Thriving in the Pastorate

I just opened the invitation from the Oates Institute for the fall Gathering and was reminded of the new "Pastors Workshop" being offered this year. Richard L. Hester (pictured here, and J. Michael Hester, pastoral counselors from North Carolina, will be leading the workshop on "From Surviving to Thriving in the Pastorate." The date is September 23, 8:30 a.m. -1:30 p.m., at Deer Park Baptist Church, 1733 Bardstown Road, In Louisville. Dick Hester is also an author in the Alban Institute book Know Your Story and Lead with It: The Power of Narrative in Clergy Leadership. I'll be reviewing that book for the Oates Journal soon. But this is a worthwhile workshop for pastors. To register call 502-459-2370, or go to www.oates.org. Cost is $40 (includes lunch). Tell them I sent you!

If it weren't for the honor of it..Beck's Rally

Glen Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally was a fascinating exercise in how we deal with change in this country. We either look forward and declare our intention to "be the change we want to see' (Gandhi), or we look in the rear view mirror and declare our loyalty to what used to be. The rally was carefully managed to "avoid" political commentary, but they forgot that the language one uses conveys a great deal about one's power and privilege. The extensive use of the word "God," along with consistent identification of that word as a masculine being revealed what Sam Keen calls "the gravitational pull of the political ideologies implicit in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam" (In the Absence of God: Dwelling in the Presence of the Sacred, Harmony Books, 2010). The implied loyalty to the privilege and power of European-Americans, and their lock on the values of the past was evident. I believe we must always be cautious when someone uses the word "God" with the assumption that "everybody knows what we mean when we say that word." The mystery of God can never be fully held in a word. Even the word "honor" has ambiguities. It can refer to moral integrity, but it also can refer to power and privilege. Power and privilege that are not held accountable are not honorable. As the fellow said about his experience of being ridden out of town on a rail: "If it weren't for the honor of it, I'd just as soon have walked."

Six Places Still Open for Emotional Intelligence Lab

Roy Oswald and I invite you to register now for this summer's best leadership development opportunity anywhere. The EQ-HR workshop is an experiential laboratory for improving your emotional intelligence in a safe and supportive small group environment.

The cost is $775, which includes access to the BarOn 360 degree survey on emotional intelligence which you will use confidentially to set your own learning goals around the four areas of emotional intelligence as described by Daniel Goleman.

Most of the time of the workshop is spent in small unstructured groups of about ten with two experienced and wise group facilitators in each group.

See the Louisville Seminary Website, click on the button at the bottom of the Home Page that looks like the banner above, for more information and a link to register online:

http://www.lpts.edu/.

Call me if you want more information. 502-992-9372.

David

There is no such thing as reverse racism

Cries of "racism" against Shirley Sherrod, later proven to be based on doctored tapes, are the hateful and deceitful reactions of privileged white folks who are out to protect their cultural advantages. As a privileged and advantaged aging, straight, European-American, I want to remind us all that we have been and still are in the power position in America, and trying to blame or shame others for their attitudes, even if those attitudes are prejudicial or short-sighted, is a cover-up for our own benefit. Yes, there's plenty of fear and prejudice to go around, and bigotry comes in all colors, but "racism" is a term that only belongs to the actions of those in the cultural advantaged position to keep others from gaining any toe-hold on our privilege.

photo from elgadfly.com

Gas Stations as Signs of the Future

This past week I've passed three different gas stations that have taken down their national/international brand signs and put up family names on their stations. With all the bad publicity British Petroleum is getting it makes sense. Do I really want my customers to associate me with oil spills and irresponsible drilling?

I wonder if that's not the wave of the future of churches as well. Some folks are getting disgusted at the big-corporation model of church denominations and are not pleased with the image, either too liberal on the one hand or not liberal enough on the other. I know a lot of pastors who just "keep their heads down" and do local ministry and pay little attention to denominational realities.

Denominations that are not able to serve the needs of local "outlets" will not survive. Congregations that know how to thrive will.

Gatekeeping Presbyterian Ministers--Standard Exams

Presbyterians (PCUSA) have a way of "gatekeeping" entry into ministry called "Standard Ordination Exams." It was introduced back in the turbulent 1960's when local ecclesial bodies called presbyteries might have discriminated against some seminarians' more progressive liberal stances or against women or minorities. Over the years, the procedure has not kept up with the times and the trends. Instead it has become more restrictive and less predictable. Many, including most seminaries, have declared the process crippled if not broken.

This week the denomination's Office of Vocation announced news of changes in the system. Unfortunately the changes are minimal and problematic. Most difficult is their decision to raise the cost of the tests so that a student has to pay $500 to take all five of the tests, and $100 each time a retake is necessary. The other two changes are only minor improvements in the process, regarding the grading scale and eliminating the use of handwritten tests and handwritten grading responses. Obviously the Committee (The Presbyteries’ Cooperative Committee on Examinations for Candidates) has chosen not to address the larger issues of their processes and practices.

The fact is that these tests are not "standardized." The questions are created by committees and not tested in any scientifically defensible way. The graders are given general guidelines but have large discretion in passing or failing the exams. All of the anecdotal evidence I have from my own students' experiences suggests that the grading is random, idiosyncratic, and subjective.

My own view, that I have stated publicly before, is that the exams have outlived their usefulness. The conditions under which they were created have changed radically. Seminaries are now more responsive to the church in curriculum and standards. Presbyteries are bigger and better equipped to fairly and accurately judge the readiness of seminary graduates for ministry.

I call on the General Assembly to either abolish the exams entirely or insure that they are reformed to make them fair and effective standardized tests.

Peace Unity and Purity

Peter Smith of the Louisville Courier Journal reported on his blog, http://www.courier-journal.com/blogs/faith/2010/ about the latest report from Presbyterian Research Services:
Peace or purity?

Nearly half of Presbyterians put equal importance on "peace, unity and purity" in a church. But among those who give them different weight, conservatives are far more likely to pick "purity," while liberals prefer "peace." Those results are among a raft of newly released data from the Research Services of the Louisville-based Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)The results date from 2006, when the church was about to vote on recommendations from a task force whose formal name included the words in question: the Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity. The task force's recommendations served as part of the ongoing debate over role of gays in ministry -- a complicated story in its own right. But the name alone prompted the question of whether a church could really have all three of those qualities together.
Among the results:
•Some 29 percent of liberals chose peace, compared with 10 percent of conservatives.
•Only 6 percent of liberals chose purity, compared with 38 percent of conservatives.
Among both categories, however, the largest group put equal weight on the three values -- a majority of liberals and a plurality of conservatives.
Smaller percentages of each group chose unity.
Among moderates, exactly 50 percent put equal weight on the three values, with those preferring one of the three fairly evenly divided among the rest.
Large majorities believe there's a place for everyone in the denomination regardless of views on controversial issues.
That sounds like a vote for unity.

At the same time, large majorities believe that "a church that is not clear about what it believes is not worth belonging to."

My response to this, a long held conviction, that the constitutional ordination question in which one promises to uphold the "Peace Unity and Purity of the Church" is actually harmful to the church's ability to adapt to the 21st century.

"Peace" is actually a hold-over from old empire values--the Pax Romana—a peace enforce by hierarchical control. Instead of peace, we should encourage creative complexity and ability to create new structures to adapt to new times. Whenever a system moves through change from chaos, it always takes a more complex form, and with creativity, truth and goodness is increased.

"Unity" is also a hierarchically imposed focus on sameness, everybody has to agree on what to think. Heresy used to mean thinking new thoughts, now it means thinking thoughts that don't conform to the unity norm. Instead of unity we should vow to promote a respectful diversity.

"Purity" is a holdover from the post exilic emphasis in the Hebrew Scriptures when the community tended to think more about following the strict laws of the Torah instead of following the spirit of Torah which included major concern for the widow, the orphan, and the stranger in our midst. Instead of purity we need to promote a generous inclusivity, in which the circle of faith grows ever larger, drawing people in instead of circling them out.

I hope the Presbyterians will be able to move to adapt to the 21st century but I fear we're going to continue to push for the top-down values of peace, unity and purity.