Southwest Conference Blog

Summer Reading, Part Two

I am excited to meet this week for the first of your summer reads – A Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes. (If you can make this months discussion please join us next month for Shift Happens by Robert Holden). I enjoy hearing about what people are reading, everything from mysteries to deep theologically challenging books. I do know someone who is making the Bible their summer read. This is someone who is not normally a reader of the Bible. This is one book that seems to generate the most passion both for and against the merits of reading it. Because of this, I thought I’d share some thoughts that John Chuchman, one of our [Pathways of Grace Spiritual Life Center] facilitators, had on the topic.

“For me,
the odd, disjointed compilation
of ancient Hebrew texts and later Greek texts
called the Bible
has lost its claims to historical truth,
or to supernatural revelation.As history and revelation,
Bible stories have long ago fallen away;
almost nothing that happens in it
actually happened;
its miracles, large and small,
are of the same kind and credibility
as all the other miracles
that crowd the world’s great granary of superstition.

Only a handful of fundamentalists read it literally,
despite debunking by experts
and critical reason.

If I read the books and verses of the Bible
it is because they tell beautiful stories,
stirring and seductive.

I explore the stories in the Bible
because they are transfixing stories,
dense and compelling.

The beauty of the Song of Songs
or the poetic hum of the Psalms
are beautiful as poetry alone can be.

They were best translated into our own language
in the highest period of English prose and verse,
in Shakespeare’s rhythms and vocabulary
making them more seductive.

These are good tales and great poetry,
and I do not worry about their sources.
I read them as fiction
as I read all good stories,
for their perplexities
as much as for their obvious points.

I can be stirred by the Bible
as enduring moral inquiry,
working to translate the knots of the Bible stories
into acceptable, contemporary, and even universal ethical truths.

I think that
enduring moral teaching can be found
in the Bible’s stories.

I read Bible stories with intellectual detachment,
and a sense that the Bible is
an extraordinary compilation about human nature and
imagination.

In reading Bible stories
I also learn that I need more.
I am fed up with
the stolid apparent meanings of its verse,
searching for deeper meanings that enrich me.

In defying logic
Bible stories invite imagination,
and as a fictional creation,
its ideas about Deity remain compelling,
in their plurality.

I neither believe nor doubt
as I read Bible stories,
but remain suspended in Wonder
where good reading really takes place anyway.”

What are your thoughts about reading the Bible?? Feel free to share your summer reads! I have a feeling many of you are looking for some more books to enjoy, to be challenged by, and to take you to that place of Wonder.

When the Mind Becomes Silent

by Amos Smith

When I was growing up in Virginia, there was a large open meadow up the hill from my childhood home. Even though most of the acreage in my neighborhood was well developed, the meadow was left wild. After I climbed over a dilapidated wood fence and made my way through a thick barrier of trees, tall green grass sprang, resembling an overgrown alpine meadow. At night, the sky above the meadow opened into the great expanse. The distinct stars illumined the darkness as though I was far from habitation. In the summer the fireflies added lights to the deep blue.

The meadow gave me the space I needed when my little house and family began to close in. As with all families, sometimes things got claustrophobic. At those times I headed out the back door and started the slow walk toward the meadow. When adolescent insecurities mounted and there was no outlet, I started the slow walk…

After I pried through the wall of trees I would walk several paces then lay back against the thick grass. At first my thoughts raced, as they had throughout the day. Then, slowly my thoughts settled like particles of dirt floating to the bottom of a glass of water. If I stayed there the water became still, all the dirt settled, and the murky water of my mind cleared. Space between thoughts lengthened. My breath slowed. And a homesickness I struggle to articulate softened.

I was only yards from home, yet I had another home akin to silence.

Safe Place

by Karen Richter

In this week following the mass shooting of LGBTQ persons of color in Orlando, I’ve read much about the importance of sanctuaries, places where a person can be who they truly are. This reflection is about one of those places in my life.

The picture above is my Great Aunt Georgia’s house in Asheville, North Carolina. It’s a lovely bed and breakfast now, but when I was a kid it was just a rambly, way too large and slightly spooky old house. My aunt was Georgia Virginia Daughdrill (at least that was her full name when I knew her. She was married once before to my father’s favorite uncle. Plus – two states!). I called her Georgie. She was my paternal grandmother’s much older sister and had pretty much raised my dad. My whole life, she was the same… fluffy completely white hair, frumpy clothes, and the kind of pleasant unadorned woman’s face that people sometimes call handsome. She’s gone now, and I’m realizing now that I remain completely clueless about her inner life. I never knew her to attend church, but she sat down with the Good News Bible every night and once, when she thought I was already asleep, I heard her whispered nighttime prayers.

The house was a character in my childhood almost as much as my aunt and grandmother. It was there that I stayed up until midnight the first time. We had a freedom there, my brother and I, that seemed missing everywhere else. It’s a well-worn family story that “my Aunt Georgie says I can do anything I want.” My mother swears she came into Georgie’s kitchen once to find me licking the end of a stick of butter when I was a toddler. The house was the setting for a bizarrely diverse cast of characters – friends, neighbors, boarders – that seemed completely normal to me, just like I knew it was normal for the bread to be always slightly burned. As a very small child, I thought everyone had an Aunt Georgia. And what a world it would be if we all did.

On Chestnut Street, Dennis and I spent many happy hours searching for hidden passageways and hollow spaces, deciding whether or not the old portrait’s eyes followed us as we walked down the hallway, or compiling dossiers on my aunt’s boarders. We knew that “in the olden days,” the house had been owned by a local doctor. We imagined ghosts of former patients gliding by us in the parlor. I guess we felt so safe there, so loved and cherished by this wonderful aunt with no children of her own, that we had to invent dangers to keep ourselves occupied. Or maybe we just watched too much Scooby Doo.

One of my earliest memories is a tree falling over at this house. It was a huge tree (an oak, maybe?). When it fell, it shook the whole house. The top of the tree landed across the street. It had been diseased for some time; when it fell, a misshapen cement blob fell out of the trunk. It was like a giant’s dental filling, and it stayed where it had landed, in the corner of the yard along Chestnut Street. I wonder if it’s still there. And I wonder how big that tree would look to me now.

Aunt Georgia’s house was not what I would call child-friendly. There was no closet full of toys or bunk beds or collection of kiddie DVDs. In the sideboard, there was a shoebox of random small toys and junk that we fashioned into all manner of pretend items. In the living room, there was an oriental-style rug that became a wonderful garden of my favorite sweets. In the hall was a trunk with old-fashioned shoes and photos. Occasionally, we would pull various items out of the trunk and play ‘going to Atlanta,’ an elaborate storytelling with parties and dancing in fancy dresses. Out in the yard were snapdragons and snowballs and low bushes that became hideaways. We swung on the front porch glider and came inside just in time for Lawrence Welk or Hee Haw.

Although she always looked the same to me, as I grew older, Aunt Georgie did too. When I was in high school, she moved out of Chestnut Street and into a more practical apartment. When she closed the door at Chestnut Street, we all lost something precious.

Scripture for Today: Psalm 40.11-12

So now you, Lord—

don’t hold back any of your compassion from me.

Let your loyal love and faithfulness always protect me,

because countless evils surround me.

Prayer for Today

Spirit of Life, I pause to give thanks for places of safety. May I be that place of protection and acceptance for another!

Pulses stopped and souls began arriving in eternity

by William M. Lyons

Pulses stopped and souls began arriving in eternity even before the 911 calls reached help. First responders teetered on the brink of sacrifice. Hostages gave last hugs to dying friends and lovers in hope-to-survive silence. Trauma teams offered heroic efforts even as the blood of the victims they tried to save soaked through their sneakers. When the shooting stopped 49 very innocent people and 1 very guilty shooter were dead. But it’s not over.

To a person the gay, lesbian, transgender and bisexual people with whom I’ve spent these last five days — at vigils, in church, on line, and in person — have been caught off guard by the depth to which this latest American mass murder has shaken them. That includes me.

Pastoral words eluded me in the numbness, and in the anger, and in the gut-wrenching broken-heartedness I felt for the parents and siblings and grandparents and family members of choice who were praying that it was their unaccounted for loved one’s cell phone that was dead. For them it isn’t over. It will never be over.

Hours before the Pulse murders, Juan David Villegas-Hernandez shot and killed his wife and their 4 daughters in Roswell, New Mexico. But that multiple victim shooting was bumped from major newscasts by the bigger story from Orlando. I am writing this on the first anniversary of the Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church shooting in which 9 black Christian Americans were murdered. Tragically, whatever day I would have written to you is now an anniversary of a mass shooting in our country. Any day. In fact, there were more mass shootings in the U.S. last year than there are days in a leap year. I am sure that for the Hernandez family, and for the survivors of the victims of the shooting that took place on whatever day you are reading this, the grief, the pain, the terror, and the aftermath are just as big as for the families reeling from what just happened in Orlando.

What happened last Sunday will make everything in life so much harder for the victims’ and for the perpetrator’s survivors. What happened last Sunday will make many things harder in all our futures. If there is one thing I am walking away from the Pulse massacre committed to, it’s refusing to love anyone to someone else’s death. In some way, I feel that being patient with people who oppose assault weapon bans and common sense gun control laws is loving my LGBT friends and family members to death. I didn’t say I wouldn’t or don’t love them. It’s just going to be so much harder for me to be patient with them. Assault weapons threaten all of us. People who have not been thoroughly screened carrying guns threatens all of us. With Orlando, gun control is no longer (as if it really ever was) about the right to bear arms and is absolutely about who lives and who dies.

It’s going to be harder explaining to families who’ve lost ones to violence motivated by sexual orientation, why churches let fear of losing members or income prevent them from becoming or even talking about becoming Open and Affirming. With Orlando, being gay stopped being a matter of whether or not the Bible says homosexuality is right or wrong, and become a matter of what the Bible says about whether LGBT people live or die.

It’s going to be harder for me not to be political as a spiritual leader. The Pulse massacre is an attack against LGBT people. It is an attack against Brown people. It is an attack against, not by, Muslims. Life and death are spiritual matters. When politics infringes on any person’s right to fully experience life, enjoy liberty, and pursue happiness, and when political leaders engage in or tolerate hate speech, politics has invaded the spiritual realm, and my response as a person of faith and as a spiritual leader must be, “Love wins! Game on!”

Beloved family members and friends of Stanley Almodovar III, Amanda Alvear, Oscar A Aracena-Montero, Rodolfo Ayala-Ayala, Antonio Davon Brown, Darryl Roman Burt II, Angel L. Candelario-Padro, Juan Chevez-Martinez, Luis Daniel Conde, Cory James Connell, Tevin Eugene Crosby, Deonka Deidra Drayton, Simon Adrian Carrillo Fernandez, Leroy Valentin Fernandez, Mercedez Marisol Flores, Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz, Juan Ramon Guerrero, Paul Terrell Henry, Frank Hernandez,Miguel Angel Honorato, Javier Jorge-Reyes, Jason Benjamin Josaphat, Eddie Jamoldroy Justice, Anthony Luis Laureanodisla, Christopher Andrew Leinonen, Alejandro Barrios Martinez, Brenda Lee Marquez McCool, Gilberto Ramon Silva Menendez, Kimberly Morris, Akyra Monet Murray, Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo, Geraldo A. Ortiz-Jimenez, Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera, Joel Rayon Paniagua, Jean Carlos Mendez Perez, Enrique L. Rios, Jr., Jean C. Nives Rodriguez, Xavier Emmanuel Serrano Rosado, Christopher Joseph Sanfeliz, Yilmary Rodriguez Solivan, Edward Sotomayor Jr., Shane Evan Tomlinson, Martin Benitez Torres, Jonathan Antonio Camuy Vega, Juan P. Rivera Velazquez, Luis S. Vielma, Franky Jimmy Dejesus Velazquez, Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon, Jerald Arthur Wright,

my heart is broken for you. I am confident that I can say on behalf of the Southwest Conference United Church of Christ we all hurt with you, and we share your righteous anger. We too are asking, “When will this stop?” and declare with you, “Enough is enough!!” We grieve the loss of such loving and talented members of your families and of the Hispanic community. We stand with our Muslim friends and neighbors for peace. May our efforts together lead to the peaceful realm for which we long together.

Long after our candles our vigil candles are extinguished, we remain
The light of hope refusing to give in to fear
The light of peace that terror can not dim
The light of comfort in the midst of deepest grief
A beacon for gun controls laws that would have kept weapons out of the hands of Omar Mateen
A conflagration of solidarity for Muslims across our land
The spark of healing for closeted families who missed the opportunity to love them in the wholeness of who God created them to be
Bearers of the flames of remembrance for each member of our family murdered early this morning
The glow of gentle anger smoldering because it happened again, vowing to do all we can so it never happens again.

The Third Chair

by Amanda Petersen

In light of the news this week in Orlando and other places in the world, it seems appropriate that this week the third chair is added: society. My observation is the first (solitude) and third (society) chairs can be the most challenging. There are those who get squirmy when asked to spend time in solitude and there are just as many who avoid eye contact when asked to participate in society.

Connecting and being aware of the larger society is messy. This is the place of least control. This is the place where one can get hurt. Yet this is the place of the “real”, whether one wishes to acknowledge it or not. Society is the place to practice the reality that life is not about being pain-free, in control, and having life make sense. Society is where surprises and miracles take place in a space much bigger than one’s imagination. It is the place of release into the movement of one’s tiny piece in the great cosmos of the Divine.

Of Thoreau’s three chairs, I think this is the one that surprises people the most. Isn’t going off to the woods all about leaving society and all its messiness and pain behind? Can’t one just shield oneself from the pain of massacres and politics?

Yet the truth is that there is no escape for people of faith. Faith invites each of us into the place of knowing we are ALL connected to the ugly and beauty of life. Solitude allows us to hear that Still Small Voice, community allows us to practice it, and society allows us to live it. When unjust murder happens, when the shadow of humanity comes forward, it touches us. Just as when the beauty of people coming forward to donate blood or give voice to the voiceless touches us. We are connected. We are both the ugly and beauty. From the place of the first two chairs we enter into the pain and hope in the midst of the senseless and find God in our connection. How one participates is up to each individual as they are led by their understanding of the first two chairs.

The invitation is to know that the invitation is happening every moment. This week, place three chairs in some spot of your space. Spend time in each chair. Let the connection to God in yourself, community, and society be your guide.

Compassion: Orlando

by Teresa Cowan Jones

We mourn the loss of life of our brothers and sisters in Orlando and hold hope for healing and love for all the victims and their families and friends. May we all hold tight to the universal value of compassion, especially for the marginalized, and reach out to each other and to the source of life — the ground of all being, however you define it — for support in our grief.

I hear responses to this tragedy that seem to force a choice between love and accountability. We can hold these together; love provides both the means and the end.

We stand with the LGBTQ+ people and all those who are oppressed in the work of both love and justice, which must go together for either to have meaning.

We invite all to reclaim public space as safe space for human feeling and connection and to do so because, and not in spite of, our differences. Together only will we find our way to both honor the rich uniqueness of our cultures and wisdom traditions and celebrate our oneness as humanity. It’s OK that we don’t know how just yet. We will make mistakes but with the goal of compassion, we can stumble together to find our way to a new way of living and being together in which all beings are honored and have dignity.

Hate crimes and terrorist activity demand that we come together in love and solidarity. In Sacred Space this week, we’ll look with new eyes at the sayings of Jesus to help us stay sure-footed in both compassion and justice. We need not let beliefs, religions, race, gender or sexual orientation separate us anymore. We can be one.

May we all love, together, now. May we focus on our unity and strength and continue to draw encouragement from each other in and for the creation of beloved community. Let us look at our collective human heritage of the world’s wisdom traditions to teach us a new path. Let us get to know the stranger – the seeming other – in a way that heals the human species and the planet.

May we let our collective and rightful outrage fuel the changes for which we can no longer wait or assign to someone else. May we all feel now and act now.

Love Manifesto

by Karen MacDonald

In the midst of a disheartening, divisive election season, the last few days have brought even more disgust and deep dismay.

A Stanford University student who raped a young woman for “only” 20 minutes last year was given a 6-month jail sentence, and he could be released after 3 months for good behavior. Good behavior?!

On Friday in Orlando, FL, a young woman singer was shot by a man who came to her concert for that purpose, and she died shortly after.

In the early hours of this morning in Orlando, a young man walked into a LGBT nightclub with a handgun and an AR-15 assault rifle and massacred at least 50 patrons, injuring at least 50 more.

What the —– is going on?

As a woman, a defense mechanism, literally, is to recognize that I and my sisters are always potential targets of male power. As a lesbian woman, I know full well that I and my queer sisters and brothers, for all the legal progress being made, are still despised by many. It would be easy to put up a wall or to lash out or to pre-judge everyone harshly. It would be easy—and it would be deadly, to my spirit and to our communal life, to life itself.

Among many diverse spiritual sages over the centuries, Jesus taught another way. “Love your enemies.” “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled.” “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.” “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” Our spiritual sages keep pointing us to what our spirits already know deep down—love is the only way. That takes faith and courage and community.

And it probably takes anger. And weeping. Both of those emotions are evidence that the way things are isn’t the way we want it to be. We don’t want hatred and fear and violence. So we weep when it seems like those things are holding sway, because our hearts are breaking. So we get angry at the suffering we humans continue to perpetrate, because we can be and do so much better.

And then we channel the energy that rises in weeping and anger to act for wholeness, for peace; we act in love. That will mean resisting powers-that-be, in politics, in economics, even in religious institutions, heck, maybe even in our families. Just make sure that our acting, our speaking, our resisting is done in a spirit of open-heartedness, rather than vengeance or defensiveness.

What’s going on? Let’s make sure love is going on….and on….and on…….

Review – Nomad: A spirituality for travelling light

by Ryan Gear

Brandan Robertson has written a book, just released in the UK, that any spiritually searching, thoughtful person can appreciate. This includes evangelicals, the expression of Christianity with which Brandan identifies. Contrary to some who have questioned their faith, Nomad is an honest story of a spiritual journey that has not left the author cynical. Brandon can’t be smugly written off with a label. There is no hint of academic elitism in his writing. He has not forsaken the Bible or become “just another one of those liberals.”

It’s clear from reading Nomad that Brandan loves God and the Scriptures and that he simply brave enough to say (or write) what many evangelicals are too afraid to admit… they have questions.

I first heard Brandan’s story when he shared it on a Sunday morning with the church I founded, One Church in Chandler, Arizona (onechurch.com). I can personally attest to his humble spirit and the grace that he writes about so beautifully in chapter 13. Brandon is not angry or vindictive. He is a loving, open-minded, young man who is an inspiration to anyone who wants to work out her or his salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12).

In the early chapters, Brandan tells his story of coming to faith in Christ in a high-octane fundamentalist KJV-only church when he was a teenager. He was so hungry to grow in his new relationship with Christ that he watched Charles Stanley before going to school in the morning. The church was a new family for him that modeled some level of love and healing in contrast to his hurting and dysfunctional family. Searching for belonging, he took on the same Bible-thumping ethos as his newly adopted church family. He began a teen evangelism, winning souls for Jesus and preaching against the Religious Right’s common enemies, abortion and homosexuality.

But then…

Questions.

Chapter 6 is the turning point of Nomad and of Brandan’s life. I love Brandan’s description of his first encounter with doubt while watching a History Channel Easter special at 13 years old (58). He was terrified that Jesus may not have been raised from the dead, but at 13, sobbed with relief at the fact that the Gospel of Matthew reported otherwise. Still in early teens, Brandan absorbed his church’s commitment to biblical inerrancy, but the doctrine would not go unquestioned forever.

Brandan addresses the common conservative evangelical conundrums of biblical contradictions, Bible class questions, and the favorite apologetics buzz phrase “absolute truth.” I was reminded of how tortured I felt as a teenager trying to make the Bible a cohesive document, like a term paper dropped out of heaven.

He identifies with so many serious-minded young evangelicals who learn to become intellectual circus acrobats as they try to harmonize Bible verses that clearly contradict one another. In fact, the term contradiction carries negative connotations, while the Bible is actually a collection of books, a library, and no one expects every book in a library to agree on every topic. The biblical books are more like a conversation, sometimes even an argument, than a term paper.

Later in his teens, Brandan bravely and honestly acknowledged his questions. He writes, “The beliefs that we once held to be absolute and certain suddenly become subjective and unclear. The answers that we once held to so tightly dissolve and new, terrifying questions emerge” (56-57).

In my own experience, once a crack of intellectual honesty appears in the dam, it won’t be long before a flood of questions rush through, breaking apart what was once thought to be an immoveable concrete wall. Honestly acknowledging the first question begins the journey of the spiritual nomad.

Brandon then relays his story of discovery, becoming acquainted with church history and the ancient rhythms of a spiritual life that were ignored in his conservative evangelical church. He studied Catholicism, Orthodoxy, and Anglicanism. He became aware of a new world of Christian history, belief, and practice.

He points out what many evangelicals are becoming aware of, that Christianity is much larger than one particular Baptist-y megachurch, and in fact, evangelical megachurches are still a minority in global Christianity:

“In the churches I grew up in, there was absolutely no sense of tradition or a broader narrative we participated in. Instead, we focused on our communities’ autonomy and God’s unique work in our midst. We were rarely connected to other churches in the area because all of us were focused on creating our own unique style and brand of Christianity” (83).

In chapter 11, the second major movement of Nomad is Brandan’s discovery of his fluid sexuality in his late teens. Of course, this is the current hot button issue in the U.S., and within American Christianity, one’s full acceptance or non-acceptance of LGBTQ persons is the litmus test of one’s orthodoxy.

Sadly, there will be evangelicals who write off Brandan’s spiritual journey due to their judgment of his sexuality. This is tragic, and one that will ultimately count as their loss. Brandon is a sweet-spirited, grace-filled evangelist who will likely lead a megachurch in the future. His humble and loving presence will win over many detractors, but unfortunately, some will not even give Brandan or Nomad the chance.

Those who do will discover an inspiring leader and communicator who does his best to live out his understanding of the Eucharist in chapter 12. It is one of the simplest and best descriptions of the Gospel you will read:

“The first was that at the Table of the Lord where the Eucharist was served, all people are equal… For one moment of time, all of us stood on level ground. All our prejudices and biases were forced to fade into the background. We came together as one broken but connected body in need of grace” (113).

“The Eucharist also reminded early believers of a second truth – the pattern of life that they were to live. When Christ commanded us to do this ritual ‘to remember and proclaim his death until he comes again’, he was asking us to remember the way of life that he lived and to follow him in it” (114).

The remaining chapters of Nomad, “Grace,” “Journey,” and “Wonder” offer practical examples of how Brandan attempts to live this eucharistic lifestyle. He tells a stirring story of reconciling with his abusive father after his father’s arrest and release. Brandan finishes his story with an invitation to journey through the questions, citing that the narrative arc of Scripture is one of a journey, and the only way to travel is with an attitude of wonder.

At its heart, Brandan’s honest sharing of his journey is an invitation to all readers, not to necessarily begin a new spiritual journey, but to be honest about the journey they are already on.

A Plea to Progressive Pastors: Stay Put.

by Kenneth McIntosh

Once in awhile I get asked by acquaintances in my town, “How are things at the new church?” The question comes because I’ve served two congregations in Flagstaff, and folks who haven’t seen me in a few years still think of First Congregational as ‘Ken’s new church.’ I don’t qualify that phrase ‘new church’ when I answer, because I likewise think of First Congregational as my new church. And yet…when I look at the plaque on the sanctuary wall, listing the pastors who’ve served here, the longest tenure on record is five years, and I’m almost to my fourth year, so I’m actually one of the longer-tenured ministers at this church.

Historically, five years is not a long pastorate. In the 17th and 18th centuries, ministers were expected to answer a call to service and then remain at the parish of their calling until death. One of my favorite spiritual writers from antiquity, Thomas Traherne, said : “It is no small matter to Dwell in community or in a congregation, and to convers there without complaint, and to Persevere Faithfully in it until death. Blessed is He that hath Lived there well, and Ended Happily.”

A millennium before Traherne, one of the greatest influences on Western Christian thinking, Saint Benedict, added a fourth vow to the monastic calling. Monks were already expected to take vows of purity, simplicity and obedience: Benedict added to that ‘stability.’ He explains in his monastic rule: “We vow to remain all our life with our local community. We live together, pray together, work together, relax together. We give up the temptation to move from place to place in search of an ideal situation. Ultimately there is no escape from oneself, and the idea that things would be better someplace else is usually an illusion. And when interpersonal conflicts arise, we have a great incentive to work things out and restore peace. This means learning the practices of love: acknowledging one’s own offensive behavior, giving up one’s preferences, forgiving.” There’s universal wisdom in Benedict’s appeal.

This call for continuity in one’s place is especially vital for Progressive churches in our time. James Wellman, Professor and Chair of Comparative Religions at Washington University, recently published a blog with the provocative title Is there a Future for Progressive Christianity? on Patheos. I am sorry to say that Professor Wellman’s research leads him to answer in the negative. Surveying the landscape, he finds precious few growing Progressive congregations. His take on decline is interesting: he notes that the most influential and successful Progressive ministers are leaving local congregations to pursue careers writing and speaking in other venues. Examples are Rob Bell and Brian McLaren (of course there are exceptions to this—i.e., Molly Baskette ). Wellman points out that Progressive Christian leaders seem more enthused about spirituality –in-the-world than they are about churches as institutions insofar as it’s easier to be successful as a speaker/ writer-at-large than as pastor of a local congregation.

There’s a real allure to this way of thinking. My editor keeps pointing out that while church attendance in America is declining, there’s increased demand for our books on spirituality from a Christian perspective. Why not leave the ecclesial sinking ship and focus on a broader audience? One of my closest friends in spiritual leadership has left working in churches and has no desire whatsoever to return to such employment, finding it much easier and more rewarding to be a speaker-and-writer at large. And another (possibly related) trend: while congregations are declining, the demand for chaplains in the workplace is currently growing, which explains why a number of my previous fellow pastors are now working full time as chaplains. For ministers who remain committed to local parish ministry there is a draw to seek greener pastures in other pastorates. I’m sympathetic: some of them have ‘pastor killer’ churches that are impossible situations, and some are burnt out casting themselves against the granite of congregations unwilling to change.

And yet, there is need for pastoral longevity in local congregations. Thom Rainer points out that the average US pastor stays less than five years, and lists reasons why transitions are not good for churches (his research is not limited to Mainline churches, but I believe these observations nonetheless apply to Progressive congregations): Six Reasons Why Longer-Tenured Pastorates Are Better.

Most pastors would welcome a magical ingredient that would help their to prosper, yet they may overlook the simplest ingredient for success: stability. It’s a repeated observation—and one I confirm from two of my four experiences as minister—that one’s ministry deepens and becomes more effective after year five at a church. It can be tough to stay in a difficult situation, but it’s rewarding not only for the minister’s personal growth but also for the benefits to the church. In our rapidly changing Post-modern world, the ancient admonitions of Saint Benedict and others may be truer than ever: inasmuch as we can, we Progressive pastors need to stay put.

In Relationships, Small Things Count

by Amos Smith

Recently, I dreaded weekday mornings. Getting Luke up and ready for school was a chore. We butt heads. I would wake him, then he would get mad and say he was tired. Then I would prod him. Eventually he would start the day reluctantly and grumpy. It was a gridlocked negative pattern.

Then one day it dawned on me that I could change the dynamic. So now, instead of wake him, I set my iPod in his room and turn on his favorite songs at moderate volume. Then after a few minutes I lay beside him on his bed and talk to him about the day ahead (he likes to know about plans ahead of time). Now he wakes up happy.

Most people do creative problem solving in their relationships like the example above. Yet, since my centering prayer practice has deepened, I’ve noticed that habitual letting go and out-of-the-box ideas come more frequently.