I Double-Dog Dare You: The playground predicted TEC/South Carolina problems.

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How does a group with so much in common: worships the same God, reads the same Bible, and orders its worship from the same Book of Common Prayer…how does that group end up in such an intractable conflict? Why did South Carolina have such a strong need to put “reactive” measures into place? Why has the national Episcopal Church been unable to tolerate their self-differentiation? The playground offers insight on why the relationship between South Carolina and the Episcopal Church soured…

If you follow the Episcopal blogosphere you have watched us catalogue South Carolina’s offenses and pile-on the snarky follow-up commentary. Harnessed to this finger pointing is a good deal of labeling – on both sides. We lampoon the “good ol’ boy network” in South Carolina…although we know they have women in leadership. In return, I have heard it said in South Carolina that, although men work in our Church Center, the Presiding Bishop, the President of the HOD, and 75% of our Church Center employees are women. But rather than engage in tit-for-tat, what if, for a moment, we give one another the benefit of the doubt and take the mutual critique at face value: Could gender-based ways of relating with one another be a contributing factor to the current situation?

We know from experience that, when under pressure, humans tend to make reactive decisions and default to old behavioral patterns. Institutionally, we are at such a point right now. But what if we rewind to an earlier time-a less polarized time…a time in which we may have learned the behavior patterns we use today? Lets, for a few moments, roll back the clock to elementary school and imagine we are in 4th grade and the bell has just rung for recess…

If you are a boy, you are running to the ballfield, heart filled with hope that you might play well in the game about to form. This is your ticket to social success. Distracting you from your quest is the ubiquitous bully boys must watch over their shoulder for: A larger, older, kid. This kid will eat your lunch, steal your cap, and find any excuse to harass you. What are your options? Avoidance is usually a bad strategy since a bully’s most highly developed sense is the ability to smell fear from across a schoolyard. The only real option is to act big: puff up your muscles, strut a little – out-rooster the rooster. When the fight comes, come back swinging. After you take a few punches the bully will respect you and move on to another target…usually someone who will not hit back.  At least, that is what tends to happen on the playground if you are a boy.

The girl’s side of the playground usually had a completely different dynamic: Girls gather for complex and nuanced interpersonal activities. On the playground, girls tend to be collaborative, social, and aware of one another’s feelings. Being “in” the group is everything. Within those groups the turf wars are just as ruthless as on the kickball field – social Darwinism is at work here as well. But it tended to play out differently: The socially weak, rather than being targeted as they were on the boy’s playground, on the girl’s side, the socially weak were likely to be left alone. Who is the target? The ones who dares to be different: wear different clothes, talk differently, who stands out or stands up to the Alpha girls. If you are a girl, being “different” is at your own peril.

Where, on the boy side of the playground, weakness was the kiss of death; on the girl side strength through differentiation was punished, and the weak were usually given emotional support.

These playground dynamics are hauntingly familiar in the South Carolina debacle. One side, afraid of being bullied plays “look strong.” The other, valuing conformity, is incensed at the self-differentiation. Now, I am not saying that what is going on between TEC and South Carolina is a “battle of the sexes.” Surely this is not a male v. female argument. But it does feel as if a conflict between values with some basis in gender is playing out its script.   Under pressure, when we are all most likely to do what we have previously learned, groups with a set of values is using the strategies they learned for self-defense in conflict. Under pressure the group with feminine values is using the collaborative, relational, “conformity” strategies that they learned on their side of the same playground. The other side with masculine values is using the “appear strong strategies they learned on their side of the playground.

To the national church, a group in which collaboration and social conformity are highly valued, differentiation and bluster are the ticket to sanction by the larger group. To South Carolina, defiance was just the opposite – their strategy to stay in. Could South Carolina have chosen a strategy that could have caused them to be seen in a worse light by the rest of us, a group whose highest value is playing well with others? Probably not!

But put yourself in the shoes of a priest, parish vestry, or diocesan Standing Committee member living in Charleston five years ago: They are nervous that the faith they have known is being redefined by us…afraid that we have an incrementalist strategy to push a creeping redefinition of both the faith and human relationships on them. (A fear they felt confirmed in, by the way, this summer at General Convention when we added the “transgendered” category to the clergy non-discrimination canon with surprisingly little controversy.) They are afraid that outsiders want to come in and force them to be someone they are not.

So time comes for them to elect a new bishop. And we tell them, “We don’t like your choice, pick another.”

Still walking your mile in their Southern moccasins, imagine the ways their deepest fears are being confirmed: They have theological fears. They have social-order fears. Now we give them a fear of a new “Northern aggression” to add into this volatile mix.

So they do what you might have done in their place: They re-elect the same person.

And that was just the beginning. From there the playground games of dare, re-dare, and “the vaunted double-dog dare,” to quote the classic movie, A Christmas Story, began in earnest.

1. In 2008, after the novelty of making them elect their choice for a bishop twice, Mark Lawrence was made to sign affidavits and theological statements by Diocesan Standing Committees…an unprecedented action to take when consenting to a bishop’s election.

2. At the 2009 General Convention we revised Title IV, the clergy disciplinary process. South Carolina saw it as aimed at giving us the legal cover to attack their bishop, so they change their clause acceding to the canons of the national church (but not the constitution)…putting them in the same boat as (what I have read is 12) other diocese’ – including, strangely enough, the diocese’ of several of those on the disciplinary board charging South Carolina with “abandonment” based on non-accession.

3. In 2010, TEC & SC together lost the Pawley’s Island lawsuit. South Carolina’s largest parish, St. Andrew’s, left on the heels of that decision. SC had other churches asking to leave. The bishop, in an action  to respond to his own people (not us) in 2011 distributed quit-claim deeds saying, “Here, this is proof that we are together out of relationship rather than law.” Since no churches have left since that time, it is a strategy that seems to have worked.

4. In 2011 the Title IV Board went forward with nameless/faceless charges against their bishop – they responded with putting into their canons a disaffiliation clause to prevent more of what they saw as “meddling.”

5. In 2012 We tried their bishop on essentially the same charges as the previous year. They activated their disaffiliation clause.

As my brief chronology points out, the actions the diocese of South Carolina took were always in response to what they perceived as threats on our part. Did South Carolina “poke the bear”? Absolutely. Was it in order to quit?  Who can say for certain. But as someone who has been in regular relationship with South Carolina-with their people, at their camp, in their diocesan offices, I too could see what was going on and asked the obvious “departure” question. I asked it a dozen different ways and dozens of times: I asked on the record, off the record, by phone, in person, via text, over beer. You name it, I asked it. And I never once heard, “We want to leave.” Every time I heard, “We have powerful voices who want to leave, but we are trying to do two things: hold ourselves together and remain in the church.” Should you believe them? Ask yourself why Mark Lawrence, the most notoriously traditionalist bishop did not have his name on this summer’s amicus brief’s filed in the departing diocese’ court cases defending the traditional view of the role of the national church. What other reason than he didn’t want to be involved in something to further irritate the national church? It was a perfect opportunity to goad the national church to attack South Carolina. Why not take it?

Sadly, we all acted in very predictable ways. In the end, we did what we know: asked people to prove they desire to be a part of the group by acting like part of the group. South Carolina did what they know: tried to out-rooster the rooster to keep their place on the playground.

It has all the makings of a Mars/Venus moment, doesn’t it?

Or as Strother Martin said in Cool Hand Luke, “What we have here is a failure to communicate.”

What can we do now? I would hope we could ask South Carolina to the ice-cream social and playground mediation before conventions start being held and lawsuits start flying. Any takers?

I double-dog dare someone.

What Jerry Colangelo taught me about recruiting and training leaders…by a former Suns ballboy

Posted in Leadership by

Walter Davis. A great guy, neighbor, and the silkiest jump shot in the NBA. A basketball was a dagger in his hands at the end of a game.

I picked up a great many leadership lessons as a teenage ball boy for the Phoenix Suns in the late 70’s and early 80’s. It was a heady era when new Commissioner David Stern and General Managers like Jerry Colangelo remade the N.B.A. That leadership team gave us superstars and entertaining rivalries. Those were the days of Magic, Isaiah, Larry, and Michael. The N.B.A. went from a backwater 3rd tier sport to, arguably, the most influential professional sports league in America. Here are three leadership lessons from those days that have application for leadership recruiting and training for the church:

1. Get players who produce – people who can fill up a stat-sheet. You are never better than your best players. A team with second-level talent, will never be better than .500. Are we ordaining people because they are the most gifted or because they are not doing something better…or, even worse, because they self-selected? Scottsdale Bible, a church with a history of great pastoral leadership, finds 95% of the people they hire. Then, only ordain those people after they have proven that they can grow a fruitful ministry.

Most people who fill up a stat-sheet are quirky. So you need good training. That is why we need to…

2. Have great coaches.  As legendary Dallas Cowboys football coach Tom Landry said, “Leadership is getting people to do what they don’t want to do, in order to achieve what they want to achieve.” We need high capacity, high-expectation mentors for emerging leaders – folks who can get new leaders doing the things it takes to be successful. Success is not just Sunday Attendance. There are other metrics that are of great value to the church…but to not be concerned about Sunday attendance is absurd. What are some things great coaches do?

  •  Give structure. Quirky people need to be protected from themselves-structure does that! Teams have curfews on the road, dress codes, special diets. There is a theory- practice -theory pattern in the season. There is no three-year pre-season camp. It is 6 weeks of camp and then into the theory-practice-theory long season.
  • Show and tell. Someone who has played the game and can show others how.
  • Push them to over-achieve. Have the hardest practices in town!
  • Set clear goals.
  • Study to have a good game plan.
  • Live with your player’s quirks– after all they produce! Don’t frustrate them with making them impress those up the food chain…or those beside their ministry setting. Set them free to produce for the team and the fans.

All of this makes players into a team. Then, when they do well…

3.   Be a great PR person. Showcase your player’s talents. When the team does well, we all do well. Sing their praises. When your people know you will make them a star they will repay you in loyalty and effort.

A few thoughts specifically on leadership in the church…

  1. Calling is not just heard by the individual, it is discerned by the community and confirmed by fruitfulness in ministry.
  2. Capacity is not the only quality we are looking for:  Character (are they dependable) and chemistry (work well with others) are also important.
  3. We  should stop ordaining people because they do good ministry. We should ordain people who can recruit, encourage and deploy other leaders.

It was a lot of fun to be a junior and senior high student sitting on the floor and hanging out in the locker room during Suns games and watching a near-dead league ramp up into a day of influence it had never known. With the movement of the Holy Spirit and the right group of called people of character, capacity, and chemistry, I am convinced our “heady days” are yet in front of us. I am hopeful that I will be sitting front row and in the locker room when that day comes.

The “I don’t know whether to laugh or cry” quote of the Day: “Now we have to make a plan.”

Posted in Culture by

I have been trying to get in touch with friends who happen to work in the Episcopal diocese of South Carolina for days. When I finally tracked them down today it turns out they have been in non-stop meetings. I ask, “What’s with all the meetings?”

Answer: “Planning.”

“Wait, you are having planning meetings?”

“Yeah, we have to figure out what to do.”

“Because…”

“Dude, we had no idea we weren’t going to be Episcopalians two weeks ago. Things were tense, but they always are between us and the rest of the church. We really thought we had things ironed out. Now we have to make a plan.”

If that doesn’t make you sad, what will? A group of people the other 95% of us thought were itching to leave were so far down the road on their planned departure that they…did not have a plan.

Actually they did have a plan: A plan to remain in the church. What they did not have was a “plan b.” And that is what is so sad – that we cannot find a way to keep a group in our fold who has no plan to leave.

Life After “Cool Church?” Ancient-Future Youth Ministry, Part 3.

Posted in Youth Ministry by

His name is Iliya. He was an atheist. At least he had been two weeks earlier when he had first come to youth group and (somewhat politely) mocked it. This night he stands up and passionately describes the love of God that has flooded his heart and passionately urges other students to give themselves more completely to Jesus. The most beautiful part: he was led to Christ, not by an adult leader, but by a student. In fact, he was the fifth generation of student to be led to faith by other students in the group. It is an example of remaking youth ministry as youth who do ministry.

Let’s continue the dialogue about a youth ministry that starts from a new center: The view of what we want our students to be and do (both as individuals and as a community) when they leave us. This stands in stark contrast to attendance and conversion numbers as our primary goals for students. I have called it ancient-future youth ministry. Feel free to call it something else. What I am proposing is not new to me…or to any of the other authors that have been saying much of this same stuff. It is really the church for 2000 years called back to it’s roots, but embracing our place in our current cultural context. Here are the core values that we program from in our context…

Our Mission: To raise up a faithful Christian generation that is leading the church and changing the world.

Our Vision: To be Christ-centered youth ministers who use our spiritual gifts to build and equip teams of volunteers who join us in going where youth are to proclaim the gospel of Jesus and to guide, serve and disciple youth in the Anglican tradition.

Our core values are that our ministries will be…

  • Incarnational: We GO! We start in student’s world. We follow the Great Commission and “go” engage students. (Matt. 28:19-20, John 1:1-14, Col. 1:21)
  • Transformational: We Proclaim the transforming message that “Christ has died, Christ is risen. Christ will come again. (Eph. 2:8-10, 1 Pet. 3:18, 1 Cor. 15:3-5, Rom. 1:16)
  • Formational: We Walk…along side and teach students by our lives. Connected to the historic body of Christ, we stand on the shoulders of giants-back through time. As part of God’s family, we utilize the ancient wisdom and experience of the church…spiritual disciplines, the Christian year, monastic practices, etc.
  • Integrational: We Work to see youth fully integrated into the life of the local parish and the world. (Eph. 3:19-22, Eph. 4:12-14)
  • Sacramental: We worship with students and artfully engage students in worship, using both ancient and modern forms, to engage with God on the basis of his great narrative that rewrites both our very view of life as being birthed from (Baptismal) and sustained (Eucharistic) by God in Christ as revealed in Scripture.

Imagine what would such a group create in student’s commitment to the faith: In their commitment to the Scriptures, the unchurched in our communities, and the broader church community.

As a result of our Christian convictions we will do the following…

  1. Evangelize – We will Share
    1. Meet unchurched students in their world.
    2. Clearly proclaim a relationship with Jesus.
    3. Give regular opportunity for students to respond.
    4. Believe and teach that knowing God is the best, most joyful, purpose-producing gift we can give students! Way better than soccer.
  2. Disciple – We will Teach
    1. Theological method: Scripture,Tradition & Reason
    2. God-filled lives…taught by God-filled worship: shaped by ancient patterns, rhythms and liturgies.
    3. Sacramental understanding
    4. Prayer (all seven types, BCP)
    5. Scripture and being shaped by the narrative

-Open it & use it. (Get the same Bible for everyone!)

-Memorize it. (Ps. 119:11)

-Understand it. (Exegesis & hermeneutics)

-The Big Picture of God’s story starting in Genesis

-Teach passages rather than cherry picking topics

-Give them tools to read daily at home.

F.  Integrity: have “one life”

G.  Growth is joy producing and enjoyable (fun)

3.  Serve – We will Act

    1. Servant hearts: family, school, church, ‘hood, world
    2. Work for justice (Luke 4:16-21)
    3. Teach students to use their spiritual gifts
    4. Appreciate & celebrate other Christian traditions

4. Develop Christian Leaders – We will replace ourselves

A. Recruit leaders (from within and without the church)

B. Develop, train, serve and equip Christian leaders

With these principles in mind We will run high grace/high expectation groups in which:

-All are Welcome. A multi-ethnic, multi-economic community (John 17:20-23, Acts 11:19-26; 13:1ff.)

-All can be Transformed– Discipleship is for all (Matt. 28:19)

-All should become Evangelists (Rom. 1:16 )

-Our attraction will be the power of God on display. (Acts 2:42-43, 2 Pet. 1:16, 2 Cor. 2:4-5)

What might this look like?  I am not exactly sure. I would guess that it will be contextual and be a bit different in every different church. It wouldn’t be easily packaged as a model. Did the Apostle’s follow a script?

Swing for the fence- your students and leaders will surprise you!

It’s up to us.  What will you do?

Ballplayers Doing Brain Surgery: What might have been done in & about South Carolina Episcopalians.

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In case you have not been following events between the Diocese of South Carolina and the Episocopal Church, here is a short version: South Carolina is very traditional in terms of biblical interpretation and marriage. The rest of the Episcopal Church tends not to be. A conflict, brewing for quite some time, came to a head a week ago when a “letter of restriction” was placed on the ministry of their bishop, preventing him from any ministerial duties during the investigation. This triggered automatic disaffiliation clauses South Carolina had put in place. The accusations involve two old charges that were previously dismissed and a new charge of abandoning the Episcopal Church by giving Quit Claim deeds to the churches in their diocese. In Episcopal Church polity church property belongs to the national church, rather than the local body that built it. While this seems counter-intuitive to non-denominational Christians (and to most lawyers that I know), that is our polity. The South Carolina issue is presumably headed to court where years of lawsuits will consume millions of dollars contributed by parishioners for the work of God. The following is a response to many questions as to “What would you have done?”

Jordan Haynie, Candidate for the priesthood in Fort Worth (and many others) had the following question:

“I do not think the Episcopal Church is as big a tent as we claim to be, nor are we as big as we want to be. But I do not think that is the issue here. Bishop Lawrence and the diocesan convention of South Carolina were making the moves to make it possible for them to leave. How should the Disciplinary Board of Bishops respond to actions like that? What do you recommend?”

Hi Jordan,

Thank you for joining the conversation. I am excited for you in your candidacy to Holy Orders.

I will give you my best shot at where the people I know in SC were coming from. I think it will be instructive as to how we got where we are, and then I’ll attempt my best shot at what I hope I would have done…

I am not a bishop, presiding bishop, or member of the disciplinary board. Asking me to solve this problem is a bit like asking a basketball player to perform your brain surgery. I have neither experience nor training, so I am weighing in on a subject that is above my pay grade so I wade into these waters with fear and trepidation.

Although I lack authority, influence or power in this matter, I am a person whose primary friendships in our church, outside of my own diocese, are in the Diocese of California and the Diocese of South Carolina. My connections are primarily relational rather than theological. I am convinced that the great people I am friends with in the SF bay area would really appreciate the great people I am friends with in Charleston…on every subject minus one. And vice-versa. As my connections are relational, any solutions I attempt would be as well…and would have involved being in one-another’s world.

I did not understand Charleston until ministry took me to South Carolina three times. Because I have spent probably two weeks there – at their camp, diocesan office and with their youth ministers, I understood where they were coming from. Because I am not from there, I understand where we are coming from and our institutional need not to “give away the farm.”

I was on phone or text with friends during each of their “troubling” decisions. I can tell you that my diocesan friends in SC: a) wanted to remain in the Episcopal Church (unlike the four departing diocese’), b) were convinced that they were being attacked by the larger church, c) did have voices in their midst that wanted to depart and d) were making their moves thinking they had both insured protection for their place in the church and maintained their own internal unity.

To the outside world, it was Tom Ferguson’s slow motion accident in the print shop he wrote about the other day on the Crusty Old Dean blog. I could see how what they were doing made sense to them as a way to insure their continuance in the church…and that it would have the exact opposite effect with the rest of the church. Then I would talk to our people going to meetings to respond to SC and beg them to give room. We would then respond in equally predictable ways to insure our position was protected. In the end, like Tom as a teen in the print shop, I am too removed from the levers of power for my opinion to have any influence whatsoever. Unlike Tom, I do not think this was the way it is supposed to happen. I am not enough of a Calvinist I suppose – I think we all missed it. All of us.

People keep saying to me, “This is exactly what they were angling for.” There were those voices in SC. I do not believe Bishop Lawrence was one of those. I may be completely wrong. But if I am, he and his staff are the best liars I have ever met. What motive would they have had for being dishonest with a youth guy from Arizona…on multiple occasions over a four-year period?

Jordan, you asked what I would have done. I would have risked everything for unity. I think that was actually what the Quit Claim deeds were for. A bishop whose rectors said, “We are only with you because you will sue us if we aren’t.” Put yourself in his shoes for a few moments: Pawley’s Island had already gone against the diocese – making them the one diocese in which the courts have not sided with the rest of TEC. I cannot imagine doing what Bishop Lawrence did, but bishop’s are under pressures that people who do not work in bishop’s offices do not see. What I was told was that Bishop Lawrence made an attempt to keep his diocese together on collegial bonds rather than canonical bonds-which is the diocese’ understanding of what the courts in SC have said they wouldn’t uphold anyway. Like I say, I do not think I would have done what he did, but my experience of Bishop Lawrence is that, like my bishop, Kirk Smith, Bishop Lawrence is a straight-shooter. He was quite willing to say plenty of things to me he could assume I would not agree with.

I choose not to read motives into people on either side. I find it uncharitable. What is public is that Bishop Waldo and Bishop Lawrence were in dialogue with the Presiding Bishop. That was why I used the counselor’s office analogy in my previous post.

I tend to give bishops the benefit of the doubt – mainly because I work for one. I watch my bishop daily balance the needs of the larger church, the needs of congregations, the needs of individuals and what he is convinced is his proper response to the call of God. Being a bishop is complicated and he does the best he can as a follower of Christ, utilizing his experience and wisdom. And in that complexity, someone’s felt needs are often thwarted. Win-win is hard to achieve in a world of scarcity. So I give grace in my assessment of bishops.

I am not a Presiding Bishop either, so I want to be charitable with ++Katherine as well. None of us know the pressures that she is under institutionally. I do hope that I would have had the patience to let the attempts at reconciliation with Bishop Waldo work themselves out before presenting the restriction letter.

So, if I were bishop I hope I wouldn’t have given the Quit-Claim deeds…and I might have lost all of my cardinal parishes. If I were presiding bishop I hope I would have let the reconciliation process go on-in which case, I am sure that there are institutional needs of the larger church being met in the timing of the charges that we are not privy to…and I would guess I would have had a high price to pay for that action as well. If I were on the disciplinary board I hope that I would have looked at what was going on, asked questions, listened, expressed understanding as to the pressure the bishop was under. I then would have pointed out our ability and right to step in, then affirmed their right to differentiate. I would have asked the bishop what SC could do to show good faith that they wished to remain with us. I would hope I could have started with the assumption that we are on the same team…and remember that most bishops don’t really want to be congregationalists and ask more questions and then ask for them to throw us a bone…specifically to use more care in their language and to begin financially giving to things in the national church they could support in good conscience.

Would any of this have worked? I do not know. Maybe not. I’m just a basketball player. You are asking for brain surgery and that is way above my pay grade.

Epic Fail: TEC/SC Issues Boil Over

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Prelude: I am in grief. The conflict between the Diocese of South Carolina and the national Episcopal church leadership has been brewing for years. The boil-over is like a bad divorce between two people who, in your mind, should have been able to work things out. You love them both and, even though you saw it coming, you keep wondering, “How did it come to this?”  I wrote this post on Wednesday evening. I have sat on it for three days hoping that my grief would subside. It has not.

“I ask…on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one…so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” –John 17:20-21, NRSV

 Epic Fail. It’s a junior high expression overused to meaninglessness: Dropping a pass. Spilling coffee on your laptop. Tripping in public. Yesterday an actual Epic Fail occurred. The Episcopal Church brought abandonment charges against a bishop actively trying to meet to work out differences. It was my worst day in five years as an Episcopalian.

This is where decades of disagreement over biblical interpretation and human sexuality have left us. If you are not a Christian you are probably wondering why we can’t just treat each other like Christians. If you are a Christian, and especially an Episcopalian OF ANY STRIPE, you will almost surely take issue with what I am about to write.

I write, however, as one who loves his church. Five years ago I walked away from reductionistic evangelicalism to embrace the wisdom of the ancient church, the beauty of liturgy, the soul enrichment of spiritual practice and social engagement as a force for good in the world. As someone who always rejected the small box of fundamentalism, I was enthusiastic to join a church that promised to be a big tent welcoming all to the table. You see, unlike other Christians, Episcopalians were never really a confessional church with long detailed doctrinal statements. We are a CHURCH UNITED BY OUR WILLINGNESS TO PRAY WITH THOSE WE DON’T AGREE WITH, and in what we do believe, we keep it simple – We are a creedal church (the brief Nicene Creed-a large tent with lots of room for disagreement). That room was necessary in England where one church contained Catholics, Protestants and the publicly religious.

If you are not an Episcopalian you probably have no grid in your experience for what a church united around the willingness to pray together might look like. My first Sunday in an Episcopal Church I sat with a friend who worked for our bishop.  He answered for me all the usual questions about the Catholic practice and Protestant theology that characterize us. Then I asked about the political stances of the church. The friend explained that with Episcopalians agreement was not expected. Diversity of opinion was considered a strength, a charism. On one end of the spectrum we had diocese’ that pushed the envelope to bless same-sex couples and, on the other, diocese’ that did not ordain women. As someone with every inclination toward including others, reconciling those in conflict, and whose life’s ministry has been to work across boundaries in ecumenical evangelism, to say I was intrigued by this commitment to comprehensiveness was an understatement.

The church I fell for promised roominess. It welcomed progressives to come in and allowed them to push the envelope on many issues. One would have thought that same roominess could be extended toward those who disagree with the new directions of the church. Unfortunately, yesterday we found out that was not to be.

I have followed things in South Carolina closely, both because of my own wiring toward reconciliation and because I have CLOSE friends on both sides of this issue. I know both sides of this debate well. Both sides have operated in ways that made perfect sense to them in their context and both appear duplicitous and mean spirited to the other. The series of reactions and re-reactions has resulted in broken fellowship.

I realize that there are deep wounds on both sides. I know both sides chronology of what the other side did. I also know that the other side loves God and honestly thinks they are acting in good faith. But do you catch the language? Referring to our sisters and brothers in Christ as sides is tragic. Tragic also is that, in the end, we were the ones who said, “There is a stage leaving town at sundown. Be under it.”

I fear that the “oneness” for which Jesus prayed is going to become defined for us, as in other denominations, as agreement – or at least as the willingness to give the appearance of walking in lockstep with whoever holds the keys of power. That might be the most tragic result of all.

For those not following this situation, here is what appears to have happened in the simplest terms: The husband decided to divorce the wife for quitting on the marriage while they were sitting in the therapist’s office. Did South Carolina really want a solution? I do not really know. They say they did. Did the national church want a solution? I do not really know. They say they did. I do not presume to read minds or motives…of either side. I merely grieve.

South Carolina is unlike the rest of the Episcopal church in many ways. But we have a long history of making room for people who push the bounds of our theology, politics and canon law. We had room for Bishop Pike who literally begged our bishops to inhibit him. We had room for Bishop Spong and his version of the old SNL Fluckers skit, “Here’s a new theology I just made up!” Now, sadly, we do not have room for a bishop and the lion’s share of his diocese, that hold a traditional view of marriage. The truth is that we have changed. We moved their cheese.[1] Why can we not give them room to differentiate themselves?

Last night I was in a car with someone who is a key player in our institution. She is a great person who loves God and the church. I cannot describe the sinking feeling in my heart when she said, “We will be a leaner-meaner church now. One that can stop pretending and be who we are.” Well, we will be leaner-by 30,000 Episcopalians. And we will certainly be “meaner” as we will no longer be held in tension by opposing voices. Is it really a good thing to silence dissent? Will we be able to “be who we are?” I fear that unless who we are is redefined as “a narrow group of Progressive Puritans” then the answer is no. We have been a comprehensive church – A table with room for all. Will that still be who we are? Or is that day passing?

The saddest part of the whole thing for me is the response on the web-organs of our church. Where is the grief in these posts?

The tone on the South Carolina sites these past few days is instructive. Their tone is not that of someone who took their toys and went home – their tone is of deep grief.

I do not judge the motives of those on either side. Although this is a very public dispute, there is surely much information I am not privy to. It is being said that this is what South Carolina angled for all along. I can say that, if this was a conspiracy, it was the greatest conspiracy since the resurrection. I would have to believe that multiple South Carolina diocesan employees including their bishop…in public and private conversations , within and without the walls of their diocesan offices, face-to-face, over phone and text, over years, faked frustration and fear. I think there is a better explanation: We missed it. Us. Them. All of us. We missed one another. They wanted to be different to be sure, but the South Carolina Episcopalians I know wanted to be Episcopalians.

And worst of all, in the eyes of the unchurched, we have all failed in both unity and love.

The irony of all of this is that the Episcopal Church is becoming much more theologically orthodox over the five years I have been here. It is more progressive politically to be sure, but it is noticeably more theologically orthodox. I cannot help but believe that if we could only have waited another five years both sides would surely end up closer together.

But we didn’t. And that is the shame.

We could have done better. We could have assumed the best of one another. We could have refused to respond out of fear. We could have made the other make the first move…and the second…and the third. I understand why everyone made every move they made. All around people did their best. Yet today we have an…

Epic. Fail.

[1]Who Moved My Cheese: An Amazing Way to Deal With Change in Your Work and in Your Life. Spencer Johnson, 1998.

Life After “Cool Church?” A New Vision for Youth Ministry, Part 2.

Posted in Youth Ministry by

If you have been following this conversation feel free to scroll down and begin reading at “What we could do instead?” In case you are just joining the conversation, this post begins with an introduction to the problem: The current “relevant” youth ministry model has led to the abandonment of the church by 20-somethings.  

Twenty Five years ago Stuart Cummings-Bond predicted in a Youthworker Journal article (1989) that ghettoizing youth away from the rest of the church would have disastrous results. He called it “the one-eared Mickey Mouse.”  Today we see the fruit of this model in the abandonment of the church by twenty-somethings. Will we do things differently for the next generation arriving to our programs? Or is it ok with us that young people leave the church when they leave our student ministries?

Churches continue to invest heavily in youth ministries that are parallel to and “cooler” than the adult church – The youth pastor’s vision of what the big church could become. This model gave us the youth service as a place of evangelism for the young and learning lab for the larger church. In this model, the larger church first opposes then ignores the “radical” things happening in the youth room. At least for a time. That time typically ends when we call a new pastor. Then the new pastor, invariably a former youth pastor who learned attractional ministry in the youth room, redesigns the main sanctuary and re-packages the worship model to resemble what he was doing in the youth group a decade earlier…only with a larger budget and fully-functioning coffee house. Has it occurred to you how remarkably similar your new sanctuary looks to your old youth room? Similar decor, similar music, similar technology, similar dress, identical message.

And we wonder why youth grow bored with the adult church, or perhaps worse, remain in church but as shallow and self-absorbed as they were when they arrived in youth group as 15-year-olds 15 years ago. As the Mormon bishop referenced in a previous post “We make givers. You make takers.” (https://thegospelside.wordpress.com/2012/09/30/mormon-bishop-to-the-mega-church-thank-you/)

Why did we do this? Because it built fast numbers. Segregationist youth ministry is pragmatism at its worst. We used to be able to say, “Well it is working. God is using it, so who are you to judge?” However, the data has piled up: Cummings-Bond was right. Segregationist student ministry is a short-term, non-solution that threatens the very future of the evangelical church movement.

What could we do instead?

Research tells us that by segregating students into homogenous age groupings we are emptying our churches. What if instead of giving students what we think they want, we gave them what they need: A praying, confessing, Scripturally faithful, Father trusting, Jesus following, Spirit surrendered, faith-practicing community that wants to help them get their hands dirty for God?

As Youth Ministers we are first and foremost practitioners. We usually want to start with “How-to.” However, it is important that we start with the philosophical change of directional we need to make. Here are four research-supported places we could start…

1. Change Our Questions: Move from “Is this effective?” and “What are the people at ____ Church doing?” to “Is this biblical?” and “Does this produce disciples who love God enough to make other disciples?”

2. Change Our Priorities (Steve Wright, Rethink, 2008) Do we want to build a youth ministry or youth ministers? As Detroit pastor Harvey Carey says, “Youth ministry should be youth who do ministry!” What would we have to change to have Kingdom priorities? Here are four priority shifts I think most of us need to make…

A. God: Shift from self-centered (God for you) to God-centered (“God. I. We. They”). God is our starting point. It is God who is Glorious and worthy of all praise. Salvation is at God’s initiation and at God’s Expense. We are welcomed into God’s family…the community through which God’s realm will be revealed. Our welcome of others comes from God’s welcome of us and should always result in a passion to serve a lost and hurting world. We start with God and move toward the world. Our calling from God drives us in mission rather than the world’s need.

B. Family: Shift from separation from parents -to- a partnership that equips parents. View parents as the primary spiritual influence on kids- because God does. (Deut. 6:6-9)

C. Church: Shift from…

  • Segregated ministries–to-championing the church. Youth participate in every aspect of the church. When “big church” meets, the youth are there.
  • Cultural relevance-to-Scriptural faithfulness.Why do we do what we do? If it is “because it works” rather than because it is Scripturally faithful, let it go.
  • Student ministry-to-student development. This is about relationships: A life on a life, 7 day a week program.
  • Excitement as dominant emotion-to-Wonder.

D. World: Shift from mission is something I do “for me” -to- “I am an unashamed proclaimer of God’s Kingdom in word and deed.”

3. Change the outcomes we work toward in our ministry: disciples that make disciples. “That we may present everyone complete in Christ.” (Col. 1:28)

Is our first motivation to create high numbers or highly committed disciples? A group must be large enough to be a group, but what would happen if we grew by being the deepest thing rather than the widest thing?

What does discipleship look like? Kenda Creasy-Dean, in Almost Christian, describes the characteristics of committed disciples.  Highly committed students have:

  • A Creed they know and believe
  • A Testimony of God’s action in their lives
  • A Community they are supported by
  • A Mission t0 give their life to
  • A Hope for the future

Does your youth ministry program toward developing those characteristics in students?

4. Change our programs so that they build students toward our goals

  1. Equip families.
  2. Teach (parents, leaders, kids) the excitement of historic, life-changing faith in Christ.
  3. Use games & humor purposefully. *By all means, enjoy yourself in church. I am not saying faith is not enjoyable, just that it isn’t entertainment.
  4. Use the youth group experience to create environments where the energy is in the students experiencing God (vertical) and loving and challenging one-another (circularly) rather than toward the leadership on the platform (horizontally). After all, Even their teachers don’t spend the hour lecturing any more!

Next up: Principles & Core Values for the Ancient-Future Youth Ministry

Why Blog? Because ideas engaged can catalyze change.

Posted in Leadership by

I received this email yesterday from a friend in Indiana…

Thanks to the encouragement of your latest blogs I sensed God leading me to talk to our pastor about a gap in our church: The gap post-high school until family life. We asked our pastor about starting a 20’s something group, he gave us his blessing and now we are assembling a team and resources to begin ministering to young adults this spring. I trust God will provide great resources like these (blog posts) to help us to start something God inspired and put a big smile on God’s face!  Thanks, Matt

Nate Hitson

Note: I have known Nate for 25 years. I was his 6th grade teacher. As a young adult Nate and his wife, Cindy, did Young Life with us in Central Phoenix. We later were blessed to support them on the mission field. Now they are living in Indiana. I have some great “Nate & Cindy” stories that I love to share – they are one of my great models of people who seek God and will give anything to follow. 

Is God asking you to start something? Is God asking you to join something to serve and give yourself to it? If not you, who? If not now, when?

Case Study: PhoenixOne. Bursting at the seams with young adults.

Posted in Millennials, Relevant Church by

How do we engage the post-modern 25 year old? Certainly it isn’t easy. They are very conflicted. On one hand they distrust large events. On the other, they flock to things with momentum -in Phoenix that is PhoenixOne, a gathering of 20-something “young professionals.” In existence for 18 months, it is now attended by more than 1000 young adults.

What is PhoenixOne doing to gather the crowd?

First, they use technology well. All 1000 of them facebook and tweet the meeting. It is very organic in it’s invitation.

Second, they are relational. They work very hard to connect with people and help them connect with one another.

Third, they are in a place of “otherness.” They meet in a 100 year-old church-ancient by Phoenix’ standards. It is quiet. Solid. It feels stable – like a church.

Fourth, they bring in communicators who speak to their experience. Most of them are known names who have an audience already. They go for high content/good presentation over low content/great presentation. They have thoughtful speakers rather than uber-motivational types.

Francis Chan

Fifth, they have ditched the really big band for a guitar, piano and drums. It is actually quieter than the 40 year-old’s “relevant” church.

Sixth, they use technology, and they experiment with ancient liturgical forms. Chant, candles, confession, contemplation have as big a role as slick graphics. Young adults are rediscovering mystery, symbol and narrative…artfully done.

Ancient liturgical experience explained.

Seventh, they get people to work in the world for good. While the over 35 world is busy saying young adults are selfish, PhoenixOne has them active doing things for good. Young adults actually do want to do things-just not like we do them. We want to make church like the world and work in our churches to avoid the world. They want to make church churchier and then work to take Jesus into the world.

Eighth, and this one is important, they work to work together through difference rather than ignore difference. The mega-model ignores history and denominational backgrounds, to the point of hiding denominational affiliation, they engage in thoughtful dialogue around being blessed by the fullness of Christian tradition.

Are you noticing the relationship between the cultural realities of 25 year olds and how effectively reaching them includes both connecting them to one another and the world, and artfully adapting classic Christian worship practices and disciplines to connect them with God? 

The leader of PhoenixOne is my friend, Jeff Gokee. He is a student of his culture who is not afraid to innovate. When young professionals fill out “connections” cards, he reports, they list two or three different “home” churches:  One church  for music, one for teaching, one  for small groups…and PhoenixOne. Jeff says, “that is a crazy fact that is shaping how we do church in the future.”

Jeff confirms my two over-arching points: a “go” rather than “come” starting point and relationships blended with authentic ancient-future worship when they do arrive. About relationships Jeff says, “I believe the local church is truly is the hope of the world.  I have spent most of my life as a pastor trying to get people to come into my church context instead of going into theirs…I believe in order to re-engage this generation we have to be incarnate in their culture the way Jesus did 2000 years ago.  He goes to the women at the well…He visits Zaccheaus in his home…and he comes to all of humanity on the cross…we need to have a relational revival, because this generation wants to be known.” Worship, says Jeff, “is not just about singing and doing…it’s about being with God.  Sometimes that happens with a big band, sometimes that happens in silence, sometimes it happens when your clapping and don’t know the words. We don’t have to create worship…it’s all around us, we just get to join in wherever it’s happening.”

It is a new day for the church and the culture. There is an old expression from biology: Adapt or die.

Hopefully we will learn to listen to our young adults, read the tea-leaves of our culture and relearn what the early church knew – How to live in the world as a distrusted minority that prayed the Scriptures, worshiped with life-giving narrative and sacrament. They ventured forth from that rich transformed community to serve the world and spoke of the power of God in Christ everywhere they went. We can do this. We have done it before. We can do it again.