Home for the holidays

One of my best clergy buddies is fond of saying, “All church is local.” That is, Christ is most present in small communities of faith that share their lives together. Two events in the past 24 hours reminded me of this truism.

The first was yesterday’s email from Episcopal News Service announcing that it would cease publication of its two remaining printed newspapers at the end of the month. I wasn’t surprised; a similar attempt had been made about a year ago, but the decision was deferred over protests from a number of dioceses.

However electronically interconnected many of us have become, print remains the best way to reach a significant number of the significantly graying population of Episcopalians. And while we can live with not learning where the PB went last month, parishioners will be much the poorer for not being able to read and see what other congregations around the country have been up to. Sure, you can find it on the web—if you know where to look—if you remember to look. That’s not the same as having it dropped at your doorstep.

The second reminder came in a Christmas card that arrived today—a letter written by the husband of one of my cousins. He’s pastor of a Covenant (Swedish Reformed) congregation in southern California. He wrote:

I’m convinced more than ever that the local church is God’s “Plan A” for the world. It’s here in small local settings where hope is made tangible and where love breaks down barriers. Here is where grace extends across the divides of age and income, ethnicity and education. Here is where the Gospel happens or doesn’t, and I’m thankful to be part of that.

Amen; blessed Advent and a joyous Christmas.

More Thought; Less Shouting

Interesting ideas tend to show up in odd clusters. I’ve recently encountered two unrelated items, each of which gives the other a little more weight. The first comes from UCC minister Tony Robinson, writing in Call & Response - a blog run by the Divinity School at Duke University. In a post entitled “David Brooks as Public Theologian,” Robinson comments on the current lack of great theological leaders whose influence extends beyond theology and into the worlds of politicians and civic leaders. He asks the rhetorical question, “Where have all the Niebuhrs gone?” You can read it here.

The second item is an op-ed from the New York Times by Timothy Egan entitled, “Building a nation of Know-Nothings.” It’s a lament about the ability of certain “media” figures to perpetuate utter falsehoods merely by use of innuendo and repetition. He points out that, however incredible it sounds, huge numbers of people believe this stuff just because they keep hearing it. You can read the sordid details here.

So where is the church in all this? It’s not an easy question, because Christ’s call to love all people by definition includes some unsavory characters. But that need not leave us fumbling. First off, we have an obligation to speak the truth, to advocate that others must do the same, and to call them on it when they do not. That’s a role that theological leaders have often filled in the past; today... not so much.

Second, we need to realize that neither religion nor politics is a zero-sum game. It’s not about who wins; it’s about the greater good. In the case of the church, this means building God’s kingdom for all people. In politics, it means focusing not on who’s to blame for a problem, or why you should fear it, but on how to fix the problem. In both cases, it’s about getting things done and persuading people that having their own way isn’t always in their best interest.

Leadership is about motivation, to be sure. But more importantly, it’s about getting people to focus on what’s really, truly important, then motivating them to work on that. Everything else is just a seductive diversion.

Godly Play to the Max

It's great news to hear that attendance at next week's Godly Play Core Training will be full to overflowing. Those attending are in for a treat. There's more available about the weekend-long event here.

Kudos to the organizers for what promises to be a great experience for all.

Say What?!?!

Many things I find out on the web about religion and the Episcopal Church prompt me to comment - and I frequently do so here. Occasionally, however, something comes up that pretty much speaks for itself.

This morning’s New York Times carries a story about the Vatican’s recently released rules regarding sex abuse. Here’s the first paragraph:

“The Vatican issued revisions to its internal laws on Thursday making it easier to discipline sex-abuser priests, but caused confusion by also stating that ordaining women as priests was as grave an offense as pedophilia.”

Well, they certainly made their position clear. I guess Catholics in the pews will draw their own conclusions... as will the rest of us. You can read the rest of the article here.

Finding God

Each morning when I open up my Google News page, I see a daily culling of stories from the media that involve the Episcopal Church in one way or another. These stories typically fall into two piles. First, there are stories that show the church in action. These include things like a church in Boston holding a prayer service to bring calm to a gang-ridden neighborhood; a group in Minneapolis translating the Prayer Book into Hmong; a mission trip; a refugee settlement; or a group of cyclists raising money for a water project in the Sudan.

The other pile contains things like who has sued whom, what this court said about who owns which church’s property, and--perhaps most strangely--where and when the P.B. can wear her hat. The writers of this stuff usually take strong, polar positions on what, at least to them, are issues central to the faith. In a recent post on her blog, Diana Butler Bass has interesting things to say about this lot. You can read it here.

If you want to learn what the Episcopal Church is all about, I beseech you not to try to find out by reading about it. Instead, take a month and visit a different Episcopal Church in your area each Sunday. I suspect that each of the four will be different. You’ll probably like one better than the others. But if you take a look at each of them, you’ll find Christ present in what’s going on there. It won’t be earth-shaking; it won’t change the world. But it will be real, it will be relevant, and it will be helping to build God’s kingdom on earth. Those are the folks to whom I’ll tip my hat.

Will the real Christians please stand up

The New York Times has carried two stories recently that give hope to the idea that thoughtful commentary on thing religious still exists. The first was an article about Krista Tippit’s NPR program Speaking of Faith, recalling how a remarkable woman has managed to blend, “the child of small-town church comfortable in the pews; the product of Yale Divinity School able to parse text in Greek and theology in German; and, perhaps most of all, the diplomat seeking to resolve social divisions.” In doing so, she attracts a sizable regular following. You can read the whole story here.

The second article was an Op Ed by the Dalai Lama in which he challenges the premise that the world’s religions have nothing to learn from one another. He recounts his early meetings with Thomas Merton, and their discussions about how one can learn from one religion while remaining faithful to another. He goes on to say, “I’m a firm believer in the power of personal contact to bridge differences, so I’ve long been drawn to dialogues with people of other religious outlooks. The focus on compassion that Merton and I observed in our two religions strikes me as a strong unifying thread among all the major faiths. And these days we need to highlight what unifies us.” The entire story is here.

The Episcopal Church is full of examples of this sort of productive, inspiring contact with other denominations and faiths. We will do a much better job of spreading the Gospel—in whatever form—by reaching outward, focusing on these commonalities and ignoring those who would chastise us for the ways in which we are different from them—and therefore, presumably, somehow less Christian.

How's Your Glass?

Diocesan Convention resolutions typically come in two flavors: things we deal with because the lawyers or the church hierarchy tell us we must, and things we deal with because someone is upset about something. This June’s convention will include both flavors. However, there are also one or two resolutions that, if folks are paying attention, ought to spark some really meaningful discussion.

Most prominent among these is a resolution from the Very Rev. Churchill Pinder, Chair of the Standing Committee, entitled, A resolution to implement a process of Holy Conversations within the Diocese of Central Pennsylvania. The proposition is simple: that over the next three years the Diocese engage in a structured process of discussion centered around three questions:

Who are we as the Diocese of Central Pennsylvania?
What has God called us to do or be?
Who is our neighbor?

I would suspect that this effort is an outgrowth of the strategic planning process in which the Bishop and the Standing Committee have been involved over the past year. But the questions the resolution asks offer a real opportunity because they can serve as a monitor of our attitudes about our church.

If the church is a place where attendance keeps falling, where the same people get elected to the vestry year after year, where balancing the budget means further depleting the endowment each year, and where you can count the young families on the fingers of one hand, then your glass probably looks half empty.

On the other hand, if the church is a place where attendance is at least stable, if there are new ideas for ministry and outreach (and if a few of them work), if there are kids around and they’re involved in the congregation, if the vestry and clergy are more inclined to say, “Why not!” than, “Why should we?” then your glass probably looks half full.

All congregations have challenges, and when the economy is down, everyone’s challenges are larger. But if congregations fail, it is because leadership, both lay and clerical, fails. Ultimately, we have no one but ourselves to blame. Neither the diocese, nor the national church, nor the economy, nor unpopular causes will cause your parish to founder. Your parish will succeed only when you overcome your fear and focus on showing God’s love to the world around you. This diocese has an abundance of stories that will back this up, and they come from congregations both large and small, that are willing to do the hard work that is required. Size is no determinant. But until you’re no longer afraid, your head and your heart just won’t be in the right place.