Padre Complex

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.

For Monty Python fans:

Consider including this dialogue (or projecting the clip) from the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail, from the “constitutional peasant” scene:

ARTHUR: I am your king!

WOMAN: Well, I didn’t vote for you.

ARTHUR: You don’t vote for kings.

WOMAN: Well, ’ow did you become king then?

ARTHUR: The Lady of the Lake, [angels sing] her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft Excalibur from the bosom of the water signifying by Divine Providence that I, Arthur, was to carry Excalibur. [singing stops] That is why I am your king!

DENNIS: Listen — strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

And for those of the Wesleyan (Methodist) persuasion:

“The Gospel of Christ knows no religion but social, no holiness but social holiness.
You cannot be holy except as you are engaged in making the world a better place. You do not become holy by keeping yourself pure and clean from the world but by plunging into ministry on behalf of the world’s hurting ones.” - John Wesley

Wouldn’t we agree that by voting we are choosing to make the world a better place? And in the terms of Monty Python - that is something to base a system of government on — our desire to love God by making the world better for our neighbors.

Last year I wrote a paper for my DMin program looking at reading the Bible contextually for the purpose of mission and ministry. I found Paul’s letter to Philemon to be an interesting discussion of welcoming a brother with a different social class in the church. Sadly many of our churches are bound by particular social and economic classes. It is still true to say today that Sunday morning is the most segregated hour of the week. It is also true to think about economic issues. I have often heard the joke “What’s the difference between the Methodist church and the Episcopalian church?” A Mercedes, a Jaguar and two Beamers.

So what are affluent, white, church goers supposed to think and do regarding immigration? Maybe a coherent answer is - read Philemon.

The paper is long. I have broken it into segments and posted them as pages outside of the weblog chronology.

1. Looking at the Text: Immigration and Philemon
2. Context of Immigration and Oppression
3. What’s globalism got to do with it?
4. Migration as a Journey
5. Lo Cotidiano
6. An answer to the Question

Feel free to make comments here. And feel free to email me at Peter_Cammarano@hotmail.com

For those of you like me — here are a few excerpts …

Although globalism continues to be promoted in the West as a ’savior for economic markets,’ across the world the reality is that it has commodified the lives of third world laborers and left them at a disadvantage. Hispanics experience the paradox of globalism where they find that their money is permitted to go places they would never be allowed to travel to or to live. Globalism is an Orwellian term that has begun to stand for the opposite of what it means. Instead of uniting the world and creating a better world for all — globalism has erected barriers to separate the rich from the poor. Nestor Miguez notes that “while the capitalist world rejoiced with the falling of the Berlin Wall, and claimed it as a sign of the triumph of liberty and democracy, it is building other walls not only symbolic but physical as well along the borders of rich and poor countries.” We would be remiss if we did not note the stepped up border patrols of both the government and citizens along the U.S. Mexico border and the further separation and alienation that is being instituted.

or…

How do we bring the text and the context to bear on one another? The persuasive words of Paul in his letter to Philemon speak of ‘family’ and his ‘heart’ being a part of the born again slave Onesimus. He alludes in an ambiguous way about Onesimus becoming more than a slave – a beloved brother. How do we read that text within our context of a segregated church in South Central Texas. The United Methodist church admits to doing a poor job of creating Hispanic churches or forming Hispanic pastors. Their efforts have borne little fruit and leave the church in a peculiar stance of resembling Philemon. A man who has lost a slave and now needs to understand a new relationship in the faith family.

As I have shown through the statistics of the U.S. Census Bureau, Mexican Americans are not enjoying an equal status in the life of the faith family. They are not just absent from the table – but most likely they are serving, cleaning up, and washing dishes for those of us sitting at the table – while we eat bland Americanized versions of their dishes marketed by major restaurant corporations for large profit margins. It is hard to learn about your lost brother if you and he move in separate circles. An invisible brother is no brother at all. Harold Recinos reminds us that “American Methodism must give up its privileged life for the sake of the crucified through whom it gains life.” He reminds us also that the poor were the grass roots communities that nourished “the evangelical drive of Wesley and the early Methodist movement.” To borrow from Revelation – we have lost our first love. To paraphrase from Paul in his letter to Philemon – we have not refreshed the hearts of all the saints. Until we identify with Paul’s careful consideration of status and family from his letter to Philemon we will find ourselves isolated from our Hispanic brothers and sisters in Christ.

I am just geeky-enough about stuff to be dangerous.

Everytime the computer gets funky I get emboldened, and my wife fishes out the number for tech support. I wave her off with a macho “I know what’s wrong” and she starts dialing.

Into every life a little humility must come.

For much of the church in the west - the issue of ‘justice’ is a challenging thing to work out. We love the ‘Just me and Jesus’ faith that mega churches teach. and we prefer a little inidividualism in our faith experience. In the end faith becomes how I can get to heaven - oh yeah - and enjoy an iPod on the way.

For those of us who need a little tech support in the justice area - I offer you Mike’s weblog - Liberation Tech Support. Mike spent a good amount of time writing on my old weblog - the now defunct ‘Gutless Pacifist Weblog.’ He comes from a Roman Catholic background, loves Star Trek and is excited to have his own place in the blogosphere. Just like the rest of us when we started out - Mike deserves a little clickage - to let him know that someone is watching. Take a trip on over.

A good beginning post for Mike is An athlete, a pacifist, and a villain. Enjoy.

The Oscars is a very establishment, white, and boring experience for me. This year I watched it while doing some church stuff online.

I got a kick out of 36 Mafia taking the gold (oops), I mean the award for the best song of the year. As always I was excited for the underdog and for something unpredictable to win. But then as I read this morning I realized it might have not been the best choice for the award..

The song, from Hustle and Flow, was a study in contradiction when compared to the rest of the awards program. While most of the nominated films championed what they deemed to be the marginalized or the politically oppressed, Hustle and Flow lionized a brutal seller of women for sex. The song’s lyrics, which cannot be printed here, chronicle the life of a street pimp, asking us to have sympathy for the difficulties he faces in his chosen profession. The song summarizes the film.

In order to be performed at the Oscars a substantial portion of the lyrics were rewritten, and still there were moments when censors used a time delay to bleep out offensive words. The performance was accompanied by dancers clad as street walkers luring customers for their man. In the end, everybody cheered. It was a surreal moment, especially since last year’s Oscar-award winning documentary, Born Into Brothels, exposed the horrid underside of Calcutta’s prostitution industry, and the children that are trapped in it. I guess that over there it is a tragedy, but over here it’s just “bein’ a player” and “keepin’ it real.” What a difference a year makes.¹

It is always amazing to see how fickle we are with what’s hip, cool, and in. It is even more amazing to remember how short our memories are.

1. “Stories, Upsets, Contradictions: Just Another Night at the Oscars” by Marc T. Newman, Ph.D. found at www.movieministry.com [back]

Bill Moyers, a journalist and ordained baptist minister was honored this year (2005) by his denomination with a Lifetime acheivement award. Some of his acceptance speech follows (courtesy of Christian Ethics Today)

Make no mistake about it. The language of religion has been placed at the service of a partisan agenda. God is being invoked to undermine safeguards for public health and the environment, to demonize political opponents, to censor textbooks, to ostracize “the other,” to end public funding for the arts, to cut taxes on the rich, and to misinform and mislead voters.

The fact is, Jesus has been hijacked. The very Jesus who stood in his hometown and proclaimed, “The Lord has anointed me to preach the good news to the poor.” The very Jesus who told 5,000 hungry people that all people—not just those in the box seats—would be fed. The very Jesus who challenged the religious orthodoxy of the day by feeding the hungry on the Sabbath, who offered kindness to the prostitute and hospitality to the outcast, who raised the status of women, and who treated even the despised tax collector as a citizen of the Kingdom.

The indignant Jesus who drove the money-changers from the temple has been hijacked and turned from a friend of the dispossessed into a guardian of privilege, a militarist, hedonist, and lobbyists, sent prowling the halls of Congress like a Gucci-shod lobbyist, seeking tax breaks and loopholes for the powerful, costly new weapon systems, and punitive public policies against people without power or status.

The struggle for a just world goes on. It is not a partisan affair. God is neither liberal nor conservative, Republican nor Democrat. To see whose side God is on, just go to the Bible. It is the widow and the orphan, the stranger and the poor who are blessed in the eyes of the Lord; it is kindness and mercy that prove the power of faith and justice that measures the worth of the state. Kings are held accountable for how the poor fare under their reign. Prophets speak to the gap between rich and poor as a reason for God’s judgment. Poverty and justice are religious issues, and Jesus moves among the disinherited.

This is the Jesus who challenges the complacency of all political parties, who would shame today’s Republican Party and shake up timid Democrats. He drove the money-changers from the temple of Jerusalem; I believe today he would drive them from the temples of democracy.

It is this Jesus you honor by your faithfulness to the greatest of all Baptist principles—our belief that we are most likely to hear God’s eternal call to love and justice and redemption in the still small voice of the soul.

Thank you for that fidelity, for the work you do and the witness you render—and for the recognition that today you have bestowed on me.

Always respected Bill.

A book review of David Filingim. Redneck Liberation: Country Music as Theology. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2003. 170 pages. Reviewed by Steven P. Miller, for the Journal of Southern Religion.

In certain respects, Fillingim attempts to acquire for the creators and constituents of country music the same kind of subaltern recognition scholars have attained for those of jazz and the blues. Such an intriguing blend of Will D. Campbell and James Cone comes naturally to Fillingim, for whom “country music is at its core the music of a marginalized group – the rednecks” …

So McBride’s Independence Day is liberation?

Let freedom ring
Let the white dove sing
Let the whole world know that today is the day of a reckoning
Let the weak be strong
Let the right be wrong
Roll the stone away
Let the guilty pay
It’s Independence Day

I’m afraid it all depends whose mouth says the words. Out of the mouth of an unemployed single mother it is a cry for liberation. Out of the mouth of Sean Hannity it is just plain oppression.

I’ll have to chew on that for a while…

“So I ask, in my writing, What is real? Because unceasingly we are bombarded with pseudorealities manufactured by very sophisticated people using very sophisticated electronic mechanisms. I do not distrust their motives; I distrust their power. They have a lot of it. And it is an astonishing power: that of creating whole universes, universes of the mind. I ought to know. I do the same thing. It is my job to create universes, as the basis of one novel after another. And I have to build them in such a way that they do not fall apart two days later. Or at least that is what my editors hope. However, I will reveal a secret to you: I like to build universes that *do* fall apart. I like to see them come unglued, and I like to see how the characters in the novels cope with this problem. I have a secret love of chaos. There should be more of it. Do not believe–and I am dead serious when I say this– do not assume that order and stability are always good, in a society or in a universe. The old, the ossified, must always give way to new life and the birth of new things.” — From How to Build a Universe That Doesn’t Fall Apart Two Days Later by Philip K. Dick, 1978

Can someone say “deconstructing meta-narratives”… thanks.

Richard at Bandits No More writes about the recent Called Session of Annual Conference.

He has asked for some comments — and since his setup only allows for blogger login comments - I’ll put mine here.

I agree with Richard. It is an exciting move and the right move.

Change is hardest when it comes from the bottom. This change has been longed for by those of us on the bottom for quite a while. Thankfully, Bishop Huie sensed this and began working towards the health of the conference from her first day in the position. And in many ways her involvement determined some of the vote this weekend. When you have the resources of the annual conference at your disposal it is easy to do a through job of assessing the situation and growing towards change. I’m not saying that the vote was inauthentic because the Bishop was pro-change. I am saying that the argument was easier to make when you don’t have to fight the resistance of an entrenched leadership.

I was most surprised with where the dissent came from. I expected small churches in the farthest corners of the conference to cry foul. I expected them to argue that bigger districts will mean less connection. I expected an amendment that would require the decentralization of the conference office - or some equivalent.

Instead, the resistance came from the old guard, the retirees. I respect the retirees — they have worked hard to construct a church/conference that was able to preach the Gospel and provide me with a place to hear God call me into ministry. But with respect there needs to also come the truthtelling comment that their resistance was so off base that it was laughable.

In many ways we should have expected their resistance. Most views of developmental theory talk about a period of generativity or legacy at the end of life. People want to feel like they have changed their world and left something better for those who will follow them. For many of the retirees we were not just changing the conference — but rather we were deconstructing the very institutions that they fought hard to assemble. To lower the number of districts, and to speak the truth that a DS cannot be an effective expert in every field was to say that their way of ministry was no longer relevant. It was to reject the legacy they had left for us.

“During all my years of ministry I never felt a need to call on conference staff people in Houston. We surely don’t have the need to add more staff there now.”

In contrast, I have called, and used conference staff in both appointments I have served. The conference staff has provided statistical information to assess my church ’s effectiveness. The conference staff has planned retreats on the district and conference level that have helped me learn about prayer, peace with justice, and tax issues related to being a pastor and running a church. In addition, I am pretty sure that the Centers for Congregational and Clergy Excellence are one of the few ways to go if we want specialists who can actually help gather and teach best practices.

I was surprised at the younger clergy person’s comments. He spoke out against the resolutions. He tried to advance an argument that all of the duties of the Center for Clergy Excellence were being covered currently. But the truth is that the DS, Board of Ordained Ministry, and the Office of Ministerial Service are at their breaking points. The mixture of higher accountability, dual relationships, and the literal limits of physical time and money was/is hampering their ability to take care of the developmental needs of pastors.

And of course, the retiree’s comment of …

“There’s an easy solution to conflict. Just move the pastor.”

… got a raucous response because it was so laughably false and out of touch. I can’t imagine what is healthy about resolving conflict (especially if the pastor is lacking in skills, competencies, or maturity) by immediately moving a pastor. It makes me think of the cliche “When all you have is a hammer - everything looks like a nail.”

A one tool toolbox may have worked for the last three decades - but it is out living its usefulness. Thank goodness that the vote has begun a process of adding tools to the tool box so that we can reach people for Christ in a more fruitful and faithful way.

Update: Guy Williams has shared some of his impressions of the debate.