in the past three months, and that 70 percent say they don’t have a single close friend. Those are some really astounding and sobering numbers. And yet, this reality is so rarely talked about—in church, at conferences, in books. Why do you think that is, and why is it important that we change that? Why must we talk about failure, (or the sense of failure), among ministers? 

J.R.B.: Yes, ministry can be brutal. One of the most sobering statistics I found in my research is that for every twenty pastors who enter the ministry only one will retire from ministry. The irony is that so many pastors think about failure, but so few have spaces to talk openly and courageously about it. As I’ve listened to the stories of numerous wounded and hurt pastors I’ve realized that the less we talk about failure the more we feel it, but the more we can talk about it the less we feel it. 

The biggest barrier to talking openly about failure (or the sense of failure) is fear. Pastors are always wondering, if I talk about this, will this cost me? Will it cost me my job? Will it hurt my family? How badly will my reputation be damaged if I share how I’m really feeling? Will people hold it against me? Will people be disappointed and leave my church? 

We have to talk about failure because if we don’t we perpetuate the façade that the pastor has it all together. Masks are readily available for pastors and when we refuse to be honest and go into hiding, we’re tempted to reach for a mask to give the impression we’re someone that we’re not. And there are numerous ornate ministry masks available to pastors. But when we put on the mask we put aside the cross. The irony is that we bear the message of grace, where Jesus says that no perfect people are allowed. Even though we preach grace from the pulpit – that we’re all messy, broken, sinful, spiritual high maintenance people – that doesn’t always get into our bloodstream. If we don’t talk about failure and brokenness in appropriate ways, we perpetuate the priority of religiosity, the very thing that Jesus came to put to death. If we perpetuate religiosity and refuse to embrace grace, we are hypocritical and unfaithful to our calling as ministers of the gospel. But when we model and embrace grace, it’s certainly messy, but it’s also incredibly beautiful and attractive to others around us.  

It’s important to state that pastors are in need of both wisdom and courage. Talking about our wounds, failures, sin and brokenness takes courage. It’s only when we’re vulnerable that we grow. But we also need to exhibit wisdom to know when, where, with whom and how much to share about our brokenness. Finding the right balance of wisdom and courage in addressing our brokenness is crucial.

RHE: I once wrote a post entitled, “Dear Pastors, Tell Us the Truth,” and was heartbroken by how many pastors responded to it by saying they would never feel comfortable being that honest with their congregations. Why are so many pastors afraid to tell their congregations the truth—about their fears, their doubts, their ideas, and their failures? 

J.R.B.: I remember your article well. It struck a chord because it was so refreshing to the hearts of many pastors. As I mentioned above, there’s a lot of fear of what it will cost pastors if they tell the truth. This inability and unwillingness to talk about fears, doubts, ideas and failures leads to isolation, performancism and loneliness. Being with many pastors as they tell me their story, one of the main words I would use to describe their lives is loneliness. The Evil One loves this. If you isolate the life of a pastor, all sorts of significant damage can be done. It’s healthy when the pastor needs a community as much as a community needs a pastor.

RHE: What are a few things parishioners can do differently to support and encourage their pastors better? 

J.R.B.: There are many I would suggest, but I’ll stick with three. 

The first is to never forget that pastors are people before they are pastors. The expectations churches often place on pastors can lead them to believe they have to be super-human. It is important to remember pastors have bad days, feel “off,” need a break, and need friends and safe spaces where they can let their hair down. When parishioners have this perspective it can be a gift for pastors and their families. Don’t ever forget that your pastor is in need of as much saving grace from Christ as you or anyone else in the church. When we forget this, we miss out on understanding the gospel and we set pastors up on pedestals; and when this happens it is dangerous for both the pastor and the church. 

Second, commit to regular prayer and ongoing encouragement of your pastor and his/her family. When people in our church tell me that they have committed to prayer for me, I tell them it is one of the best gifts they could give to our family. Pastors don’t always do it right or preach amazing sermons or respond in the most gracious way. Pray for encouragement for your pastor, pray they would have a deep intimacy with the Lord, a deep understanding of grace and protection from the Evil One. 

Lastly – and this may be more for the leaders or elders of the church – cultivate a culture that encourages rest, health and healing. Seldom do I meet well-rested leaders. Even more rare is a well-rested pastor. Make sure time is allotted for vacation and time away for their families. Require that your pastor practice Sabbath as a way of taking care of mind, body and soul, as well as modeling healthy rhythms for the congregation. Some churches I know pay for a spiritual director or a counselor for their pastors, not because they think their pastors are screwed up, but because they want to make sure there is healthy support in place since ministry can be brutal. I’m certainly not suggesting you pamper your pastor unnecessarily, but creating a culture that cares for your pastor ultimately leads to your pastor caring well for the congregation. 

RHE: How has our success-oriented culture and the “celebrity pastor” phenomenon within Christianity negatively affected everyday pastors? 

J.R.B.: The phrase “celebrity pastor” is a contradiction of terms, but it feels somewhat normal to us in our cultural context because the mindset is so rampant. Unfortunately, the Church in North America has been co-opted by the corporate business approach to success and efficiency. It wasn’t the corporate world forcing it’s way onto the Church; we brought it on ourselves. Because of that, the church now uses the same metrics as the world.  The psyche of the average pastor is concentrating on metrics that the world uses: bigger, better, more efficient, more influential, bigger platform, etc. 

More simply, we tend to measure our effectiveness as pastors on the three B’s: buildings, bodies and budget. If these three B’s are strong, we’re tempted to think, well then, we must be successful. Conversely, we think that if those are down, we must be failing. The problem is that this is dangerously different from the heart of Jesus and the kingdom he came to declare: small, on the margins, ordinary, obscure, focused on faithfulness and humility that requires dying to ourselves. What happens when we adopt the world’s way of counting is that we think more like spiritual managers and church entrepreneurs than shepherds and soul gardeners. When we manage people’s spiritual lives we can think of them as problems to be fixed, issues that need to be tweaked and a system to be fine-tuned. This is not ministry; people know it when it happens. They get the sense that the pastor is using them to accomplish his/her grand vision. 

I’ve shared this quote from Eugene Peterson (from the Introduction of his book Working the Angles) with dozens of pastors because it gets to the root of the issue at hand. It’s so important that I keep it tucked away in my Bible to remind me of my calling: 

The biblical fact is that there are no successful churches. There are, instead, communities of sinners, gathered before God week after week in towns and villages all over the world. The Holy Spirit gathers them and does his work in them. In these communities of sinners, one of the sinners is called pastor and given a designated responsibility in the community. The pastor’s responsibility is to keep the community attentive to God. It is this responsibility that is being abandoned in spades.”

RHE: When we look at national trends, it becomes apparent that churches in the U.S. are indeed seeing an overall decline, and no denomination has been spared from that. It seems to me that this might provide a sort of death-and-resurrection moment for Christians—a death to the old ways of measuring impact by money, power, numbers, and influence and a resurrection into the ways of Jesus, where the focus is on the hard work of discipleship, healing, fellowship, etc. What does “success” look like for pastors at a time when the Church is changing so dramatically and when most can’t brag about impressive numbers? 

J.R.B.:  Many have asked me a similar question: “If it’s not about the three B’s, then what am I after?” As we study the gospels and learn of Jesus’ challenge for us to seek the kingdom first and teach others in the Way of Christ, we see the dominating posture is faithfulness. Jesus will never say, “Well done, my good and successful servant.” In some ways this is encouraging; in other ways, it means a more difficult road. Faithfulness is the basis for ministry.

In the book I mention four shifts we need to engage in as we think about a new way forward. The first shift is from product to process. Instead of focusing on the end product or on hard numbers, we focus on the journey. So much of what Jesus did was with people. Pastors are on a journey with together toward Jesus. 

The second shift is from prioritizing results to prioritizing relationships. When we focus primarily on results we exhibit a spiritual management posture, instead of ministry. When we’re rooted in trusting relationships with others centered in Jesus, the kingdom is present. It may not put pastors on a national speaking circuit, but is that the goal of ministry? 

The third shift is from a focus on numbers to focus on stories. When we focus on numbers we dehumanize people. When we focus on stories we give people dignity and value. It helps people know their part in the story and know how to live into that calling. 

And the fourth shift is a move away from efficiency and toward congruence. The faster we move toward progress we feel less of a need for relationships. I certainly am not suggesting we strive for inefficiency; instead, what we strive for is effectiveness - or, a better way to put it, fruitfulness. I love the word congruence. When things are congruent they jive. They fit. The parts work together as one. When the heart of a pastor – and the hearts of the people in a local church - is congruent with the heart of the Father, the kingdom is present. 

These shifts are messy and take sacrifice and a great amount of unlearning, but it’s what leads to freedom, faithfulness and obedience – which are at the heart of the gospel story we are called to boldly proclaim. 

*** 

Be sure to check out Fail: Finding Hope and Grace in the Midst of Ministry Failure. And you can find J.R.’s blog here. 
 

 

The Table...

When I was ready to give up on the Church, it was the sacraments that pulled me back.

When my faith had become little more than an abstraction, a set of propositions to be affirmed or denied, the tangible, tactile nature of the sacraments invited me to touch, smell, taste, hear, and see God in the stuff of everyday life again. They got God out of my head and into my hands. They reminded me that Christianity isn’t meant to simply be believed; it’s meant to be lived, shared, eaten, spoken, and enacted in the presence of other people. They reminded me that, try as I may, I can’t be a Christian on my own. 

Perhaps the most powerful of those sacraments is communion. 

In the video above, Rev. Michael Curry, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina, tells the story of a young woman who became an Episcopalian in the 1940s. 

One Sunday, she invited the man she had been dating to join her at morning services.  Both of them were African American, but the church they attended that day was all white, and right in the heart of segregated America. The young man waited in the pews while the congregation went forward to receive communion, anxious because he noticed that everyone in the congregation was drinking from the same chalice. He had never seen black people and white people drink from the same water fountain, much less the same cup. 

His eye stayed on his girlfriend as, after receiving the bread, she waited for the cup. Finally, the priest lowered it to her lips and said, as he had to the others, “The blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life.” 

The man decided that any church where black and white drank from the same cup had discovered something powerful, something he wanted to be a part of. 

The couple was Bishop Curry’s parents. 

Communion, he says, “is a sacrament of unity that overcomes even the deepest estrangements between human beings.” 

 In his book, Unclean, Richard Beck puts it like this:  

“Participation in the Lord’s Supper is an inherently moral act. In the first century church, and in our own time, people who would never have associated with each other in the larger society sit as equals around the Table of the Lord…The Eucharist, therefore, is not simply a symbolic expansion of the moral circle. The Lord’s Supper becomes a profoundly subversive political event in the lives of the participants. The sacrament brings real people—divided in the larger world—into a sweaty, intimate, flesh-and-blood embrace where ‘there shall be no difference between them and the rest.’”

I would be lying if I said I relished this “sweaty, intimate, flesh-and-blood embrace” without reservation. Sure, I’m happy to pass the bread to someone like Bishop Curry or the neighbor who mows our lawn when we’re out of town. But Ann Coulter? Mark Driscoll? Those gatekeeper types I like to complain about?  Not so much.

On a given Sunday I might spot six or seven people who have wronged or hurt me, people whose politics, theology, or personalities drive me crazy. The Church is positively crawling with people who don’t deserve to be here. 

But the Table can transform even our enemies into companions. The Table reminds us that, as brothers and sisters adopted into God’s family and invited to God’s banquet, we’re stuck with each other; we’re family. We might as well make peace. The Table teaches us that, ultimately, faith isn’t about being right or good or in agreement. Faith is about feeding and being fed.