Finding a balance - privacy/honesty

This morning, I thought I'd share some pictures with the few people who may be reading this blog.  Then I wondered about how much I should share.  I'm not sure how "out there" I want to be.  It makes me wonder why I'm blogging in the first place.  How much do I want to share?  Clearly, I want to share at some level or I'd just be writing a journal instead of a blog.  When I started this meager attempt a few years ago, the hope was that other pastors' husbands would want to communicate/commiserate about our unusual place in the Church.  That hasn't happened, but it's no big deal.

Still, I am not sure how much to share.  I want to be honest about the joys and struggles of our life in parish ministry, but I don't want to share too much.  Inevitably, I'll end up sharing something about parishioners that touches on confidentiality in some way.  I don't want to embarrass anyone, even if the embarrassment comes from their bad behavior.  And I don't want to share the details of anyone's life without their permission.  So if our parishioners start reading the blog, things could get awkward.  I want to be as honest as possible about what's going on in our lives, so being anonymous is a tremendous help.  I have probably left enough clues that a determined person could easily figure out who and where we are, and I'm accepting the fact that there is no real privacy online.

With that said, here are some pictures.  For now, I'm leaving out pictures of the church signs that say, "Welcome Pastor ", but I hate that, because I find it kind and sincere.  I will try to take some pictures of the countryside this weekend.  It's a beautiful area.

First Impressions

I finally made it to these two little churches yesterday.  Last week was the pastor's first Sunday, but our youngest spent the night before throwing up, so I stayed home with him and his big brother while our daughter tagged along with the preacher.  We think it was something he ate, because no one else got sick, thankfully.  I had to take the oldest boy off to summer camp that afternoon anyway - a three hour one-way drive.  It made for a long day, and I was kind of relieved to miss the fanfare of being the pastor's family on parade.  Not that I really mind it - it's part of the gig.

Anyhow, I did make it yesterday, and it was a great day.  I still felt like I was on display a bit, but that's ok.  The parishioners were exceedingly kind and friendly and didn't seem to mind the sweat rolling off my head during the passing of the peace on a warm and humid July morning in NC.  One interesting bit of logistics - these two churches are about 20-25 minutes apart.  The earlier service starts at 9:30, while the later one starts at 11:00.  That's a really small margin of error.  Fortunately, my wife has a foot of lead when necessary.  We pulled out of one parking lot at 10:36 and into the second one at 10:55.  The second church is the one with only about a dozen regulars.

My wife was not all that thrilled about her sermon for the day.  Last week's was better in my opinion, but for some reason, many folks complimented her on this week's.  I don't think they were trying to make her feel better, either.  Preaching/teaching is one of her greatest strengths, so even when it's not her best, I always think it's pretty good, and I'm not the only one who feels that way.  You just never know what people will respond to - it's fascinating, really.  Or frustrating, depending on your mood, I suppose.

After worship at the smaller church, we went back to the first one for a covered dish lunch.  They do that every week.   Wow.  Every week.  I will need to either ramp up my exercise or buy bigger clothes if I end up doing that every week.  We shall see.

Of course, we are now in a honeymoon period, which I am well aware could come to an abrupt end.  And it will sooner or later.  That's ok - it's part of the process.  With a new pastor comes new ways of looking at things and doing things.  The past will be honored for sure, but not worshiped.  Sometimes change is difficult, and we will have to move slowly.  Our pastor is not always patient about moving forward, but she is loving and kind and extremely, almost painfully, honest.  Hopefully, trust will build quickly.  For now, I am feeling good about a fresh start.

Quite a week, and it's not even Sunday yet

Well I think this is going to be fun.  The pastor has been visiting folks, meeting people from both churches, visiting the sick, and bringing home produce from the country.  So far, so good.  People seem glad to meet her, and apart from an anonymous complaint about her being too pretty and wearing a skirt that was too short (really, it was below the knee), everyone seems happy to have her around.  I suppose they'll have to adjust to her hotness.

One of the churches is down to a handful of members, but it's my impression that it's never been all that large, at least not the last few decades.  I saw a pictoral directory from about 5 years ago that features both churches, and the smaller church's section was a single page of pictures.  However, they are located about 5 minutes from a thriving, artsy town.  There are clearly enough people nearby that growth and ministry could happen there.  It's exciting to think about the possibilities.  It seems that they've never put much effort into inviting others in, and as they continue to shrink, they're finally thinking about their own corporate mortality.  At least that's my very early impression, never having set foot in the place, so take it with a grain of salt.

Her first appointment was in a small town church, one with a secretary and a preschool.  It's in town, not out in the country.  It's a rural setting, but these two little churches are what come to my mind when I hear the term "rural church."  The scenery is green and lush, and you have to go far enough away from "civilization" to get there that you might wonder if you've missed a turn somewhere.  It's beautiful and quiet.

Can't wait for Sunday.

Resurrection

New things are happening for the pastor, so I may start blogging again.  After 2 years working part time at our suburban church, she will be serving a 2 point charge in a neighboring county.  We will not be relocating, however, which will be great for the family (though I'm sure there will be some parishioners who don't like that :*)  I'm excited for her and for our family - it's been a good break, not without drama, but certainly good for our kids.  It's time to jump back into the parish, though, and continue on the path towards ordination in the UMC.

In case you're not aware, "2 point charge" means that there are 2 churches who combine their resources to pay for a pastor.  She will preach twice each week, once at each church, e.g, 9am at one and 11am at the other.  These are two country churches that have been in a bit of a decline.  We've been told that one averages about 40 or 50 in worship every week, while the other one is down to about 12 active members.  Should be interesting and fun.

So if anyone reads this - google reports some very light traffic here, but I don't know if it's real people or bots - and you are one who prays for such things, please keep our family in your prayers.

burnout and healing

A lot has happened since I last updated the blog, and I'm not sure where to start. So I'll just start spewing stuff and then I might edit it, but I doubt it - I generally don't have a whole lot of time for tweaking and polishing my writing here.

We have moved from our rural setting back to the suburbs. In fact, we are back to the same suburbs from whence we came. Moving was our idea, not the church's, though the bishop and others did make it happen. We are back in familiar territory and are loving most of it. Our children are adjusting fairly well to the move, though our 8 year old seems to be a little stressed out by all the changes. Our younger two children (5th and 3rd grade) have started at the year-round elementary school that we can walk to - in fact, we can see it from the driveway of our new home. Our oldest(8th grade) will go to a traditional calandar middle school in August, provided that we get around to registering him. I am able to drive into the office instead of working remotely from libraries and coffee shops, which has been wonderful - I never thought I'd say that about going to an office building. And the pastor is adjusting too, though she has given up much career-wise for her family.

So how did all this happen? Well, there's a lot behind it all, but I will focus mainly on our family situation and not the politics of congregation/denomination. To be brief, I think we were burning out in my wife's previous appointment. When we sold our house, picked up our family and moved out to a small town, we had many choices to make. Do we live in the parsonage or buy our own home? Do we put the kids in the struggling public schools or to drive them a long way to a very good private school? We made decisions the best we could, with the overriding goal of being faithful to our calling as a pastor's family. If we had to do it over again, I am still not sure if we would do anything differently. If our main goal was to maximize our financial situation, we certainly would have made different choices(like not going into ministry at all). We assumed we would be in that place for several years, like at least 5 years. But it was not to be. I must say that life was a grind for the two years we were there. Between shuttling the children to and from school and the other demands on both the pastor and me, we hardly had time to rest. My weekends were practically non-existent, since Sunday is a work day for her and it turned into one for me as well. For a small church, there was a LOT of activity. I would guess that my wife worked about 80 hours in a typical week there. Since I have a full time job too, that meant that much of the household duties slipped through the cracks. We gave up cleaning the house. Our top priorities became making sure we had food (most of it unhealthy convenience food) and clean laundry. There was no time for exercise or for rest. And while no one said it explicitly, that type of life seemed to be the expectation from many folks at the church. One parishioner even said (to someone else) that a pastor should "die to self and live for the church." Well, ok - I'm all for dying to self - but living for Christ. And that type of living does not mean being burnt out trying to satisfy every whim of every member of the church.

So here we are, back "at home," living much the same way we did before "going out." A couple things surprised me about the whole process. One is that I found myself very sad at first when we got news that we'd be leaving. A large part of that I think is just sadness about leaving people that I had come to care about. There are some wonderful people there, and I was sad to think of not seeing them anymore. But a significant part of that may have also been a feeling of failure - that things did not work out. This leads to some introspection and analysis, some of which is fruitful, but some of it becomes "if only" thinking. If only we had done this or that differently, maybe things would have been better. I think if I do that too much, it quickly becomes wallowing and doesn't serve any good purpose. Now that I have a couple months of space to reflect on it, I think that place was just not a good fit for us. I hope and pray for the success of that church and their new pastor - in many ways, I think he's probably a better fit for them.

So now what? Well, the pastor is now in a part-time position at our old church where we were members when she was called to seminary. It is a place we know well, with people we know well, but with a different senior pastor and slightly different staff than before. There are over 3000 members at this church, so much is different. And yet, much is the same, because as I've said in other posts, every church has some level of dysfunction, and struggles of power and control are everywhere. I am concerned for my wife as she takes a big career hit to be an under-the-radar part-time pastor instead of THE pastor. It's hard on her ego and hard on our bank account, but I think overall better for our family. There will be new adventures for us, I'm sure. One great benefit is working alongside other pastors. Her staff before consisted of one part-time secretary. She's a sweet lady, but it's not the same as having peers who understand more fully what you're dealing with.

I am usually very careful about crediting God for the changes that occur in my life. It's not that I don't think God is working on our behalf. I suppose I think more of God walking beside us on the journey, regardless of who or what "causes" the different twists and turns of our path. But in this case, where we have arrived at a place that should be more healthy for our family, I can see God working through the system to bring us home. And while I do still miss some folks at our old place, I am thankful to be here.

The middle

I have been trying to make the time to post over the last few weeks. We had some ice and snow and were all snowed in for a few days, but since I work from home, it still seemed somewhat hectic and I never got around to blogging.

So here goes probably my third attempt of 2011. We'll see if I get around to posting it.

I am a fan of The Pretenders, Chrissie Hynde's band which put out three really solid albums in the 80's. And since I am also a fan on facebook, I occasionally see things that the Pretenders' fan page puts up. This weekend, they posted a link to their great song, "Show me," and memories of listening to them when I was in high school came flooding back. It prompted me to look up a bunch of their videos on YouTube. Wow, they were amazing live. One of their songs, from "Learning to Crawl" (which I probably wore out on the turntable) spoke to me - "Middle of the Road". Here are the lyrics:

http://www.pretenders.org/lymor1.htm

I think it's brilliant. So many ways I feel like I'm in the middle. I'm in my 40's with kids - sorta the midpoint of life, and I can identify with having "my plans behind me," even if I'm not a big planner. I try to take a "middle road" in so many things - I don't want to be an extremist, I want to treat people of all stripes with grace and mercy. It's hard even to find the energy to take a stand verbally/in conversation, much less be an activist for an important cause.

But sometimes, you have to take a stand, at least in conversation if not with further action - "you see the darndest things" - people using others, trampling the weak and needy. The line that hits me in the face - "when you own a big chunk of the bloody third world, the babies just come with the scenery." Wow. I am afraid that I do own a big chunk of the bloody third world. I believe in systemic sin and my culpability in it. Not everyone does, but I just can't get past it. Maybe it's my bleeding heart, my naivete, my gullibility. But I am in so much comfort and my country is so wealthy. And we want to keep things that way, of course. But how do we do that and sleep at night when the very economies that support our wealth and comfort do so at the expense of vast swaths of humanity? I am under no illusions that I know all there is to know about economics and politics. But I do believe that our thirst for oil and economic prosperity results in all sorts of ethical compromises that hurt millions of people all over the world. Lord have mercy.

Don't get me wrong. I love my country and the ideals that we're always trumpeting, even if we don't live up to them very well. I don't "blame America first" as talk radio blowhards like to say. I do blame humanity first, though. We are not "basically good." We are basically fallen. Basically selfish. Basically want to be God ourselves. We want to do things our way, because we know best.

I want to trust God completely. I don't. But I want to. Lord help my unbelief. Lord help me let go of the things I cling to so tightly for security - my money, my job, my family, my marriage. Help me trust that those things are your gifts for me to enjoy, but not to worship.

Us and Them

I've been thinking a lot lately about how the "Us and Them" meme seems to weave its way through our world. I don't know if any of this is particularly deep or informative to you, but it just seems pervasive to me, at least lately. How have we divided ourselves, let me count the ways.

It is obvious in church life on so many levels. Where does separation begin there? It might be easier to ask where it doesn't exist, because it seems to be everywhere. There are obvious separations - we have Catholic/Eastern Orthodox/Protestant division in the big-C Church. I am not terribly familiar with anything but Protestantism, so sticking with that, it's obvious that we have a multitude of denominational (even non-denominational!) separations. Within denominations, there's frequently further division between conservative/liberal(hate those words) factions. Then there's racial/ethnic separation, which is a whole other can of worms. And then there's the clique-y separations within a particular congregation, with all the silly power struggles over the minutiae of church life. At this level, I sometimes think about the conflicted groups facing off like the Sharks and the Jets in West Side Story. Hmm....next time there's a conflict like that at our church, I'll suggest a dance off. Hope no one breaks a hip.

I guess there are a couple things going on right now that have brought "Us and Them" to mind. One is the kids from out in the country that we've been bringing in to church. It is a joy to have their energy in our building. I expected more backlash from the older folks, but as I mentioned before, they have been almost entirely gracious. Several have been trying to get involved as best they can in welcoming the kids and in helping by teaching Sunday School or driving the van. It is wonderful to have a tangible mission - we can see that these children are being changed and so are we. But still....."us and them".....it's there, even if it's not explicitly stated. Our temptation is to think we are saving them when it is God who saves. And I mean no disrespect to our parishioners, but I think that if the families of these kids came in greater numbers, they would be welcome - as long as they know their place as outsiders, as less-than those who have been here all along. I don't say that to pick on the folks in our church - this happens at most churches, I think.

The other, more personal "us and them" lately refers to my family as "Us" and the church/town as "Them," and vice versa. We are not from here, and "here" is a small town. My wife and I have always been suburbanites, though all 4 of our parents grew up in a rural environment. There are people who have been in this church/town for 30 years and are still thought of as "new." The different lifestyle has at times been a difficult transition for us. For example, we have found that most people know who we are, even if we haven't met them. That makes sense to me in a small town. What I was not prepared for, though, was that almost none of them will introduce themselves. They are almost unfailingly polite and will not be explicitly unkind. If I am driving through town and wave to other drivers or pedestrians, they will cheerfully wave back. It seems friendly, and I think it's meant that way, but something is being held back. Now obviously, self-introduction is a two-way street, and I have made efforts to do so. But it's a bit exhausting to be the only one doing it. To most of these folks, we are "them." That's not necessarily thought of negatively, of course.

The differences we see between these folks and us are many - please excuse me for painting with a broad brush, but here are some of them. My wife and I both have more than one graduate degree while many folks here have not been to college. A high percentage of the population here uses Fox News as their source for information about the world. We, um, don't. Most of these people do not read the newspaper (the major papers in the state don't even offer home delivery here) or much of anything, really. There is a strong work ethic here that is admirable - to a point. The problem is that the need for sabbath is hardly acknowledged, at least that's my impression. Now having said all that, I realize that we must seem like over-educated intellectual snobs to these folks. It's probably more true than I care to admit. I know with every fiber of my being that I am no "better" than them, no less guilty of sin, no more loved by God. But we sure are different!

So how do we live together? How do we minister to each other and love each other? I think we'll always be "us" and "them," but we have to make it work. Why do we separate ourselves this way? Why do we objectify and dehumanize each other? Is it all about power and control? And by power and control, I don't necessarily mean power/control over "them." As a white American male, I am not familiar with being an oppressed minority, but I'm sure that oppressed minorities will think(justifiably) in "us" vs. "them" terms too. But thinking this way can be a coping mechanism that gives one power in some sense by defining reality for oneself. (ok, I'm getting in over my head here - I'm just an engineer)

I have not addressed the most personal way "us" vs. "them" has manifested itself in our life - that of pastor and congregation as us/them. I will leave that for another day, I think. I will have to tread carefully there.