tabletalk

Your Church's Story: The Rituals

A year and a half ago I posted the 3rd of what would have been five articles. I got waylaid!

Rituals: Rituals symbolize the beliefs, archetypes, behavior patterns, and ideals of a church. Rituals are collective activities that do not serve a pragmatic purpose but that the church considers socially and even spiritually essential. Rituals are carried out for their own sake. - Kevin Ford "Transforming Church"

How does this work? To re-establish using Trabuco Pres as an example when I was there - let me suggest a common practice of coffee, donuts, and conversation following worship. This is a ritual repeated in many churches. This ritual is repeated weekly, year after year. It is not religious, but it is done religiously.

One of our mission partners was the Markus Church in Plauen, Eastern Germany. We had many exchanges between the congregations over the years. While we were visiting with them, we were having brunch at our pastor-friend's home. The group consisted of our friend, the assistant Pastor of the Markus Church, her husband - Pastor of the Paulus congregation, our team and some friends from the Markus Church. In the conversation our pastor-friend sighed and said, "I wish we could have our people stay around after church and enjoy a time of fellowship and coffee, like you do at Trabuco." Our response was, why don't you? The response was swift - "Because the women all have to go home and make "klossel"!

We didn't understand. The explanation was forth-coming. A traditional German wife would go home on Sundays to make the mid-day meal. It consisted of "klossel", a dumpling, served with gravy and meat and potatoes and vegetables. Apparently it took some time to get it done, and the women would leave quickly and not linger at church so they could get the meal done.

At this point our friend's husband chimed in, "I don't get klossel!" The response was quick and to the point, "I work on Sundays!" The retort was "My mother made klossel." Now we had the makings of a good debate! It went back and forth for some time, then finally our friend's husband pounded on the table declaring, "Klossel is Christian!" At which point the room erupted in laughter.

As funny as it sounded, they finally got to the point of the "klossel" ritual. It was that "family food" trumped "congregational fellowship". I can only hint at what it meant about the church's code. Perhaps it meant that centuries of Christendom had made that Sunday meal as much church as anything. You could unpack the values in that and probably get close to writing a piece of the congregation's code. Maybe strengthening the family meal time would be a better strategy for church transformation than trying to get people to "hang around"? Maybe the idea of family could be extended to others in such a way that the Sunday meal was shared regularly with other families? But you can see what a ritual is and how it shapes the church's code.

What are you rituals? Not merely describing them, but what are the stories associated in them. Those stories will add to your understanding of code. They will be consistent with themes that emerge from your recounting of the myths and heroes of your congregation.

What is your coffee hour ritual? What is your klossel?! (pronounced - kloo-zel)

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....

A Church's Story - Your Part

It recent months I've been spending a lot of time with leadership groups from various churches. All of them want to know how to move forward. Many are anxious about where they are and question their viability over the next decade.

In these next few posts I want to muse a bit on what can be discovered in a church's story.

One of the techniques for discovering a church's story that I have been using comes to me from Linnea Nilsen-Capshaw from Deep Shift, Brian McLaren's group. She asked the leadership of our former church to write a few things on some butcher paper. The questions were: Your Name; the date you entered your church's story; the significant people you remember when you arrived; the significant ministries that were taking place; were you aware of any conflict.

These questions have become the backdrop for me to investigate with church leadership the dna of their congregations. This is a non-threatening and simple way to begin a self-reflection that doesn't need to end in navel gazing. In fact what it begins to uncover are patterns and perceptions that have been present for a very long time. It does this without passing judgment on those things.

What is always humorous to me is that each person will get their turn at the time-line. I give everyone instructions that we're not trying to get it right, we're trying to hear the perceptions that each person had as they entered their church's story. The humor is that you can't go more than a minute before somebody steps in to correct or add or comment on the story. People's memories are jogged. Sometimes old wounds are opened. Most of the time, I have found a shared fondness for many of the significant people that they share in common.

This sets the backdrop for the next steps. A church's dna is their character. In new churches we consciously and unconsciously set the dna. In older congregations we consciously and unconsciously respond to it.

A good first step is understanding your part in your church's story. Remember your part in your church's story is also your part in the the greater story that God is writing not only in you but through you.

Missional Church: A Field Guide - Stay the Course When Facing Conflict

"This is the fifth transformational key. It is important for healthy, Spirit-led leadership to stay the course when facing conflict by practicing truth telling as an opportunity for learning and growing together." p.96

There is a difference between problems and conflict. Problems are well, challenges that have solutions that can be derived when we put our heads together and work on them. They are more like tasks that need some good thinking.

Conflict on the other hand is personal. Conflict is always more than a problem-solving task. Underneath it has feelings, history, unconscious responses, and much much more. Conflict is not rational though it will have rationality as part of it's resolve. I may be in conflict with someone not because I disagree with their ideas, but because something in them, the way they talk or act, has reached into my sub or unconscious and grabbed ahold of my sensibilities. I then become reactive - often unknowingly. It's like the physical and psychological response we get from some smells. It catches us off-guard.

The key in both conflict and difficult times (knowing they are not the same) is to stay the course. This is where the non-reactive, non-anxious leadership role is most needed. The true key then is to stay in the room long enough to find out what is really going on. This could take a long time or not.

Often conflict is masked by a more publicly appropriate disagreement over a policy or theological position. While we hammer away at trying to convince others of the rightness of our positions, we wonder why no one's mind is changed. Sometimes we give up and walk away believing the other side simply will never "get it". Admittedly there are real disagreements that have no earthly solution. But most of the time I would wager that we simply walk away too early and never get at the root sources of our perceived problems and underlying conflicts.

I'm reminded of the description of liminality. Liminal is that place in-between. It is the desert wilderness. It is the no man's land between adolescence and adulthood. It is the waiting place where there seems no resolve. I believe it is Richard Rohr who said that the key to leadership is to assist people who have been in that in-between place for a long time and are ready to leave to stay. And to beckon into the room those who want to avoid the desert wilderness to join in with the others. And then to stay put. Stay long enough until the solution, the truth is known. Don't settle. Don't run away. Don't give up. Stay put until God removes you from the in-between.

This is what missional leadership needs to do when it is blocked or challenged or confronted. Stay put. Stay the course. Wait. Pray. Be. Until you know God has spoken and moved. Let God be the truth teller to all gathered. Let's not be the ones to give only one side of the truth - ours!

Missional Church: A Field Guide - Build a Supportive Staff and Lay Leadership

By now you can tell that I'm only touching on aspects of each chapter and giving my own thoughts that are prompted by the authors. I hardly ever read anything in which I am in total agreement or understanding. As you use this resource, I believe it is easily adapted and expanded so as not to be a static set of recommendations that will make you a successful missional leader. These are more like "guidelines".

In this chapter the others talk about what a supportive team ministry would look like. One aspect they touch on is in a title of a paragraph on page 91. They quote Steinke again where he says that healthy congregations "Focus on their strengths." I believe this to be essential to developing a missional congregation.

Missional churches are highly contextual. They see themselves as planted in their mission field. The missional church is sent to the neighborhood in which they live. I'm reminded here of The Message and Peterson's translation of John 1, that the Word became one of us and "moved into our neighborhood." That's what God has done in our churches. Many of us have forgotten this. But this is what a church discovers when it becomes missional in character.

By saying that a missional church is higly contextual means to me that the leadership and ministry gifts that are needed for the work are also present. God has gifted the church with all it needs to do the ministry that is before it at present. The Church lacks nothing other than "eyes to see and ears to hear".

Saying this means that God's gifts are the strengths present and they are what you use to move forward. Some of those gifts may appear as weakness (humility?) but must not be demeaned. Instead God has arranged the gifts in such a fashion that all are needed. When Steinke comments that a healthy congregation focuses on its strengths, it doesn't mean it can do everything. But it does mean that God has gifted the church with special skills and abilities and people. This is the foundation upon which you build. Don't be looking for those who aren't there. Like the boy with the loaves and fishes, appearance isn't everything. Put what you have in God's hands and see God work.

In response to the natural church development folks, I would say that their emphasis on finding out what you don't do well and concentrate on that is thorough modern approach to ministry. We need to be hitting on "all cylinders" to be effective. Well, God may have only gifted the church for a specific task in a specific time and place. To spend our energy trying to pull up the areas that we aren't good at seems an unfaithful act to me. I think the parable of the talents is helpful here. Invest what you've got. That's how things grow. Remember each individual church is not the whole church and in most places doesn't need to be.

I think that supportive teams are teams that can encourage the gifts present with one another. Otherwise you're always wishing for something you don't have. That's the "wish dream" that Bonhoeffer says we need to let die.

Missional Church: A Field Guide - Cultivate a Healthy Climate

In this chapter, Van Gelder and Rouse use one of my favorite descriptions of significant leadership - "Convey a non-anxious presence." This is also a theme in "The Starfish and the Spider". The authors comment that this kind of leadership is more reflective and thoughtful in nature. "They are able to stand back from a situation and observe with some objectivity what is really going on." They quote from Peter Steinke's work, "Congregational Leadership in Anxious Times" - "The leader's 'presence' can have a calming influence on reactive behavior. Rather than reacting to the reactivity of others, leaders with self-composure and self-awareness both exhibit and elicit a more thoughtful response." - P.76 in Field Guide.

The words worth paying attention to are: non-anxious, observe, reflective, thoughtful, non-reactive, self-composure, self-awareness. Where are these abilities developed? For me they are learned behavior. My growing up years and subsequent survival years as an adult were managed by being "in-charge" and assertive. I was a reactive (and often still am) leader. I could go along with the group until I felt it turning away from where I wanted things to go, or thought they should go. Then I would assert my leadership role. This was born out of anxiety. The anxiety was that, like my growing up years, I was moving into an area where I was out-of-control. This was an invitation to chaos and that was unacceptable.

How then does that change? It doesn't happen in the crucible of leadership crisis. I believe it happens when that crucible casts us out into the desert and we are faced with ourselves. There we need to take time to listen, and observe, and reflect, and learn how to be non-anxious with our desert circumstances. By desert I mean those dry places of our lives, those places where our supports have been taken away. The places where we are exposed for our frailty and we are vulnerable. It may the desert of our hearts and minds that no one but God can see, but it is still a wilderness.

My anxious self would want to fix the circumstance and run forward into some other place where I could control my environment. But that only serves to hide my anxiety. No, the key is to learn to remain with my anxious self until the anxiety is attended to and made peace with. It's ok to be anxious. But my anxiety must not rule my actions. So I make peace with it when I can. Acknowledge it. Understand it. Offer it up. Hand it over. Live in it. Until it's affect is diminished.

This is the critical step to being able to handle other people's anxiety. It keeps my anxious self from getting mixed up in the anxieties of others. Then I am not reactive in leadership. I am able to allow for other's anxiety to be expressed. It's ok to be anxious. But let us not allow our anxiety to rule the day.

Jesus comments on this in the Sermon on the Mount. Something about birds and God's love for human beings and tomorrow. It is truly an act of faith to be non-anxious. The road there is through the desert wilderness of our own souls.

Just a note: The expert, the CEO, the driven leader....they will only add to the organization's anxiety not diminish it. At some point it all falls down.

Missional Church: A Field Guide - Discipling Communities

Growing and healthy congregations have several things in common. One, is that their growth and health is related directly to the emphasis and quality of their disciple making.

In this book by Rouse and Van Gelder, they make these observations about congregations that focus on developing disciples.

1. They are not as concerned about numbers; and more concerned with how well people are living their faith and sharing the gospel.
2. They are not as concerned about how well they care for members; and more concerned with how they serve needs of the world around them.
3. They are not as concerned about maintaining institution (structure); and more concerned with empowering people for ministry.
4. They are not as concerned about preserving facilities (ownership); and more concerned with offering them as a gift to their community. p.61

These are paradoxical qualities and actions. One would intuit that to grow a church you would focus on evangelism. But that isn't the case. Focus on the evangelists, training your people to give. Missional church character is developed as a paradox. It is the mirror of the gospel. Don't hold on to what you've got, give it away. Don't focus on your needs, but the needs of others. Don't try to preserve things, but use them up. Don't bury your resources for a rainy day, invest them.

All of this is gospel message. It's nothing new to us. But our implementation of the gospel is sorely lacking. If we follow the paradoxical teachings, like losing our lives, then the end result is we gain our lives.

There is a great scene in the first Harry Potter movie where the children are tangled in a plant. The more they struggle the more they are entangled and their lives are threatened. Hermione remembers her lessons and tells the boys to relax and stop struggling. Harry is able to and drops through the branches safely. Ron continues to struggle and must be rescued.

The gospel lessons are there for us to remember. I'm reminded often of how difficult it is to fall asleep when you focus on falling asleep. Or how uncomfortable it is when someone really works at being your friend and the result is anything but friendship. The goal isn't to grow the church, it's to follow Jesus. The goal isn't mission, it's following Jesus. The goal isn't institutional salvation, it's following Jesus. And when we do - and rest (relax) in him, we find that the very things we would have aimed at get thrown in as side benefits of keeping ourselves focused.

Remember, that discipleship is never solitary. It is never intended for the self-satisfaction of the individual. It is always gospel oriented, which means it is good news to all people.

* a note. This week I will be home surrounded by my books and my beloved C.S. Lewis. I will break with this Missional Church blog and do some Advent observations from Lewis. Yea!

The Starfish and the Spider - quick recommendation

For a continuing series discussing this book go to It Takes A Church by Tod Bolsinger. Here is a quick review that may help and add to the conversation. This book fits nicely with the missional conversation.

The Starfish and the Spider: The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations
By Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom (see it in my books list to order from Amazon)

The overleaf of this book says, “If you cut off a spider’s head, it dies; but if you cut off a starfish’s leg, it grows a new one, and that leg can grow into an entirely new starfish. Traditional top-down organizations are like spiders, but now starfish organizations are changing the face of business and the world.”

A friend of mine observes in a dissertation that church organization often follows the organizational structures of the prevailing culture. In the 50’s denominations mimicked the United Nations and in the 80’s and 90's - corporate America. We are in a different and fast changing time. This book is a helpful analysis and challenge. It looks closely at the success of many companies that have decentralized leadership. It looks too at how those practices can be incorporated in other places. The authors challenge us to look at our roles and see if they help or hinder an organization in accomplishing its mission. It is one of the questions facing our denomination – Does our organization help or hinder our mission? Maybe that question has been answered by most – that it does hinder our mission. But the next question is – What do we do about it?

The title is a misnomer. These organizations are not “leaderless”, but neither are they controlled by an individual or small group “at the top.” One of the helpful observations is that the starfish organization is led by catalysts not CEOs. Here’s a quote:

“While both are leader types, catalysts and CEOs draw upon very different tools. A CEO is The Boss. He’s in charge, and he occupies the top of the hierarchy. A catalyst interacts with people as a peer. He comes across as your friend. Because CEOs are at the top of pyramid, they lead by command-and-control. Catalysts, on the other hand, depend on trust. CEOs must be rational; their job is to create shareholder value. Catalysts depend on emotional intelligence; their job is to create personal relationships. CEOs are powerful and directive; they’re at the helm. Catalysts are inspirational and collaborative; they talk about ideology and urge people to work together to make the ideology a reality. Having power puts CEOs in the limelight. Catalysts avoid attention and tend to work behind the scenes. CEOs create order and structure; catalysts thrive on ambiguity and apparent chaos. A CEOs job is to maximize profit. A catalyst is usually mission-oriented.” P. 129

One quick question:
Which style of leadership seems more like Jesus?

One quick observation:
When we adopted the CEO model for church and pastoral leadership (following
the culture) we moved away from the ways of Jesus.

Missional Church: A Field Guide - 6 New Realities

This is the first in a series of reflections on a new publication from Craig Van Gelder with Rick Rouse. It is called "A Field Guide for the Missional Congregation" (see it under my book recommendations). I want to take us through the book and see where it can help us develop missional congregations.

The first chapter is rhetorical by title as far as I'm concerned. It asks the question, "Does the Church Have a Future?" Anyone reading the book has already decided, Yes!" What that future is - truly is up for grabs. In this chapter the writers introduce 6 "new" realities. If you've been a missional reader over the last few years, these aren't new. But to many in our congregations they are still fresh perspectives. Let me comment on each.

New Reality 1. - The Collapse of Church Culture. Mike Regele in his book, The Death of the Church, opened with the Wizard of Oz line - "We're not in Kansas anymore!" This time has been called post-Christendom. Will Willimon described it in the book Resident Aliens some years ago by stating he knew Christendom had come to an end when the local movie theater began showing films on Sunday in his small Southern town. I would add to the description by saying that there is a growing movement away from institutional Christianity among some or even many Christians. And that those who are outside "the institutional Church" are not looking for it. The church isn't viewed as part of an answer in our current culture. It is often viewed as part of the problem.

New Reality 2. - The Shift from Church Growth to Kingdom Growth. Frost and Hirsch have described the North American church situation as a pie. The population within the Christian church is remaining static. The population of North America is growing. Which, when you look at it as a pie, means that the church is shrinking as a percentage of the overall population. They conclude that the church is only reaching those within their bounds and not reaching those outside. This is a shift that needs to become a reality. We have yet to address Kingdom Growth, which is non-territorial and non-competitive. The church will disappear if we see each other as the challenge.

New Reality 3. - A New Reformation - Releasing God's People for Ministry. Both evangelical and progressive theologies have espoused the need for us to become a church that affirms "every member a minister". If you read Ephesians 4 and see the role of pastors and teachers to "equip the saints for the work of ministry" this is not new. But most mainline churches have done a poor job of implementing what should be a reality in all churches. Our institutions are self-protective. So is the clergy. The truth is, because we don't engage the world outside the church much, we don't need the laity to do much. They are the ones in the world. Let's equip.

New Reality 4. - The Return to Spiritual Formation. It's not about praying more. It's not about using "God" or "Jesus" or "Holy Spirit" language more. It is first about being quiet before the Lord. It is about cultivating practices that help us see and hear what God is doing around us. It is also about cultivating a church who sees itself as a significant part of the Grand Narrative we read about in the Bible. We are in the boat with Jesus, in the desert with Moses, in the cave with Elijah, in the upper room with the disciples, on the road with Paul. God's story is being told through the story of the church today. Do we know it? Can we show it? Can we include those outside the church in this grand story? Our leadership needs to take its cues from the "story we find ourselves in" and lead from that story - including the world in what God is doing.

New Reality 5. - The Shift from Planning to Preparation. We can plan to death. We're good at it. And I don't think we're being told not to plan. But planning is often an attempt to remove all risk. The church needs to prepare for a journey, not knowing all the turns in the road. We need provisions and skills. We need wisdom and fortitude. We don't need another map. We need the willingness to follow. The writers use the Nike slogan - Just Do It! In some ways we know what is right to do most of the time. Now we need to do it. Willimon and Hauerwas in the aforementioned book said that what we need now more than anything is not more right thinking but right action. I agree. Equip hearts and minds to respond in faith - on the fly, not stuck in neutral as we plan.

New Reality 6. - The Rise of Apostolic Leadership. Alan Roxburgh in his excellent little book with the off-putting title - Leadership and Liminality describes the need for apostolic leadership. It is leadership that invites other on a journey with them. God is calling, leaders are following, others are joining. Are leader's lives being transformed? Are they headed outside the comfort of church culture into the world? Are they going with others? This is the beginning of an apostolic movement. Jesus says, "Come, follow me." Leaders will be first and foremost followers of Jesus - out there!

Transforming Church: Transforming People

In this final chapter of Ford's book (right before the appendices - which constitutes another chapter or two!) he summarizes the five areas discussed in these blogs and reminds us of the examples he used to show the transformative movement of churches. He also gives examples of changed lives as well. (A good chapter for preachers!) But most importantly Ford makes the following statement:

"Is your church ready for change? Are there problems that need to be addressed? If you have the courage to face the adaptive issues, the tenacity to deal with inevitable resistance, and the humility to ask for God's help, then be assured: Your church can and will be transformed into the image of Christ - one step at a time." p.201

This is encouraging. It is encouraging particularly in the light of the question I have had about the "Code" of a congregation. My question is, "Is the code of a congregation value neutral when it comes to health or potential health?"

Tod Bolsinger and I had this conversation last week. My concern is, are there congregations where the Code is so opposite of what God would be about that we should walk away from it? In our conversation, what I heard was that the Code simply is. You can't change what was written. But you can change what will be written and this is the work of God. It is painful work to be sure. It is not easy nor simple. It may not even be reasonable. To attack the Code and to question it is to invite difficulty. Be forewarned.

It reminds me of C.S. Lewis' comment to Lucy in the book, "Voyage of the Dawn Treader". When queried about how things might work out with others, Aslan responds to Lucy 'No one is ever told another person's story. But you can find out about your own by getting up and doing what I ask.' (my words) - Lewis reminds us of this throughout his writings and particularly in Narnia. In "Prince Caspian" Lucy wants to know if everything will work out and again Aslan responds by saying get up and find out.

All of this reminds me of the line in "The Fellowship of the Ring" film uttered by Frodo to Sam as they begin their adventure by leaving the Shire. Sam stops in the middle of the cornfield and Frodo turns as asks what is wrong. Sam responds that if he takes one more step that he will have traveled farther from home than he has ever been.

“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door,” he used to say. “You step out into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

With God's assurance it will be a journey towards health.

Let me suggest that you go to PresbyGrow It is our commitment as a Presbyterian Church to initiate and transform churches into healthy, missional communities.