tabletalk

Your Church's Story: The Heroes

The heroes of our churches embody the "dna" or "code" of our congregations. The heroes of the church are those we look to for guidance and wisdom. They live out the character that is being nurtured in our congregations. In telling their stories, why we consider them to be heroes, what things they did that exemplify the qualities we admire, we can unlock the code that we live by as an organization. "Heroes can be living legends or departed saints." - from Transforming Church by Kevin Ford.

One of the heroes of my former church, Trabuco Presbyterian Church, is Tom McFadden. I should include Anne his wife as well, because they work in tandem, but the story is mostly about Tom at this writing.

Tom was close to retirement age when he started with our new church. He worked hard to find us and when he did he was always there. Not merely on Sundays, but Tom was engaged in growing as a disciple. A lifelong Presbyterian, but not a person stuck in his ways. As a pastor I could wish that all pastors would have at least one Tom McFadden in their life. Tom encouraged, corrected, listened, shared. Tom was fiercely loyal.

In one conversation that took place near the beginning of our church, Tom shared that he and his family, which dated back to the early days of Orange County. His relatives had come on horseback in the 19th century to be the early pioneers of the real OC! They built McFadden's Landing (Newport Pier area) which is where much of the lumber used to build up the county was delivered. They were teachers and farmers and help pioneer this new territory. Tom revealed that his immediate and extended family had always been members of the Presbyterian Church. In particular, they were members of 1st Pres. Church of Santa Ana. (It took on other churches in mergers etc, but this was the congregation their family served through.)

What was of most interest to me in the story was this observation. Tom said that he was the first of his family to leave 1st Pres and become a member of another church. When I asked him why he said, "McFaddens start things. And I want to be part of that legacy." Tom is a pioneer at heart. Which means that at the heart of Trabuco Presbyterian Church is a pioneering spirit. That spirit is seen in the likes of Tom McFadden.

It makes it possible for a church like TPC to consider starting new things and not just getting stuck in doing it the way they always have. This aspect of their code is integral into moving forward in a positive light.

For any congregation, the heroes hold part of the story of their dna. In a church I worked with recently, one of their heroes was a man who followed up on all visitors in person. He went by their homes and introduced himself and invited them into the life of his church. He owned the ministry. This is a great code, a great legacy for a congregation. Who are the heroes? Tell their stories and learn what part of the code they embodied through their actions.

Your Church's Story: The Myths

Kevin Ford in his book "Transforming Church" says that one of the symbols that holds the "code" of an organization is its myths. It's important to note at this point what a myth is and is not. A myth is not a made up story. It is not necessarily fictional. Tolkien reminded Lewis that the Christian story was like all the Nordic myths and Greek myths that he so loved. Only in this case, the Christian myth is real - an actual historical event. A myth is, of necessity, large - exceedingly large. Part of the reason is that it is trying to capture the truth or truths of human experience on a universal scale.

When a church examines its myths in order to try to understand its codes, it is looking at stories that represent a deep seated reality for the organizations. Stories can carry a lot more meaning than a simple mission statement.

An example of this comes from my former congregation. If you would talk to the people who were part of the work in the earliest years, one of the stories you would hear is about our nomadic existence. We worshiped in 7 locations in two and a half years. We went from a high school chapel, to a multi-purpose room at an elementary school, to an outdoor amphitheater, to a YMCA aerobics room. Each move meant communicating excessively with others about where we were and where we were going. We grew in every location. (Most significantly in the aerobics room because the mirrors on the wall doubled our attendance every week!) The stories abound about this wandering time of our church's history.

Our next to last move was an unfortunate decision to move to our church's property and worship outside for what we thought would be six weeks. It turned into sixteen weeks. People will tell you of holding Sunday School on blankets in the dirt. Of setting up the stage on the corner and all the beach chairs. Mostly, people remember bracing themselves against the Santa Ana winds that, like a good fish story, get more powerful with each telling. (By now they are certainly gauged as hurricane force winds!)

This is one of the myths of Trabuco Presbyterian Church. What does it say about the church's code? Well, deep in its "dna" the church learned to value telling others where they were. The church grew as a result of word-of-mouth communication. Long after we stopped moving this was still true. If you were to ask those members what story in the Bible they most identified with it would be the story of the Exodus. They were God's people wandering in the wilderness. Deeply rooted in their "dna" is the idea that God will sustain them. God didn't bring them into the wilderness to abandon them but to prove his faithfulness to them. My guess is that they are a remarkably resilient and resourceful congregation in their heart.

One of the remarkable aspects of this myth is that they can see their own story as part of God's larger story being written in the world. TPC can write their own story as part of the meta-narrative of the world God is in charge of.

What TPC takes from all this is up to them to discover or remember. But by remembering the stories, they can get in touch with God's provision and believe into the future based upon what God has already done among them.

All churches have their myths. They reveal both the character of the church and the character of God. In re-telling the myths, you can get at the "Code". For churches like TPC, the wilderness is not a daunting place, or at least it should not be. God is with them.

Our myths of our lives can do much the same. They tell the stories that reveal our character and also the character of God in us. One of the things we get to do as Christian people is to help others see where God is at work, past and present. We get to come alongside individuals as well as churches and reveal the Great Narrative or Myth that is the Christian story and show how our lives and the lives of others fit into that Myth. This Story is our reality and it has much to tell us.

Your Church's Story: Symbols of Your DNA

This is completely stolen from "Transforming Church" by Kevin Ford. It's a great book and quite helpful. What I hope to do here is give you examples of things that reflect the "dna" of a particular church. Why? Because when the chips are down and we feel stressed we will return in our behavior to the patterns of the past. Also, though these things are always operating in the background and even the foreground of our institutions, these symbols, actions, values, character, they don't need to be responded to in the same way as we might have a few years ago. For me as the son of an alcoholic, I won't change that or how it has shaped my life. But the reality is that I no longer respond to that past in the same ways I did when I was 16 or even 50. But if I don't know how the alcoholic past plays out in my life I am at its mercy and can live out the same craziness. Don't know if this makes sense. But the reality is there is no value to ignorance and knowing our "dna" as a church is critical to being able to respond to it with intelligence and not be victims to our pasts.

Ford suggests there are four symbols to explore that will show us our "dna" or as he puts it our "code" as a church. For him these are the myths, the heroes, the rituals, and the visuals. Over the next few posts I want to explore each of these and give them legs as I understand how it works. My hope? That we'll take a more serious view of the things that have shaped our life together in our congregations so we can respond to it in the light. So that it doesn't operate in the shadows but out where we can see it and make healthy choices and habits.

I believe in my version of "Transforming Church" you can find this around page 82....