New Church Garden

Insittutions matter

The institutions in our life are important agina—or perhaps we have merely come to realize their importance more clearly.  The pain from recent bank collapse and investment shrinking showed us that the government agencies that oversee our financial system are more significant than were acknowledged.  Even the U.S. Congress, which experienced some of its worst disapproval ratings recently—is now considered important, if not loved.  The recent election decisions to pass education bonds—even or perhaps because of the current economic pinch—shows

Lexington

’s continued emphasis on a high quality school system.  Many American’s hope over our recent inauguration may symbolize a growing willingness to hold higher expectations for institutions.

 

In the middle of this, it is worth considering the life of the church as an institution, particularly

Cherokee

Presyterian

Church

.  Our leader and head of the church, Jesus Christ, hardly seemed to have done a thing to form an institution.  Jesus preached the Empire, of

Kingdom

of

God

, but hardly set much structure in place at all.  He trained 12 men and an unnumbered group of women to continue his work.  Many of them abandoned him at the cross or were utterly powerless to respond in any meaningful way.  Yet the Church of Jesus Christ has endured and at times thrived for roughly two thousand year.  By not assigning us an essential structure, Jesus has left us enormous freedom in how we are organized.  Perhaps it made perfect sense in the Feudal Ages for Cardinals to be Princes of the Church.  Similarly, it makes sense that our denomination, the  Presbyterian Church (USA)—which was formed at the time of the founding of America itself—should be structured in a way similar to the country: the congregation has the power to choose its leaders—ministers, elders and deacons.  Those leaders are then charged to lead, free of the tyranny of the mob rule of democracy.

Review of a rating

In the NY Times review of "Wendy and Lucy" the writer not only gives the expected review of the film, but gives some information about the movie's practicalities, all at the end of the article.  It gives the director, when it opens in Manhattan, actors...  The article not only gives the rating, but also the apparent reasons for the rating.  Most interesting, the review offers a kind of commentary on motive for the rating selection: It has some swearing, a little drug use and a brief implication of violence, but no nudity, sex or murder. The rating seems to reflect, above all, an impulse to protect children from learning that people are lonely and that life can be hard.

I don't know if such reflections are usual in the paper, but it seemed interesting meta-commentary.

Getting ready to get ready for Christmas a little less

The thought of Christmas hoopla--instead of deeply satisfying Christmas rejoicing is not exciting.  But this is.

Ain't braggin' if its true!

I am continually amazed at the people I get to lead and serve with here at CPC.  For instance, I was talking with my Fellowship leader, asking her to arrange lunch for our membership class, CPC Connections, this Sunday.  She has it completely handled now.  I then asked about next week.  She said, "Well, I'm not sure I'll be in town.  How would it be if I asked someone on the hospitality team to take care of it?"  Seeing people step up to use their gifts is so encouraging to me.
    Again, this morning over breakfast, Mark and I are kicking around ideas on how to hold in home Bible studies as a way to reach people in our area and share the good news about Jesus.  We kick around logistics: what about kids, who teaches, if I host do I get to set the schedule?   All his questions have this underlying theme: How can we do this?  Roadblocks are exactly that.  Things that may be in the way or need a new response from us, but they do not change the fact that we are dealing with a road, a path to move ahead.
    Amazing people.

Co-incidence

The psalm for this morning is 146, which begins:

Praise the LORD! Praise the LORD, O my soul! 
I will praise the LORD as long as I live; 
I will sing praises to my God all my life long. 

Do not put your trust in princes, (senators)
in mortals, in whom there is no help. 
When their breath departs, they return to the earth; 
on that very day their plans perish. 

Which is probably a good reminder on election day.
Of course it reads a little later:

The LORD sets the prisoners free; 
the LORD opens the eyes of the blind. 
The LORD lifts up those who are bowed down; 
the LORD loves the righteous. 
The LORD watches over the strangers; 
he upholds the orphan and the widow, 
but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin. 

Which makes me think of 2 things. First, that sounds more like Obama than McCain. 
Second, the promise is for the LORD to do those things, which is not the same as saying we have to get them done.
That is, not to trust in princes (senators) for freedom, sight, uplift or providence.

Hi test theology still at work

While listening to a podcast called The Cranky Middle Manager Show, was stunned to hear the Pelagian heresy held up as one of the fundamental questions that business leaders should be thinking about.  Granted, the host was interviewing Art Kleiner, whose new book is entitled "The Age of Heretics."  Though Kleiner writes about American business leaders from WWII to the present, I should not have been surprised by his reference to one of the church's most significant theological conflicts.  Pelagius is probably one of the most important heretics in the history of the church.  Or should I say Augustine was one of the most important saints to fend of the heresy of Pelagius?  (Strange, factoid: Both men thought it important to educate chidlren--boys and girls--to read).

Kleiner thinks that whether one thinks people are basically compentant to judge others or not is an essential questions.  I'm not sure that I have heard this theological debate categorized in quite that way.  But I am sure that I am amazed that this category would come up, at all.

So Let's not get rid of all the lawyers just yet

The Governor of Nebraska has called for a special legislative session.  Here for the AP story.  A law intended to protect newly born babies from abandonment has led to children of all ages being 'safely abandoned at hospitals.  Some folks drove their kids from Michigan, some from Georgia to leave them--apparently forever--at a hospital.  Nebraska's safe-haven law did not, as most state's safe-have laws do, limit the age of the child left.  So some teenagers were dumped.
    Theologically, this points in a variety of directions.  Good intentions are not sufficient.  Just because we mean well does not mean that we do not hurt people--the Bible category for hurting others is Sin.  John Calvin insisted that the law has three functions.  The first two  are to convict us of wrong and to restrain wickedness (this far Martin Luther agreed).  Calvin considered a third: To teach us how we ought to live.  Thus every prohibition in the law carries a duty, every duty a prohibition.
    What does it mean for a law to allow a behavior that is generally considered bad, but must be confined for good purpose.  It is bad for a parent to abandon a child, but many state have decided to allow a parent to do so at a hospital.  Thus a newborn is not exposed to die in a dumpster.  The early church dealt with this very issue by gathering abandoned babies and taking these children into their homes.  It seems that such a posture is important for disciples of Jesus to take in the face of much of the abortion law debate.

Jesus is not running for President (this year)

Jim Wallis of Sojourner's recently wrote "As Christians, we know that we will not be able to vote for the kingdom of God."  As obvious as that sounds, it is important.  The decision we make as a country is important.  But it does not determine the Kingdom's coming.  That rests upon God.  And as the rhetoric gets more shrill, pitched heat (tarred, feathered...), we have to remember that very important does not mean apocalyptic.

How not to stink at an important part of being a pastor

I have finally found a way to constructively engage the work of managing as a pastor and to limit my entanglement in much of the work that lay people are much better suited to.  I am willing to bet that most pastors, especially younger ones without much work experience outside the church are not very good at managing, organizing or leading or even participating in the business and structural life of the church.  In fact, there was a strand of conversation at seminary that disdained this sort of work.  In fact, seminary is probably not the place to learn how to lead this sort of work, AND this work simply cannot be neglected.  To be a good pastor, you have to be able to run a meeting well.  You should be a good boss to your secretary.  My poor first secretary could not get some vacation approved until I wised up and figured out that I was the guy who had to give her permission to take time off.  It simply had not dawned on me that I was the person to check with on that sort of thing.  (She got to go on the trip).

 

I stumbled on a very helpful  tool at www.manager-tools.com   These podcast have given me a set of practices that are simple to implement and have helped me get a handle on how to lead my small staff. They have given me a better handle on how to offer focused leadership to lay leaders.  They have a great introductory set of podcasts, here.  You might need to sign up, but that is free (and I have not gotten any junk email from their direction).  I’m using itunes to download a bunch of these.

    So if you would like to get some helpful counsel on how not to stink at an important part of being a pastor,check them out.  Or put positively, if you would like some concrete help in part of the call that means have supervision over other people's work, check them out.  It is a huge, huge, huge help.

Well what do you know that new fangled stuff works OK

During a meeting of our Presbytery on Sunday, and as part of the meeting, we had Bruce Reyes-Chow send a short video address.  Bruce was the moderator at the last General Assembly (national meeting) of our denomination, the Presbyterian Church (USA).  Now, much of the purpose of our polity is to attenuate or at least check the power of an individual, so Bruce has a lot of responsibility but pretty closely defined power.  I have to admit that I did not think that it was going to come off very well, but I was wrong.  I think the key to it working was that Bruce did not try to make it seem like an address to the meeting but that he happened to be in another city.  In the same way that a voicemail message works well by acknowledging that the communication is imperfect, this video worked because Bruce did not try to pretend that it was just as good as him being there.  A good voicemail message does not pretend to be as good as real conversation, but it does help communication and communion.
    I wonder if that is how the early church experienced getting the letters of the New Testament.  The Apostle Paul sent letters to Thessaloniki and other places because he could not be there.  He even makes reference to the fact that he wishes he could be there: "we long with great eagerness to see you face to face."  The fact that the lighting was fair and that the background was his hotel room (something he acknowledged) did not create a problem.  Even having his head projected on the screen  of the meeting room like the Wizard of Oz (Sorry Bruce, but was kind of funny) did not detract from his desire to communicate with the people in our presbytery.