In a magazine article I just read, I was reminded of that pivotal story in the Bible that describes the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. The story of the Exodus tells a story of promise and fulfillment; longing and realization. Yet, that story by itself is incomplete. It is much more than just a record of some event in ancient history. I have read that some of the Jewish Rabbis relate that each generation must relive that story in their own time and context. In that sense, the Exodus story is retold over and over again by successive generations as they identify their own captivities and the quest for freedom from bondage to them. And, it is ultimately God's story and the story of humankind's willingness to enter into this journey with God.
During that movement from captivity to freedom, God fed the Israelites in the wilderness with the miraculous provision of manna to sustain them on the way. In the 16th chapter of Exodus, where this story is told, we find that the Israelites are complaining about the food that they have been receiving from Moses. They recalled the "old days" when everything seemed better, even though they had in reality been under bondage to Egypt as slaves. When God gave the Israelites this miraculous food, they named it manna, which means, "What is it?." Verse 13 states that "It looked like coriander seed, whitish. And it tasted like a cracker with honey."
As the Rabbis have written, we, too, face our own "journey" through our time. As people of the church, we no longer live in the place where we used to. Technology, society, globalization and the increased inter-dependency and inter-relatedness of nations and peoples, as well as the decline in the "authority" of the institutional Christian church in many parts of the world, have created a new wilderness that we must "walk" through. It is certainly tempting to look with exasperation on the state of the church today and to long for the "good old days" when we new the hymns we sang each Sunday, when all of our children attended Sunday school, when new churches were being built, and all of the stores were closed and the only traffic we encountered was that of people driving to and from church or, perhaps, going out for a Sunday-after-church drive.
But the world has moved on. And we, all of us and the church, are called to be on the move, watching and hoping for the best for our world and for the successive generations that will inhabit it; gazing at that pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire both day and night that signals where God would have us go (See Exodus, chapter 13). Our journey is not about keeping the church as it was, as though it could be petrified into a state of permanency. The church should not be static and moribund. Rather, like our God, the church must be dynamic and generative. We must be a gathering of people energized by faith, hope and love.
We cannot be a church that longs for the imagined past (everything really wasn't all that great, anyway.) And, we cannot even be only a church that strives to satisfy today's members and friends. We must gather together those who are yet to fully experience the strengthening love and compassion of God. We must gather with great intention what God has provided as sustenance for us, namely, the doing of God's will, living with trust in our God, letting go when needed and stretching out to grasp what God offers to us today.
Monday, June 03, 2013
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Should Pastors Be Sued For Malpractice?
This post was written to allow me to vent AND to provoke critical thinking regarding the things that are typically said as statements of faith or belief. It is not a call for some kind of civil action.
Recently, I ran into a man that I sometimes see at my church. A regular member of a Pentecostal church, Bill (not his real name) considers himself to be a kind of lay minister and, evidently, preaches and teaches in his home church on occasion. It is very obvious that "Bill's" faith is very important to him and that God is experienced as a very real presence in his life.
As we spoke together, Bill told me that his wife is dying of cancer. In fact, she is undergoing hospice care and, as happens in situations like this, her body has begun the process of shutting down. Bill and I talked about how much he and his wife had shared together over their many years of marriage and of their hopes for a future that seemed out-of-reach.
However, even as he was expressing his grief and sadness, Bill told me that he was assured by his pastor that his wife was going to undergo a miraculous healing. Indeed, his pastor told Bill that he had "heard a word from God" that God is going to heal his wife. Bill said that his pastor told him that it would "be at the last minute," but that he knew that God was going to perform this miracle. And Bill and his wife, as well, are confident that this will happen even as they both witness the continued deterioration of her physical condition.
My hope is, of course, that Bill's wife experiences just such an incredible miracle of healing. I hope that her case goes down into medical history as a recovery from the brink of death that no physician can explain. But I also know that this is unlikely to happen. The fact is, while many people have recovered from dire physical conditions that seemed insurmountable, there are certain realities that we must face and we are then forced to accept that life does come to an end. There are conditions of disease or illness that one cannot recover from.
Yet, here we have this pastor making a statement of fact regarding recovery from a physical condition that, as far as I know, he is unqualified to make. He did, indeed, make a diagnosis and, as a result, provided a prognosis of recovery from this cancer. And I know that this is not the first and only time that a pastor or "someone from the church" has done the same. Time and time again, I have heard people assure someone that God is going to provide a healing. Unfortunately, the reality is that many of these people did not receive that healing.
So, what happens when the miraculous healing fails to be realized? Often, we simply ignore the failure and we carry on as though nothing happened. The pastor expresses grief and now adjusts her words to those of condolence. The assurance of healing becomes the assurance of the entry of the deceased into eternal life with Jesus. For many thinking people, this heralds the end of their relationship to a church, or even to a sense of the value and relevance of Christianity. People and communities are damaged.
Maybe we have been too soft on these purveyors of false hope. Maybe we are too quick to excuse the claims of medical insights from unqualified people simply because they are from "the church" and they are only speaking out of their faith and that they really only mean well, after all. Maybe pastors and others who represent the institution of the church should be held accountable for making unsubstantiated claims. Maybe they should be sued for medical malpractice or for, at the least, practicing medicine without a license.
Of course, I am not referring to the many faithful clergy and lay persons who lovingly offer comfort to those who are suffering from illness or disease. There are many incredible examples of people of faith who provide supportive companionship and caring and who share in prayer to God for strength and comfort. Many prayers are said in faith asking for God to guide the medical care-givers as they apply their education and experience in order to discern the best treatment options for a patient. And there are those who have spent hours in a "ministry of presence" with those who are suffering and for those who grieve. Our human experience is blessed by those people.
At the same time, there are those who by some sense of entitlement mislead others into false hope under the guise of pastoral ministry, both clergy and laity. It is a pretty heady experience to be looked at as a special mouth-piece of God, by both clergy themselves and by those they minister to. But, perhaps, it is time to hold those people accountable. Perhaps, we too easily excuse unsubstantiated claims of "knowing" out of a too sensitive concern about judging another's faith. Maybe faithfulness calls us to acknowledge our human condition as it really is.
Recently, I ran into a man that I sometimes see at my church. A regular member of a Pentecostal church, Bill (not his real name) considers himself to be a kind of lay minister and, evidently, preaches and teaches in his home church on occasion. It is very obvious that "Bill's" faith is very important to him and that God is experienced as a very real presence in his life.
As we spoke together, Bill told me that his wife is dying of cancer. In fact, she is undergoing hospice care and, as happens in situations like this, her body has begun the process of shutting down. Bill and I talked about how much he and his wife had shared together over their many years of marriage and of their hopes for a future that seemed out-of-reach.
However, even as he was expressing his grief and sadness, Bill told me that he was assured by his pastor that his wife was going to undergo a miraculous healing. Indeed, his pastor told Bill that he had "heard a word from God" that God is going to heal his wife. Bill said that his pastor told him that it would "be at the last minute," but that he knew that God was going to perform this miracle. And Bill and his wife, as well, are confident that this will happen even as they both witness the continued deterioration of her physical condition.
My hope is, of course, that Bill's wife experiences just such an incredible miracle of healing. I hope that her case goes down into medical history as a recovery from the brink of death that no physician can explain. But I also know that this is unlikely to happen. The fact is, while many people have recovered from dire physical conditions that seemed insurmountable, there are certain realities that we must face and we are then forced to accept that life does come to an end. There are conditions of disease or illness that one cannot recover from.
Yet, here we have this pastor making a statement of fact regarding recovery from a physical condition that, as far as I know, he is unqualified to make. He did, indeed, make a diagnosis and, as a result, provided a prognosis of recovery from this cancer. And I know that this is not the first and only time that a pastor or "someone from the church" has done the same. Time and time again, I have heard people assure someone that God is going to provide a healing. Unfortunately, the reality is that many of these people did not receive that healing.
So, what happens when the miraculous healing fails to be realized? Often, we simply ignore the failure and we carry on as though nothing happened. The pastor expresses grief and now adjusts her words to those of condolence. The assurance of healing becomes the assurance of the entry of the deceased into eternal life with Jesus. For many thinking people, this heralds the end of their relationship to a church, or even to a sense of the value and relevance of Christianity. People and communities are damaged.
Maybe we have been too soft on these purveyors of false hope. Maybe we are too quick to excuse the claims of medical insights from unqualified people simply because they are from "the church" and they are only speaking out of their faith and that they really only mean well, after all. Maybe pastors and others who represent the institution of the church should be held accountable for making unsubstantiated claims. Maybe they should be sued for medical malpractice or for, at the least, practicing medicine without a license.
Of course, I am not referring to the many faithful clergy and lay persons who lovingly offer comfort to those who are suffering from illness or disease. There are many incredible examples of people of faith who provide supportive companionship and caring and who share in prayer to God for strength and comfort. Many prayers are said in faith asking for God to guide the medical care-givers as they apply their education and experience in order to discern the best treatment options for a patient. And there are those who have spent hours in a "ministry of presence" with those who are suffering and for those who grieve. Our human experience is blessed by those people.
At the same time, there are those who by some sense of entitlement mislead others into false hope under the guise of pastoral ministry, both clergy and laity. It is a pretty heady experience to be looked at as a special mouth-piece of God, by both clergy themselves and by those they minister to. But, perhaps, it is time to hold those people accountable. Perhaps, we too easily excuse unsubstantiated claims of "knowing" out of a too sensitive concern about judging another's faith. Maybe faithfulness calls us to acknowledge our human condition as it really is.
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Preparing for the Journey
Here's the article I wrote for October's Newsletter. I posted it here for discussions or comments.
“And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.” – 2 Corinthians 3:18
Journey: Greek, Apodemeo: to go away into foreign parts, go abroad.
There have been some recent studies* that have attempted to understand what makes people happy. Certainly, happiness is a basic human desire and most of us want happiness for ourselves and our loved ones.
To summarize the findings of these studies, they have found that happiness generally results from:
Perhaps one way to think of what Jesus meant when he said that we are “no part of the world,” is that his disciples should be cautious of those things, while they may be enticing, may actually interfere with finding true happiness (John 10:10, re: the abundant life). Instead, through understanding God’s will for us and for the whole of creation, we can be wary of attempts to pull us away from experiencing deep levels of happiness, contentment and meaning in life.
In some ways, living as a disciple of Jesus Christ is much like taking a journey to a distant land. This doesn’t mean some kind of a physical move to some new land, but it is about living in a new way, with new attitudes and engagements. It is to learn that loving God, ourselves, and others is the underlying basis for fulfillment in our lives and then to begin living that way.
Some time ago, we began an approach in church of intentionally considering our own lives as spiritual journeys. In the coming weeks you will hear of ways in which you can further pursue your own spiritual journey. We are all called to the work of individual and community transformation of ourselves so as to reflect the glory of our Lord, finding real happiness and joy in our lives.
*Contact me if you'd like links to the source material I used
“And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.” – 2 Corinthians 3:18
Journey: Greek, Apodemeo: to go away into foreign parts, go abroad.
There have been some recent studies* that have attempted to understand what makes people happy. Certainly, happiness is a basic human desire and most of us want happiness for ourselves and our loved ones.
To summarize the findings of these studies, they have found that happiness generally results from:
- Intimate (face-to-face) relationships with family and friends;
- Meaningful work
- Positive thinking; avoiding comparing oneself with others and tending to expect the best;
- Gratitude;
- Forgiveness;
- Giving to others;
- Religion;
- Personal freedom;
- Good health;
- Watching TV (not excessive, but a little is not only harmless, but may be good for us).
Perhaps one way to think of what Jesus meant when he said that we are “no part of the world,” is that his disciples should be cautious of those things, while they may be enticing, may actually interfere with finding true happiness (John 10:10, re: the abundant life). Instead, through understanding God’s will for us and for the whole of creation, we can be wary of attempts to pull us away from experiencing deep levels of happiness, contentment and meaning in life.
In some ways, living as a disciple of Jesus Christ is much like taking a journey to a distant land. This doesn’t mean some kind of a physical move to some new land, but it is about living in a new way, with new attitudes and engagements. It is to learn that loving God, ourselves, and others is the underlying basis for fulfillment in our lives and then to begin living that way.
Some time ago, we began an approach in church of intentionally considering our own lives as spiritual journeys. In the coming weeks you will hear of ways in which you can further pursue your own spiritual journey. We are all called to the work of individual and community transformation of ourselves so as to reflect the glory of our Lord, finding real happiness and joy in our lives.
*Contact me if you'd like links to the source material I used
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
Worship ... again!
“And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” – Hebrews 10:24, 25 New Revised Standard Version of the Bible
I wish that I had a dollar for every book about church “revitalization” that’s available for purchase. There must be a million of them. From Rick Warren’s “Purpose-Driven Church” to “I Refuse to Lead a Dying Church!” by Paul Nixon (actually, one of my favorites) to Gay Reese’s currently popular “Unbinding the Gospel” series, they fill the bookshelves of both brick-and-mortar Christian stores and their online, virtual counterparts.
While I have benefited from reading many of these books, and will no doubt continue to do so, there is a certain frustration that comes from reading all of this. It sometimes feels like I’m on this never-ending search to find the right “formula” for how to energize our church so that we not only satisfy the “Worship wants” of long-time attenders as well as to create worship that appeals to people who rarely, if ever, entered into a church before!
One author asserts the claim that ONLY contemporary worship services will allow for a church to grow, and more than that, is vitally important if we are just going to keep the church doors open! At the same time, another author states categorically that what people are REALLY longing for is worship firmly rooted in the ancient worship practices of the early church and that if we’d purchase some incense and candles and start chanting our attendance would grow exponentially. Another church revitalization “expert” says that the largest growing demographic (just slightly above 20-somethings) is seniors above age 65, so traditional worship as we’ve been doing it since the 1960’s is just where we ought to stay and we really only need to stick to what we know and hang on until the “storm” is over. What’s a pastor to do?
Recently, as I watched an NFL game on TV, one of the commentators made the inevitable and somewhat trite suggestion that what a particular team needed to do was to “get back to the basics.” However, as I’ve thought about that comment, I’ve been drawn to the consideration of just what the “basics” are when it comes to Christian worship. Are churches, especially in view of the continuing decline of attendance and participation in “church” as a whole, gotten so wrapped up in developing a sophisticated “playbook” that we’ve forgotten the basics? Is that why “church” attendance across the religious spectrum in a continual decline year after year?
I don’t mean to say that we should stop thinking about the cultural context in which we have to exist as church, with the concomitant realities of what it takes to reach people today with the gospel. And, I’ll continue to plunk down some shillings for some of the latest church “growth” books. However, aren’t the basics of Christian worship really rather simple? Have we put too many “layers” on what we are called to do and be as church?
The verse from the letter to the Hebrews, quoted in the opening lines of this article, basically says that we should gather in order to provoke [Greek: Paroxusmos], which can be translated as, stimulate or incite; which means to stir, encourage, or urge on; prompt to action. In other words, we should regularly gather together to stimulate and encourage one another to love; to love God with everything we are and have, to love ourselves in a self-nurturing God-like way, and to love others to the same extent that we show proper love to ourselves.
How we do all of that is clearly going to be influenced by our faith tradition and the culture in which we live as filtered through our own life experiences. But, could it be that we have put too much into what constitutes or makes up what we want worship to be? Do we put on too many layers on top of the basics? Have we complicated the “playbook” so that we lose or forget those basics? What do YOU think about our worship? Are we keeping focused on the basics, or have we spent too much time on non-essentials? And how do we worship in view of the realities of living in our culture in our particular time in history? How do we “speak” the language of the gospels in such a way that they can be understood in today’s world?
These are all important questions that we must ask ourselves as disciples of the source of good news, Jesus Christ. What do you think? If you’d like to respond to this article, please do so. I’d love to hear from you.
I wish that I had a dollar for every book about church “revitalization” that’s available for purchase. There must be a million of them. From Rick Warren’s “Purpose-Driven Church” to “I Refuse to Lead a Dying Church!” by Paul Nixon (actually, one of my favorites) to Gay Reese’s currently popular “Unbinding the Gospel” series, they fill the bookshelves of both brick-and-mortar Christian stores and their online, virtual counterparts.
While I have benefited from reading many of these books, and will no doubt continue to do so, there is a certain frustration that comes from reading all of this. It sometimes feels like I’m on this never-ending search to find the right “formula” for how to energize our church so that we not only satisfy the “Worship wants” of long-time attenders as well as to create worship that appeals to people who rarely, if ever, entered into a church before!
One author asserts the claim that ONLY contemporary worship services will allow for a church to grow, and more than that, is vitally important if we are just going to keep the church doors open! At the same time, another author states categorically that what people are REALLY longing for is worship firmly rooted in the ancient worship practices of the early church and that if we’d purchase some incense and candles and start chanting our attendance would grow exponentially. Another church revitalization “expert” says that the largest growing demographic (just slightly above 20-somethings) is seniors above age 65, so traditional worship as we’ve been doing it since the 1960’s is just where we ought to stay and we really only need to stick to what we know and hang on until the “storm” is over. What’s a pastor to do?
Recently, as I watched an NFL game on TV, one of the commentators made the inevitable and somewhat trite suggestion that what a particular team needed to do was to “get back to the basics.” However, as I’ve thought about that comment, I’ve been drawn to the consideration of just what the “basics” are when it comes to Christian worship. Are churches, especially in view of the continuing decline of attendance and participation in “church” as a whole, gotten so wrapped up in developing a sophisticated “playbook” that we’ve forgotten the basics? Is that why “church” attendance across the religious spectrum in a continual decline year after year?
I don’t mean to say that we should stop thinking about the cultural context in which we have to exist as church, with the concomitant realities of what it takes to reach people today with the gospel. And, I’ll continue to plunk down some shillings for some of the latest church “growth” books. However, aren’t the basics of Christian worship really rather simple? Have we put too many “layers” on what we are called to do and be as church?
The verse from the letter to the Hebrews, quoted in the opening lines of this article, basically says that we should gather in order to provoke [Greek: Paroxusmos], which can be translated as, stimulate or incite; which means to stir, encourage, or urge on; prompt to action. In other words, we should regularly gather together to stimulate and encourage one another to love; to love God with everything we are and have, to love ourselves in a self-nurturing God-like way, and to love others to the same extent that we show proper love to ourselves.
How we do all of that is clearly going to be influenced by our faith tradition and the culture in which we live as filtered through our own life experiences. But, could it be that we have put too much into what constitutes or makes up what we want worship to be? Do we put on too many layers on top of the basics? Have we complicated the “playbook” so that we lose or forget those basics? What do YOU think about our worship? Are we keeping focused on the basics, or have we spent too much time on non-essentials? And how do we worship in view of the realities of living in our culture in our particular time in history? How do we “speak” the language of the gospels in such a way that they can be understood in today’s world?
These are all important questions that we must ask ourselves as disciples of the source of good news, Jesus Christ. What do you think? If you’d like to respond to this article, please do so. I’d love to hear from you.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Thursday, April 30, 2009
GO FORTH
Finally, home. Readers of this blog know how much I have enjoyed my trip to Italy on various levels. Certainly, the "pleasure" part of it has been the food, the weather, the food, and the culture of modern Italy that exists in the midst of one of the oldest histories of modern civilizations. Oh, and did I mention the food?
However, there comes a time when one must go home again. The time has come and I am pleased to be able to enter again into the rhythm and flows of my "regular" life as a father, husband, son, pastor and friend. But, I have discovered over the years of my life, the real "heart and soul" of an experience is what one does with that experience. Are there transformative elements of an experience? How does an experience, this particular experience, hold within it opportunities to deepen my appreciation of life and, especially, my life as person of faith continually in search of faith.
One way by which I have found that a learning experience can be enhanced is by sharing that which I have learned. So, in the next few weeks I hope to announce a study series on Christianity. This will cover the history of the Christian church, theology and worldview.
While Christianity emerges from Judaism, its emergence and formation were clearly within a Roman world. I hope that my recent trip to Rome will enhance my presentation of the history of Christianity. As I have done with Islam, this study will no doubt involve, on some level, at least, material from the Teaching Company's Great Religions series.
Please "Stay Tuned" for further information.
Blessings,
Don
However, there comes a time when one must go home again. The time has come and I am pleased to be able to enter again into the rhythm and flows of my "regular" life as a father, husband, son, pastor and friend. But, I have discovered over the years of my life, the real "heart and soul" of an experience is what one does with that experience. Are there transformative elements of an experience? How does an experience, this particular experience, hold within it opportunities to deepen my appreciation of life and, especially, my life as person of faith continually in search of faith.
One way by which I have found that a learning experience can be enhanced is by sharing that which I have learned. So, in the next few weeks I hope to announce a study series on Christianity. This will cover the history of the Christian church, theology and worldview.
While Christianity emerges from Judaism, its emergence and formation were clearly within a Roman world. I hope that my recent trip to Rome will enhance my presentation of the history of Christianity. As I have done with Islam, this study will no doubt involve, on some level, at least, material from the Teaching Company's Great Religions series.
Please "Stay Tuned" for further information.
Blessings,
Don
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