Armchair Economist

We're probably headed off the 'fiscal cliff,' which may be worse for economists and wall street investors than for the average you and me.  But wait!  I forget!  I AM one of those wall street investors. Yes, it's all in my pension and IRA mutual funds. Someone else worries about it for me day to day, actually many someone elses who make their living doing that, which means I make less.  But hey, we're all in this together and they have their skill and I have mine, and that's the way complex economies work. 
   
I've always perceived America as a Democratic nation,  not a capitalist nation.  I do not equate the two.  My patriotism is not attached to capitalism, but democracy.  For me, the deeper value is the common good.  Yes, wages ride on the market.  It there is no safety net, people will take any wage to survive. And yes, businesses will pay a higher wage to get the workers they need, up to the limit of their earning capacity.  They will also seek to find ways to reduce labor, for after all, it is their highest cost. One way to do that is to export jobs to places where they can pay lower wages, sometimes for even higher quality productivity. If business owners are doing well they will likely pay themselves more. Business is business. And yes, it's the American way.

So, the way a progressive-tax society 'caps' earnings is NOT by limiting them, but by taxing those who earn more at a higher rate than those who earn less. As a pastor in an urban-transitional neighborhood I work every day with people trying to live on $12,000-$18,000 a year in EARNINGS.  They simply cannot pay more taxes. Some suggest eliminating income taxes and replacing them with consumption taxes. Problem there, is that the lowest income people are the highest percentage consumers, and they are buying mostly basic survival commodities. We have a consumer economy, so the middle class is holding it up and would have to even more.  Rich folks are the ones who have more disposable income, so are more able to pay higher tax rates.  Yes, we hope they are reinvesting much of that income in production, thus creating more American jobs. But the economy is global, so that is not working for us anymore in the ways it has in the past.  Progressive taxation has worked well before and can again. Business reinvestment in production is a protected 'loophole' and should be.

But any way you look at it, globalization will continue leveling America to the rest of the world.  The developing world way includes a wider and widening gap between rich and poor.  We are way past the rest of the world on that now.  Is that where we want to be? I don't think so.  So, I am in favor of more progressive taxation.  John D. Rockefeller made railroads and made them run.  He paid 92% in taxes.  At the same time he was able to build Riverside Church, a magnificent edifice in New York City, and he did much, much more for the common good. He still died rich.  I'd love to be a philanthropist.  But I don't play the lottery.  And I decided long ago to use my directive/entrepreneurial skill set to take a pastor's wage rather than run a business. So, I give in other ways.

Obviously, I am no economist.  Much of what I hear I do not understand. Promoting the common good seems like common sense to me, but maybe it's more complicated than I think it is. The capitalist logic of rising boats, or trickle-down, has NEVER made sense to me. Seems to me we are all on one boat together, in one sea.  My observation is the water flows downhill from the little purses to the big purses, or from credit unions to Cayman Island bank accounts as the case may be. So, redistribution has never seemed a nasty word to me.
       

A Reconciling Spirit in the Midst of Political Contention

    Our daughter Evangeline was with us again this weekend following our wonderful summer vacation together.   She and her husband Alex, Mary and I traveled to Isle Royale National Park in Lake Superior where we hiked about twenty miles.  We had already put in six miles at a state park in Wisconsin on the way.  We drove to Munising, Michigan and boarded a boat to see the Pictured Rocks National Seashore.  Then we drove on to Mackinac Island for a day, then back to the Detroit area, where Evangeline will begin teaching second and third graders after Labor Day. 

    Our trip began during the Olympics, with late-night TV viewing of events together.  We voted just before leaving town and checked the results from afar on wi-fi.  We all were glad to exit from the local negative campaign ads.  Our trip ended with the announcement that Paul Ryan will be Governor Romney’s vice presidential running mate.  The national unity of winning the Olympic medal count gave way again to partisan rhetoric, as both parties refocused the negativity. 

     I understand that negative campaigning works.  I understand why the end result of winning an election might justify campaign negativity, when a candidate and party, and now their PAC funded supporters, believe so strongly that this candidate, and this party’s ideology and policies, are what the nation needs.  But I still don’t like it.  I don’t like the negativity.  I don’t want to believe it is necessary.  I want to hold to an ethic of love instead of a teleological ethic in which ‘the ends justify the means.’  I want to hold to an ethic of love, instead of a deontological ethic based on rules and legal imposition.  An ethic of love puts respect, honoring and reconciliation first.

     Evangeline said she was driving and noticed a yard in which signs were posted for both presidential candidates.  She imagined a husband and wife in the household, one a Democrat and the other a Republican, loving each other and respecting each others’ differences.  Mary told her about James Carville, President Clinton’s campaign strategist, and Mary Matelin, an advisor to the first President Bush, coming to love each other from opposite sides of a heated presidential campaign, marrying, making a life together, with neither compromising his or her political and ideological commitments.  Evangeline said, “That’s amazing!  Why can’t more people be like that? I admire couples who can disgree and still love each other.”  Of course, we all can find something upon which we disagree!  The test, then, is whether we can trust and share, or have to keep our mouths shut to get along.  Silence is tragic.  Discussion is empowering.  Disagreement might even transform!   

      As this campaign season continues to heat up I encourage you to dialogue.  Listen to statements, and check to make sure they are fact.  In this post-modern age truth-telling is not a high cultural virtue.  We Christians can make it so again.  Listen to others with open ears, hearts, and minds.  Read your Bible.  Pray.  Test ideas against scripture, reason, Christian tradition and your own faith experience.  Christian dialogue does not judge.   That’s God’s job.  Christian dialogue respects differences.  Christians are courageous enough to decide and act.  This is America.  Christians can act by voting.  Christians also forgive and reconcile.            

Rev. Mark Harvey

2012 Missouri Annual Conference emphasis on Young People: Will it Make a Difference?

  I encourage you to read Nathan Hunton's comments on The Missouri Annual Conference on Harmony UMC's website, www.harmonyumc.wordpress.com.  I've never had a lay representative so thoroughly committed to detailed reporting. Maybe Nathan is putting the effort in this year because he feels this conference might actually make a difference.  We made a genuine attempt to engage youth and young adult leadership, and address topics and issues to help us older folks understand and respond.  If we don't turn around the massive loss of younger generations in our churches we simply will not have churches. I've said for years they are leaving for all the 'right' reasons. It's not that young people do not want to be engaged in meaningful dialogue and action. Witness 55,000 people running and walking in The Komen Race for Cure last weekend.  It's not even that they are less 'faithful.' Most say they are 'spiritual' if not religious. They just don't trust institutions, and don't see themselves in leadership when they attend a church.  Yes, those of us older folks in the church are typically more than willing to turn over leadership.  But why would younger people want that? 

We're considering trying something new at Harmony.  We will vote July 9 on a plan to hire a new associate pastor to effectively build a new worshiping community of young adults.  I don't know if Harmony will vote to do it.  Many would rather have an elevator so aging folks can more easily move about the building.  We'll see.

Thanks Nathan, for your leadership.  Thanks Katy Hunton, for going to Conference with your husband, representing us.    

No More Tenure for Methodist Pastors

This week The United Methodist General Conference eliminated guaranteed appointment for ordained clergy.  We've talked about it a lot in the last several years as the UMC declines along with other mainline denominations.  Churches are getting smaller.  Clergy compensation keeps getting higher to keep up with inflation.  Health insurance costs have skyrocketed.  You don't have to be an economist to read the graph and see it's unsustainable. In some places we have congregations averaging 70 in worship to which three full time clergy are assigned. That's not the case in Missouri where I am. Here we have the opposite: half our churches are pastored by lay preachers. It's a two-tier compensation system: part time lay pastors don't get pension and health insurance, so more and more churches are prone to desire lay preachers. And truth is, many of those part-time lay pastors do a great job, maybe even better than some of our ordained clergy.  They live in the community longer, get to know the people better. But our churches get to pay less with no benefits. If the Federal Equal Opportunity Employment Commission ever catches up with us we might be in trouble: same job description, two-tiered compensation. Maybe religious institutions are exempt on that.  If so, should we be?  

And, there is the issue of educated versus non-educated clergy.  That was a big battle fought over a hundred years ago.  Methodism wanted uniformity in what was taught and preached in our pulpits.  We established wonderful seminaries, great halls of learning. But they became an end unto themselves in some people's opinion.  Now they also are struggling. I wonder: without guaranteed appointment of clergy, will we have fewer clergy going to seminary? If a 'called' person can pastor a church without a seminary degree, why get one?  Truth is, seminaries have not given us the theological uniformity we desired.  But I think they have produced open-minded clergy who are life-long learners and willing to dialogue. We may not all agree on everything, but we have a systematic framework for understanding the differences and even appreciating them. I think that is important for The Church in this time of such rapid and profound transition. Not to speak of having clergy who are grounded in the ups and downs of church history and scriptural intrepretation methodology.

It took nine years for me to get ordained as a United Methodist elder in full connection. I got kicked out of the process, and waited to return until after some of my "enemies" were off the Board of Ministry. The word "enemies" is in quotes, because I learned over time that was not the way it was or is.  Some of them have become friends since. They were seeking to shape a headstrong up-against-it change-agent into a pastor who could love and support and embrace as well.  I needed that.  The Church needed that from me.  I've remained a change-agent, but with a deeper appreciation of why institutions must be sustained, why the church needs chaplains as well as prophets, and why every pastor has to be a little of both for the good of The Church.  My fear, with others, is that those of us whose spiritual gifts lean more prophetic than pastoral will not be initially accepted or later tolerated.  The very 'risk-takers' we need to transform The Church might be shut out because they are not 'producing fruit.' The 'fruit,' for institutional purposes, is what I call "butts in pews and bucks in the plate."  We put a more positive spin on that by saying "making disciples of Christ for the transformation of the world."  I'm not really THAT cynical.  I understand those are not completely the same thing. Making disciples is NOT primarily for institutional maintenance. We are not going to make more disciples together unless we DO maintain some semblance of an institution. But they are not really "disciples" unless deeply committed to Jesus' reign of social justice.             


What irks me about this elimination of guaranteed appointment is that it seems to be capitulation to capitalist incentive thinking. I know it's more complicated than that. But I learned as a community organizer, "Always follow the money."  Yes, our current situation is unsustainable. But the average age of our clergy is 59. Won't this issue take care of itself in the next few years as more and more of us retire? Boards of Ministry are already getting more and more selective about who and how many they let in. We're already sending younger clergy into higher salary situations from the get-go, and I understand why that is necessary. They have student loans to pay, children to raise, and experience to gain.      



The bishops say they needed more power to get rid of 'ineffective' clergy. Now they have the challenge of defining that. How will they? Does it mainly come down to having a stronger stick to push clergy to produce more butts in pews and bucks in the plate? We all know that DOES need to happen. My judgment is most of us are trying our darndest. We've always blamed the clergy. It's all bishops can control. This is just another face of that, I think. My hope and prayer is that we will use this as an opportunity to deepen clergy collegiality and soft accountability.  I honestly can't name many clergy colleagues who are just simply 'ineffective.' Maybe the bishops have bigger lists than I.  I suspect they do. The last big question is, "Am I on the list?"  Are YOU?

Why Vital Congregations? Why Not House Churches?

I just read Bishop Schnase's daily post, called The Most Significant Arena.  He ends, "Imagine how God could use our churches all the more to change lives, foster communities in Christ, and relieve suffering if we really behaved as if local churches provide the most significant arena through which we make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Imagine!" 

I am imagining.  I'd love to see it.  I have seen glimpses.  I've even helped make a few happen.  I remember Grace Church in Saint Louis hosting visiting youth work teams to rehab homes of elderly neighbors.  I worked side-by-side leading that project with African graduate students whose loans members of the congregation sponsored. I remember New Hope UMC in rural Randolph County hosting annual chili dinners with bazaars.  People came from far and near.  Many of the neighbors were Amish. They contributed quilts and other items in honor of their neighbors who through the year transported them to town and allowed use of a telephone.  Yes, I've seen congregations do vital ministry.

But Bishop Schnase walks through the history of Methodism back to Wesley, showing how every 'method' had a purpose, for creating and sustaining accountability.  Frankly, I've not experienced a lot of that in 'congregations.' I've tried to make it happen.  But I've not found the dynamic system of a 'congregation' very conducive to that purpose.  It is a voluntary association, with at least one staff-person who is held accountable by a paycheck and supervision, or maybe a few other staff.  But volunteerism does not lend itself well to accountability, in my experience, which is extensive.

Early Methodism focused NOT on congregations, but through small groups. In fact, the development of Methodist congregations was discouraged.  People were already in a congregation, a state-sponsored Episcopal parish church.  Then in America, the circuit riders built class meetings, NOT congregations.  When they left the circuiting life they might be 'located' to a congregation.  But that was not where the mission was happening.

How is it that we Methodists became congregationalists?  Very early we left that to the Presbyterians, then to the Baptists.  Meeting houses, maybe.  But congregations?  The congregation simply was NOT the revolutionary structure for being Methodist.

Maybe it still isn't.  There's a house church movement gaining steam: of people who are disenchanted with congregations as they know them, who want a freer and smaller expression or form of the Church. This includes younger people, secular people, who are not likely to show up or be interested in involvement in a traditional congregation.

Frankly, I have found 'Christian' collegiality and accountability more in and through secular organizations than through congregations.  I've been active with Jobs With Justice, Health Care for All, Faith Based Community Organizing.  I find these to be people who are DOING the gospel instead of mostly talking about it or wanting someone else to do it FOR them.

I'm a pastor.  I am paid by a congregation. I make my living seeking to raise up and equip folks for ministry, including accountability.  But honestly, I don't think it is going very well.  Maybe "vital congregations" is just not the best way to DO Christian faith.  Maybe we are sustaining the form to keep ourselves employed, more than to DO the function.  I will keep trying and consider it faithful.  But sometimes I wonder.                

  

On 'Coming of Age'

I'm just feeling the trend personally now, but it's been there a long time.  Ageism. I applied for a denominational position for which my entire career has prepared me.  It went to a less trained, less experienced and younger lay hire. I don't know him.  I will graciously trust he will do the job well and give him all the support I can.   

I'm going to turn 59 this week.  In another six months I hit that advantageous but dangerous 59 1/2 when the IRA funds can be drawn without penalty.  During the past year we bought a future retirement home.  For the down payment I smartly drew a loan on pensions funds which I pay back to myself at 6%.  Surely there is no safer investment paying more.  I have enough pension in place to get me through if my body crashes, even now.  I got the wake-up call this past week, with two stents put in my right coronary artery.  I start cardiac rehab next week.

But I'm still working.  Going strong, in my opinion.   I think I can go stronger with more blood flowing to my heart muscle and cardiac rehab exercise and healthier eating.  A blip, to be sure.  But what happened to veneration of people for having all this wisdom of life experience?  Two Masters degrees. Thirty-six years spanning three professions. Lots to share. But who gets hired? Who gets placed in those 'leadership' roles we thought we were working toward?  It used to be wise folks in their fifties and early sixties.  Now it's rising stars in their 30's and even 20's.

I have no need to belittle the trend.  I understand it.  I am a pastor in The United Methodist Church. The average age of our pastors is- you guessed it- 59.  I've been an "average" aged pastor most of my career.  We have more coming into the profession from other careers (as did I) than right out of fast-track education.  I think that broader life experience has served us well.  But the average age of our parishioners is also- you guessed it- 59. That's nearly twice the population median age.  I am now pastoring a church with a much higher average age.  Wonderful people.  It's just that most of them are old. They give sacrificially.  But they don't recruit well.  Their grandchildren or even children have left the church in droves, or shown up in newer, tech-ier, trendier megachurches instead. So, understandably, we are emphasizing recruitment and deployment of younger clergy to what have always been our most prestigious roles.  It remains to be seen whether this will 'work.'  The measurable outcome will be, as one of my parishioners once parsimoniously defined it, "bucks in the plate and butts in the pews."  We Methodists more judiciously call it "Making Disciples for Jesus Christ for the Transformation of the World."

I like that last part best.  But that's been part of our problem.  We've had too many like me: justice crusaders putting less emphasis on bringing new people along.  My hope and strategy has always been that if we ARE the church people think a church should be, then people will come.  We do have to invite them.  I always have.  But in truth, the numbers of justice crusaders have always been few.  The church has always been populated with other types in greater number. It's been true of every congregation I have pastored.  Not BAD people.  Just not JUSTICE people.

I just helped two aging churches merge.  One of the leaders (who, by the way, left us for a 'younger' church though he is older than I) said in the process, "Just because you merge two dying churches doesn't mean you get a live one."  I agree.  We are doing all we can to attract younger people, by focusing on children's, youth and family ministry.  But there are not so many 'young' people with us to do the work. We've failed too long to attract them. So, it is harder now.

I don't know if assigning 'younger' pastors to theses churches is going to make the situation any better. I suppose it is a worthwhile experiment.  What we've decided, is we will seek to muster the leaders in every church to demonstrate they want to live.  If they do, we will assign a 'younger' pastor.  If they by inertia 'decide' to die, we'll give them an older one.

Which brings it back to me.  Which am I?  I always thought I was one of those creative, energetic, expansive, successful, 'above-average' pastors who could help a church turn around.  I've had reasonable success in a few places, less in others. I plan to keep trying.  But maybe I'm not.  Or not anymore. Maybe I'm now one of those pastors who will be assigned to help a church gracefully die.  Or churches: the deader they are the more of them they give us. This is self-prophesying to some extent, but economically inevitable.  

Somebody wrote a book called something like I Refuse to Preside Over a Dying Church.  The author sees this as a call to lead a turn-around. Some of my colleagues have seen it as an invitation to exit.  Of course, there is more ageism out there in the secular world than in the church.  Our denomination is considering whether to eliminate tenure for pastors.  We'll know in late April what they decide.  Since half or more of the voting delegates are 59 or older or close to it, I expect it will get tabled.  But maybe not.  Not sure where I am on this one.  At 59, I'm at that point where I will do my best to do my duty to Make Disciples for Jesus Christ for the Transformation of the World, and let the chips fall where they may. 

I've decided not to sue The United Methodist Church over ageism, though I think I'd have a pretty good case, with wide class action opportunity.  But when I signed on, it was to go where they send me.  I'll still trust God is in that somewhere. Regardless, we get up every morning, pray, then do what we can do.  

Crossing the Threshold into Heart Disease

I knew most of my life I was a candidate for heart disease.  My father had his first bypass operation at age 49, then two more.  His father dropped dead with his first heart attack at 71.  My mother, now 85, received her first stint just a year ago. I will be 59 in a week.  I know 40% of American males aged 55-70 drop dead with their first myocardial infarction.  I always suspected it was coming: that one of these days I'd grab my chest and feel the telltale pain down the arm and up into the neck, for the big one. But the heart catheterization eight years ago was negative.  So was the stress test four years ago. So, when I started getting this very mild pain in my upper chest, radiating back into the left shoulder, I figured I probably had just strained something on a nautilus machine at the gym.

Glad I checked it out.  Yesterday Dr. Biel at Depaul put in two stints in my right coronary artery.  One blockage was 80% ecluded.  The other was 90%.  I was cruising for the big one.  Most people don't know it when they are.  I certainly didn't.  Of course, I suspected.  I''d developed this nonchalant attitude: "I've pretty much done with my life what I'd hoped to.  I could go anytime."  Mary and I have been talking about grandchildren.  Don't have any yet, but more and more of our friends do.  Not that we're pushing our kids, because neither is there yet.  But is anyone ever, really?  Is anyone ever ready for a heart attack? Or even stint placement?

Now, what difference does it make?  I'd say the biggest choice now is whether I want to live quite a bit longer, or die of a heart attack.  It used to be theoretical.  Now it's real.  I've been taking lipitor and fish oil and an aspirin every morning for ten years.  That was all preventive. Now I've added the plavix and the beta-blocker.  This stuff is not cheap. Yes, my health insurance pays for most of it, but not all. I've decided that since I am taking the drugs, I really DO want to live.  But I know better than to think that alone will ward off the big one.

I started back to the gym in February.  I decided to give up NOT going to the gym for Lent. If I'd not been working out on a treadmill at least three times a week I wouldn't have known I was having angina chest pain.  That's when I felt it most. I went to my internist. He first figured it was weight-lifting too.  I called my internist sister.  She said, "Try the beta-blocker first."  But then my internist said, No, let's do another stress test."  Glad I did.  And by the way, the nuclear thallium test came out negative.  The treadmill EKG told the tale.

What's the spiritual threshold here? It's not that I've learned anything new here.  I knew it was coming, eventually. But what's different, is that 'eventually' is now NOW.  I AM old, not just getting old.  I HAVE heart disease now.  I'm not just expecting I will eventually have it.  So, before I knew I should cut back on the salt and the fast food and the red meat.  Now I KNOW that if I want to live, I MUST.   It's a new place.  Spiritually, it's a gift.  Uncertainty turns to certainty.  But procrastination must also now turn to disciplined lifestyle change. Past speculation and learning becomes rubber on the road.  I am a person of faith, but even so I believe we only pass this way once.  I feel like I've already made the most of it.  I've done enough, all things considered. But I'm also not ready to pack it in yet.  Today we cleared all the high-sodium cans out of the pantry.  I ate a tin of sardines for lunch, with two slices of low-sodium and high fiber toast. Think I'll have a salad for dinner, low-fat dressing on the side.                    

Why 'Pastor on the Point?'

I've been at Harmony Church only 2 1/2 years.  It feels like longer, since we have been through so much.  We merged two churches in May 2010.  So, some would say we really are a "new" congregation, not two combined old churches (founded in 1908 and 1928 respectively.) When we looked the other day at George Bullard's life cycle chart, most felt we are still between maturity and decline.  Interesting, though: our staff said "Why so pessimistic? No! We are a brand new church!"  

William Ritter shared with his congregation in a sermon, "When a minister stays for a long time, it becomes very tempting (and very easy) to settle into a need-meeting ministry. I'll baptize this one and confirm that one. I'll marry this one and bury that one. I'll counsel this one and console that one. The longer I stay, the better I'll be. I'll see needs faster. People will trust me sooner. And I will have worked with the people so long ... and will know them so well ... that I'll know just what to say. Which will be appreciated at all times ... but especially at funerals. This is how long-term pastorates turn into chaplaincies. And this is how the needs of the flock eventually set the agenda for the shepherd. I'm not knocking it. There is much about it that is good. But this is when ministers stop being leaders. And this is when churches ... even great churches ... begin to die. Although nobody knows it at the time, because everybody is getting their needs met ... which feels quite comfortable."

We live in a time which shape-shifts far too quickly, for any pastor to shift from being a leader to being a chaplain.  Of course, we still have to do the chaplaining and must. But we are here as a church to make new disciples and engage them in changing the world into the kingdom of God.  It's not enough to hang out in the church office, or even in nursing home rooms, meeting church member's needs.  And, we know the paradox of Christian faith is that our own needs are not met unless we are servants meeting the needs of others.  We pastors are not paid the big bucks to find that satisfaction in our own work as an end in itself.  Our job is to empower and equip others to serve.  

Some have asked me, why the title "Pastor on the Point?' I used to be in an outfit called The Ecumenical Institute.  Our logo was a wedgeblade driven left to right across a line.  The line is the present world situation. the point is where we stand, out beyond the present, never sure if we are right or wrong, but doing our best to discern and forge a new future on behalf of those who are disenfranchised, always working to engage them as well in "being on the point." Hope I'm still there.  I try to be.  I pray I am and will be to my dying day.         

Remembering the Future? Some musings on 'Hope'

Our Bishop Robert Schnase will begin March 26 to post a daily blog called 30 Days of Preparation.  Cokesbury, the United Methodist Publishing House, is promoting it with the phrase, "Remember the Future."  Bishop Schnase admits this is a strange combination of words.  But if we stop to think, we know immediately what he means.  He wants to make sure we consider the future as we make difficult decisions.  Why else would we make decisions at all?  To preserve.  I'm an existentialist more than a conservative, but even more, I think, I am a futurist. Always have been.  Read my bio on this blog.  I've always had this preponderance for looking twenty years into the future.  As I look back on over thirty years of ministry and predicting, I've been right more than I've been wrong.  Like Bishop Schnase, I've always been an avid reader.  I appreciate that he reads not only church leadership books, but substantive history and biography and political science and economic analysis, even novels which deeply affect the thinking of our culture.  From such breadth we are able to see the 'signs of the times,' as Jesus did, I think. Jesus was more in the line of the prophets than the priests.  Priests preserve.  Prophets predict.  Prophets also pronounce judgment on the present and the way it is likely to affect the future.       

Of course we are prone to make decisions in the present largely based on what we have learned in the past.  What else do we have?  Bishop Schnase refers to two books he feels are most helpful for our spiritual preparation.  Perhaps they are books which he is thinking of right now, in the present.  What I know about my Bishop (based on the past!) is that he will bring multiple resources into his meditations.  He always does it well, in my opinion.  I hope Bishop Schnase's spiritual meditations will help us see where he thinks United Methodists are headed if we stay on the course we have been following.  He has always been quick to quote Deming, the business analyst, who says a system will get what it is designed to produce.  With Bishop Schnase, I hope we will design a new system which can produce something other than decline in numbers, financial resources, and little ministry fruitfulness.

I have to admit I don't carry with me the 'hope' for that happening, as he defines it.  I work for it, every day.  That's my job. And I think I am relatively successful. I don't expect to be removed from my pulpit, or any pulpit, for clergy incompetence.  Though 58, I am not a 'burned out pastor.'  I wake up every morning and put my hand to the plow, without looking back.  That's a Jesus quote.  But I also 'remember' that Elijah the prophet called Elisha to 'leave the plow behind.'  They even burned the oxen, lest Elisha try to move into the future facing backwards.  As I learn from what I have read, and see the signs of the times, I really don't expect much future from The United Methodist Church. I expect it will die, likely within the next 20-30 years. While we have wonderful folks in my own congregation, most are over 80. Every time one dies I know the fiscal consequence.  We are adding new people, but they have lower incomes reflecting the changing character of our neighborhood.  It is right to include them.  But it does not tend toward better fiscal stability.  I will pray and work hard in 'hope' that this church does not die. But I expect this church will die. All churches do eventually.  And that's alright.  I am not with the general church executives fighting to preserve their agencies, or even the Bishops fighting to preserve conferences. The past will pass.   

I see instead a new form of the church emerging.  New forms have historically emerged as old forms have died.  Whatever we decide at General Conference, I 'hope' the focus will not be on preserving an institution. Just because we have built a great one (and I believe we have!) does not justify it's perpetual continuance.  I see United Methodists merging with The United Church of Christ, the United Presbyterians, The Progressive Baptists, The Disciples of Christ, perhaps even The Anglican Church in America, to become a United Church of America. The Canadians did it a long time ago. I will not likely be in it myself.  I will either be dead, or a Roman Catholic layman. Who knows?  I am 'remembering the future' and I expect it will be very different from the present. With Philip Jenkins I believe the churches of the southern hemisphere will continue to grow, and will exist in forms very different from our own.  

Of course, we may have no world at all.  If we Christians can't find collegiality with people of other faiths more effectively- very, very soon- to influence governments and corporations to work more sacrificially and urgently to preserve the natural environment, none of us will be alive a hundred years from now.  On this issue I am an ultra-conservative.  Isn't it strange, that the people who turn a blind eye and obliterate the environment- who refuse to see the signs of the times- label themselves conservative?  And that the rest of us let them have the label?  This issue is far more important that the way United Methodists are organized, or whether or not UMC clergy have guaranteed appointment.  A system will arrrive at what it is designed to accomplish.  My observation is that we liberal United Methodists are very good at crafting well-worded pronouncements to print in our Book of Resolutions, but not so good at doing much to actually change things.  If we can't get this gear shifted- get organized to really change the world- of course the UMC will die. My guess is cockroaches will survive humanity, to start over.  They are designed well for survival, better than the UMC will ever be.  Is this a 'hopeless' analysis?  I'll let you judge.  I don't think so.  I think I might just have a broader definition of hope.

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THE CONTINUUM OF OUTREACH MINISTRY

 

As churches these days scramble to recover from decline and loss of membership many are deciding they have to focus beyond their walls.  This is not new.  It’s just that in the last half of the last century people just walked in the door, and churches had enough to do just making programs effective and meaningful for them.  Now we know we have to go to the people.  Jesus challenged his disciples to connect most of all with those who are poor and marginalized.  So we seek to do the same.  As both a pastor and social worker I’ve been at it all my life and I’ve learned some things.  I find there is a continuum of outreach ministry, moving by stages into deeper engagement with the people and then into the underlying causes of people’s struggles.    

We start by giving financially, putting money in the plate for this or that. Small children give pennies for starving kids in Africa.  Attenders give to some specific cause, as our hearts are tugged and swayed.  We might support an agency of the denomination.  Our church sponsors another congregation in Mozambique.  Or, we give to a Co-Care fund upon which local school social workers can call when a family is in need.  I have a Pastor’s Discretionary Fund to which people can give, never knowing who the recipient is on the other end.   

This giving can lead to volunteering.  Givers to the work of a local agency decided to give their time as well, sorting used clothes or stocking a food pantry.  100 people from four churches gather on a Saturday with rakes and shovels to help clean yards of seniors in the neighborhood.  This is direct service: charity work.                                                            

The next step is to become engaged in personal development programs, activities which help people make new choices or develop particular life skills.  This might include drug or alcohol recovery, or after-school tutoring with children.  School-based and school-linked programs increasingly involve faith-based organization collaborations- a school and a congregation partnering, with dozens of volunteers from a church in a particular school.  Naturally, such programs can engage school parents, who become church members, and all ends of the partnership are strengthened.  The primary intervention is through relationship-building.  In measurable ways people’s lives are changed. 

Such programs inevitably identify systemic community issues which can be addressed through community development.  At Grace Church in Saint Louis we discovered elderly homeowners who could not afford to keep up their historic homes.  As homes deteriorated, other property values suffered. So we initiated a repair program deploying visiting youth mission work teams to do exterior home repairs and landscaping.  We learned about government and private lending opportunities, and helped engage the seniors in more substantial housing rehabilitation where needed.  We worked with the local neighborhood stabilization officer and housing and community development corporations.  

When the people of a church roll up their sleeves to become integrally involved in the lives of people in the community, you see the patterns.  You discover the laws and policies which need to be changed to alleviate suffering or wrong.  The dialogue and research leads to social justice advocacy.  As Bishop Robert Schnase wrote, “The church also has a responsibility to bear witness to wider social change; …tend[ing] to legislative policies, changes in public funding, legal proposals, and business practices, with an eye for protecting the most vulnerable in our society.” (Five Practices of Fruitful Congregations, p. 99.) Church members advocate on behalf of the poor and marginalized. 

But the most effective strategy and goal for the long term is empowerment of people to address their own issues.  This is most effectively done through community organizing.  We organize block units and a board of local neighbors to make it all work.  This naturally leads to more issues identification.  Citizens are brought together to research issues, mobilize more support, and confront decision makers to get the changes needed. As a result perhaps the city puts resources into demolition of unsafe buildings, closing drug houses, or packaging land for re-developers in partnership with local leaders.  Organizing might address transportation, health care, education, or other identified issues, whether at the very local (micro) level, at regional or state (mezzo) levels, or national or global (macro) levels. If you think about it, a religious denomination IS a community organization.  So, the institutional questions are, “For what is it organized?” and “Does that need to change?” "How might we better turn our church outreach work over to residents of our community?"

Both mercy ministry (giving, volunteering, direct services, personal development) and justice ministry (community development, justice advocacy and organizing) are necessary..  Mercy alone is not enough.  All of this is part of what we mean by “evangelism.”   People want to participate in a church which is doing what they believe a church ought to do.  We ‘make disciples’ by engaging them in mercy and justice ministry.  Many churches are finding they grow in number and spirit through outreach ministry. Where are you and your church on this continuum? 

Could American Christianity Fade Away?

I've been reading The Lost History of Christianity by Philip Jenkins.  I love his writing. Always makes me think.  This book is turning my map of Christian history upside down.  I remember in seminary I learned Church History out of that textbook by Kenneth Scott Latourette.  He was an evangelical expansionist and missionary, so he gave us Church History from that perspective.  Then later I read Justo Gonzalez' history, an attempt to tell Church History from the underside, the perspective of oppressed people and peasants rather than lords and ladies. Those were the liberation theology years, when I was a 'fellow' student of the Womanists and learning from such greats as James Cone and Cornell West and Kosuke Koyama and Dorothee Soelle.

But Jenkins tells a different story.  Did you know that the Christian faith expanded much more rapidly to the east than to the west?  Nestorian and Jacobite Christians covered Asia Minor (now Turkey) and China and even India.  Korea had a strong Christian Church when Catholics were still evangelizing in northern England and Europe. The Nubian Church in Abyssinia and Ethiopia had more followers than the Coptic Alexandrian Church in Egypt. Christianity had many adherents in northern Africa, with the center of the Church in the 5th century arguably in Carthage, not in Rome or Constantinople.

But then came Mohammed and Islam.  In just a couple of hundred years the Moslem faith spread like wildfire. Arabic replaced Greek and Syriac as the principal cultural and government language across the Mediterranean world.  Moslems had tremendous and positive influence wherever they entered.  But Jenkins points out that Islam was greatly influenced by Christian and Jewish practices.  Religions meld.  Still do.

So now we are increasingly secularized in America, as in Europe in the past several decades.  Less than 40% of Americans are connected to a church, and less than 20% attend. Meanwhile, Islam is growing.  Hinduism is growing.  We have a large Hindu Temple just down the street from our home in Bridgeton.  Thousands gather there for high holy days.  And we are welcome to join them.  Hinduism is remarkably absorptive.

We hear these days that more Christians have been martyred in the last hundred years than any other time in history.  That may be so. Jenkins liturgizes the terrible pogroms in Eastern Europe.  The Turks, apparently, committed more genocide on Christians before World War I than Hitler killed Jews in World War II.  Whole populations of Christians have been wiped off the map.  But Christians have also massacred Moslems.  I did not know that perhaps a majority of the Mongol Horde were professing Christians. They drew no quarter.  Then there was Bosnia and Herzogovinia just fifteen years ago.

My greatest 'take away' from this book is that we are always only a generation away from extinction.  the purpose for us as Christians is to share the gospel, to make disciples.  But my prayer is that in this creative time in which we live we can come to understand that discipleship does not have to include exclusivism and genocide. Can we love one another across lines of religion, and thus demonstrate the power of Christ, without having to declare Him as 'Lord' with 'one way' language?  I think so.