Rogue Reverend

The Church and Women

It has been such a long time since I’ve faced discrimination by the church, that when it smacked me up-side the head, twice in one week, it sent me reeling a bit.

In the first instance, I was at a retreat for pastors about Missional church. I was the only woman in a group of pastors, most of whom were Southern Baptist. One was pastor of a UCC church, so I thought there was hope, until he explained that his church left the UCC when they voted, as a denomination, in favor of gay marriage. I knew, by the time the introductions were over, that I was in the wrong place.

But I stayed, thinking that perhaps I was jumping to conclusions. I was not wrong. I had signed up for a three day retreat, but left that evening, after enduring masculine visual aids (all the people in the slides were men), having the leader call the group, “Men,” constantly, and being ignored, and even worse, argued with during the discussion time. I found myself getting really upset.

And the thing is, all these pastors were expressing their concern over their churches dying. Duh! Of course they’re dying! You don’t even offer to women the freedom they enjoy in the rest of our culture.

The second time was upon looking at a conference about missional community called Verge being held in 2010 in Austin, Texas. A person I follow on twitter was excitedly tweeting about it. So I looked at the website. Not one single woman on the roster for this conference. The conference leaders seem to mostly be SBC, and we know that they won’t respond to my request to add at least one woman to their roster.

Those of you who knew me in seminary know how painful the experience was. Hardly a day passed when a male student didn’t say to me, “You can’t be a minister! You’re a girl!”

Even worse than all that, one of my friends tweeted me, “we’ve gotta love those who interpret scripture differently though.” Really? Really? Love them, sure, but accept where they are wrong in interpreting Scripture? If this was any other scripture verse (like perhaps the ones on slavery?) would we think we should respect their points of view?

No.

I have been insulated from the issues of exclusion of women in ministry. Living in the progressive/liberal world shelters me from the sexism so rampant in the evangelical church.

I am so sorry that the little girls sitting in those churches don’t have the opportunity to see women in leadership. I’m sad that they’ll grow up like me, doubting God’s call on their life, because there are no clear role models. It’s tragic that these little girls will grow up thinking they are not as valuable as boys, simply because their churches interpreted Scripture so wrong.

I’m torn about putting myself in more places where women are unwelcome in leadership. I’ve enjoyed my protected place. But I don’t think I can leave my sisters to suffer.

When was the last time a woman filled the pulpit at your church? Time to ask the pulpit supply team for some new faces.

Best. Newsletter. For Homeless Ministry. Ever.

My friend, Hugh Hollowell, of Love Wins writes:

Dear Friends,

Several weeks ago I sat in a room full of pastors from downtown churches in a forum called by the Raleigh Police Department. Ostensibly, it was to talk about how faith communities can properly secure their premises, especially in light of Martha’s murder a few months ago. The gist of the presentation was about church security - having your facilities well lit, etc. And then, they started talking about the homeless.

We saw pictures of dangerous criminals (their words), all but one of whom were black, as examples of the sort of people we should be watching out for. (Of course, most of the folks in the audience were white, so this played with their stereotypes perfectly.) Then they presented us all with trespass letters, which, if signed and placed on file with the police, would give them permission to arrest folks found on their property after hours. The entire presentation built to this, and you got the feeling this was the whole reason for the meeting.

There aren’t near enough shelter beds. If you are unhoused and needed a safe place, you might think about going to sit out of the rain under the awning at the corner church. Especially since the church is closed so you won’t scare any of the rich white people who attend there. If you thought this way you wouldn’t be alone. There are several churches downtown where friends of mine sleep - behind their dumpsters, in the shrubs, under the awning. Because it is well lit, clean and generally safe.

The police work for the city, which makes revenue from developers, who sell houses to rich people who do not like seeing homeless people. So the police are under a lot of pressure to “clean up” the homeless problem. The police are frustrated by the churches that have allowed people to sleep on their grounds. So, the police scare the daylights out of the church leaders, throw Martha’s death in the mix, show some scary pictures of black men and convince a goodly number of the downtown churches to put up no tresspassing signs, enabeling the police to act on those tresspass letters they wanted us to sign.

The presenters assured us they did not want to interfere with our mission - they just wanted us to help them keep us ’safe’.

I was the only one who stood up and said that our mission does not call for us to be safe - it calls for us to show extreme love and radical hospitality. I asked the people, preachers and police alike, the following question: If you are tired and hungry and alone and have no home and no hope - if you cannot go to the church, where should you go?

No one had any answers to that. The police officer told me he understood, but that was not his job.

But it is my job. It is our job. To extend grace and love to the other. Not to put up signs to keep people who don’t look like us away.

So I have spent the last few weeks telling my friends who sleep outside that churches are not safe places anymore. That the No Tresspassing signs mean they will be arrested. And when they ask me where they are supposed to go if they can’t go to church, I tell them I don’t know. And when they leave, I cry.

Love Wins. Always.

If I Were the Architect of the Church. A sermon.

This sermon was inspired by a spoken word poem at Ted.com, called Rives Controls the Internet. The sermon, which was done at a rapid pace like spoken word, was followed by communion where the communicants took the phrase, “If I were the architect of the Church” and said how they would make it theirs.

If I were the architect of the new Church, not the old church, we’d have no tired old Sunday school and Training Union and Wednesday night suppers and Stewardship Sundays and Deacons meetings and church councils and capital campaigns and mission trips,

But it’s new church, with love and care and hope and more love and care and hope and then a little more love and care and hope mixed in. The only thing I’d take from the old model is worship and a lot of fried chicken.

If I were the architect of the new Church, no one would get God wrong. In fact, Church wouldn’t tell about God. You would instead tell the Church about the kind of God you serve. And your God would overlap with my God, in some very lovely ways, but it would be okay if your God was different from my God.

If I were the architect of the new Church, the Pastor would no longer be the holder of secrets. You’d never keep to yourself that you’re going to lose your house, that you’d had an abortion, that you’re going through a rough patch in your marriage, that you’re gay, that you’ve lost your job, that you’re waiting on test results, that you’re sad, or lonely. The pastor’s job would be to help you share your secrets. Because the pastor knows that you’re not the only person going through what you’re going through.

If I were the architect of the church, you would know that the balance in your checking account doesn’t determine your worth as a human being.

If I were the architect of the new Church, the budget would read so differently. We’d pay for salaries and space, then we’d have a budget line where everybody wrote about all the wonderful things they were doing with their money so that we would know that our church was making a difference in the world. One person would be feeding the hungry, one person would be digging water wells, one person would be buying cows, and another fixing the ozone layer. Our missions budget would be through the roof, but it would be through your roof, not ours, because it would come out of your budget, not ours, and we’d be changing the world through our actions.

If I were the architect of the church, we wouldn’t mess up our children. We would understand that our kids are going to grow up with some gaps, but as a community, we would help fill those gaps. And when our children became different than us, we’d get to see how great they are, through the eyes of the community, because communities see better than individuals. And when our children grew up and turned back to us, saying, “You messed me up!” we’d smile, know that they needed to say it, apologize, because they need to hear it, and offer ourselves compassion. And we’d extend compassion to our kids.

If I were the architect of the church, we wouldn’t have marketing campaigns, we wouldn’t target people, we wouldn’t need to pay for advertising. There’d be no us and them.

If I were the architect of the new Church, you’d be the expert on theology, on life, and on God.

Oh! Wait!

You already are! But that’s just it, isn’t it? I’m not the architect of the church. You are!

Passion with Compassion. A Sermon

Mark 10:2-16

78.
Nothing is softer
or more yielding
than water.
Yet, given time,
it can erode even the hardest stone.
That’s how the weak
can defeat the strong,
and the supple
can win out over the stiff.
Everybody knows it.
So why don’t we apply it to our own lives?

Lao Tzu used to say:
“Take on people’s problems,
and you can be their leader.
Deal with the world’s problems,
and you’ll be a Master.”
Sometimes the truth makes no sense.

~Tao Te Ching, translated by Ron Hogan

As you’ll (no doubt) remember, we started a few weeks ago with the idea that the job of the church is to ONLY NOTICE, to notice pain, sorrow and joy in people and to be WITNESSES to that. Then last week, we talked about the radical restructuring of many aspects of our culture, all based in this concept of open source, and the implications of open source on religion is just stunning. First, it’s a move towards decentralization and away from hierarchies. Second, it is open for anyone to create and innovate and share, if they want to which means it’s more inclusive, less dogmatic. Third, we share in the capitalization of it, but we don’t gain monetarily like we would if we capitalize it, we probably let go of property. Fourth, we have no control over it, and we give up the illusion of control, too. And fifth, we do our part and let the spirit go from there.

I’ve been mostly struck with the role of the church in society, if church is indeed open source, and if indeed, these changes are on the horizon. And, truth be told, I’ve been thinking about the role of clergy, too. If there is this radical decentralization, and this real sense of inclusion, what do pastors do? And if we let go of property, do we really need pastors, if they’re not going to be the executive directors of non-profit organizations?

So let me just tell you. I have come upon the reason for the church this week, and it’s two-fold. The first reason for the church? To foster passion. And what’s our church’s theological word for passion? It’s calling.

I tweeted a question, “What would it mean if the church’s job was to foster passion. One minister friend texted back, “we’d better become a lot more tolerant of mistakes!” And in this new vision of church, we’ve covered that! We are more tolerant, even celebrating our differences. More »