Once again, my apologies for limited postings. This is a rough quarter for me, but I promise I'll get back at it. Its my last year at seminary, so there's lots of things to consider. And maybe sometime, like Ryan, I'll have to shut down my blog so I'm more marketable :) Until then, read on.
One of the blessings of my current job is that I've gotten the opportunity to dip my feet into the waters of ecumenism like never before. I've had experiences in the past of bi-lateral ecumenical projects, working with one or (at the most) two churches on a mutual interest. The sadness of the Greenville situation is that, with churches feeling the inevitable pocketbook pinch the parishoners are feeling, staff and programs are being cut at such an alarming rate that our only choice is to link up on things. Its a blessing in disguise.
I've gotten the opportunity most recently to be involved with a couple different community-wide youth ministry groups. What I find interesting is that when senior pastors get together, they often meet at a fancy restaurant and function largely as a social support group. Of course, that's needed, but what's been great about the youth groups is that they're very much action-oriented. It makes sense, after all, that we plan events together if our kids all go to the same schools and are faced by the same issues in the community. We get to pool our expertise and get to pool our knowledge.
Theoretically, this works, and, for the most part, I'm appreciative of them, like I said. But like anything, there's pitfalls. So, for as apt as I am to paint rosy pictures of ecumenicity, here goes some ventures of critique.
My main thesis is what my title says: ecumenical bodies look like and function like the U.N. Now why is that bad, you say? My wife will tell me that the U.N. is the greatest thing ever to happen to the world, and I'll agree to a point. The problem, of course, is two-fold. On the one hand, the U.N. gets held captive by the reluctant and the crazy and the rich (or some combination of the three). On the other hand, because the U.N. has the interests of everybody in mind, it really has the interests of nobody in mind. Its very similar in community ecumenical groups. When the senior pastor group runs a community dinner for poor people, the rich people foot the bill, the church with the most volunteers hold the most influence, and the few crazies in the group are the loudest ones of all, wagging their fingers at people, telling them they'll go to hell if they don't repent over their mashed potatoes. When the local ultra-fundamentalist church puts in their bulletin the following Sunday that 25 people "got saved" through the free turkey give-away, and the Methodist Church can't recall anyone coming to faith, you see the heart of the matter. Or consider the other scenario: the community youth pastors band together to host "insert-crazy-youth-event-here". Many kids come, but have no clue who put it on or how to move along in this new fascination they've found. If you allow one youth pastor to hand out business cards, you open the floodgates for crazy recruitment fairs instead of sensitive youth events.
Like everything, the answer has to be somewhere in the middle. If you read my blog a lot, you'll remember my comparison of the CRC folk and the Amish in our community. That's not a good alternative, but polite hand-shaking community events aren't the answer either. I've more and more been leaning on what Steve Anthony is doing in Toledo, OH. He runs an organization which unifies local churches like a denomination.....not based around doctrine, but based around common interests (ie, local poverty, local schools, gospel missions, shelters, etc.). So, you set up an administrator for the "ministry shares" to be dispensed instead of each church fighting the daily barrage of people asking for electric bill payments (my daily exercise of answering machine cleaning). In addition, the churches participate in mutual agreements about encouraging Christian accountability by fighting church shoppers. Each church agrees to not receive members (or even deter visitors) who have not made peace with their former congregation and been "released" by their council/board. Its radical, but its realistic and effective.
In the end, the needs will inform the means. If you're in a community like ours where needs are so great, then a coordinated effort of Anthony's model is about the best thing one can think of. In other scenarios, the needs may be different and so should the means. What this requires is a great degree of trust and a great deal of theological humility. To be sure, we in the CRC can take this lesson to heart, but its just as true of conservative Lutherans or Baptists, as well. We often practice what Pope Benedict preaches: our church is the only true church and the others are a nice try. Make the starting point "The Church" not, "our church" and maybe we'll start getting somewhere.
Showing posts with label Ecumenism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ecumenism. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Monday, June 25, 2007
Letters from Arminia
Once upon a time, there was me. Me, being a good little Reformed boy knew the Heidelberg Catechism like the back of my hand. For fun, I used to page through the tune name index of the gray hymnal and looking for congruences between the Canons of Dort and the Westminster Shorter Catechism. Now I find myself in a place where none of that really matters, where we daily walk the line between the Church falling apart and staying together, and where I learn lessons everyday about how the majority of Christendom operates. This is Arminia.
Not very many towns in America are absent of some sort of Presbyterian Church. The ones that are usually have some sort of UCC or Reformed presence somewhere in their midst. Rarely, especially in Michigan, do you find a town where there is not a Reformed soul to be found. A town where the Lutherans are almost ready to close the last of their 3 churches, the baptists welcome people to town with condemning phrases from the KJV, and the Christian minority is almost entirely Catholic, Congregationalist or Wesleyan. Welcome to Greenville.
I wouldn't be surprised if I was the first Calvin Seminary student/graduate every to work in this town, of if I was the first commuter to the Calvin campus in the city's long history. Reformed thought is irrelevant here, it would seem.
Ironically, however, I would like to dissuade people from believing that Arminians are inevitably bent on their own personal choice to the exclusion of all else, that they baptize every congregant every Sunday, and that a Reformed person can get chewed up and spit out within a few Wesleyan sermons. I believe that this is untrue just as much as I believe its untrue that election is a core belief in many of our Reformed communities in this country. The Church is a melting pot, just like the US, and that might just be okay.
People often ask me how I can exist at an Arminian church. How can you reconcile your beliefs with theirs? How can you sit through a worship service, a sermon, an altar call? How do you deal with perfectionism and the like?
Many people describe my senior pastor and I as people who have "agreed to disagree" on some theological topics, and since we get along well, you might think that. However, I think the greater truth is that we both acknowledge what I wrote about in my previous blog. Calvinism and Arminianism, while both eloquent and well defended against one another, are simply a peephole into the grandness and wondrousness that is the actual theology of God, or that which God knows about himself. How we speak about God, our theology, is but a speck of dust compared to God's theology, or how he speaks about himself. If any theologian would deny that to me, I think I might have to pop him in the face.
My senior pastor, Dave, is not an hard-core Arminian. He does not believe that people can achieve perfection this side of glory, as Wesley hinted at in his later years. He's offended by determinism and fatalism, the flaws that he sees in Reformed thought, especially hyper-Calvinism. But then again, so am I. I shudder at the thought that we're just stagnated linemen on some cosmic foosball table, and I don't think its Biblical either. I like theologians, like Aquinas, who give me a way out here. They identify God as the primary actor, but do not push the ideas of election/predestination/etc. While I might confess those if you held a sword to my neck, its not necessary for my daily ministry that I push those on my laity. In fact, I think Dave and I would both say quite openly that while we're comfortable in our own theological recliners, neither of us would be surprised if, at the end of time, Jesus lays out a far different theology than anything Calvin, Wesley, Aquinas, Augustine, Luther, Chrysostom, or anyone else has laid out. Why? They're not God.
While we've come a long way from the way Calvin treated Servetus and how the Reformers treated the Anabaptists, its sad that we really still just don't get it. In communities around the world, ecumenism is broken down by theological cockiness. There are a lot of pastors and churches that just plain weird me out. Some of them are Arminian, some of them are Reformed, and some of them are so "out there" that I can't identify them. Recognize the affinity that you have with people across denominational lines because they, like you, hold up the primacy of Scripture, which is so trampled in today's world and because learn from the things they do better than you. Our church's worship library is now a fully-integrated Reformed/Wesleyan resource, and I hope the same would be true if I find myself in a Reformed congregation someday.
Few Reformed people get the opportunity that I get to see the inner workings of a solid, comparable, Arminian denomination from as up close and personal as you can get. I continue to urge as many people from both sides of the table to sit down and talk....sit down and cooperate. Often times, you will have far more in common than you think. And remember, no matter how big your allegiance to Calvin, Luther, Aquinas, or Wesley is, your greater allegiance is to the Lamb of God, who is not a follower of any of those four. Let God's theology of Himself and His Church increase as your theology of God and His Church decreases. And let all churches, Calvinistic and Arminian alike, ascent "soli deo gloria."
Not very many towns in America are absent of some sort of Presbyterian Church. The ones that are usually have some sort of UCC or Reformed presence somewhere in their midst. Rarely, especially in Michigan, do you find a town where there is not a Reformed soul to be found. A town where the Lutherans are almost ready to close the last of their 3 churches, the baptists welcome people to town with condemning phrases from the KJV, and the Christian minority is almost entirely Catholic, Congregationalist or Wesleyan. Welcome to Greenville.
I wouldn't be surprised if I was the first Calvin Seminary student/graduate every to work in this town, of if I was the first commuter to the Calvin campus in the city's long history. Reformed thought is irrelevant here, it would seem.
Ironically, however, I would like to dissuade people from believing that Arminians are inevitably bent on their own personal choice to the exclusion of all else, that they baptize every congregant every Sunday, and that a Reformed person can get chewed up and spit out within a few Wesleyan sermons. I believe that this is untrue just as much as I believe its untrue that election is a core belief in many of our Reformed communities in this country. The Church is a melting pot, just like the US, and that might just be okay.
People often ask me how I can exist at an Arminian church. How can you reconcile your beliefs with theirs? How can you sit through a worship service, a sermon, an altar call? How do you deal with perfectionism and the like?
Many people describe my senior pastor and I as people who have "agreed to disagree" on some theological topics, and since we get along well, you might think that. However, I think the greater truth is that we both acknowledge what I wrote about in my previous blog. Calvinism and Arminianism, while both eloquent and well defended against one another, are simply a peephole into the grandness and wondrousness that is the actual theology of God, or that which God knows about himself. How we speak about God, our theology, is but a speck of dust compared to God's theology, or how he speaks about himself. If any theologian would deny that to me, I think I might have to pop him in the face.
My senior pastor, Dave, is not an hard-core Arminian. He does not believe that people can achieve perfection this side of glory, as Wesley hinted at in his later years. He's offended by determinism and fatalism, the flaws that he sees in Reformed thought, especially hyper-Calvinism. But then again, so am I. I shudder at the thought that we're just stagnated linemen on some cosmic foosball table, and I don't think its Biblical either. I like theologians, like Aquinas, who give me a way out here. They identify God as the primary actor, but do not push the ideas of election/predestination/etc. While I might confess those if you held a sword to my neck, its not necessary for my daily ministry that I push those on my laity. In fact, I think Dave and I would both say quite openly that while we're comfortable in our own theological recliners, neither of us would be surprised if, at the end of time, Jesus lays out a far different theology than anything Calvin, Wesley, Aquinas, Augustine, Luther, Chrysostom, or anyone else has laid out. Why? They're not God.
While we've come a long way from the way Calvin treated Servetus and how the Reformers treated the Anabaptists, its sad that we really still just don't get it. In communities around the world, ecumenism is broken down by theological cockiness. There are a lot of pastors and churches that just plain weird me out. Some of them are Arminian, some of them are Reformed, and some of them are so "out there" that I can't identify them. Recognize the affinity that you have with people across denominational lines because they, like you, hold up the primacy of Scripture, which is so trampled in today's world and because learn from the things they do better than you. Our church's worship library is now a fully-integrated Reformed/Wesleyan resource, and I hope the same would be true if I find myself in a Reformed congregation someday.
Few Reformed people get the opportunity that I get to see the inner workings of a solid, comparable, Arminian denomination from as up close and personal as you can get. I continue to urge as many people from both sides of the table to sit down and talk....sit down and cooperate. Often times, you will have far more in common than you think. And remember, no matter how big your allegiance to Calvin, Luther, Aquinas, or Wesley is, your greater allegiance is to the Lamb of God, who is not a follower of any of those four. Let God's theology of Himself and His Church increase as your theology of God and His Church decreases. And let all churches, Calvinistic and Arminian alike, ascent "soli deo gloria."
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Points of Contact
I've had an increasing number of conversations in the past couple weeks about the fact that there is a difficult balance in churches between creating a community within a congregation (or tradition) and making that a gated community. There's two particular situations which have come to my attention because of my current position, which has both led me to see things in the denomination I currently serve and, for the first time, being an outsider of my other denomination within an observable distance. Its also come from conversations with pastors, parishoners, class discussions, and other observations. What I don't mean to do is call anyone out or be abrasive, for all of the communities I will talk about are communities which I have grown to love.
A Tale of Two Islands
The town which I live in has various ministry opportunities and challenges which I've addressed previously, but our community is one that encompasses a large portion of rural community surrounding it because we're the last outpost with retail/restaurants before the dead expanse which is central Michigan. For this reason, our church draws from not just one community, but rather four or five within 20 miles of the city. Throughout my travels and interactions thus far, I have been able to profile other churches in our community, for good or for ill. We have two faith communities in our larger geographic area which stand out to me as similar: the Amish community to the north, and the Christian Reformed community to the south. At first glance, my CRC readers will wonder at this comparison, but that's intended. The similarity? Both communities have few points of contact with the community at large. In my interactions with community church groups, shopping, eating out, etc., I've never once run into a CRC person, although I often meet Methodists, Baptists, Catholics, and Congregationalists. Of course, the Amish shoot for this "set-apart"-ness, but what causes CRC folk to be like that? The first and most obvious thing to me is Christian school/public school dynamic. I attend public school events weekly (sometimes more often) such as sporting events, concerts, etc. There I meet members of other churches and non-believers. People care passionately about their local school system, often even more than their own church. I would suspect that if one of my parishoners were to try and establish a friendship with a family who sent their kids to the Christian school (which is sequestered out in the country, just like the Amish school), their conversations would not go all that far because the experience is not common enough. For the Amish and the CRC, both churches lie about five miles out of town, and this symbolic non-presence in the community is not overcome easily because its practical effects are far-reaching. The second is a class issue. The local CRC's in our area are suspected by people of being upper middle class. Once again, having expendable income for Christian education is not something most of our parishoners can understand. Upper middle class people often have a much higher liturgical preference, as well. We've discussed this with other churches in our town, which is progressively becoming lower class. People don't want academically-driven preaching and high liturgy. That was hard for me to swallow as a worship planner/preacher, but its true. This was reinforced by a CRC pastor I met with who ministers in inner city Grand Rapids. Even though his people live in close proximity to the church (which is rare for the inner part of GR), they can't make inroads into the community for the same two reasons: kids are in different schools and class issues. Schools are the centers of community life, often, and if those communities are different than the larger community, points of contact are diminished greatly. Five years ago, I might have resonated with this concept, but I see it now much more clearly: I want you to join my church, but I won't invest my time or children into your schools, and you should worship on my terms. Don't take me as nay-saying Christian education or the CRC, or even our local one (they do a great community pre-school). Plus, Christian schools paid the bill for our house for the first 18 years of my life. However, if we are going to willingly forfeit huge quantities of points of contact with our communities, then it would be an offense to the Great Commission if we don't put programs and attitudes in place to counteract these effects. The
Plank in Our Own Eye
I would be remiss to cast stones at the Amish and CRC here if I'm not willing to look at the denomination I currently serve as well. If we're talking about created communities without gating them, its important to identify where our possible gates might go up. For the last two examples, its physical distance from the community, schooling choices, liturgical preference, class limitations, etc. For the Church of God, at least one of these is denominational association. I have had multiple people come talk to me about how greatful they are that I've come in from another tradition because I don't speak Church of God-ese. This denomination has such great ministries, a great intellectual tradition, great inter-connections. All these things are great, and we gain great benefit from them. However, when an outsider who comes in, its often difficult to learn that denominational language. What's Anderson? Why are adults going to camp? Who is considered Youth? What is State? I thought St. Louis was in Missouri. What are heritage songs? What's a Jesus Birthday Offering? What's the difference between SYC, IYC, ISL, ATL and YISL? Good questions! I've finally figured some of them out, but these types of things are big hinderances to someone coming in from the outside. My wife and I were talking the other day about how learning this Church of God language helps us reflect upon similar community gating in our denomination of origin. Most notable among these is Christian education, but liturgical inaccessibility and theological snobbery/preoccupation are other major concerns as we observe the CRC from the outside.
Ungating the Community
If there's any sort of conclusion to be made, I think that all churches and denominations face these kinds of issues, but it is the responsibility of the particular group to counteract the effects of their potential community gating. Christian education and denominational community are both good things, but can become pitfalls if they become the major concern of the given body. Counteracting these will hopefully give us the points of contact with our communities that lend themselves to reaching out to others in the name of Jesus.
A Tale of Two Islands
The town which I live in has various ministry opportunities and challenges which I've addressed previously, but our community is one that encompasses a large portion of rural community surrounding it because we're the last outpost with retail/restaurants before the dead expanse which is central Michigan. For this reason, our church draws from not just one community, but rather four or five within 20 miles of the city. Throughout my travels and interactions thus far, I have been able to profile other churches in our community, for good or for ill. We have two faith communities in our larger geographic area which stand out to me as similar: the Amish community to the north, and the Christian Reformed community to the south. At first glance, my CRC readers will wonder at this comparison, but that's intended. The similarity? Both communities have few points of contact with the community at large. In my interactions with community church groups, shopping, eating out, etc., I've never once run into a CRC person, although I often meet Methodists, Baptists, Catholics, and Congregationalists. Of course, the Amish shoot for this "set-apart"-ness, but what causes CRC folk to be like that? The first and most obvious thing to me is Christian school/public school dynamic. I attend public school events weekly (sometimes more often) such as sporting events, concerts, etc. There I meet members of other churches and non-believers. People care passionately about their local school system, often even more than their own church. I would suspect that if one of my parishoners were to try and establish a friendship with a family who sent their kids to the Christian school (which is sequestered out in the country, just like the Amish school), their conversations would not go all that far because the experience is not common enough. For the Amish and the CRC, both churches lie about five miles out of town, and this symbolic non-presence in the community is not overcome easily because its practical effects are far-reaching. The second is a class issue. The local CRC's in our area are suspected by people of being upper middle class. Once again, having expendable income for Christian education is not something most of our parishoners can understand. Upper middle class people often have a much higher liturgical preference, as well. We've discussed this with other churches in our town, which is progressively becoming lower class. People don't want academically-driven preaching and high liturgy. That was hard for me to swallow as a worship planner/preacher, but its true. This was reinforced by a CRC pastor I met with who ministers in inner city Grand Rapids. Even though his people live in close proximity to the church (which is rare for the inner part of GR), they can't make inroads into the community for the same two reasons: kids are in different schools and class issues. Schools are the centers of community life, often, and if those communities are different than the larger community, points of contact are diminished greatly. Five years ago, I might have resonated with this concept, but I see it now much more clearly: I want you to join my church, but I won't invest my time or children into your schools, and you should worship on my terms. Don't take me as nay-saying Christian education or the CRC, or even our local one (they do a great community pre-school). Plus, Christian schools paid the bill for our house for the first 18 years of my life. However, if we are going to willingly forfeit huge quantities of points of contact with our communities, then it would be an offense to the Great Commission if we don't put programs and attitudes in place to counteract these effects. The
Plank in Our Own Eye
I would be remiss to cast stones at the Amish and CRC here if I'm not willing to look at the denomination I currently serve as well. If we're talking about created communities without gating them, its important to identify where our possible gates might go up. For the last two examples, its physical distance from the community, schooling choices, liturgical preference, class limitations, etc. For the Church of God, at least one of these is denominational association. I have had multiple people come talk to me about how greatful they are that I've come in from another tradition because I don't speak Church of God-ese. This denomination has such great ministries, a great intellectual tradition, great inter-connections. All these things are great, and we gain great benefit from them. However, when an outsider who comes in, its often difficult to learn that denominational language. What's Anderson? Why are adults going to camp? Who is considered Youth? What is State? I thought St. Louis was in Missouri. What are heritage songs? What's a Jesus Birthday Offering? What's the difference between SYC, IYC, ISL, ATL and YISL? Good questions! I've finally figured some of them out, but these types of things are big hinderances to someone coming in from the outside. My wife and I were talking the other day about how learning this Church of God language helps us reflect upon similar community gating in our denomination of origin. Most notable among these is Christian education, but liturgical inaccessibility and theological snobbery/preoccupation are other major concerns as we observe the CRC from the outside.
Ungating the Community
If there's any sort of conclusion to be made, I think that all churches and denominations face these kinds of issues, but it is the responsibility of the particular group to counteract the effects of their potential community gating. Christian education and denominational community are both good things, but can become pitfalls if they become the major concern of the given body. Counteracting these will hopefully give us the points of contact with our communities that lend themselves to reaching out to others in the name of Jesus.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
A Foot-Washing Hierarchy
I haven't been on the job very long at my new Church of God family in Greenville, but the entirety of my two months in this denomination has taught me vast things about differences and similarities between it and my previous two denominational experiences (Christian Reformed and PCUSA).
First and foremost, my experience thus far has further engrained in me the utter silliness of denominational differences. Some people find me to be wacky, unorthodox or impractical when I make statements like that, but its the truth. Greenville is very similar to Salem, NY, the city I served in a couple years ago, and similar to many cities in this nation right now, from many accounts. The fact of the matter is that the Church is in the dying minority in so many cities across our nation, whether we will admit it or not. Some of these cities, like Salem and Greenville, have this to a more advanced extent than others. Its hard to believe that a city 30 minutes from Grand Rapids could have such a small population of Christians, but my initial estimates put this city at about 1 in 15 weekly attending Christians.
1 in 15.
What that means, in conjunction with the massive poverty and job loss in our community, is that we have no choice but to bond together. Unfortunately, it is often the tough times that cause our bonding, but it is bonding nonetheless. I meet monthly with a group of youth pastors who span Lutheran, Catholic, Congregational, Orthodox Presbyterian, Non-Denominational, and myself from the Church of God. Our pastor is involved in similar groups which do similar sorts of ecumenical ministry. We need eachother and the rest of the denominational world will figure that out at some point, I know. One more point for comparison. Having been intimately involved with my past 3 congregations, West Hebron, Calvary, and Greenville First, I am willing to make the bold statement that, minus infant baptism & Catechism references, the worship, the confession, the committee structures, and even the sermons would be interchangeable at face value. That's quite a statement in and of itself - and its not one I made, rather it is one they are each making to the world, implictly ecumenical if not explicity.
Enough of a prologue. The real point of this blog is to affirm something in the Church of God that I am both fascinated with and covet for my own faith tradition in the Reformed faith: hierarchy. If you are a good modern Calvinist, you'll regard what I just said as a cuss word. After all, that's what we split from! We hated the corruption that Catholic hierarchy brought. We were even disdained at Luther's holdover, and more recently, the Anglicans/Episcopalians. However, what we gained by eliminating that hierarchy is burning out pastors today at an alarming rate not only in the CRC, but in others like her who leave pastors of churches as lone rangers.
A contrast is helpful. Church groups in the Church of God in the US are done by state. It helps to have a large enough denomination to do this, but its the geographical thought that counts. So far, there's an analogy in the classical system of the CRC. As opposed to the typical classis, however, whose meetings last for a morning on a Saturday, State General Assembly meetings are a two-day event with live worship, fellowship and pastoral education. The state affiliation goes far beyond this two-day event, however. The state hires its own staff. We have a state pastor, a state youth pastor, and numerous other employees that facilitate the work of the individual congregations. Underneath the state pastor are several regional pastors who look after and mind pastors at churches as well as serving their own.
One of the key benefits of this system is that pastors are not left out to dry. Most pastors start as associate pastors with a bachelor's degree working under an experienced pastor. Some go to seminary, but some move straight on to ordination. Whoa! People need seminary! Really? How much do you know about St. Augustine or others in the middle ages who became pastors by mentorship or apprenticing. Just a conspiracy theory to try on for size: Could it be that non-hierarchical traditions need seminaries as a buffer because toughness is essential since once these students achieve ordination they are on their own? A seminary student is now judged ready for ministry by a psychologist's recommendations, rather than an apprenticeship. Calvin Seminary recently abandoned its traditional 2 concurrent years and 1 year internship field education requirements for a Lilly-dictated 15 weeks of real pastoral experience before ordination. 15 weeks before we set pastors loose in the church!
15 weeks.
This is not to say the CRC isn't making moves in this direction. It has to. In my estimation, that need will grow if we refuse to apprentice our young pastors with different levels of readiness. The CRC has created a Pastor-Church Relations office and an initiative called Sustaining Pastoral Excellence which provides opportunities for mentorship, peer learning, and continuing education. Unfortunately, these are still very optional. My home classis recently hired a part-time classical youth coordinator, which is an inspired move for a classis of small churches. We must acknowledge the benefits of regionalization and localization of ministries within the denomination. We're beginning to see it, but I want to point out the beauty of the Church of God's structure. No pastor is a lone ranger: they cannot be. I am thankful to be a part of both traditions during formative years as a young pastor. May our future pastors be open to this kind of molding.
First and foremost, my experience thus far has further engrained in me the utter silliness of denominational differences. Some people find me to be wacky, unorthodox or impractical when I make statements like that, but its the truth. Greenville is very similar to Salem, NY, the city I served in a couple years ago, and similar to many cities in this nation right now, from many accounts. The fact of the matter is that the Church is in the dying minority in so many cities across our nation, whether we will admit it or not. Some of these cities, like Salem and Greenville, have this to a more advanced extent than others. Its hard to believe that a city 30 minutes from Grand Rapids could have such a small population of Christians, but my initial estimates put this city at about 1 in 15 weekly attending Christians.
1 in 15.
What that means, in conjunction with the massive poverty and job loss in our community, is that we have no choice but to bond together. Unfortunately, it is often the tough times that cause our bonding, but it is bonding nonetheless. I meet monthly with a group of youth pastors who span Lutheran, Catholic, Congregational, Orthodox Presbyterian, Non-Denominational, and myself from the Church of God. Our pastor is involved in similar groups which do similar sorts of ecumenical ministry. We need eachother and the rest of the denominational world will figure that out at some point, I know. One more point for comparison. Having been intimately involved with my past 3 congregations, West Hebron, Calvary, and Greenville First, I am willing to make the bold statement that, minus infant baptism & Catechism references, the worship, the confession, the committee structures, and even the sermons would be interchangeable at face value. That's quite a statement in and of itself - and its not one I made, rather it is one they are each making to the world, implictly ecumenical if not explicity.
Enough of a prologue. The real point of this blog is to affirm something in the Church of God that I am both fascinated with and covet for my own faith tradition in the Reformed faith: hierarchy. If you are a good modern Calvinist, you'll regard what I just said as a cuss word. After all, that's what we split from! We hated the corruption that Catholic hierarchy brought. We were even disdained at Luther's holdover, and more recently, the Anglicans/Episcopalians. However, what we gained by eliminating that hierarchy is burning out pastors today at an alarming rate not only in the CRC, but in others like her who leave pastors of churches as lone rangers.
A contrast is helpful. Church groups in the Church of God in the US are done by state. It helps to have a large enough denomination to do this, but its the geographical thought that counts. So far, there's an analogy in the classical system of the CRC. As opposed to the typical classis, however, whose meetings last for a morning on a Saturday, State General Assembly meetings are a two-day event with live worship, fellowship and pastoral education. The state affiliation goes far beyond this two-day event, however. The state hires its own staff. We have a state pastor, a state youth pastor, and numerous other employees that facilitate the work of the individual congregations. Underneath the state pastor are several regional pastors who look after and mind pastors at churches as well as serving their own.
One of the key benefits of this system is that pastors are not left out to dry. Most pastors start as associate pastors with a bachelor's degree working under an experienced pastor. Some go to seminary, but some move straight on to ordination. Whoa! People need seminary! Really? How much do you know about St. Augustine or others in the middle ages who became pastors by mentorship or apprenticing. Just a conspiracy theory to try on for size: Could it be that non-hierarchical traditions need seminaries as a buffer because toughness is essential since once these students achieve ordination they are on their own? A seminary student is now judged ready for ministry by a psychologist's recommendations, rather than an apprenticeship. Calvin Seminary recently abandoned its traditional 2 concurrent years and 1 year internship field education requirements for a Lilly-dictated 15 weeks of real pastoral experience before ordination. 15 weeks before we set pastors loose in the church!
15 weeks.
This is not to say the CRC isn't making moves in this direction. It has to. In my estimation, that need will grow if we refuse to apprentice our young pastors with different levels of readiness. The CRC has created a Pastor-Church Relations office and an initiative called Sustaining Pastoral Excellence which provides opportunities for mentorship, peer learning, and continuing education. Unfortunately, these are still very optional. My home classis recently hired a part-time classical youth coordinator, which is an inspired move for a classis of small churches. We must acknowledge the benefits of regionalization and localization of ministries within the denomination. We're beginning to see it, but I want to point out the beauty of the Church of God's structure. No pastor is a lone ranger: they cannot be. I am thankful to be a part of both traditions during formative years as a young pastor. May our future pastors be open to this kind of molding.
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