I have been reluctant to start another blog. I mean “another” in two ways: I’ve been down this road before and, though I
have always been well intentioned, I have never been well disciplined. The blog loses steam, I lose interest, and it
ends up just floating, rudderless, in cyberspace. I also mean “another” in the sense that the
blogosphere is already over-populated by opinionated armchair quarterbacks,
theologians, educators, homemakers, business analysis, pundits. . . .you get
the idea. What autotune did to the music
industry by inundating us with artists who really can’t sing, blogs have done
to literature, op-ed columns, and knowledge distribution in general. If you can log on, you can post whatever. I was hesitant to add another voice to this computertized
cacophony.
But I’ve decided, “What the heck?” We’ll see what happens. And, in the end, I can just blame the Holy
Spirit. [i]
Let me explain what finally prompted me to start this blog
and christen it “changetheconversation.”[ii]
This past weekend I attended and participated in the 2013
Northwest Minnesota Synod Assembly. For
those of you whose lives don’t intersect with the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran
Church in America), the denomination in which I am ordained as a minister of
Word and Sacrament, a synod assembly is the regular (usually yearly) gathering
clergy and laity elected (or volunteered) from the congregations that make up
the geographic territory we call “synod.”
There are 65 synods in the ELCA.
During the three day assembly, I found myself turning thoughts over,
being challenged by what was being said and done but moreso by the things that
weren’t being said and the things that I felt weren’t being done or were being
done poorly.
Each year there is a theme.
This year, since the ELCA as a whole is celebrating its 25th
anniversary as a called, gathered and sent body (denomination), synods across
the United States have taken up the theme of “Always Made New.” Our theme verse seemed to be summed up in 2
Corinthians 5.17b (“everything old has passed away; see everything has become
new!”) It’s a powerful verse. It’s a verse that speaks of resurrection and
re-creation. It gives us comfort in
times of change. I love this verse! The problem I have, though, is that some
people equate “being made new” with “being made the same.”
I don’t know if it’s because of where I am in my ministry,
my education, or my context, but I am so incredibly aware of the reality of
change. We celebrate resurrection every
week in our faith communities (at least!) but it’s the kind of resurrection we’re
comfortable with. It’s a resurrection
that doesn’t have much to do with us. It’s
Jesus’ resurrection we celebrate. We
refuse to live into our own resurrection experience, our own becoming, because
it means that we have to acknowledge our death and our loss. Instead we lock into a cycle of “woe is me”
as individuals and especially as congregations.
We wring our hands and reflect with sadness on what we were and what we
no longer are forgetting this fundamental promise of life in Christ: You are being made NEW!
I’m a fan of blueletterbible.org. My friends at the local textstudy poke fun at
me because I’m constantly pulling out my iphone and checking out what the words
in Greek and Hebrew are in the English texts we’re reading and what those words
actually mean. Here is the entry for the
Greek word translated as “new” in this passage from 2 Corinthians:
1) new
a)
as respects form
1) recently
made, fresh, recent, unused, unworn
b)
as respects substance
1) of a new
kind, unprecedented, novel, uncommon, unheard of
Now. . . think about that for a moment.
Either in form or substance, this “new” thing that is made in the Christ
is. . . well, NEW! If we as
congregations and faith communities are being made new (novel, unused, fresh,
uncommon), why do we expect to maintain and sustain in a form that is no longer
relevant and a function that no longer connects with the world around us?
And this is what was really bothering me about this synod assembly. On the one hand, we as pastors and leaders
are being taught to encourage the congregations we serve to consider what it
means to BE church, how to join God in God’s mission, to acknowledge the need
to change, to step outside of our buildings and traditions, to rediscovery that
liturgy is literally the WORK of the PEOPLE and not just what we “do for
worship between the hours of 10:00 am and 11:00 am on Sunday mornings.” On the other hand, we had gathered together
to celebrate being made new. . . in a format that fit a context that existed 25
years ago, born from traditions that flow back still further in time. Sure, we’ve added microphones and powerpoint
and neat little video clips and our assembly worship has contemporary and world
music. . . but the form has not changed.
How can we say to our congregations, “You need to dream some dreams and
imagine larger things, stepping out of your comfort zones and become new by God’s
grace” while we still, as leaders, default to old models and forms?
At no time in the assembly proceedings did this dissonance become
blaringly obvious than when we discussed a resolution regarding our mission
support to churchwide. It has been the
practice of our synod to split its mission support, sharing 51% of support with
the larger ELCA forever.[iii] The concern is that with changing
demographics and economic realities, mission support has been waning for the
past few years, creating budget issues for the synod. So, presented with this problem, the synod council,
though admittedly conflicted, put a resolution in front of the assembly to decrease
our mission support by a percent a year for the next few years.
It’s not a surprising reaction to a real problem that all churches are
facing. But for me it raises two
important questions.[iv]
1.
What happened to being a people of faith who
look to a God of abundance? I found it
ironic that we had this debate the day after the keynote speaker said, “Do we
really think that a God who created the universe can’t live up to budget
obligations in line with God’s will?” It
left a very bitter taste in my mouth. It
reminded me of those conversations I’ve had with congregations and people from
various church bodies and faith organizations who insist on cutting money to
the synod or to other partner ministries because “We need to take care of
ourselves first.”
2.
If our theme is
“always being made new,” then maybe we should look at these budget problems not
as a point to panic and default to tried and true fear responses to close budget
gaps but as invitations to be made new.
The point that was made a number of times in the conversation on this
resolution was that the churchwide organization has been restructuring and more
responsibilities were shifting to the synods.
If that’s the case, maybe we should be passing down some
responsibilities to conferences (the next smallest geographical unit after
synods) and local congregations. Or
maybe have the challenging conversation about letting some things die. Or maybe partnering more with other synods or
ministry partners. In short, maybe we
shouldn’t panic about not being able to do all that we think we need to do and
pay for it all but instead maybe we should see how we can be made new in this
moment of crisis. The entire approach,
to me, was an “old approach” to an ongoing problem in a church celebrating God’s
power of resurrection.
So, as I sat and took in presentations and proceedings and as I spoke
with friends and colleagues, lay voting members whom I knew and new friends I
made, my mind moved into gear as it is wont to do. I spent Saturday afternoon with a notepad,
writing, note taking, outlining, and developing a series of topics around the
theme of how we are not just being invited to change individually and
congregationally but also synodically and as a larger church. It was at that point that I realized that
maybe these thoughts could be organized in a blog. I could throw these thoughts out there and
see what sticks, what encourages conversations, and see how the Spirit moves.
But here’s the deal, folks. Change
is going to come. But change is not the
only constant. We shouldn’t fear change
because the one constant that matters, the one constant that makes all the
difference, is the constant of God’s gracious love. The creator and sustainer of the universe has
already demonstrated the lengths to which God will go to bring heaven and earth
back together again, to new life. NEW
life. Not similar life. Not the same life. NEW, unprecedented, novel, unheard of, fresh
life. The thought of being a part of the
synod and the church that embraces this powerful resurrection, this new life,
excites me in ways I can’t explain. Tingles. Tingles from head to toe even as I write
this.
May God give us the wisdom and the courage to embrace this new life, this
gift. May God give us the strength to
mourn our past and to celebrate what God has done for us in days gone by. But more than anything, may God pour out God’s
Holy Spirit on God’s people so that we can be inspired, enabled and equipped to
become the church God needs us to be TODAY—not for ourselves and our own
comfort but for the sake of the world.
And now. . . let this blog experiment begin.
[i]
Those of you who were “hanging out” with me during the 2013 Northwest Minnesota
Synod Assembly will get this joke.
Hopefully. And if not, blame the
Holy Spirit.
[ii]
Feel free to punctuate this as you would like.
Your choice of punctuation may change as the blog progresses. What might start out as “Change: The
Conversation,” a pretty generic title and subtitle, might end up with you
demanding me to “Change the conversation!”
[iv]
Confession: I did not rise to speak
against the resolution. It might be a
lame excuse but the last time I spoke at an assembly, the echo of hearing
myself and then hearing my amplified voice a second behind REALLY distracted
me. I know. . . I need to get over it. But I also didn’t see a point; when you
present a money problem to people who, in their congregations, will default to,
“Well, of course we need to take care of our own first,” there is no
conversation. I could tell which way
folks were going to vote. I recognized
at this point that the real conversation that needed to be had wasn’t a money
conversation but that the entire conversation needed to CHANGE as God works
through us more and more to create us the Body of Christ our 21st
century world needs. In other words,
this money conversation, to me, was symptomatic of larger issues that need
deeper reflection than what two minutes speeches for and against a resolution
on a gym floor in assembly would accomplish.
Hence the creation of this blog to start asking questions and
stimulating thought and encouraging conversation. (Hopefully.)
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