Ministry Relearned by Rev. Robert Kyte Pastor, First Congregational United Church of Christ, Dalton, MA In her book of personal essays, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts On Faith, Anne Lamott wrote about her discovery of Christian faith at St. Andrew Presbyterian Church in Marin City, California. As a United Church of Christ pastor and, therefore, a church insider, the popularity of a book read by many who claim to be spiritual but not religious caught my attention. In telling her story, Lamott begins by stating flatly that she was not looking for faith. She was a conscientious objector against its claims and commitments. Her rigid resistance melted before the non-judgmental love for her and her son given by the people of St. Andrew. She learned a message of Christian love in the sermons of Veronica Goines. Lamott discovered in herself a God sized hole that only God can fill. One step at a time, Lamott moved from standing at the door to sitting in the pews. My wife and I read the book and enjoyed Lamott s lively, honest writing. We were very different from Anne Lamott in background and our faith journeys. Our politics lined up but little else. What did we have in common with her? Of course, the answer was Jesus. We all used the lens of Christian faith, the joy and challenge of answering Jesus call to follow him, to understand the world and our place in it. Only the magic of Christian community, that most wild, wonderful, sometimes goofy, sometimes glorious expression of God s holy, human family, could help us open our hearts to one another. 1
When we used Traveling Mercies for a church book discussion group, I was surprised by the strong reactions of our readers. Those new to Christian faith loved Anne Lamott but lifelong church members thought her too odd and could not relate to such a personally centered and personal expression of Christian faith. What was going on here? Around this time, our church was welcoming a large group of new members, mainly men and women in their thirties. Most had small children and appreciated our growing Sunday School. I did what we always did for new member orientation: explanation of church government, our program of activities, a little history of our denomination and the request for financial support. Our worship services used a typical mainline Protestant order of unison prayers, three hymns from an older denominational hymn book, a long pastoral prayer, a weekly opinion piece on the lectionary scriptures called a sermon, and, of course, an offering. Their willingness to join the church seemed confirmation that what we offered was what they wanted. Within two years, some, followed by most, drifted away. Every family had a particular reason. Yet their stories included some of the same comments. Volunteer opportunities were limited to committee work. The activities centered on fund raising. Worship services were old fashioned and uninspiring. The music was dated. There was little expected of them during Sunday worship. Yes, they liked the pastor enough but it was the Sunday experience that left them cold. I was reminded of a description about their generation: They like Jesus, it s the church they can t stand. I was confused. Almost everything I knew about pastoral leadership from divinity school training and three decades in four congregations seemed suddenly outdated. Surely the signs of a generational transition, the struggle to review and renew what a church is and does, were there. But was this our problem alone? Were there similar stories in other mainline Protestant congregations? Were there other pastors as challenged and as curious as I was about the opportunities in this generational transition? This was the beginning of a trail I have traveled that led to a three-month sabbatical leave in 2007 and back again to my congregation. The sabbatical could not have happened without a generous grant from the Louisville Institute Sabbatical Grants for Pastoral Leaders program. The sabbatical provided the time and the grant, the means for a time of personal and pastoral renewal. I am grateful to the Louisville Institute for their grant for my sabbatical and the Lilly Foundation for their support of the Church. 2
The sabbatical months fulfilled the intention of the Biblical Sabbath. It was a time for wonder, not work. It was a time to rediscover my call to ministry. And it was a time to work on my own marriage and family relationships after working on other peoples lives. I was fortunate. Few working men and women are offered three months of paid leave. As well as funding my plan, the Louisville grant provided the money for a summer intern, a woman training for Licensed Ministry in the United Methodist Church, to provide pastoral care and leadership. Our congregation became a teaching church. My wife, Stefanie, and I traveled, visited our distant adult children, experienced a retreat at an Episcopal monastery, and spoke of matters other than our church obligations. When the sabbatical began, the tension of constant pastoral responsibilities that had taken up residence in my body and spirit, mercifully, left. The world became a wonder-filled place again and not only full of struggle and pain. It was time to rediscover my own God sized hole. Let me begin again at another place. In the past ten years, thanks to friendships with Greek Orthodox priests, the beauty of Eastern Christian worship and the demanding challenges of Orthodox spiritual practices have been a revelation. Reading Frederica Mathewes-Green s memoir of her family s move from the Episcopal Church to Eastern Orthodoxy, Facing East: A Pilgrim s Journey Into the Mysteries of Orthodoxy, has upturned my assumption about the search for a Christian life. She writes about wanting more asked of her, not less. She wanted a true life in Christ, not just an hour on Sunday. Like Anne Lamott, she was looking for a church to believe in, not a church membership. In 2005, Diana Butler Bass was a featured speaker at the annual meeting of the Massachusetts Conference United Church of Christ. Because I had been asked to mentor a small group of four pastors serving their first congregations, I attended a lunch for clergy new to our Conference where Diana spoke. She was beginning a three year study about why some mainline Protestant congregations were thriving, not dying. She presented us with stories of hope very appropriate for new pastors. Following her talk, by luck, I sat across from her at lunch and learned more. Her research and her personal story hooked me. She was asking the same questions nationally that I was in my church. 3
The pastoral project of my sabbatical leave was to think through these questions using the research and writing of Diana Butler Bass as a guide. Is there a future for the traditional name brand (Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopal, Lutheran, UCC) American Protestant churches? Are conservative evangelical churches winning and liberal churches losing? Is that even a correct viewpoint? What do adults aged 45 and under look for in a church? Do they look for a church at all? What are some mainline churches doing differently that causes them to thrive? What do pastors need to learn and practice now? I studied at a properly recognized mainline Protestant divinity school. We were taught to teach the Christian faith apologetically, by classic Christian apologetics, using the art of persuasion to people intellectually skeptical of the Bible and Christian doctrines. We were trained academically to present the faith through reason to people who examined religion intellectually. Anything less would diminish Christian faith to the weepy emotionalism of evangelical churches that we, frankly, looked at with condescension. Jesus was our reasonable rabbi teaching us the way to lead a happy life not the all demanding Lord who handcuffs us with guilt. We were prepared to confirm rather than challenge what our congregations already knew about church life. They loved their church but were openly wary of Jesus. Although many of us bragged that we would be prophets in the pulpit, it is not a stretch to say that many of us became the congregation s designated Christian, someone to live the Christian life on their behalf. We prepared for the reality of church life by learning pastoral counseling, Christian education, youth work and church administration. Yet now I found myself asked to lead a new generation that loved Jesus but was wary of church people. Facing this challenge, I found my heart on their side. The discovery of Orthodox liturgy and theology was a sign of yearning emerging within me. The personal stories of Frederica Matthews-Green and Diana Butler Bass opened up a new way to look at the church and its meaning in our lives. Was the political activism of the 1960s that inspired me and others to hear in Jesus words a call to speak truth to power only an important course correction from the church of our parents? Was it only a step on the way to reviving the church and returning it to its Christ centered mission? Can we love Jesus just as much as justice? Is this, in part, what the new generation is searching for? The sabbatical came during a time of crisis in our congregation. Despite yearly increases in membership and giving, in January 2006 church leaders were faced with a $20,000 gap between income and expenses in our $260,000 budget. Heating and maintenance costs suddenly were rising faster than giving. What 4
would go? Mission giving? Christian education? Staff positions? We decided a plan to review our mission to let our dreams lead us rather than let dollars drive our decisions. What kind of church did we want to be now? What was God calling us to become? What opportunities were we missing by clinging to familiar ways of thinking and acting? Church leaders were enthusiastic and the congregation was willing to go along for the ride. In my mind, our search would and should lead us to listen to those new members who drifted away. In her autobiographical book, Strength for the Journey: A Pilgrimage of Faith in Community, Diana Butler Bass describes her movement from one church to another. She grew up in Baltimore attending the neighborhood Methodist Church where her family had worshiped for generations. When her family moved to Arizona, not being able to replace that experience, she joined an evangelical Christian community. There she found a commitment to Jesus and a clearly outlined set of doctrines and practices that was lacking in her Methodist experience. She attended a Christian college and a conservative Christian graduate school. She ran into the rigidity and conformity that is the dark side of conservative American Protestantism. Then, one day in Westminster Abbey in London, through the Anglican liturgy she experienced Christianity in a way that deeply moved her and connected emotion and intellect. Today she is an active Episcopal lay person in a downtown church in Washington, D.C. Her story of searching for a Christian community that was real, a faith that challenged her to live by Christ s example, and a church that was genuinely inclusive and not judgmental and exclusive sounded like the comments I heard from the new members that came and went. It was not the name on the church lawn but what was found inside that mattered. Faith was about a life changing personal commitment and a call to community service. As Bass observed and reported in the books that flowed from her three year research project, The Practicing Congregation, From Nomads to Pilgrims and Christianity for the Rest of Us, mainline, old brand American Protestant churches can reverse their decline and revive their congregations by rediscovering ancient Christian practices of hospitality, discernment healing, contemplation, testimony, justice and worship opens hearts as well as minds to God s living presence. One of the best opportunities of the sabbatical leave was the freedom to worship at other churches. We sought out lively congregations including a few described in Christianity for the Rest of Us. As Bass observed, we discovered welcoming, 5
6 spirited and joy filled mainline congregations driven by a sense of mission for the present rather than a stagnant repetition of remembering the past. We visited First Church United Church of Christ in Cambridge, Massachusetts. First Church is an open and affirming congregation that welcomes gays and lesbians. Located near Harvard Square in the heart of Cambridge, church members and children make sandwiches for the Sunday afternoon outdoor worship and lunch for the homeless. We listened to a Bach prelude, heard the choir sing and sway to a modern song and saw children dancing in the aisles with hand motions to finger snapping new hymns. We saw young urban professionals asking for prayer requests and serving coffee. We visited St. Stephen s Episcopal Church in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. The priest, the Rev. Hannah Anderson, presided over a lively liturgy with assistance from more than a dozen lay persons. When prayer time came, a lay woman stood in the middle of the church reading names and telling of needs given her by parishioners. It was truly the prayers of the people. Announcements called for donations to community shelters and volunteers for Habitat and the church s weekly St. Stephen s Table free dinner. We visited United Church of Santa Fe, a new congregation formed thirty years ago. The worship space was designed and decorated to reflect the northern New Mexico landscape. The church is committed to a stewardship of the environment as a theological as well as moral cause and to the call to share precious natural resources that is the historical key to that region s history. The congregation is loudly and proudly liberal and inclusive. We were told that it is thriving because it is the church of open minds and hearts. Like the congregations described by Diana Butler Bass, these churches did more than welcome newcomers. They invited people to know Jesus and serve the world. They offered genuine community and taught a challenging theology. They expected a sincere commitment to a Christian life personally and to the church s community ministries. It was a pleasant surprise to learn that the giving in these churches was extraordinary. In December 2007, my wife and I returned to First Church, Cambridge for a panel presentation by Diana Butler Bass, Marcus Borg and Brian McLaren. It was a sign (and perhaps a miracle) of the changing, some say emerging, American Protestant church to see the three together and hear that they are good friends. Marcus Borg teaches religion at Oregon State University. He grew up Lutheran
and is now an active Episcopalian. Brian McLaren is pastor and author, a leading thinker among new, younger Evangelicals. Diana Butler Bass is the Methodist turned Christian conservative turned liberal Anglican. They are smart, well educated and widely read but look for Christian faith to hit them in the heart not the intellect. They are interested in people searching for meaning instead of membership. They want the church to be the alternative to consumer America, not the blessing of American privilege. They practice their faith in the ancient ways and want Christians to use all of modern technology to proclaim the Good News. They all love Jesus. They all believe that justice and peace is the church s mission. They all want the church to be real, life changing and life asserting. They have no interest in or patience for a church of dead souls. Their hopeful vision of the church gave me hope. The sabbatical experience renewed my family life, my personal faith, my choice to live in Christian community, my call to pastoral leadership, my belief that the call to follow Jesus is what really matters, and the prayer that there is hope yet for mainline congregations like mine. It s all about taking risks for the right causes. It s all about listening for the Spirit. It s about Jesus and justice. It is the New Testament. It is the Good News of Jesus Christ. It is the hope that many search for. As it always has been. 7