Saying the Amens

The Fireside Room at Hidden Hollows

  Some of our favorite people just left the room, and I felt a loud Amen.  I didn't hear it audibly, but I was aware of it nonetheless.   It was the last meeting of our house church group to be held in this, our house of 40 years.  We are moving out before the next meeting two weeks from now, so a chapter of our lives is drawing to a close.  Amen.
  At the end of every formal gathering of the church there is often a benediction, sometimes in the form of a blessing, and the end of the benediction is punctuated with an "Amen".  It is a stamp of approval, a "so-be-it" that adds affirmation and finality to what just took place.
  So I am experiencing this sweet Amen as our friends drive away from our front door for the last time.  Our own kids drove away years ago and found careers and new friends who turned into spouses in places farther west.  Amen.
  After hosting foster kids for 17 years, we said goodbye to the last of them a few years ago as they waddled out the door dragging their black garbage bags filled with their few belongings.  Amen.
  Five foreign exchange students from Russia, France, Brazil, Costa Rica and Columbia came and went.  Amen.
  Three successful businesses that were headquartered here have recently closed.  Amen.
  Several ministries centered here, from a retreat center to a mini-monastery, have run their course.  Satisfying Amen.
  The "Missions" posters that covered the walls of the fireside room are being distributed to whomever would like them, so the wall is half empty now.  Gratifying Amen.
  The pantry door under the stairs is closed now where the girls used to use the pencil sharpener that was there and then jot a note on the walls and undersides of the stairway:  "I am satan's personal nightmare! Signed, Wendi Lee Sims, June 7, 1992".  Nostalgic Amen.
  Three years ago we were dismissed from our lifelong local congregation where we were made aware that we were no longer welcome.  Our views did not conform, we no longer fit.  Thirty-five years of youth work, missions trips, and worship leading ended unceremoniously.  Gut-wrenching Amen.
  Books, keepsakes, surplus office supplies and well-worn furniture are all being re-assigned to friends and family and the "keepers" put into storage for the next place we might live.  Exhausting Amen.
  This big old house has emptied out and is now too large for two people, especially during the long Michigan winters where living space has to be heated for seven months of the year.  We are hitting the road in a few days, following that wind that I spoke of in an earlier blog (See "The Holy Spirit of Adventure"), so our Amens are not unhappy ones if a bit wistful.
  When we drive away from here we also drive toward the next good destination.  Off to see the world, so to speak, in an old camper, finally pursuing our recent quest to hang out with sinners for awhile, having spent our entire first 60 years hanging out mostly with fellow believers.      Finally being the salt of the earth.
  Before we both have to say life's final Amen, we're going to have some fun in some new places!  All fun is God's fun. (Huh?)
  Amen and amen!
  
  We are excited to be heading toward the next new adventure, and that is helping us to say the necessary Amens to the past.  What Amens have you had to say in life (leave something or draw it to a close), and were they positive or negative experiences?

Deconstructive Bigshots

  It has happened again.  Last week a close pastor friend of mine lost his job to the traditional power brokers on his church board.  He was dismissed because he didn't serve their personal agendas for the church.  So he is done with organized church and will serve the Lord and the local community in more organic Christ-like ways.  This is a pretty ballsy move on his part and a scary one; the abrupt career change prevents most disaffected pastors from doing the same, although there will certainly be many others who will soon follow.
  As I've said before, it seems to me that the demise of organized evangelicalism in America is accelerating; I mean, this makes three Missionary Church pastors in the thumb of Michigan who have recently been ousted by their local boards - with the assent of their district leaders - and who have opted to move outside the fortress but stay in town and serve in more personal, incarnate ways.
  This has provoked a new thought that has just dawned on me as I have been observing the movement close-up, and that is this:  Not only is the empire being deconstructed from the bottom up, it is also inadvertently being dismantled from the top down.  The very methods that protected and perpetuated the empire in the past have become the tools by which it is being undermined.  I'm talking about the hierarchy.
  It used to be that constituents would respect the mandates of congregational and denominational leaders, feeling that they were sinning if they questioned authority.  Similarly, pastors submitted to their superiors, thinking this was the will of God.  Not so anymore.  One of the common characteristics of postmoderns is their innate distrust and disregard for authority.  Leaders who notice this trend will lament this "rebellious spirit"  and preach long and loud against it, but they seem unwilling or incapable of adapting to the new reality in the church.  To their own demise.
  Not only is the church losing ground from the bottom up (more than 90% of high school seniors leave the church within one year of graduation) but the Missionary Church is being dismantled from the top down, by men in ivory towers who allow their most dedicated pastors to crash and burn at the hands of a few power mongers in local fiefdoms.  So the exodus out of the institutional church is being fed by the very leaders who are trying to stop it.  Their penchant for power is biting their own butts.
  The scenarios that have unfolded in my neighborhood recently have been characterized by these self-destructive elements:

• Big money makes you a big shot.  Not only is it the elected position in the organization that gives you power, it is often the people with money who have the most clout.  The local church founders are often the most respected by the district leaders.  After all, if you offend the money holders and they leave or quit giving, it will eventually affect the bottom line - district income and your own salary (the Michigan superintendent makes around $80K per year with benefits, just about twice the national average income).
• Secrecy and confidentiality help maintain power.  Exiled pastors will be sworn to secrecy to protect the hierarchy, while the constituents are told that leaders are keeping confidences in order to "protect the reputation" of the out-going pastor.  They cast a shadow of mystery and innuendo over the pastor, creating suspicion in the people and thus preventing people from questioning their decisions. (Displaced pastors in The Missionary Church in Michigan are routinely asked to sign oaths of silence.  The individual takes a hit for the sake of the institution.)
• Decision-making power is removed from the laity.  The Missionary Church has a congregational form of government, which means that the members get to vote on important decisions.  Well, that's the way it's supposed to be, but in the three cases that I've just cited, the pastors were dismissed without a vote of the people.  The congregational form of church government seems to be inherently incompatible with the teaching of hierarchy and submission to authority.  They are like Siamese twins joined at the hip but in a perpetual fist fight.

  The irony of all this is that the structures which are intended to help maintain and perpetuate the institution are inadvertently swinging a wrecking ball which is relentlessly  tearing it down in a post-modern culture which categorically disregards established authority.
  In my own former church, when the district superintendent swooped in to rescue the assembly from an impending split over a pastor who was being ousted without a vote of the members, his solution was to preach an impassioned sermon on unity and submission to authority.  He obviously was out of touch with the times and the realities of life in the trenches.  The church did split, and the pastor moved outside the institution and is now a leader in a network of house churches.
  And this is one of the reasons that more than 1,500 pastors leave the pastorate every month in America.  The hierarchy of the religious institution is an unwieldy demolition ball that keeps swinging back and smashing its own legs.  Without its feet to stand on, it well inevitably topple.  In fact, just this morning I heard a former Missionary Church constituent predict that the denomination will crumble within the next decade.
  To every pastor in the Missionary Church in Michigan I would say, "Watch your back," and if you're not inclined to submit to the power brokers in your church or in the district, I suggest you be working on a plan for an alternate means of employment so that you too may enjoy the satisfaction and fulfillment of really serving Christ and your neighbors - outside the walls, the way Jesus intended in the first place.