Finishing Re-Imagined

Today I finished Doug Pagitt's book "Church Re-Imagined". The book proved a great way to start my journey into approaches toward spiritual formation that will dominate the second half of my sabbatical (yes, second half - I reached the midpoint last Wednesday, but who's counting?). I am still struggling mightily with one aspect of emerging cultures: the die-hard creedal approach of most of the national leadership of the movement. Before I began my studies, I wondered why there were so few members of my own denomination (United Church of Christ) involved in the movement. Given the non-creedal approach of much of our denomination, I can now see why there has been a lack of participation. I do hope that this issue (creedal vs non-creedal) doesn't become a barrier that keeps those of us from free-thinking Christian traditions out. We shall see. In my reading today, I explored spiritual formation through the five lens of Pagitt's book: (1) dialogue, (2) hospitality, (3) belief, (4) creativity, and (5) service. I really liked Pagitt's use of dialogue as a means of spiritual formation. I only had two concerns about the way he developed his thoughts. One on hand he talks about the importance of engaging all of the voices in the community, then he switched gears and wrote: "There have even been occasions when people have used the discussion to take us to task for issues, all of which are not even legitmate [emphasis added]" (125). I get nervous anytime someone unilaterally deems another's interests/concerns as "not legitimate". My question: by whose standard? Doug's or the community's. Another thing I found interesting in the section was that there was only one mention of dissension within the community. It was mentioned in passing in just one of the journal entries on page 146. It would have been interesting if Doug would have shared how they worked through the dissension as this could have been of particular help in understanding the benefits of dialogue in spiritual formation. Doug's chapter on belief as a component of spiritual formation gave me hope there might be some space for those of us who are non-creedal in our faith formation. In response to how the community deals with the possibility of heretical thoughts in their midst, instead of appealing to a creed, Pagitt wrote, instead "we commit ourselves to the guidance of the Holy Spirit in the belief that with that guidance will come discernment and the ability to recognize truth" (123). Later, he adds "belief is formed when information finds a partner with people's hopes, experiences, ideas, and thoughts" (159). Finally, I appreciated Doug's treatment of creativity as a means/expression of spiritual formation. In particular, I loved the way he theologically framed the importance of creativity. He wrote that God "has been re-creating all things through the redeeming work of Jesus the Messiah." He goes on to add, "God is constantly creating anew. And God also invites us to be re-created and to join the work of God as co-(re)creators" (185). Doug's thoughts on creativity culminated with the inspiring observation that "the beauty of creativity as a means of spiritual formation is that even our 'failures' breed hope" (191). Pagitt finished the book with a wonderful challenge for us all; he noted that in order to pursue spiritual formation, faith communities need to commit themselves to become "theological communities" (217). I couldn't agree more! In the coming days, I will be reading 2 more of Doug's books (Preaching Re-Imagined and BodyPrayer). I look forward to these experiences. In the meantime, I'm going to follow Eugene Peterson's advice and take two days off over the weekend for my sabbath within my sabbatical. I'll be spending 2 days in Scottsbluff, NE with Andrea, one of my closest friends from my days in Spokane. May God's grace and peace be with you 'til next time...

Spiritual/Community Formation

Today I covered three chapters in Pagitt's book "Church Re-Imagined". Lots of good stuff to explore. I appreciate how Pagitt organized the book so that spiritual formation could be visited through seven lens: worship, physicality, dialogue, hospitality, belief, creativity, and service. I am also loving about Pagitt's approach is the way he weaves the stories/experiences/reflections of six participants throughout each chapter. It really makes Pagitt's point that spiritual formation occurs most effectively in community! What I most connected with was Pagitt's conviction that spiritual formation ought to be involved in the very DNA of the faith community. He writes that early on participants of Solomon's Porch (their faith community) "asked a key question of one another: "What in your past that was life-giving could we incorporate into our lives together?" Even more important than that formative question was the spirit in which the answers were received. He noted, "We didn't have a pre-determined picture of how we wanted this experiment to unfold" (47). He summed up the birthing process by stating a key value: "we want the dreams of Solomon's Porch to reflect the dreams of the people in our community" (47). You can see within the way participants in the commnity forged ahead with this process the seeds for their long-term health. This would be a good model to drive any intentional faith community. Another things I loved was the image Doug used to capture their approach toward the experiential and participatory worship for which they strive: "I like to think of [our worship gatherings] as having dinner at a friend's house where it is expected that you will help pass the serving dishes and clear the table at the end of the meal" (63). What a terrific way to capture the spirit we can all strive for in creating an engaged and involved community. I also resonnated with the way Pagitt talked about the nature of the spontaneous elements of their gatherings. He wrote, "Even the pieces of our community life that are spontaneous and improvisational are outgrowths of deep consideration of who we are and the people we are seeking to become" (65). This is a nice way of reassuring those new to emergent values that their should always a ryhme and reason for what we are doing. It also keeps a community from adopting worship modes that are merely trendy instead of spirit led. There were a couple of things in the book that raised red flags for me. In one of the participant's reflections, the participant reflected on the community's insistence on using the "right language". The participant playfully commented, "Getting the right name to everything at church is an art form. And mistakes only bring swift vengeance" (52). While I understand Doug's passion to get the community to understand that words often construct the reality we experience, such a rabid approach to language in the community almost made it sound cultish. The other red flag for me had to do with how the members of the community talked about those times when Doug, their pastor, was gone. The participant wrote: "Church without Doug is a lot like when Valerie left on that old sitcom Valerie's Family. Once Shelly Duncan took off, the show became The Hogan Family and went straight downhill. Doug is our Valerie. Each week he is gone brings us one step closer to syndication" (62). My fervent belief is that a healthy community should not be dependent upon a pastor for its identity and sense of vitality - it should be dependent upon the Spirit. As a pastor who has been away from the congregation he serves for 7 weeks, it is my fervent hope and prayer that they are doing just fine without me as they have their own first run experiences - and that the thought of syndication is the last thing on their minds! Tomorrow I'll chew on the second half of Doug's book. Til next time...

Collegiality

What a great day it was today. I was able to meet with my clergy cluster today for the first time in two months, and it felt great to reconnect. The cluster I participate in was set up for Presbyterian clergy, but I'm eligible to participate even as a UCC clergyperson due to Mountain View's ecumenical ties. Today's gathering gave me a chance to explore some of the issues I've been considering these past seven weeks. We talked, for instance, about the missional nature of ministry and grappled with two very different models for global mission. We also talked in depth about the challenges of integrating "postmodern" ways of being within congregations that are often very "modern" in their orientation. And of course we had a chance to simply be supportive with one another as we explored with one of our colleagues what it means to live out one's call when you don't currently have a ministry setting. Needless to say, I felt very rejuvenated through our time together. Thank you Holly, Laurene, and Ashley!! This sense of collegiality made me long for a deeper sense of community within the emergent culture. I realized that in all of my explorations to date, I have yet to find individuals/communities who are (1) non-creedal in theological orientation; and (2) welcoming of the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered community in practice. Needing to find this branch of the emergent movement, I fired off an email to two of the emergent leaders with which I felt the greatest sense of kinship. We'll see if I am able to track down parts of the emergent community that - 7 weeks into my sabbatical studies - remains largely hidden. This afternoon I also started Doug Paggit (& the Solomon's Porch Community's) book "Church Re-Imagined: The Spiritual Formation of People in Communities of Faith". Right away, I knew that reading this book would be a perfect way to start exploring approaches toward spiritual formation within the emergent movement. I say that for three reasons. First of all, I knew the book would take a balanced approach toward spiritual formation (I say balanced meaning "balanced between individual and communal formation practices") when I saw that Pagitt acknowledge the community as co-authors of the book. Second, I loved Pagitt's understanding of the role community itself plays in the individual's spiritual formation. Pagitt wrote, for example, that at Solomon's Porch "we look for ways to make our community of faith a place where we become invovled in one another's lives in intimate, meaningful, and transformative ways" (27). What wonderful adjectives to capture the kind of community I believe we are all called to create. And third, I loved the community's shift away from a dogmatic approach toward spiritual formation to a lived approach. "Many of us in the Protestant Church," Pagitt wrote, " have erred in our overemphasis on teaching about Jesus to the exclusion of the call to the Kingdom life" (33). In capturing the fullness of their committments, Pagitt (and the members of the community) emphasis that they pursue a path toward spiritual formation that allows them "to be Christian in and with our bodies and not in our minds and hearts only." This includes a plan that understands various types of spirituality: (1) a spirituality of dialogue; (2) a spirituality of hospitality; (3) a spirituality of the knowledge of God; (4) a spirituality of creativity; and (5) a spirituality of service (35). I'm looking forward to diving in further to Pagitt's book tomorrow. Oh, the final piece of my great day was that my father (after spending nearly 4 weeks in the hospital following his heart attack on June 23) finally made it to a care/rehabilitative center. Yes!!!! Our family would appreciate continued prayers for him during this ongoing period of recovery. Til next time...

Contemplative Insights

I finished mining Eugene Peterson’s book “The Contemplative Pastor” and boy, was there lots of helpful stuff. Some of what I found most helpful I won’t bother discussing in this forum as it related specifically to pastoral issues. The book as a whole is very accessible to lay persons and clergy members alike, and I would certainly recommend it to anyone. There were three things that strongly resonated for me. The first had to do with Peterson’s approach toward sin. I loved Peterson’s discussion because it has a lot to say about the ways we deal with the challenges of living together in community. Let me see if I can lay out a brief sequential sampling of Peterson's point here. In his eleventh chapter titled "Unwell in a New Way", Peterson wrote, “To call a [person] a sinner is not a blast at his [or her] manners or his [or her] morals. It is a theological belief that the thing that matters most to him [or her] is forgiveness and grace.” He continues, “If a pastor [then] finds himself resenting his [or her] people … that is a sign that he or she has quit thinking of them as sinners … and has secretly invested them with divine attributes of love, strength, compassion, and joy.” Of course I believe these attributes are in each of us to varying degrees (in other words, I wouldn’t embrace the doctrine of total depravity that some of my Reformed sisters and brothers would). Peterson goes on to clarify that if we are able to interact with one another as individuals whose lives are in some way connected to this thing called sin, then we would be better “prepared to share grief, shortcomings, pain, failure, and have plenty of time left over to watch for the signs of God’s grace operating in this wilderness, and then fill the air with praises for what [we] discover” (119). The second thing of value that I found was in Peterson’s words about the “voice” we should use in our spiritual lives. He introduces the idea that our spiritual lives should be grounded in the middle voice. “When I speak in the active voice,” Peterson begins, “I initiate an action that goes someplace else… When I speak in the passive voice,” he continues, “I receive the action that another initiates… When I speak in the middle voice,” he concludes, “I actively participate in the results of an action that another initiates” (103). What a wonderful framework to use for worship – a place where we “actively participate in the results of an action that [God] initiates. Third, I benefited from his thirteenth chapter titled “Desert and Harvest: A Sabbatical Story”. In it, he reflects briefly on his experience with his own one year sabbatical. He gave me one very practical idea: one should take 2 days off a week during one’s sabbatical instead of working seven days a week. Since the start of my sabbatical on June 1, I’ve been working 7 days a week between my readings and postings. I need to take 2 days off a week for the rest and renewal piece of the sabbatical experience. That will start this weekend as I head to Nebraska to spend time with one of my best friends, Andrea. Thanks, Eugene, for those important words regarding a sense of balance in one’s sabbatical experience. Peterson also helped plant a wonderful vision of what the congregation and I might find upon my return in September. In speaking of the congregation he returned to after his sabbatical, Peterson found, “They can take care of themselves and know that I can take care of myself. [We both have a sense of enhanced] maturity. We are both, the congregation and I, experiencing a great freedom in this: neither of us neurotically needs each other. I am not dependent on them; they aren’t dependent on me. That leaves us free[r] to appreciate each other and receive gifts of ministry from each other” (151). My hopes and prayers are that this will be the case at Mountain View United as well. Thanks Eugene Peterson for a wonderfully contemplative experience. Til next time…

Visit & The Contemplative Pastor

Last night I had a chance to visit a new emergent worshipping community. It was good to see some of the principles I had explored put into practice. I don't want to be too critical so I'll just comment on a couple of things the experience raised for me. First, it reminded me of the importance of the physical space you are using. The service occured in a traditional sanctuary space and while they tried to do exciting new things, the traditional arrange of the sanctuary inhibited movement and flow. This made me doubly grateful for the flexibility in our worship space at Mountain View. Second, the service reminded me of the importance of balancing lay and clergy/lay leader roles. The energy of the service came primarily from 2 individuals. While there were others involved in supporting roles, the worship leadership conceptualization felt fairly traditional. While the service did have other involved in specific roles (i.e. serving communion) they didn't create these folks in the bulletin as they did the other leaders. I also found this was the case with the music. Most of the music was unfamiliar and so the bulk of the music came from the one primary song leader. It made it easy for the rest of the gathering to let the one individual take the lead. This is exactly Walters discussed in his section on music in the book "Can't Wait for Sunday". With all of this said, there were many very creative elements of the service. The scriptural reading, for instance, was a wonderful "dialogue" of sorts between the Hebrew Scripture and the New Testament texts. I also like the call & response the worship facilitators used throughout the service that was taught at the start of the gathering. I also like the way they transitioned from a gathering space in a fellowship hall into the sanctuary. There was much that was done to help create a worshipful, sacred time together. Now, on to my latest exploration. Yesterday, I started reading Eugene Peterson's book "The Contemplative Pastor". I LOVE Peterson's translation of the Bible ("The Message") and have been anxious to read something of his for quite a while now. I also thought that as I began to turn my attention to spiritual formation aspects of the life of a worshipping community it would be appropriate for me to ground myself in my own issues of spiritual formation as a pastor. Peterson's words through the first six chapters have been both pastoral and challenging. Let me tell you what I mean. In his first four chapters in the section of his book titled "Redefinitions", Peterson suggests their are three words that should be used to describe an effective pastor: unbusy, subversive, and apocalyptic. In sitting with these words, I realized I would give myself a B+ in the realm of subversive, and C- in the realm of apocalyptic, and a solid F in the unbusy realm. I felt confident in my abilities to be subversive because I think one of my gifts is to meet people where they are at and speak in the languages they are accustomed to using - but then slowly, over time, begin to invite folks in the questions process regarding their own assumptions and ways of being. I often do this not in a directive manner, but by simply modeling other ways of being in the world. Hence my B+ in this area. I gave myself a C- in the apocalyptic realm because while I often communicate a sense of importance and urgency, as a mainline pastor I have too often done this in a programmatic way. I've tried to grab people's interest and attention through things like service, fellowship, and mission projects. Where I've fallen short is communicating the sense of importance and urgency in a more spiritual plane (i.e. within the realm of individual and communal transformation). Finally, the F in the realm of being unbusy. As a pastor of an ecumenical church, I've done a wonderful job of filling my time with meetings (from 5 sources - 3 denominations, ecumenical board, and local church stuff), and a terrible job at nurturing my own spiritual formation. Listen to what Peterson says about the ways pastors can use their time. "But if I vainly crowd my day with conspicuous activity or let others fill my day with imperious demands, I don't have time to do my proper work, the work to which I have been called. How can I lead people into the quiet place beside the still waters if I am in perpetual motion? How can I persuade a person to live by faith and not by works if I have to juggle my schedule constantly to make everything fit into place?" (19). His suggestion for where pastors should place their priorities: (1) prayer, (2) preaching, and (3) listening (19-21). I would tweak Peterson's priorities a bit myself. For instance, instead of preaching (which reflects more of a Reform and modern perspective) I would emphasize worship leading which puts the proclamation in a broader perspective (at least for me). I would also do what Walters suggested in his book and add personal service to the list of three as I believe a pastor is called to model what it means to be a servant leader - and his/her service should NOT be limited solely to the lambs on the local church's membership roles. The other incredibly helpful distinction Peterson makes is between two models of ministry pastors can choose from: (1) they can serve as the pastor who "runs-the-church", or (2) they can serve as the pastor who "curses the soul". I'm new into these chapters, but from my initial readings in this area it is clear that I've spent too much time as a pastor who "runs the church" - partly due to my own issues and partly due to the issues at the church I serve. As I prepare to head back into full-time ministry in seven weeks - and as I continue my own explorations this summer - my goal is to grow ever deeper in my ability to serve as a pastor who participates in the process of curing souls. I realize my reflections on Peterson's book may not relate specifically to emerging issues. These issues relating to pastoral identity are obviously important to me, and I believe they will inform how I (and we) proceed in our ministries together. Til next time...