Thursday, August 30, 2007
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
What's the Pay Off? (Part One)
Put any two clergy in a room and if they don’t start yapping about homosexuality they’ll whip out their Day Planners and fire the gun to begin the ecclesiastical pissing match.
Who’s busier? Who prayed at the most hospital beds? Who stood at the most gravesites? Who endured the longest, most pointless meeting?
That’s what clergy talk about when we get together. Sad, isn’t it? It's no wonder so many clergy are taking early retirement, gobbling down Paxil, or hitting the bottle.
My bishop has mounted a jihad against clergy burnout. He’s loosing too many clergy to other, “less stressful,” jobs. One pastor retired to sell Audis. One young pastor walked away from his parish to take an MBA. Yet another hung up his collar to tinker with muscle cars all day. Some are just grabbing their pension and running.
Clergy are leaving. Like rats on the Lusitania.
Bishop Ron is worried that if the trend continues there won’t be any pastors left to serve our churches. Especially in the rural areas. After all, there are 33 churches without pastors here in Alberta. Something needs to be done.
Part of his solution is that pastors need to take better care of themselves. Clergy need to take our day off. Take ALL our vacation. Eat right and exercise. We need to remember the Sabbath.
Problem solved , right?
Maybe.
I had a colleague back in Ontario who so internalized this advice that he wouldn’t respond to an emergency on his day off. “Sorry about the car accident, but it’s my day off. Grandpa will still be dead tomorrow morning, right?”
Is that what Jesus meant when he asked up to keep the Sabbath holy?
I don’t think that the issue is too many suppers away from home. I think the clergy are suffering a crisis of meaning. Many of us don’t know what we’re doing, or why.
We think that if we’re busy, then we’re needed. And if we’re needed, then we’re important. If we’re important, then our work matters to the world.
So, with deference to Bishop Ron’s injunction against clergy burn out, I think we need to look deeper at who we are and what we do we a church. We don’t have the culture’s respect like we once did.
It’s been noted that clergy don’t have the social status that they once had. Nor are we the most educated people in our parish – or town – like we were just 30 – 40 years ago.
So that might help root out those who are doing “the Lord’s work” for their own egos. But where does that leave the rest of us? Those who are labouring in God’s vineyard until
our hands are raw and faces scorched from the wind?
Bishop Mike from the east said that pastors are those who keep the embers burning, stoking the fire, feeding it occasionally. I like that. Sort of. But I’d like to chase a more challenging goal than keeping the light from blowing out. I want to see it grow.
Sometimes I wonder if we read about Jeff Immelt walking on organizational water, Steve Jobs “putting a dent in the universe,” or Gary Doer winning his third straight majority, we wonder what our payoff is.
Conversions to Jesus? Transformed lives? The opportunity to play dress-up each week?
How do we quantify our efforts?
Who’s busier? Who prayed at the most hospital beds? Who stood at the most gravesites? Who endured the longest, most pointless meeting?
That’s what clergy talk about when we get together. Sad, isn’t it? It's no wonder so many clergy are taking early retirement, gobbling down Paxil, or hitting the bottle.
My bishop has mounted a jihad against clergy burnout. He’s loosing too many clergy to other, “less stressful,” jobs. One pastor retired to sell Audis. One young pastor walked away from his parish to take an MBA. Yet another hung up his collar to tinker with muscle cars all day. Some are just grabbing their pension and running.
Clergy are leaving. Like rats on the Lusitania.
Bishop Ron is worried that if the trend continues there won’t be any pastors left to serve our churches. Especially in the rural areas. After all, there are 33 churches without pastors here in Alberta. Something needs to be done.
Part of his solution is that pastors need to take better care of themselves. Clergy need to take our day off. Take ALL our vacation. Eat right and exercise. We need to remember the Sabbath.
Problem solved , right?
Maybe.
I had a colleague back in Ontario who so internalized this advice that he wouldn’t respond to an emergency on his day off. “Sorry about the car accident, but it’s my day off. Grandpa will still be dead tomorrow morning, right?”
Is that what Jesus meant when he asked up to keep the Sabbath holy?
I don’t think that the issue is too many suppers away from home. I think the clergy are suffering a crisis of meaning. Many of us don’t know what we’re doing, or why.
We think that if we’re busy, then we’re needed. And if we’re needed, then we’re important. If we’re important, then our work matters to the world.
So, with deference to Bishop Ron’s injunction against clergy burn out, I think we need to look deeper at who we are and what we do we a church. We don’t have the culture’s respect like we once did.
It’s been noted that clergy don’t have the social status that they once had. Nor are we the most educated people in our parish – or town – like we were just 30 – 40 years ago.
So that might help root out those who are doing “the Lord’s work” for their own egos. But where does that leave the rest of us? Those who are labouring in God’s vineyard until
our hands are raw and faces scorched from the wind?
Bishop Mike from the east said that pastors are those who keep the embers burning, stoking the fire, feeding it occasionally. I like that. Sort of. But I’d like to chase a more challenging goal than keeping the light from blowing out. I want to see it grow.
Sometimes I wonder if we read about Jeff Immelt walking on organizational water, Steve Jobs “putting a dent in the universe,” or Gary Doer winning his third straight majority, we wonder what our payoff is.
Conversions to Jesus? Transformed lives? The opportunity to play dress-up each week?
How do we quantify our efforts?
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Sermon: Pentecost 13 - Year C
So when preacher Jesus should have stuck to his script and distributed the pretty God-words they came to hear, Jesus had the temerity to heal someone.
“Hey there Jesus, that looks a lot like work to me,” the synagogue leader, probably the council president (sorry Herman) said, “You’ve got six days to do that healing the sick and raising the dead stuff. Today is for worship.”
The synagogue leader lays it on thick. How ‘bout it, Jesus? Do you pray enough? How much bible do you read everyday? How is your quiet time with God? You should know better. Is God that unimportant in your life?”
How would you have answered this synagogue leader? What do you do to hedge away some time or place to devote yourself to God? How do you honour the Sabbath?
And while we spit and sputter some kind of answer, Jesus is already on top of it, answering for us: “You hypocrite! Don’t you care for the people and creatures in your life that you love and depend on? Don’t you care for them even on the Sabbath?
The odd thing here is...(whole thing here)
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
The Five Worst Books I've Read So Far This Year
5. Erwin Raphael McManus, An Unstoppable Force
4. Byrne, Rhonda, The Secret
3. John Eldredge, Wild at Heart
2. John Jackson, PastorPreneur
1. Spencer Burke, A Heretic’s Guide to Eternity
4. Byrne, Rhonda, The Secret
3. John Eldredge, Wild at Heart
2. John Jackson, PastorPreneur
1. Spencer Burke, A Heretic’s Guide to Eternity
The Best Five Books I’ve Read So Far This Year
5. Bill Hybels, Holy Discontent
4. Michael Slaughter, UnLearning Church
3. Diana Butler Bass, Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church is Transforming the Faith
2. Anderson Cooper, Dispatches from the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival
1. Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner, The Leadership Challenge
4. Michael Slaughter, UnLearning Church
3. Diana Butler Bass, Christianity for the Rest of Us: How the Neighborhood Church is Transforming the Faith
2. Anderson Cooper, Dispatches from the Edge: A Memoir of War, Disasters, and Survival
1. Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner, The Leadership Challenge
Monday, August 20, 2007
Leaves
The leaves on the trees outside my house are starting to turn colour. Already. It seems to be getting earlier every year.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Sermon: Pentecost 12 - Year C
...what consequences do you bear as a Christian? What does your life proclaim?
Is the church a place where we sit up straight, hands on our laps, listen politely, and do what we’re told?
Or is the church a place where we are set on fire?
When I toured the new Christian radio station here in Lethbridge the station manager proudly promised that this station would be safe to listen to, in-offensive to anyone who might stumble upon their number on the dial.
“Is that what Christianity’s come down to?” I thought to myself. “Safe and inoffensive? Does that mean that we won’t hear readings like the one from today’s gospel? Or will they be glossed over with a Disneyfied version of our faith?” (the whole thing here)
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Which Church Father are You?
You’re Origen! You do nothing by half-measures. If you’re going to read the Bible, you want to read it in the original languages. If you’re going to teach, you’re going to reach as many souls as possible, through a proliferation of lectures and books. If you’re a guy and you’re going to fight for purity … well, you’d better hide the kitchen shears. Find out which Church Father you are at The Way of the Fathers! |
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Where the times goes...
It was four years ago today that I came out to Lethbridge from Halifax to interview at Good Shepherd.
Four years. Let me gnaw on that for a while.
Four years. Let me gnaw on that for a while.
Being the Answer to Our Own Prayers
O Lord, give us a mind that is humble, quiet, peaceable, patient and charitable, and a taste of your Holy Spirit in all our thoughts, words, and deeds.
O Lord, give us a lively faith, a firm hope, a fervent charity, a love of you.
Take from us all lukewarmness in meditation and all dullness in prayer.
Give us fervor and delight in thinking of you, your grace, and your tender compassion toward us.
Give us, good Lord, the grace to work for the things we pray for.
St Thomas More, 1478-1535, Patron Saint of Lawyers
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