All this is leading to a church meeting in a week where we will vote (we are a “free”, associated church) on the situation - a confidence vote on the Council, basically. Somehow, during all this, I have managed to ingratiate myself in the lower levels of this conflict. I have talked to people who affirm the decision to remove the pastor, which came as a shock to most everyone in the congregation; people on the Council, all of whom have a tight story and believe they acted in good faith; people in the group who are opposing the Council, who feel the same and some believe they are rescuing the church. I also met with the former senior pastor, who feels his life as a pastor is probably over now.

Having culled all the so-called facts - it is really questionable at this point what constitutes ‘fact’ or ‘truth’ in a situation like this - I have concluded that we have acted wrongly toward our former pastor, which is not necessarily a vote against the Council. One of the comments to my previous story,  Church Train Wreck, said that “many people today really do not understand what it REALLY means to be a Christian, and church is often little more than a social club.” I couldn’t agree more. It begs a question, though, and that is “What is the Christian thing to do in a situation like this?”

I don’t know what it is now as we gear up for a church fight the week before Christmas, but I have an idea of what we should have done before we ever got to this point. My church is pretty darn big - about 2000 members - and they have a sort of corporate mentality when dealing with the outside world. A clear, polished front is presented and any internal conflict is well concealed by staff and committee alike. I think this is where the train left the tracks in the first place.

What would have happened if we had followed a Matthew 18 model (person-to-person; person and mediator to person; person, mediator, person to leadership; and finally to the church), or a 2 Corinthians 5 model (ministry of reconciliation)? What if, rather than trying to hide the internal conflicts (there was no impropriety on the part of the senior pastor), we brought them into the light (1 John 1)? What if the entire ministry staff and committee members got up in front of the church, repented of their inability and failure to get along, and asked for help? What if our concern at all levels were for a ministry of grace? What if someone asked the Jesus question rather than the corporate question? Maybe they did, but from out here, it doesn’t look like it.

I don’t have illusions that all conflict would have been avoided, but hidden conflict would have been avoided. The failures, concerns and gifts of the congregation could have been shared by all. A visitor walking into something like that would be at once terrified and intrigued because it would be wholly authentic and unusual. I wonder if such an attitude on my part is the result of mere fantasy and academia as I enter my last semester of seminary in a couple months or if it is founded on a potential reality that could exist outside the second coming.

Peace to all.

Seth

As a coincidence to all this, I have a paper due the day following my sermon on the presence of the Holy Spirit in the sacraments of the church and how the Holy Spirit provides insight into the ministry and mission of the church. Faced with the material, present particulars of my home church and the theological ideals of my seminary education, the gulf couldn’t be wider and as I contemplate my paper, I cannot conceive how the gulf is to be bridged.

I was thinking about all this with regard to my involvement in the business world. I have been fired, asked to resign and been in messy situations that came to the brink of lawsuits. In the business world, I consider it par for the course and presume that the motives of capital and power trump compassion and deliberation. Why does it look worse in the church, even though the same things happen there? I think two things: the expectations are that those cultural drives will not be present in church and people care that much more about the relationships in church. I haven’t thought it out, but based on my present experience, the reaction to the resignation of the pastor suggests such a situation is not becoming of a Christian church and therefore the expectation from within and without is that we are somehow capable of doing it differently. That is questionable. It is also hard to know the nature of relationships in church during conflict. The concern appears to be who is right and who is wrong, which seems to be, lowly seminary student that I am, the wrong focus entirely. The paradox being that the focus on rightness and wrongness is divisive and wrong; the truth being that the focus should be on Jesus, which means a desire for relationship and reconciliation. But that is just me. I could be wrong…but I don’t think so.

I saw a show on the Discovery channel about great engineering disasters. It was about a high-speed train wreck in Germany where the train left the track at some outrageous speed and slammed into a bridge abuttment, making an accordian of about 12 cars with people in them. The accident was the perfect confluence of unavoidable, yet preventable, events that all conspired at a single moment in time. It is a shame how easily we as a church lose focus of another singular moment in time 2000 years ago that conspired to reverse such confluences of disaster.

What do we pray for when there appears to have been no other possible outcome based on previous decisions made; where all the choices lead to divisiveness, conflict and pain? I think of Psalm 44, which I paraphrase to “You were there, God, in the past, but it sure seems you are not here now, so all I have to rely on is what went before, which really doesn’t help me now much. So now would be a good time to act again. Amen.”

Peace to all!

Seth

First, some background to that statement above: Part of why I was in the business world for 15 years was because when I was in seminary the first time, I actually lost my faith. I was young, full of doubt and felt it would be dishonest to go into ministry without a foundation of faith. Now, I am older, still full of doubt, but at least know that faith exists in an experiential, yet supranormal, realm that does not deny doubt. Further, no one was more surprised than I when, six months after having returned to the Christian faith, I still had a calling to the ministry. Before I came back, though, I was involved in all kinds of Eastern/New Age/Personal Growth stuff - Gurdjieff, Tarot cards, Native American spirituality, Zen, etc. etc. etc. Some of it is very good stuff. Most of it, at least the way I learned it, turned out to be an avenue of self-deception and manipulation by others.

So now that I have been in seminary for 2 full years with 1 more to go, I have the luxury of being able to reflect on what I thought I believed about the nature of the world, only to be struck that what I really believe is much different. The best example was reading John Calvin over the summer. Being a liberal New Ager, I had presumed Calvin to be a theocratic hothead with a penchant for tyranny and hate. Of course, that is the common attitude of those who have not read him. I was surprised to find out that Calvin holds the natural world in a pristine view. The natural world is not fallen. It mirrors the original creation. In fact, we should, of our own created accord be able to discern the salvation and power and presence of God in all of Creation. However, we cannot perceive the presence of God because we are broken, fallen people. We need help. I read that in Book 1 of the Institutes of Christian Religion and realized that I thoroughly agreed with Calvin. Who would have thought?

I am a firm believer that the journey to and through faith is what defines our spiritual life, not the doctrines we believe. That is not to say that doctrine is not important. We need to finally make a stand for those things that matter to us. The state of our spiritual being and the state of our world do not allow for wishy-washy-ness. Rather than that place where we make a stand as an expectation for the rest of the world, it is the place we see from and make our claims from - and in that lays the power of proclamation and faith. Not in the assumption that all should believe as I do (per above, I am not real clear on that a lot of the time), but in the assumption that in knowing where I stand, I am much more able to reach out to others and find out where they stand. Do I think my ground is more stable than some other approaches? Certainly. Do I wonder about whether the grass is greener or more satisfying where others stand? Most certainly.

But it seems to me, if our overriding concern is for discovering the nature of ourselves and the truth of our lives in this world, knowing where we stand is much more inviting. After all, Calvin’s understanding of the natural world would suggest that what we see is always “through a glass darkly”. How can we know anything if we are not talking with one another?

Peace to all!

Seth

Peace to all!

Seth

The deeper I get into the whole ministry thing, with only a year left of seminary, I am deeply aware that I run a ragged edge between belief and disbelief, between needing that physical seeing and able to maintain the believing without seeing. I suspect I am not alone in that sensibility. And I have a deeper suspicion that the church and her rituals are designed to provide that physical experience. What is communion if not the same act that Jesus invites Thomas to participate in? We share in the body of Christ just as Thomas shared in his physical experience with Christ.

For a long time I was unwilling to walk that edge, thinking it is an all or nothing deal with Jesus. I think it still is an all or nothing relationship, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t difficult or even troubling. Teresa of Avila took communion one Easter morning and all meaning disappeared for almost 30 years. Nothing but ritual and repetitive action. But what action…prayer, sharing community with her sisters, taking communion. I walked away from the faith for about 15 years, and now I am a year away from finishing seminary. I don’t have a good explanation for the change, but I am grateful for it. Somewhere, beneath the lack of meaning, there was for St. Teresa something that trusted God was there somehow, that God was with her somehow. Which makes me think that doubt and faith are actually effects - peripheral activity of something deeper. Maybe the source of the effects of doubt and faith is that trust in God and God’s trust in us. Jesus’ conversation with Thomas is about belief, but perhaps it pointed Thomas to something deeper than mere personal assent to Jesus. And off he went to India.

Peace!

Seth

I spent a good 15 years in the business world, particularly in the financial world. For much of that time I was outside the Christian faith, involved in all sorts of New Age strangeness. When I came back to the faith, I realized that living my faith at my work was a losing battle, but with a big difference. I felt better about what I was doing and how I was relating to people. I felt empowered by being open about my regained faith and had enough experience outside the faith to be able to speak with kindness and understanding to others who were not a part of it. I was keenly aware that God seeks us out wherever we are…

Which led me into seminary. I have a year left at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, MN. I am no longer in the financial world, and the transition into the world of Christian ministry is more than a little unusual and strange. I know I am not playing by the rules laid out by the Reverend Atkinson when he offered up blogs at High Calling. He was looking for business people living out their faith at work. My story led me to the personal conclusion that, while I did better at my job in the business world once I regained my faith, my faith was leading me to follow my calling from when I was about 16 years old to go into ministry.

So I envision this blog to be more reflective of a 41 year old father in a committed marriage relationship trying to live his faith in the midst of school and career change and family. I will try to refrain from making this blog all about seminary and the church and instead will seek to make it about just living a Christian life and whatever that seems to mean at the particular time I am writing. Believe me when I say that, while Luther Seminary is better than most at engendering a faith life for its students, being a student does not engender a deepening faith life, even when studying the faith.

I look forward to keeping up this blog.

Peace to all!

SDJones