From the ruins...

Charles Church & Drake Circus Shopping Centre; Plymouth, England (2012)

During World War II, historic Charles Church in Plymouth, England, was devastated along with much of the rest of the city in the Plymouth Blitz, carried out by the Nazi Luftwaffe. Being a major port city on the southern coast, Plymouth had long been (and still is) an important military position, and so was a target.

In 2006, the Drake Circus Shopping Centre was erected just behind the ruins of the church, which had sat unmolested for decades. As the photo above illustrates, it was certainly no accident that the design of the mall's facade incorporates and frames in the ruins of the church, now an historic landmark in the city centre.

We visited Plymouth in 2012 and I took the photo above. I had first noticed this ruined-church/thriving-mall arrangement from the window of our hotel (on the left), and chuckled to myself. It certainly sends a message...

Economics and spiritual calling

(This is a kind of part 2 to my last post...)

As I said in my previous post, we live in an age of stagnant wages and widening economic inequality, and more and more intelligent people are starting to point out that this isn't some kind of technical glitch in the global capitalist system, but it is rather this way by design. The old "rich get richer/poor get poorer" line is what makes this whole thing tick. Or to use Thomas Piketty's recent formula: r > g. Return on revenue (r) will always outpace economic growth (g) in the current system, or at least that's how it's worked in the past few hundred years of the current system.

So the middle class in the US today is getting pinched harder than ever. People have to work harder and harder just to get by. A pretty standard middle class lifestyle is now incredibly difficult to finance. Professional clergy have traditionally been members of the middle class.

We've been hearing in recent years that "bi-vocational ministry" is going to be the wave of the future, and my denomination says they want to plant a crazy high number of churches in coming years, so we've got the church planting bug. Not that that's a bad thing, but...

The bi-vocational blues

Yep; we have that much | (c) Jeff Parker/Cagel Cartoons

Student loan debt has been a hot topic of conversation lately, at least in my social media circles. It's always a hot topic for my wife and I because, well, we have a ton of it. Like three-masters-degrees-at-a-private-university-all-subsidized-by-student-loans worth of it.

Six years ago, when we first told my family that we were moving to Virginia for grad school, they were not impressed. My brother kind of angrily told me that I was being irresponsible with my family's financial wellbeing. At the time I thought, "No I'm not!," but there are plenty of days this side of the transaction that I wonder...

Debt certainly has set constraints around my call to the ministry, particularly in my rural context. The number of Church of the Brethren congregations in my district that could afford to employ a pastor full-time are very few. So when we moved back to rural Iowa, it just so happened that my not feeling a particularly strong calling to pastoral ministry worked in my family's economic favor. Even if I'd wanted to be a full-time pastor, I likely couldn't do it around here; so I kept my technology job for Eastern Mennonite University, an arrangement that looks to continue for the foreseeable future.

Comin' down the mountain...

Pastor Tim Peter, signing my home congregation's ordination gift to me

It's been just over a week now since I was ordained as a minister in the Church of the Brethren, an event which took place at my home congregation south of Prairie City, Iowa. It was a joyous day that felt much like the best possible family reunion. There were beloved people - family, friends, pastors, all sisters & brothers in Christ - from all points along my life and ministerial journey. Two of my friends that I used to play music with surprised me during worship with a run-through of "Amazing Grace." Everyone gathered around me to lay their hands on me and petition God's guidance, correction, and provision for my ongoing ministry and that of my family. We ate together and celebrated Communion together... And on and on. It was a lovely day that truly felt like the sublime gift that it was.

A particular gift was my former professor/pastor, Sara Wenger Shenk, president of Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary, preaching the sermon during worship. The sermon text was taken from the lectionary: Matthew 17:1-9, the Transfiguration of Jesus. Sara's title was: "Moments of Clear Shining," and her treatment of the text with respect to the notion of ordination for ministry in the church, and how it impacts me, my family, the faith communities and neighborhoods in which we serve & worship - it all had the ring of Gospel truth. I heartily recommend giving it a listen...



Her main image/theme was the notion of "mountaintop experiences," and how they can become temptations to dwell in the glow, as Peter was keen to do upon seeing Jesus transformed before his eyes into his full glory - but that Jesus models well that we must come down, back into the "valley" of the everyday, the hurly burly of the radical ordinary. God's redemptive mission in the world is to be found there, with only brief and periodic flashes, or "moments of clear shining."

Planting the Church of the Brethren in Toledo: A modest proposal

Photo by snowmentality (via Flickr)

This post is part of the NuDunkers conversation on church planting in the Church of the Brethren, on which we'll be hosting a live video chat this Friday, Dec. 6th, at 10am Eastern. Check out the event page on our G+ community page for more info on that.

I've been talking recently about how "seeking the peace of the farm town" has been my mantra for living and ministering in the rural communities of Tama & Toledo, Iowa, since moving here last year.

This phrase is an adaptation of the Lord's commandment in Jeremiah 29, addressed to the exiles in Babylon in the 6th century BCE. The command is to "seek the peace/welfare/shalom of the city to which I've sent you into exile." The exhortation is an echo of the creational mandate found all the way back in Genesis, to "be fruitful and multiply," and that in seeking the welfare of the pagan city (and empire) in which they found themselves, God's people would find their own welfare.

I fell in love with this text in seminary, wrote a paper on it, and posted it here a few years ago. It became a paradigm for me, helping shape my early thoughts about what my church ministry might look like after seminary. In particular, I've found the thematic metaphors of "building" and "planting" throughout both Jeremiah and Isaiah to be particularly, um, productive ones. So church planting and community peace-building have for years now been inseparable concepts in my theological reasoning, and practical mission/ministry planning. My aim has been toward forming worshipping communities with community peacebuilding teachings and practices wired in from the get-go.

Cultivation takes time and patience and risk - among other things - and planting is just one step in the cyclical process of life (and death). So when I discovered the Slow Church blog a year or two back, which takes its cues from agrarian-minded sustainability movements, I found another fruitful metaphor for church planting.

Most recently, I've written and submitted a church-planting proposal for my local community that takes cues from this "slow church" movement. As a bi-vocational minister (i.e. I have a day job that is not professional/paid "church ministry" in a congregation), I've committed to a small, open-ended, slow, patient, and discerning approach to church planting, with explicit nods toward community peacebuilding. It's been approved by the committee overseeing these things in my district and is on its way to the Northern Plains District Board for final approval at their meeting next month. I'll outline a few major points below, and embed the entire document at the end if anyone is interested in seeing how I approached this proposal...

Healing for the healer

Stained beauty; in the former Otterbein United Methodist Church, Toledo, IA

Last night our monthly prayer group met at an unused and slowly deteriorating church sanctuary here in town, as is our custom - but after our initial worship and opening prayer we went outside into the gray afternoon and walked a few blocks to the home of a husband and wife who usually meet with us. They were home because the wife had recently undergone open heart surgery and was still recovering, so we went to them to pray for her continued healing.

But last night I was not in the healing mood. I was in a real funk and struggled through the praise songs (I usually struggle through any praise song, even on my best days) and through the prayer. They did soften me up a bit but I was still carrying a lot of angst as we walked from the church to the house, and my friend Travis - who leads our prayer group - could see it on my face.

When we arrived at our friends' house they welcomed us in with smiles and embraces. Their hospitable welcome started softening me up more. As we sat listening to the wife's recounting of her successful surgery and good initial recovery, I paid special attention to the look on the husband's face as he watched his wife tell us her story. He had a smile of profound joy and love for his partner and her wellbeing. It softened my heart yet further.

When we gathered around her to lay hands on her and pray, we prayed for specific areas of healing for her ongoing recovery. As we each spoke our prayers for her, I gave thanks to God for the picture of Christian love I was witnessing in their marriage. When the husband prayed, he gave thanks for the spiritual heart of his wife which had only grown stronger through this and other health trials of recent years, and how it's impacted their wider family. He also acknowledged that our life is not our own and whatever the outcome for any of us - more days or fewer, sickness or health - life itself is a gift we receive and ultimately relinquish for the hope of resurrection on the last day and life abundant beyond that. For the meantime he had this prayer: "It's not how long we have, it's what we do with what we've been given. It's not what we know, it's what we do with what we know."

As we left their house, I reflected with Travis that through our service of healing prayer for our friend and sister in Christ, I had experienced healing myself.

The once and future pastor(s)

[Insert here the appropriate Anabaptist
theological commentary about
kingship, swords, etc...]

Last week I had a meeting with two of my mentors, one of whom is my "church boss," to discuss next steps on my path to ordination as a minister in the Church of the Brethren. I don't write about that process much (if at all) here because, for one thing, I have a lot of questions about formal ministry in the free church/priesthood of all believers tradition. To call me "minister" and not, for instance, my wife - who serves as a mental health counselor in our local community and does so out of a sense of spiritual gifting flowing from her Christian faith - has and continues to seem somewhat off-kilter. Brethren have come up with some cute ways to address this in theory, but the institutionalization of the ministry has nevertheless created some power differentials.

So that's just my hangups about being characterized as a "minister" in some formal sense. The term "pastor" is even more touchy for me...

Let me first say that pastors have long been my favorite kind of people. Even after seminary and being approved for ordination, I continue to be very reluctant to think of/call myself a "pastor," mostly out of a sense of deep respect for those pastors who have played significant and various roles in shaping me as a person, generally, and as a minister in particular.

Put simply: I don't think I'm a "pastor" in the amazing ways that pastors have pastored me.

But the other week I conducted my first funeral service as a formal minister in our local community. The departed was a man who married into my wife's side of the family, and they wanted someone close to preside over the graveside service. So I happily and without hesitation said "yes" to that. For preparation of the obituary for the local paper, I emphasized to the family that when it came to ministerial titles, I preferred "Pastor" rather than "Reverend." (Oh, don't even get me started on Reverend!!)

So I guess I'm a pastor now. It's in print. And a sweet child in our local congregation called me "Pastor Brian" yesterday, so her word carries weight for me as well...

Lay visitation as post-Christendom ministry

Ty Grigg, a co-pastor of Life on the Vine in suburban Chicago, has a great post up at David Fitch's blog. He asks: Do We Still Need "Home Visitations" in Post-Christendom?

He lists the following challenges to the tried and true pastoral ministry practice:

• The “parish” is more geographically unbounded
• Home is a private space
• The pastor has lost privilege of access
• In a co-pastor model, who visits who?
• We are busy
• People are shepherded through house groups and by caregivers in the church
• We pastor through Facebook

Some of these challenges are unique to their own congregation and their suburban locale, but others (busy-ness) are more generally true for Christians in the U.S., even here in rural Iowa where the pace is a bit slower and the parish is still fairly geographically bounded.

Ty says that despite these challenges, home visitations can still be a vital ministry in a post-Christendom context, and I agree. He says that a house visit...

• Is vital for paying attention to people’s lives (Acts 20:28)
• Is vital for the work of prayer
• Is vital for the work of preaching
• Is vital for leading a community
• Lays the relational groundwork helpful for future crises and celebrations
• Is vital for blessing lives in their everyday context
• Is vital for caring for lost and straying sheep

Scripture, women in ministry, and correcting problems

New Testament scholar, Ben Witherington III, has two short videos that very quickly address some scriptural interpretation issues around women in ministry, and how those "problem texts" in the New Testament have been appropriated by subsequent Christian traditions to, for instance, rule out women from ministry. Check 'em out...

Extensions to the Body of Christ?

On this dreary, rainy evening in the Valley, I had the pleasure of consulting with a local Mennonite congregation, facilitating a dialogue on their use of technology (after they fed me which was great). Major topics of discussion centered around the church website and social media, technology in worship services, and what to do with the diminishing use of the church library. It's a congregation that already has a lot going for it in those areas and the knowledge for where to go seemed to already reside in the group, so hopefully my facilitation helped corral that and point it in positive directions.

As I was driving away from the church after the meeting, a thought struck me from Shane Hipps' book, The Hidden Power of Electronic Culture. He talks about all technologies being extensions of our human bodies. So a hammer is an extension of our hands. Rollerblades and cars are extensions of our feet. A camera is an extension of our eye. Microphones, websites, e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, are all extensions of our mouths. The reading of stories, textbooks, news articles, or essays all supplement the intellect housed in our brains, and the knowledge we acquire can then work itself out through other parts of the body. And in general, any form of communication involves the use of our rational and imaginative capacities. So all these things involve a body or bodies.

I like this embodied way of thinking about technology because it offers interesting ways to talk about my favorite metaphor for the church: the Body of Christ. Christians are all members of that body and if we're being faithful we're helping the body be healthy. So in our use of technologies - extensions of our various members/body parts - how can we use it in such a way that maintains faithfulness and edifies the body of Christ? That's an important thing to keep in mind when congregations start talking about the myriad technologies, because there are so many details involved with using just even one, that you can quickly get dragged down into the weeds and lose sight of that overall purpose: worshiping and glorifying God.

So as we extend the body of Christ through our use of technology, let's do so wisely and discern with the Holy Spirit in our midst, so the wielders don't end up being the wielded.

The Butcher's Apprentice

Photo by Andrea Nissolino

With a tentative push my index finger dug into the flesh of the pig, searching for a bundle of tendons - the "leaders" - in one of its hind legs. Got it. Tugging them out a bit, I slipped in the S-hook but my first-timer anxiety amidst the surrounding men - only one of whom I actually knew - caused me to fumble the hook and it dropped to the ground. Frustrated, I let out a groan. Behind me, the butcher gently said, "Don't worry. We learn by doing."

His name is Ike and he's an 81 year-old retired Mennonite pastor. Fifty years ago he came to this little holler at the foot of the mountains lining the western edge of the Shenandoah Valley. Many of the people around us, the locals, have known Ike since they were old enough to remember. He displayed the qualities of a wise master and for a day I was his apprentice. In the course of a day's work butchering pigs, though, he gave me much more than a lesson on the work at hand. Ike's approach to ministering to the community has for years included being the local butcher.

"When you give a sermon, people might remember a phrase or two, maybe a story you told to illustrate the Scripture. But if you come out here," Ike said gesturing at our surroundings with his knife, "people remember you. They trust you."

In this post I'll do some narrative theologizing (more narrating than theologizing) on Ike's long career as pastor/butcher, plus butchering as an analogy to the Christian faith, and finally the experience in general as a somewhat graphic illustration of the gift that is life. So you've been warned: This is not a post for those with weak intestinal fortitude (or PETA people)...

At the end of all things normal...peace

Ten days ago, I was standing inside the house/gallery at the Ann Norton Sculpture Gardens in West Palm Beach, Florida, looking out the first floor, eastward-facing window. Outside was a small gathering of people sitting in two rows of chairs, facing the veranda just outside and to my left. Past a fountain/sculpture behind the small crowd was a smaller group of people wearing suits and dresses, preparing to walk in pairs toward the veranda, between the two rows of people. If you haven't figured it out or already knew what I was up to this day, I was in the final moments before a wedding ceremony which I was officiating. Read on after the break for my ministerial reflections on this amazing experience...