Living word by word

mentoring, internships and ministry

Carol Howard Merritt has an interesting reflection on mentoring and internships at her blog this week. Reading it made me grateful that Lutherans still maintain the tradition of the internship year, even though it does indeed create financial and family hardships in our current economic climate. The alternative -- being thrown into full-time parish ministry, often alone and isolated, straight from seminary, seems to leave way too much to chance. The ELCA has tried to develop models of first-call education, but in my experience they are not well-funded or well-supported enough to be of much use.

Of course, there are alternatives to our 2-1-1 traditional system of internship. Because I didn't attend a Lutheran seminary, the "terminal internship" worked OK for me, though it still left me with another year of virtually no income.  Even better, I think, are the ways that the Lilly Endowment is sponsoring Transition into Ministry programs such as the "residency" model. The gifted people I've seen pass through that model finish their residency pretty much ready for anything. 

In any case, I think the lesson is clear: it takes more than education to make a pastor. It takes relationships with other clergy, and, most importantly, a congregation that is willing to learn and grow with their pastor.

DDR film fest anyone?

   Somewhere in the former DDR's files there's a note about an American student whose passport was stolen in Jena about 6 months before the wall came down, and probably my picture, taken by a disgruntled photographer working late on a Saturday afternoon so I could get a new ID and go back across the border with my fellow exchange students. The inside of the  East German police station in Erfurt was as dismal a place as I have ever been.

  That was June 1989,  and you would never have known what  was coming. I completely believe that November 9 was like that scene in The Lives of Others, when one guy listening to the radio turns to the others and says, "The wall is open," and they all simply stop steaming envelopes and  walk away from their Stasi jobs.

  So, if you're wondering how to celebrate 20 years of the Berlin wall coming down, here are three great movies (all German):

1. The Lives of Others, for a heat-wrenching, all too real version of the oppression that was endured

2. Good-bye Lenin, for a funny and also quite poignant view of the generation gap  produced by how fast the changes came

3. And, though I don't believe it was ever released in the U. S., an East German film from the late 80's entitled Einer Trage des Anderen Last -- Bear One Anothers' Burdens -- about a devout Communist and a young Lutheran pastor whose lives intersect in a tuberculosis sanitorium. It was simply a beautiful film.

Reformation Sunday blog, part 1

When I am made Queen of the World, my first decree will be to ban passwords. Or fix internet security with great haste, or something like that.

Unless you're one of those people who only uses a computer to check one email account  once a week, you know the problem (and if that's the case, you're probably not reading this):  every freakin' site on the Web now wants you to create a "personal account" -- which really only means you need a password. So you use your usual password, say, your parents wedding anniversary, but they want letters and numbers, so you add your initials, but no, it has to be eight characters long, so you add a 01. Fine.

But then you do the same thing for your other email account, your bank, amazon, facebook, and five other things, only they each have slightly different rules, so now you have 4 different passwords.

No problem, your obsequious, overly helpful computer says, "Do you want me to remember that?" Sure!!

That's fine, until the day Sir Obsequious has issues, and you have to use someone else's computer. And now you can't remember any of the passwords. Locked out from your own secure, "personal" accounts.

The experts say we ought to be changing our passwords every 6 months or so. And don't use anything someone else would know. And don't use the same one for everything.

I tried doing an update of my passwords once, but then I couldn't remember half the sites that required them, so now half of my sites have one of 4 new passwords, and half have one of 4 old passwords.. . .

The answer might be to write them down -- but isn't that insecure?

So if I use good security, I can't manage my own accounts.

And if I use bad security, well, nothing's secure.

It's kind of like Jesus. Every time we think we have the right password, he changes the rules. Got the 10 commandments down? Good, now go sell everything you own. Think you're on the inner circle? Good, now notice how the disciples are the ones constantly getting it wrong.

We want to be on the inside, but Jesus keeps moving to the outside. We want to know the secret codes, and Jesus keeps giving 'em away to the wrong people.

Nothing's secure with him, and I simply cannot manage my personal accounts.  

But maybe Jesus isn't into personal accounts.

That was Gospel

Don't miss Nadia's awesome sermon which she preached at ECLC on Sunday. You can also get the audio at our site. It was grace-filled, embodied, Lutheran from beginning to end.

I only wish we could also have captured the conversation held during adult forum, led by Seth Donovan and Nadia Bolz-Weber, about confession. I wasn't there, but I keep hearing about it.

on not being on fire

    I've been struggling internally a bit with the conflicting demands of institutional life and the so-beyond-all-that-crap attraction of God. Jenell, in her inimitable way, has put her finger on it:

"Churches organize people, funds, help, and childcare, and it's great when they do it well. But they also organize our identities, encouraging us to perceive ourselves and to project a public self that is (among other things) saved or damned, good or bad, or on the path or straying." (Please do read the whole post).

I think the freedom of the Gospel as Luther understood it is about exactly this giving up of the categories. We're always saints and sinners, all the time, and it's wonderful when we can give up wasting all our energy on categorizing ourselves. This is, in theory, why Lutherans are not quite so wrapped up in the "good or bad" rhetoric, but we still find lots of ways to place ourselves in a theological universe that is more about who we are compared to others instead of an honest spiritual journey. 

We need to be in community, and it seems like humans naturally do this "temporal social discourse" thing that, all too often, detracts from relating to the Great I AM. As a pastor I do try to be conscious of when I'm serving an institutional need and when I'm doing something vaguely more spiritual, but frankly, the constant shifting of gears is exhausting, and I'm pretty sure that most of the time the people I'm interacting with don't make those same mental shifts as we go along.

Tomorrow, I'll be at a large funeral, which is both a mammoth effort of social organization and a recognition that most of our self-identities are meaningless in the face of death. The deceased is free at last. The rest of us will muddle along.

mainline readiness

Carol Howard Merritt has a good post on how, despite the fact that the "emerging church" movement started among evangelicals, it may be the mainline that is best suited for the postmodern era.

One can argue about whether Lutherans are really mainline. I suppose it depends a great deal on the congregation, but at least in the case of my congregation, what Merritt says of the mainline is true of where I serve:

        We have embraced scientific thought, not expecting the newest discoveries to bow and bend to a  six-day creation story. We have wrestled with biblical literalism, and taken postmodern insights in hermeneutics seriously. We have questioned theories of atonement for decades. We have upheld the inherent value and equality of women in our homes, workplaces, political arenas, and congregations. We have been engaging in social justice issues, caring for the poor, feeding the hungry, responding to disasters, and helping the homeless. We do not do these things only for Christians or as a manipulative evangelistic tool. But we have also been doing it in the public sphere, working for change in people’s lives, because we believe in the inherent dignity and worth of humans, of “the Other.”

I couldn't agree more, but I share her concern that it's still an open question whether the mainline can embrace evangelism enough to really reach out to an increasingly secularized world. Here in Minnesota it seems that we are finally reaching the cliff -- I mean a sudden and dramatic drop-off in the familiarity of folk with the "way we do things", be it how to find a Bible verse, a common table prayer or the assumption that kids will attend confirmation instruction. We're still not the Pacific Northwest, but there's no question which direction the trend is headed.

Can we start articulating the Gospel -- not just good social justice values but THE GOOD NEWS -- in a compelling way? If we can, all the above paragraph will be banked authenticity, the most powerful currency in our culture today.

an extraordinary day

Years ago, as I was just starting out in ministry, I read an article in which a veteran pastor suggested that one of the best practices to keep one’s sense of calling fresh was to attend the ordinations and installations of others. I think I was in the New Jersey Synod at the time, so that was an easy suggestion to follow – ordinations usually happened en masse at the Synod Assembly.

It’s still a good suggestion, but one that is harder to follow in this Midwestern church climate, where everything is much more congregational and, since Lutherans are so dense, one could spend an awful lot of weekends attending such services. I tend to go only to the services for people I know really well, and even then the demands of parenting often take precedence over an extra church obligation on a Saturday or Sunday.

Today was a reminder, though, of how true that pastor’s advice was. I suited up for an “extraordinary” ordination, meaning one that the ELCA roster will not recognize because the person in question is in a same-sex partnership. She is extraordinary in many other ways as well, particularly her commitment to mission and her grace under pressure. Unlike most Minnesota ordinations, which can feel very much like small family affairs, this one had pew after pew of clergy from many states attending, all of us decked out in albs and red stoles, including many people who are not connected to the daily life of this particular pastor or congregation. But we were there, because a sister’s ministry is being recognized by her congregation for what it is – Word and Sacrament for the sake of the world.

Since the first “extraordinary” ordination I attended about ten years ago, these services have become less unusual, which is, on the whole, a very good thing for the church. On the other hand, I think it is voices from ‘outside’ the sanctioned roads to ministry that are reminding those of us who are called how precious this calling is, and what joy it is to share in it. I hope that, one day, it will be “no big deal,” if a GLBT person is ordained to ministry; and yet I hope it will still be a very big deal because God has called, and they have answered, "send me."

Advent 1A --wake, awake

I’ve been thinking a lot about the role of the prophet lately. For one thing, it’s Advent, and we’re about to get our annual shout from John – the Baptist, the one to whom Lutherans don’t generally give a lot of airtime.

 

In the absence of credible Christian prophets these days, we have some thoroughly secular folk taking on the cause of waking us up. There’s the Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping  warning us of the Shopocalypse, and plenty of environmentalists telling us to wake up, and quick.

 

I am sympathetic to these messengers, and like to think that I am pretty awake myself, on my better days. But the pastoral side of me wonders about the long-term effects of fire and brimstone. I suspect that some people enjoy getting a good beating on a Sunday morning, feeling bad for awhile and thus being certain that they’ve done their emotional penance. Then they go back to sleep.

 

Or, there’s the effect Janisse Ray wrote about recently in Orion, in which the true believers gather, tsk tsk at all those who are deaf to the message, and then head home, ignoring any further changes they may personally need to make. What if “the choir” is not really doing that much better than middle America? If I know about global warming and believe in it, does that automatically make me more righteous than the doubters? Am I justified merely by my faith in the wrath to come?

 

Here’s the irony: many of these “prophets” have long since eschewed any semblance of religious faith. In fact, many of them assume that churchgoing Christians like me are the opposition rather than allies. If you asked them about matters of heaven and hell, personal righteousness or eternal judgment, they’d probably insist that they don’t believe in judgment. But they sure as heck use the language of guilt, sin, shame and, sometimes, fear – as well as and sometimes better than street corner prophets. Walter Brueggeman argued in Sojourners recently that Rev. Billy is most definitely using the methods of Old Testament prophecy (e.g. performance art) in his Starbucks tirades. These prophets believe firmly in the end of the world as we know it.  They just think God has no part in it.

 

I’m pretty sure that the end of the world as we know it will come about through human hands. We can create a shopocalypse, an end to oil, a global climate crisis without any intervention at all, thank you very much. But I’m also pretty sure that sustained, hopeful, joyous resistance to the status quo needs something more than my humanity – it needs my trust in a God more powerful than my own sleepy soul.

 

What wakes us up best – the screaming smoke alarm or the sounds of nature? I’m not sure either one works perfectly for everyone. For some the rude awakening just arouses anger at the source of the noise; others are just too darned exhausted to let anything wake them.

 

It’s been years since I needed an alarm in the morning. I have something much better now – my children. Their voices are insistent, piercing and still beautiful. And they need me, now more than ever, to wake up.

I love confirmation

I love confirmation. I never would have thought, back in seminary, that teaching middle schoolers would be a highlight of my week, but it is. We have 25 6-8 graders in the program this year, and they are bright, articulate, lively, and just plain fun to be around. And pretty well behaved too.

I love the adults who work with these kids as small group guides: articulate, passionate, caring.

And I love trying to figure out every week how to make something like the Creed or a commandment come alive for them, these mostly-protected kids who think deeply but also have limited access to the deepest dilemmas of life and faith right now.

This fall has been fun because this group really seems to love an ethical dilemma. Tonight we talked about the 7th commandment and invited two professional musicians from the congregation to engage them about the ethics of copying music. They did a fantastic, honest job of it, and you could just hear the wheels turning in kids' minds. It's a cliche to say they give me hope for the future. . . but they do.

Lutheran writers

In the wake of car accident chaos this weekend, I attended a nice little writers' conference at Luther College called Called to Create.  It was wonderful primarily because I didn't have to feed, clothe, buckle, or carry anyone else for 24 hours, and I got to spend some time with another pastor-mother-friend.

What to say about it?:

• It was, unfortunately, little. The auditorium felt pretty empty, and  I met with two students from my congregation for lunch, and they had no idea this event was happening on campus. This would never happen at Calvin's Festival of Faith and Writing.
• Gracia Grindal, quoting "a colleague" (she didn't say who), about the Lutheran tendency to preach "justification by coma." Ouch. But so true.
• Gracia commented that perhaps Lutherans have few famous authors in English because, well, as a group we haven't been speaking English that long. It takes a few generations for a mastery of the language to take hold. This seems counterintuitive when you consider how English is the ONLY language for many Lutheran Americans now, but I think she may be on to something. It reminds me of a Stanford professor who likes to poll her English classes about how far back the language has been spoken in the family. Generally speaking, the African-Americans in the class have the longest history of native speakers.
• I picked up a lovely collection by Jill Palez-Baugartner, which includes a series of poems based on the Lutheran funeral liturgy. It's found in My Father's Bones.
• I had the very odd experience of hearing someone whom I don't know say my name, and Minneapolis, and church, and something else. . .  I didn't know the person, they weren't talking to me, and, well, maybe they weren't talking about me, so I wasn't going to interrupt or eavesdrop at length. Needless to say, my ears were burning. If someone reading this blog happens to be that woman, hey, say hello! Who are you?