Padre Complex

One of the wise-est people I know is Bill Kerley. He is a pastor and therapist in Houston. Bill teaches a weekly Sunday School Class at St. Paul’s UMC and the lesson is podcasted each week. I am a little behind on my listenning. But this image struck me from the October 29, 2006 lesson Catching the Vision. In it Bill tries to clarify what the class will be trying to do he offers this:

I’m sure I’ll be making some references to our trip from time to time in the weeks ahead. We spent three weeks traveling in Portugal, Spain and France. It was a wonderful trip.

The most challenging part of it was the driving. I have concluded that the drivers in some of the European countries are better than American drivers. They have to be! What was challenging for us was finding hotels where we had made reservations in some of the cities we visited - like Bilboa, Spain and Lourdes, France. We like to stay in the heart of the cities and towns where we go and it is these parts of those places that were built somewhere in the 14th century and the very narrow streets were laid out on cow paths. Not knowing the language we couldn’t read most of the street signs and even though I had a GPS that worked in Europe, sometimes it was a real challenge - especially because of the high density of the traffic.

The way we like to travel is to have a reservation at someplace the first few days we travel and then, after that, to wing it. This has pluses and minuses. The plus side is that of spontaneity. You can do what you want to do when you want to do it. The minus side is that some of what you might want to do is not available. We wanted, for example, to go to Salamanca, Spain but they were having some huge convention when we wanted to go and there was not a place to be found anywhere in the city or close by.

So, we changed our minds and decided to go to Lourdes, France instead.

You no doubt have heard of this place. It is a place of alleged miracles. The story goes that on the 11th February 1858 Bernadette Soubirous a young girl of 14 years left the hovel where she and her family lived in poverty to go and collect firewood. As she went into the woods she heard the sound of wind and then saw a light which lit up the silhouette of a young girl “as young and small as herself” the story has it. The girl smiled at her and said, “Would you do me the favor of coming here for two weeks?” Bernadette said,” Yes.”

In the next two weeks there followed a series of visions and if you look this up on the Internet, it sounds very bizarre to our so- called modern ears but what it has resulted in is the place becoming a Mecca for people all over the world who want to experience healing. When I say it is a Mecca for people what I mean is that over 5,500,000 a year go there. But we had no idea of this. As we drove off the toll road onto the series of small roads that would take us there, there was virtually no traffic. No tour busses. Nothing at all to indicate what we were about to get into.

We pulled up on the edge of town to check a map and set the GPS to take us to the Visitor’s Information place. As we drove into the place, I began to experience a crowd of people like I have never experienced. I have never in my life seen so many infirm people of all kinds in one place. We managed to park the car and got help in finding a hotel. We set out by car to find it. No luck. Eventually we stopped and Sherry went to ask at a shop for directions. This was like some of those scenes you see in movies of crowded cities in China or India - people walking in the streets oblivious of cars. After two or three attempts and stopping to ask for directions a couple of more times and driving on streets that were almost as narrow as the car - I am not making that up, we hit on an idea. I pulled up behind a cab, Sherry got out and jumped into it and told the driver where she wanted to go and I followed them. We got to our destination.

I don’t think that is a very bad metaphor for what we are doing here. I’m going to be your cab driver and you are here to find a way home. It is a limited metaphor. I know that. There may have been many different routes the cab could have taken from where we encountered it to the place where he led us. But it got us where we wanted to go. I hope you experience that by being here.

If you wanted to get at the GenX take on spirituality — this is getting close. It is less about authority, entertainment, or education. But rather it is about finding your way in a world filled with pain. It is like one beggar telling another beggar where to find food.

What’s in a name?

The Associated Press reported in October of 2000 that Honduran authorities were working on a law to limit the names parents could give children in their small central American country.

Honduras’ National Electoral Tribunal oversees the country’s public birth registry, announced that it will ask the country’s legislature to forbid parents from registering children under extravagant or offensive names, and allow children to sue parents who gave them gross or insulting names.

What brought about this strange legislative moment?

The Tribunal said that one of the particularly irksome naming traditions happened in Gracias a Dios - a province of eastern Honduras where it is common [there] for people to employ names usually used for automobile parts.

So with that in mind – what do you call people who no are not members, or regular members of our congregation who show up for worship? Are they visitors or guests?

Dave Merman our consultant in the Conference’s Transformation Project suggests they are Guests. Visitors are unplanned for, unwelcomed, not treasured. A guest is planned for, welcomed, and treasured. What a difference between treating someone as a visitor rather than a guest! The former is a tourist, while the latter is more like a member of the family.

Very few of us, for example, have visitor rooms in our homes, but many of us have a guest room. A guest is a special person in our home who is often given kitchen privileges, who often gets to stay for more than a single night, and who may even be given a key to the house. What about us? Do we treat those people who walk in the door as visitors or guests?

It may just be a word. Changing a name may not mean much …

… unless of course your parents called you muffler..

… … or the people of God thought you were a tourist just passing through.

(Pastor’s Article for Newsletter for February 2007)

Andrew Thompson, pastor, genXer, and doctoral student at Duke Divinity School has picked up the ball regarding young clergy and leadership at his website and a discussion has followed. My first response follows..

Andrew - thanks for bringing some attention to this topic. I can remember just 5 years ago sitting through Annual Conference thoroughly disgusted at how backwards thinking and institutional the whole experience had become. I would sit with other young colleagues and we would joke at how meaningless the process had become.

But then two years ago I realized that within 10-15 years my generation (I am an early genXer) would be inheriting this mess. And then my humor turned to fear. How in the world will we retool this institution to become a community of redemption that is all about the Gospel?

Thankfully things were already changing. Bishop Huie was appointed to our conference (Texas) and things began changing. Her leadership has restored function, dialogue, and excellence to what we are doing. Before Conference meetings were about pension, insurance, and benefits. Now we are discussing formation, recruitment of young clergy and excellence in ministry and leadership.

I think like anything - genxers are attracted to things that are of quality, that are genuine, and that are focused. If we want them to attend our church services then we need to be focused in our worship, genuine in our relationships and provide a quality experience. If we want genxers to be in leadership the same applies.

I have written before about the generational differences between those in power and the next generation that is coming. There is much to be gained by sharing power.

I firmly believe that the answers for any question in the church are present when the church assembles. Through the Holy Spirit we are provided with the answers for the future. The Spirit has given each generation a set of gifts. GenXers bring there gifts — the question is whether or not they will be permitted to be in the room when the questions are asked, and the decisions are made.

Come join the conversation at Andrew’s site.

Thoughts on generational differences… (found at Merrill while surfing for generational differences)

Allow me to highlight five differences between generations and indicate how these differences contribute to new patterns of leadership: career, speed, loyalty, balance, and heroes.

The concept of career has changed. Young people today talk more about jobs and skills than they do about career paths. They don’t see the need or the benefit of picking a single career. Increasingly young people talk about having parallel careers. Many say they expect nine different careers in their lifetime. For them life is more like the video game SimLife, than the board game of Life. In video games roles are less defined and you learn through experimentation. And if it doesn’t work, you can reboot and start again.

Life in the new millennium is all about speed. Young people not only live with speed and chaos, they thrive in it. In a climate of rapid change the young generations knows you have to act fast to win or stay in the game. If you proceed slowly and cautiously, you lose. The patient are glanced over, passed over and run over. The great depression taught people to make sacrifices and be patient, but the Information age has taught a generation that you never have to wait for anything. They are looking for opportunities to gain twenty years of experience in two year. Computer simulations allow them to formulate ideas, test them, retest, refine and move forward. They believe in just doing it.

Loyalty has new meaning among young people who saw their parents downsized, reengineered and layoff off. They know the days of corporate loyalty to employees are long gone. Young people look after themselves first. They exhibit little loyalty to anyone other than friends and family. Loyalty is highly valued, and given only to a few friends and colleagues after they have earned it. When they feel respected and valued they will be loyal to the cause or organization and become great assets and advocates.

Balance is a fundamental value in the younger generations. As children of workaholic baby boomers, they view time, commitments and career advances through the lens of balance. In the workplace young people have been termed slackers because they don’t work late, or don’t come in on the weekend or they refuse to attend those extra meeting. They expect time off for family functions and don’t understand why they have to stick around if they’ve finished all that was expected of them. But it is not an aversion to work that prompts their actions. It is a commitment to family and friends – a commitment to having a balanced life in which work is only one segment of a full life.

For many of us in older generations, heroes contributed to our ideals and values.
I grew up with the words of John Kennedy: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but rather what you can do for your county.” Past generations had many heroes that shaped and influenced them. They were the icons, the people we looked to for inspiration and leadership.

When I talk with Xers and Y’s about public heroes and figures they admire and look up to, they struggle to find a name and often tell me they do not have “public” heroes. They may consider parents, friends and coworkers as people they admire, but most often they say they have no real models of leadership, no people they look up to outside of their immediate circle. At first I found this disturbing (being of the Boomer generation with lots of heroes) but have come to realize the whole concept of heroes has changed. Every time someone gets nominated to be a hero someone else comes along and reveals a dirty secret about them. Information makes heroes temporary or passing figures. Consider all the books that have been written about the Kennedy’s, Martin Luther King or Princess Diana.

The young generation does not look for a Lone Ranger form of leadership. They don’t believe that a larger-than-life individual can ride in, gives directions and leads the way to great accomplishments. They also do not view age, seniority and rank as measures of accomplishment or expertise. Unlike an earlier time when people admired their elders and followed them to victory, this generation does not see age as a dominant characteristic for leadership.

In an era of complexity and change, young people look for leaders who work with followers as intimate allies. They want colleagues who will develop relationships that build intimacy and show trust and respect for them, their abilities and their ideas. — Merril Associates Newsletter

If the Annual Conference wants to know what a young clergy delegate can contribute to the delegation — see above.

In United Methodist Churches we celebrate today a non-liturgical day called Human Relations Sunday. Usually it is an opportunity for us to take a special offering and preach a sermon about racial reconciliation and quote Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I have a Dream Speech.”

While I was looking through what other preachers are doing for inspiration about what I should be doing - I found this…

The Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, is a congregation of solid Black citizens. In the late 1940s and early 1950s their pastor was Rev. Vernon Johns. He was a well-educated “Negro” pastor, and his congregation looked to him for the hope and solace of the gospel.

They also wanted him to have social standing in their community, and they were glad for his advanced degrees. This was the era of rigid segregation in Alabama, and the people of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church hoped that having a well-educated pastor might open a few eyes and bring greater dignity to the Black Church in their southern community. Their stature was measured to some degree - they felt - by his stature.

But Vernon Johns was not content to put up a good front. He was a courageous and outspoken voice for justice in Montgomery. He was a sassy dreamer. He saw a better day ahead and urged his congregation to take actions. He believed economic boycotts were a means of making folks take notice. He personally boycotted white grocers. He planted a garden, put on his farmer’s clothes and sold his own homegrown fruits and vegetables. He provided an alternative to white grocers who treated blacks with little respect. He meant to be a model for other Montgomery, Alabama, Blacks.

The people of his congregation did not sign on to his program of boycotts. They knew how easily they could lose their jobs, be falsely accused of crimes, or subjected to violence. His people asked Rev. Johns to tone down his rhetoric.

When a white policeman raped a member of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church the congregation was enveloped by the paralyzing fear that marked the lives of African Americans living in the South during those decades. But Vernon Johns went to the police station and called for a line-up of white police. He insisted that the girl was entitled to the protection of the law. The other white police was not altogether unsympathetic, but they told him that he could not buck the system and warned him of the wrath of the Ku Klux Klan. The chief of police told Rev. Johns there was a place for him in Montgomery - if he would learn his place.

Johns had had too much of being kept in his place. When police and shopkeepers called him ‘boy’ he answered, “there is no boy here.” He was secure in his own manhood; he was outraged by wrongs; he was a critic of his own congregation because they were willing to tolerate so much indignity and accept so much injustice.

He tried to enlist members of the congregation in direct confrontations with the system of segregation and the pattern of degradation. One day a member of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church witnessed another Black man being beaten by a Montgomery policeman. He stepped up and said ‘enough’. He pushed the policeman to one side to stop the beating. Other police shot and killed him.

The congregation blamed Rev. Johns for the murder of one of their own. Their pastor’s call for reforms had led to violence and death and could only lead to more of the same. They asked him to preach a conciliatory sermon.

Rev. Johns posted his sermon title that week on the church signboard. It read: “When It’s Safe for Whites to Murder Blacks.” The congregation was unhappy. The police were unhappier. The Klan burned a cross in front of the parsonage. When Sunday came Rev. Johns went ahead with his sermon. He reminded the congregation of the injustices of Southern segregation, how it assaulted their dignity and threatened their lives. He knew - they all knew - that the flaming cross on the parsonage lawn was warning of a lynching - meant to frighten them into submission. Instead he urged them to take action.

He never got to finish the sermon. A white police escort removed him from the church in the middle of it. He was held in the police station most of that Sunday afternoon. When the police released him they told him that no one was going to have to make a martyr of him. One said cryptically, “Your congregation has seen to that.”

While Rev. Johns was being held in jail the Board of Deacons of his church unanimously voted to fire him.

He would never have another pastorate.

Rev. Vernon Johns was a mature man. The Dexter Avenue Baptist Board of Deacons went looking for a younger man to be their next pastor. They sought someone who was well educated but still “teachable”. They found and called a young man of twenty-six who already had his doctorate. His name was Martin Luther King, Jr.

…

Vernon Johns was instrumental, though largely forgotten. Martin Luther King gets the credit. Their preaching and their behavior was almost identical. Their courage was unsurpassed. Their faith was fulfilled in action. Within two years of coming to Dexter Avenue Baptist Church Martin Luther King, Jr. was leading the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Then came Selma . . . and the March on Washington . . . Time Magazine Man of the Year . . . the Nobel Peace Prize . . . the words “I have a dream…” rank with “Four score and seven years ago…” in American memory.

Would we be celebrating Martin Luther King’s birthday this weekend if it were not for Rev. Vernon Johns?

We’ll never know that.

He paved the way; he helped ripen history for the moment a Martin Luther King, Jr. could step forward and harvest the fruit.

Let me remind you of some of Martin Luther King’s words — speaking of the Church, and of those of us who call ourselves Christians, King said,

“We are called to be thermostats that transform and regulate the temperature of society, not thermometers that merely record or register the temperature of majority opinion… How often the Church has had a high blood pressure of creeds and an anemia of deeds… The time is always right to do what is right… Christianity has always insisted that the cross we bear precede the crown we wear. To be a Christian one must take up his [or her] cross, with all of its difficulties and agonizing and tension-packed content, and carry it until that very cross leaves its mark upon us and redeems us to that more excellent way which comes only through suffering.”

On another occasion he said,

“Everybody can be great. Because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don’t have to know Einstein’s theory of relativity to serve. You don’t have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”

You may think nobody is watching or that your meager efforts will make no difference. You may think it will be a long and difficult time before things are better. But I’m telling you, the time is always right to do what is right. (from “Andrew and Peter, Vernon and Martin” by Rev. Bob Olmstead from Palo Alto UMC, CA)

Well done.