Padre Complex

Andrew Thompson of GenXRising writes about the need for reform in the United Methodist ordination process. I agree whole heartedly with 99% of what he says. Read his column here and his post here.

Andrew mentions the position that the ordination process should include an engagement of the seminaries. But he articulates it in this way - “The church should re-exert its control over them (the seminaries).”

My question: How is this different from the events of the 80s and the 90s that were the results of the the Southern Baptist Convention wanting to ‘exert control’ over its seminaries? (those in need of a refresher can see this informal chronology.)

Collaboration may have been the word Andrew was shooting for — and control is what must have come out. Certainly Andrew (a doctoral student at Duke) would agree with me that Greg Jones (Dean at Duke Divinity) is a great example of the collaborative environment that is needed in the connection between seminaries and the annual conferences.

Thoughts?

Part of my process regarding ‘making sense of pay’ as a young clergy person has been to track my ‘class’ of clergy. I define my ‘class’ as people who were ordained elder the year before, the year after, and the same year I was. I then look at the conference journal each year and track their appointment, salary, attendance and membership. I then rank them and share this with my PPRC group.

Then as a group we discuss the realities regarding the list - that some of those clergy are older, second career clergy, or that some clergy at larger churches and therefore are paid more than others. We discuss the annual conference’s average compensation, the denominational average compensation and the average compensation of my ‘class.’ This has helped to lower both the PPRC’s anxiety about how much is to much pay, and my anxiety about how much is to little pay.

It is widely assumed among clergy in our annual conference that under past bishops and past cabinets that appointments were made based upon salary level. This can result in clergy tunnel vision with regard to pay. We all know colleagues that put their churches on the equivalent of ‘finanical steroids’ when it came to clergy pay because they knew that it would impact their move. Certainly young clergy need to be paid a good wage– but how do you begin making sense out of what is a good wage? In my annual conference (Texas) we have one of the better conference average compensations but it hides one of the largest pay disparities. So we may on a whole be paid more than other conferences but we have a larger distance between the haves and have nots. Since young clergy are often in the lower half of clergy pay — this disparity has a greater impact on us than the conference leadership.

Mix into this the element of being young clergy and everything can go on its ear quickly. Developmentally (though I can’t cite a source) it can be accepted that young clergy (between five and 12 years of ministry as an elder) begin to look for a specialty. In some ways this explains the popularity of the D.Min as a degree - it shows a level of credentialing for a specialty and can become a source for specialization. I took that bait and am hoping to graduate in 2009.

In my experience the desire for specialization is not picked up by cabinets. Young clergy could specialize in numerous ways — through appointments, committee/board/agency assignments, non-profit leadership, etc. But in the past few of those opportunities were offered by the conference leadership to young clergy. They were considered seniority positions and priveleges afforded only to those who had put their time in. Young clergy therefore pursue specialization on their own regardless of whether the institution supports it or not. And of course this might be one of the causes for drastic growth in attrition rates among young elders. Or is the high attrition rate an issue of low pay?

What if the Cabinet/Bishop were more strategic with appointments and allowed for clergy to seek out growth opportunities through strategic appointments where the clergy got the developmental growth they needed and the conference got capable leaders that have the skills to do effective ministry at larger churches? We continue to be reminded by conference leadership that a retirement bubble is about to pop — and that the appointment and salary concerns that we have will evaporate at that time. Strategic appointments may be the answer to both making sense out of clergy pay and growing rates of attrition among young clergy.

So what are your thoughts on why you are paid what you are paid? How do you make sense of that, and how do you lead your congregation to think differently? And how do we as young clergy influence the conference leadership in thinking differently about pay and appointments?

Well.. apologies for ducking out on you all in the spring. Real Life has been good and exciting. This Sunday I will have my church’s charge conference — following that I look forward to blogging more often.. peace-Peter

The Associated Press had the following list of those who are practicing how to say ‘I’m Sorry.”

Actor Isaiah Washington apologizes and says he will seek counseling after using a gay slur last October in reference to fellow Grey’s Anatomy actor T.R. Knight.

Former Seinfeld actor Michael Richards is caught on video angrily shouting the N-word at black patrons during a November appearance at the Laugh Factory in Hollywood. Richards seeks counseling, apologizes publicly and meets with civil rights leaders.

Actor-director Mel Gibson is stopped on the Pacific Coast Highway for suspicion of drunken driving on July 28, 2006, and unleashes an anti-Semitic tirade against a Jewish sheriff’s deputy. He apologizes, pleads no contest to drunken driving and says he will seek alcohol counseling and meet with Jewish leaders.

Lindsay Lohan checks into a private rehab program in January, six months after a studio executive publicly upbraids the 20-year-old actress, saying her “all-night heavy partying” is disrupting filming.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom announces he is entering an alcohol rehabilitation program days after acknowledging he had an affair with his campaign manager’s wife.

The Rev. Ted Haggard resigns as president of the National Association of Evangelicals after allegations of sexual misconduct with a man are made public. A minister who helped oversee three weeks of counseling said Haggard emerged convinced he is “completely heterosexual.”

Former U.S. Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., resigns from Congress last fall and enters alcohol rehab after his sexually explicit computer messages to congressional pages are made public.

I find it fascinating that all of these individuals - after their mistakes/crimes/bad choices were made public they made one quick decision - to go to rehabilitation.

It appears that going to rehab is the way in our day and age to express remorse, to tell others that you were out of control — maybe even a way to seek forgiveness. Rehab has become the latest form of confessional for our celebrity black sheep.

A traditional text for Ash Wednesday is Joel 2:12-17 - which includes…

“Come back to me and really mean it! Come fasting and weeping, sorry for your sins!” 13 Change your life, not just your clothes. Come back to God, your God. And here’s why: God is kind and merciful. He takes a deep breath, puts up with a lot, This most patient God, extravagant in love, always ready to cancel catastrophe. 14 Who knows? Maybe he’ll do it now, maybe he’ll turn around and show pity. (The Message)

Seems like we could all learn from Joel about how to go about saying ‘I’m sorry.’

(stay tuned for more on ‘Saying I’m Sorry’)

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.

Recently a member of the cabinet of my conference at a gathering of young clergy said to a small group gathered to discuss leadership involvement that, “young clergy are not electable.”

I disagree.

There is so much discussion these days of the value of young clergy. Whether you couch the argument demographically (gotta have one to get one), theologically (Jesus was young - once), or economically (you know those young clergy don’t jack up the health insurance premiums) the reality is that young clergy are hot property these days.

The Lewis Center this year released a thoughtful look at the decline of young clergy retention rates. The report (available in pdf) shows that the percentage of young elders (under 35) dropped dramatically from 15.05 % to 4.69% between 1980 and 2005.

In my own Annual Conference Susan Buchanan has researched the lack of non-boomer ordained women elders. She writes:

None of the women in our judicatory born after 1965 (usually the dividing line for Gen-X) with more than 10 years of experience are still in ministry in a local congregation in Texas. Only one still remains in any kind of ministry in Texas (specifically campus ministry).

I have seen her numbers and documents and it is impressive - it makes you wonder what it is about our conference that is driving away young women clergy from local church ministry.

And of course there are many pushes for recruitment, retention, and utilization of young clergy in the connection.

So with all the emphasis on young clergy why would you not want to elect a delegate who was a young clergy person?

The old culture has always been based upon a mixture of seniority and political leanings. But young clergy rarely play by those rules. The old culture invests seniority with leadership in a ‘pay your dues’ arrangement. But young clergy find diversity, calling, and meaning to be more powerful than seniority in representing and leading a community.

In our Annual Conference there are more than 100 young clergy (under 40). Most elections have happened with 300-400 persons voting on the floor. So the young clergy if they were to organize could contribute to the formation of a delegation.

The challenge is that young clergy by definition of their generation - are not joiners. I have noticed that as we have organized for fellowship and accountability the young clergy in my Annual Conference are highly sensitive to any move toward becoming a caucus. This reaction to political organizing may be a better reason to deem us un-electable than our lack of seniority.

My hope and prayer is that we might overcome these sensitivities to looking or acting to political. Or maybe a more important prayer is that as the old guard hands over the reins of power to young clergy - we will not assume their culture of seniority. And instead choose our leadership based upon qualities of discernment, character, and accountability.

It is a thought…