Alban at Duke Divinity School at Durham, North Carolina, United States for Monday, 30 October 2017 "PRACTICAL WISDOM FOR LEADING CONGREGATIONS: Building relationships among church members" - Alban Weekly
Kuhnekt Initiative participants Octavia Ramsey, standing, and Carolyn Cooper, right, have a conversation at a community meal held at The Grove Presbyterian Church. Photos by Jason E. Miczek
The Kuhnekt Initiative builds relationships among church members
Kuhnekt Initiative builds relationships among church members
AWARD-WINNING MINISTRY PAIRS MEMBERS FOR MONTHLY MEETINGS
Church members at The Grove Presbyterian Church are randomly paired and commit to monthly meetings as a way to deepen connections between them.
With the same spirit of daring that led them to reinvent their once-dying church, members of The Grove Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, are embracing an experiment in fellowship, one relationship at a time.
"Jesus is bringing together people who the world says have nothing in common," says the Rev. Kate Murphy, The Grove's pastor. "But we're in each other's lives for a reason. We need to know each other's stories."
Inspired by the Christian directive to go out in pairs, the church launched the Kuhnekt Initiative in June 2016. The Grove formed twosomes by picking the names of church members out of a bowl. If husbands and wives were paired by chance, their names were thrown back in and matched with someone new.
Each pair was then given simple instructions: At least once a month, share a conversation -- a meal, an outing, a walk in the park. Discuss your answers to a series of question prompts -- What's your deepest hope? What's God teaching you in your life right now? Learn each other's life stories -- your joys, your challenges, your hopes, your fears. Preserve your budding friendship with a selfie.
The Kuhnekt Initiative took hold quickly. So far, 40 church members have participated, in a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) congregation that draws 120 on a good Sunday.
"Jesus is bringing together people who the world says have nothing in common," says the Rev. Kate Murphy, The Grove's pastor. "But we're in each other's lives for a reason. We need to know each other's stories."
Inspired by the Christian directive to go out in pairs, the church launched the Kuhnekt Initiative in June 2016. The Grove formed twosomes by picking the names of church members out of a bowl. If husbands and wives were paired by chance, their names were thrown back in and matched with someone new.
Each pair was then given simple instructions: At least once a month, share a conversation -- a meal, an outing, a walk in the park. Discuss your answers to a series of question prompts -- What's your deepest hope? What's God teaching you in your life right now? Learn each other's life stories -- your joys, your challenges, your hopes, your fears. Preserve your budding friendship with a selfie.
The Kuhnekt Initiative took hold quickly. So far, 40 church members have participated, in a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) congregation that draws 120 on a good Sunday.
Community meals are part of the church's commitment to opening its doors to all neighbors.
Murphy came up with the idea, hoping that by building stronger relationships in the church, The Grove could build stronger relationships beyond the church at a time when Charlotte and so many other communities are divided by race, class, culture and politics.
As for the initiative’s name, think connect. Except that church member Rebecca Hart lobbied to use the phonetic spelling to grab our attention.
“A little spicier,” she said.
‘I know you now’
For their first Kuhnekt get-together, Octavia Ramsey and Carolyn Cooper drove to Sam’s Club and began to get to know each other, discovering differences as well as similarities.
Ramsey, 30, is no fan of traditional church hymns. Cooper, 75, loves the old stuff. As they chatted on the way to buy groceries, they laughed about their musical preferences. The more they shared about their lives, the more they appreciated that this journey was taking them from a perfunctory “Hey, how are you?” to a warm “Hey, I know you now.”
“I think you can serve better when you know people you’re serving with,” Ramsey said.
Often we over complicate relationship-building. Since everyone needs groceries, why not shop with someone? What else might we do in pairs?
“As we get to know each other,” Cooper said, “we find out how similar we are.”
On a recent evening, they gathered with Murphy and others in the church gym for The Grove’s monthly community meal, surrounded by a mix of people: black, white, church members and neighbors of all ages.
Outside, a group of young Hispanic men played a pickup game of soccer on the church athletic field.
Inside, adults shared iced tea and conversation while kids ran around. As the dinner wound down, that classic country song by Patsy Cline, by pure chance, played on the PA system, illustrating just how counter-cultural this whole thing is: “Crazy.”
Murphy, 42, came to The Grove(link is external) with an interest in urban ministry that was honed in Boston, where she earned master of divinity and master of sacred theology degrees from Boston University, then served as associate pastor at Fourth Presbyterian, a multicultural church in South Boston.
As The Grove’s experiment in fellowship continues to grow, it is gaining attention beyond Charlotte.
The Rev. Laura Everett, the executive director of the Massachusetts Council of Churches in Boston, nominated the Kuhnekt Initiative for Leadership Education at Duke Divinity’s Traditioned Innovation Award(link is external). Having known Murphy for a dozen years through a Protestant clergy group, Everett has long been struck by Murphy’s vision.
“She had the ability to see that The Grove could be and needed to be something more than it was. If that church was going to represent the demographics of the community, they were going to have to change.”
But before The Grove could transform the surrounding community through the Kuhnekt Initiative, it had to transform itself.
‘We just wanted to be faithful’
Founded in 1957, Hickory Grove Presbyterian Church thrived for years in a town with deep Presbyterian roots. What would become the city of Charlotte was settled in the 1750s by Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, who built the area’s first seven churches.
Hickory Grove Presbyterian reached its peak in the early 1970s, Murphy said, drawing 300 or so worshippers each Sunday and effectively connecting with the largely white community it served.
But as the east Charlotte neighborhood around busy W.T. Harris Boulevard grew more culturally and racially diverse, Hickory Grove Presbyterian’s numbers and community ties began to wither.
By the time Murphy arrived as pastor in December 2008, Hickory Grove was down to 80 on the rolls and 50 or so in Sunday worship. It clearly had “earned” a spot in the Charlotte Presbytery’s Transformation pilot project in 2010-11 -- one of 10 churches that understood the need to, in Murphy’s words, “change or die.”
The “change or die” ultimatum offered space for life-giving creativity for The Grove. Are there changes your church can make now to avoid getting to this point?
During the yearlong project, pastors of the 10 churches met with outside consultants and read several books on leadership. Lay leaders from each congregation participated in discussions. Finally, consultants crafted a detailed “prescription” for change at each church.
Of those 10 churches, one has closed and seven, according to the Charlotte Presbytery, continue to struggle to connect with their communities.
At The Grove, the six-page, single-spaced prescription proposed wholesale changes: change the name of the church, the worship time, the worship music, the leadership structure, the bylaws -- and remove the organ from the sanctuary and replace it with video screens.
In 2011, the proposal was put up for a vote of the congregation: say yes or no to everything. For the changes to be adopted, two-thirds of the congregation had to vote yes.
Exactly two-thirds of the congregation voted for change. Yet by 2012, two-thirds of the original congregation had left, forcing a reduction in Murphy’s hours.
The church flourished after a drop in membership. In what ways do numbers fail to tell the whole story in your church?
But those who stayed embraced the dramatic change. They renamed the church The Grove, instituted a blend of traditional and contemporary music, and committed to the cause of opening the church doors to all neighbors, regardless of color, culture or class.
They launched a host of community-focused initiatives -- the community meal; a community garden, Seeds of Faith, from which members distribute washed and bagged lettuce to neighbors as a gift; a free after-school tutoring program three days a week for grades K-5, nicknamed Firefly; a policy of making athletic fields available to neighbors; and a twist on the traditional church yard sale, called a “yard give,” in which members gather possessions and then give them away to neighbors rather than sell them.
Not all the old has been lost; in a nod to their roots, they still sing one traditional hymn each Sunday before the music turns more contemporary.
“The joke was, we’ll change anything but the gospel,” Murphy said. “In all honesty, I don’t know that any of us thought this would work. We just wanted to be faithful.”
When The Charlotte Observer wrote in 2012 about the number of Protestants in the U.S. dropping below 50 percent of the population, the newspaper quoted Murphy, who articulated the journey that The Grove has taken: “I think the church is dying to the extent that we’ve lost our call to revolution. And if dying helps us recover our true identity, then it is a gift from God.”
What needs to die in your organization to make space for God’s gifts?
Last June, amid a spate of hate crimes nationwide against Muslims, The Grove put up a sign in its front yard, declaring in large, colorful letters: “We love our Muslim neighbors.” After seeing the sign, several Muslim women attended worship at The Grove, then helped serve a Maundy Thursday meal to the congregation the following Holy Week.
Hart, the church member who came up with the Kuhnekt name, said The Grove is driven by a passion to deepen connections. “It’s a choosing to be here, together.”
Among those brought together by the Kuhnekt Initiative are Libba Hicks and Sarah Mayer.
Hicks, 75, was in high school when she joined the church. Smiling slyly at the memory, she says she appreciated the ratio of boys to girls in the youth group way back when.
What might it look like for your church to “be here, together” in your community?
Mayer, 19, a sophomore from Davidson College, served as The Grove’s summer intern. Raised in the Church of Christ back home in Wichita, Kansas, she loved hearing Hicks share how The Grove came to be.
Over Reuben sandwiches at the Landmark Diner, Hicks was taken by Mayer’s bubbling-over energy. “That energy goes a long way when you’re my age,” she said.
Mayer, in turn, was taken by Hicks’s loyalty, and that of her husband, David, to The Grove -- and by the resilience reflected in the church’s journey.
“They are really good examples of what’s important at The Grove,” Mayer said. “Getting to know them on a personal level was so great.”
Hicks, for her part, welcomes the chance for longtime members to make new connections. “The Kuhnekt Initiative pushes folks who have been around for a while,” she said. “The Christian faith is built on relationship.”
As September’s community meal was winding down, Murphy helped fold up tables, carrying the youngest of her three daughters, Kerry, in a sling on her hip.
As she said goodbye to friends and neighbors until next time, the pastor invoked this familiar passage from Galatians 3:28 to capture the spirit of the Kuhnekt Initiative: "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ."
“Most people want to tell their story,” Murphy said. “The most powerful, profound things are sometimes the simplest things.”
Questions to consider:
As for the initiative’s name, think connect. Except that church member Rebecca Hart lobbied to use the phonetic spelling to grab our attention.
“A little spicier,” she said.
‘I know you now’
For their first Kuhnekt get-together, Octavia Ramsey and Carolyn Cooper drove to Sam’s Club and began to get to know each other, discovering differences as well as similarities.
Ramsey, 30, is no fan of traditional church hymns. Cooper, 75, loves the old stuff. As they chatted on the way to buy groceries, they laughed about their musical preferences. The more they shared about their lives, the more they appreciated that this journey was taking them from a perfunctory “Hey, how are you?” to a warm “Hey, I know you now.”
“I think you can serve better when you know people you’re serving with,” Ramsey said.
Often we over complicate relationship-building. Since everyone needs groceries, why not shop with someone? What else might we do in pairs?
“As we get to know each other,” Cooper said, “we find out how similar we are.”
On a recent evening, they gathered with Murphy and others in the church gym for The Grove’s monthly community meal, surrounded by a mix of people: black, white, church members and neighbors of all ages.
Outside, a group of young Hispanic men played a pickup game of soccer on the church athletic field.
Inside, adults shared iced tea and conversation while kids ran around. As the dinner wound down, that classic country song by Patsy Cline, by pure chance, played on the PA system, illustrating just how counter-cultural this whole thing is: “Crazy.”
The Rev. Kate Murphy at a community dinner.
Connecting two by twoMurphy, 42, came to The Grove(link is external) with an interest in urban ministry that was honed in Boston, where she earned master of divinity and master of sacred theology degrees from Boston University, then served as associate pastor at Fourth Presbyterian, a multicultural church in South Boston.
As The Grove’s experiment in fellowship continues to grow, it is gaining attention beyond Charlotte.
The Rev. Laura Everett, the executive director of the Massachusetts Council of Churches in Boston, nominated the Kuhnekt Initiative for Leadership Education at Duke Divinity’s Traditioned Innovation Award(link is external). Having known Murphy for a dozen years through a Protestant clergy group, Everett has long been struck by Murphy’s vision.
“She had the ability to see that The Grove could be and needed to be something more than it was. If that church was going to represent the demographics of the community, they were going to have to change.”
The Rev. Kate Murphy's 16-month old daughter Kerry reaches for 18-month old Charlee Rose, being held by her grandmother, Rose Blackmon.
Connecting people two by two, Everett said, is a powerful example of that change. “I think building intentional and beloved community across lines of class and race and differences is a counterwitness to all that divides us now.”But before The Grove could transform the surrounding community through the Kuhnekt Initiative, it had to transform itself.
‘We just wanted to be faithful’
Founded in 1957, Hickory Grove Presbyterian Church thrived for years in a town with deep Presbyterian roots. What would become the city of Charlotte was settled in the 1750s by Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, who built the area’s first seven churches.
Hickory Grove Presbyterian reached its peak in the early 1970s, Murphy said, drawing 300 or so worshippers each Sunday and effectively connecting with the largely white community it served.
But as the east Charlotte neighborhood around busy W.T. Harris Boulevard grew more culturally and racially diverse, Hickory Grove Presbyterian’s numbers and community ties began to wither.
By the time Murphy arrived as pastor in December 2008, Hickory Grove was down to 80 on the rolls and 50 or so in Sunday worship. It clearly had “earned” a spot in the Charlotte Presbytery’s Transformation pilot project in 2010-11 -- one of 10 churches that understood the need to, in Murphy’s words, “change or die.”
The “change or die” ultimatum offered space for life-giving creativity for The Grove. Are there changes your church can make now to avoid getting to this point?
During the yearlong project, pastors of the 10 churches met with outside consultants and read several books on leadership. Lay leaders from each congregation participated in discussions. Finally, consultants crafted a detailed “prescription” for change at each church.
Of those 10 churches, one has closed and seven, according to the Charlotte Presbytery, continue to struggle to connect with their communities.
At The Grove, the six-page, single-spaced prescription proposed wholesale changes: change the name of the church, the worship time, the worship music, the leadership structure, the bylaws -- and remove the organ from the sanctuary and replace it with video screens.
In 2011, the proposal was put up for a vote of the congregation: say yes or no to everything. For the changes to be adopted, two-thirds of the congregation had to vote yes.
Sherry Terrell hugs her 9-year-old granddaughter Jadein Terrell at the community meal.
Murphy put it this way to her congregation: “Are you going to be for your neighborhood or are you going to stay the way you are?”Exactly two-thirds of the congregation voted for change. Yet by 2012, two-thirds of the original congregation had left, forcing a reduction in Murphy’s hours.
The church flourished after a drop in membership. In what ways do numbers fail to tell the whole story in your church?
But those who stayed embraced the dramatic change. They renamed the church The Grove, instituted a blend of traditional and contemporary music, and committed to the cause of opening the church doors to all neighbors, regardless of color, culture or class.
They launched a host of community-focused initiatives -- the community meal; a community garden, Seeds of Faith, from which members distribute washed and bagged lettuce to neighbors as a gift; a free after-school tutoring program three days a week for grades K-5, nicknamed Firefly; a policy of making athletic fields available to neighbors; and a twist on the traditional church yard sale, called a “yard give,” in which members gather possessions and then give them away to neighbors rather than sell them.
Not all the old has been lost; in a nod to their roots, they still sing one traditional hymn each Sunday before the music turns more contemporary.
“The joke was, we’ll change anything but the gospel,” Murphy said. “In all honesty, I don’t know that any of us thought this would work. We just wanted to be faithful.”
Four-year-old Kayden holds his mother Sophon Chhay's hands at the meal.
It has worked. Worship attendance has more than doubled, to 120, with equal proportions of blacks and whites, and several Hispanic families as well. Beyond membership and attendance, the church has embraced a more inclusive spirit, and has been eager to share it.When The Charlotte Observer wrote in 2012 about the number of Protestants in the U.S. dropping below 50 percent of the population, the newspaper quoted Murphy, who articulated the journey that The Grove has taken: “I think the church is dying to the extent that we’ve lost our call to revolution. And if dying helps us recover our true identity, then it is a gift from God.”
What needs to die in your organization to make space for God’s gifts?
Last June, amid a spate of hate crimes nationwide against Muslims, The Grove put up a sign in its front yard, declaring in large, colorful letters: “We love our Muslim neighbors.” After seeing the sign, several Muslim women attended worship at The Grove, then helped serve a Maundy Thursday meal to the congregation the following Holy Week.
Hart, the church member who came up with the Kuhnekt name, said The Grove is driven by a passion to deepen connections. “It’s a choosing to be here, together.”
Church member Rebecca Hart visits with a friend at the community dinner.
‘The Christian faith is built on relationship’Among those brought together by the Kuhnekt Initiative are Libba Hicks and Sarah Mayer.
Hicks, 75, was in high school when she joined the church. Smiling slyly at the memory, she says she appreciated the ratio of boys to girls in the youth group way back when.
What might it look like for your church to “be here, together” in your community?
Mayer, 19, a sophomore from Davidson College, served as The Grove’s summer intern. Raised in the Church of Christ back home in Wichita, Kansas, she loved hearing Hicks share how The Grove came to be.
Over Reuben sandwiches at the Landmark Diner, Hicks was taken by Mayer’s bubbling-over energy. “That energy goes a long way when you’re my age,” she said.
Mayer, in turn, was taken by Hicks’s loyalty, and that of her husband, David, to The Grove -- and by the resilience reflected in the church’s journey.
“They are really good examples of what’s important at The Grove,” Mayer said. “Getting to know them on a personal level was so great.”
Hicks, for her part, welcomes the chance for longtime members to make new connections. “The Kuhnekt Initiative pushes folks who have been around for a while,” she said. “The Christian faith is built on relationship.”
As September’s community meal was winding down, Murphy helped fold up tables, carrying the youngest of her three daughters, Kerry, in a sling on her hip.
As she said goodbye to friends and neighbors until next time, the pastor invoked this familiar passage from Galatians 3:28 to capture the spirit of the Kuhnekt Initiative: "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ."
“Most people want to tell their story,” Murphy said. “The most powerful, profound things are sometimes the simplest things.”
Questions to consider:
- Often we over complicate relationship-building. Since everyone needs groceries, why not shop with someone? What else might we do in pairs?
- Sometimes we aren’t willing to make changes until we are given the “change or die” ultimatum. Yet that ultimatum offered space for life-giving creativity for The Grove. Are there changes your church can make now to avoid getting to this point?
- It would be natural to see the departure of two-thirds of the congregation as a sign that leadership made the wrong decision. Yet the church flourished in the resulting change. In what ways do numbers fail to tell the whole story in your church?
- What needs to die in your organization to make space for God’s gifts?
- What might it look like for your church to “be here, together” in your community?
Read more about the Kuhnekt Initiative at The Grove Presbyterian Church »
IDEAS THAT IMPACT: CONGREGATIONAL CARE
Pastoral care as healing presence by Ryn Nasser
Holistically practicing the presence of God in ministry enables us to prepare and to respond to various dramatic and ongoing pastoral care crises.
A single parent, Deborah recalls that during her first month as pastor of a United Church of Christ congregation in Western Pennsylvania, she performed nine funerals, four of which related to a boating accident. Already weary from moving across country to a new parsonage and getting to know a new congregation, Deborah knew that she soon would be spiritually and relationally depleted if she did not take time for self-care and personal and professional support. She asked her recently retired parents to come visit for two weeks to help her organize the house, cook meals, and care for her ten-year-old son. She also called her regional judicatory official for a referral to a spiritual director who would help her stay “spiritually grounded during this time of congregational crisis and personal stress.” In addition, she also sought out the spiritual and professional counsel of two experienced women pastors in the area. Several years later, Deborah still meets regularly with her spiritual director and has become close friends with the colleagues she initially called upon for nurture and support during this critical time.
Thankfully, the majority of our pastoral care encounters are not as fraught with complex congregational and community dynamics of grief and loss as what Deborah faced. Most encounters typically relate to ongoing issues of illness, personal growth, relationships, self-discovery, trauma, and bereavement. While these pastoral care issues are not as dramatic as unexpected deaths and diagnoses of life-threatening illness, they require just as much pastoral sensitivity and healing care, because every crisis is unique to those who are in the midst of it. Every crisis is a spiritual emergency in which the care of a sensitive and professional pastor can make the difference between hope and hopelessness, courage and cowardice, and responsibility and helplessness. Indeed, one of our tasks as pastors is to present images of hope and new life to people for whom, at the moment, the future appears bleak and uncertain.
Holistically practicing the presence of God in ministry enables us to prepare and to respond to various dramatic and ongoing pastoral care crises. A life devoted to prayerful attentiveness to God’s lively presence in our bodies as well as our minds opens us to unexpected guidance in responding with care and sensitivity to unexpected deaths, traumatic situations of grief and loss, and life-threatening illnesses among our congregants. Such prayerful awareness also enables spiritual leaders to minister patiently and creatively with chronic issues of mind, body, emotion, and spirit. Each encounter can be a potential theophany—a moment when God appears to us within the guise of another’s physical and emotional pain. God is here, embodied in your life and the one with whom you are ministering, giving you insights into ways you can respond in a healing way.
Process-relational theologian Bernard Loomer believed that size or stature was among the most essential spiritual and theological virtues. According to Loomer, spiritual and theological stature involves our ability to embrace as much of reality as possible, including contrast and contradiction, and joy and depression, without losing our personal center. Stature is not just a matter of our ability to entertain a variety of theological perspectives. It involves our openness to experiencing another person’s emotional life by opening to their body as well as their emotions as reflective of the dynamic interplay of pain and healing.
A person of professional and spiritual stature can embrace stories of pain and hopelessness, let go of the need to fix situations, accept others’ anger and anguish, and even unbelief, while maintaining an open heart and a non-anxious presence. Pastors become God’s healing partners when we follow the way of Jesus; we grow in wisdom and stature through integrating holistic spiritual practices and theological reflection with pastoral care skills in responding to the realities of trauma, bereavement, chronic illness, mental health issues, sickness, and death.
Spiritual stature involves the dynamic interplay of radical acceptance and healing intentionality. On the one hand, radical acceptance involves empathetically identifying with the experiences of others and claiming our own experiences as completely as possible without judgment, fear, or revulsion, while remaining grounded and aware of our authentic responses to these experiences. In pastoral care, radical acceptance is anything but passive. To listen completely to another and claim the fullness of your own experience in response requires tremendous effort and focus. On the other hand, healing intentionality enables us to see our presence in every pastoral encounter as a crucible for creative and healing transformation. The lively interplay of radical acceptance and healing intentionality in pastoral care joins the virtues of contemplation and action, listening and responding, letting go and moving forward, and fluidity and boundary keeping that are characteristic of God’s holy adventure in our lives.
Growing in wisdom and stature is a theological as well as a spiritual issue that beckons us to experience God’s overarching lure toward healing and wholeness in all things and, in particular, God’s ever-present, lively healing possibilities in every situation of need and brokenness. Because of God’s constant and graceful lure toward creative transformation, we can trust that God will provide a way when there is no way, both for us and for those to whom we minister. As pastoral care givers trusting this ever-present healing force, we are comforted and guided in such a way that we realize we are never alone, nor are the people who come to us in all their pain, anger, and uncertainty. God’s acceptance, affirmation, and possibility encircle and embrace pastor and congregant alike.
Pastoral care also deals with those unfixable events of life, whether dramatic or chronic, that force both pastors and parishioners to face their limits, vulnerability, and mortality. Just as the pastor’s calling to be a spiritual guide inspires his own commitment to spiritual growth through practices of prayer and meditation, the pastor’s call to share in people’s vulnerability and pain calls her to face squarely her own experiences of brokenness, pain, hopelessness, grief, and mortality.
Fear often comes in many disguises. The senior pastor of a midsized, multigenerational congregation, Ed found himself dragging his feet or delegating hospital visits to the associate pastor whenever the hospitalized person was someone with a life-threatening illness. One day his associate asked him point blank, “Why don’t you ever visit people with cancer? Do you have a problem with death?” As he reflected on his colleague’s remark, he realized that he was still grieving his father’s unexpected death from pancreatic cancer several years earlier. “I really hadn’t given myself a chance to grieve when my father died,” Ed admitted. “I was asked to conduct his funeral and a week after his death, there were two deaths from cancer in my congregation and I felt that I needed to be present at the deathbed and in comforting the family. I guess I just shut down emotionally. I was there in body but not in spirit. I guess I’ve been shut down ever since. I never realized that I may have short-circuited my own tears and grief.” Following this realization, Ed chose to enter counseling not just to support his pastoral ministry but also to claim the whole range of emotions that he had been suppressing as a result of unhealed grief. When we suppress or deny one area of our emotional life, the whole range of our emotional life suffers.
After a few months, Ed noted, “Now I can feel joy again, and I’m beginning to minister with a whole heart. I feel comfortable with tears and laughter, even my own, when I am responding to families facing a loved one’s impending or recent death. I am grateful that my associate was courageous enough to share his insights.”
Healthy interdependence, grounded in the recognition that we live in a dynamic web of relationships, palpably strengthens us and reminds us that we are all in this together. We have come to realize that within the body of Christ, there is no ultimate distinction between giver and receiver, healthy and sick, pastor and layperson, caregiver and patient. When we face our own vulnerability and fear embraced by God’s faithful companionship and the gifts of faithful friends and communities, we discover strength in our weakness and grace in our vulnerability. As we open prayerfully to God’s inspiring and comforting companionship, our wounds become the media of God’s healing touch to other vulnerable people.
__________________________________________________________
Adapted from Tending to the Holy: The Practice of the Presence of God in Ministry by Bruce G. Epperly and Katherine Gould Epperly, copyright © 2009 by the Alban Institute. All rights reserved.
Read more from Bruce Epperly and Katherine Gould Epperly »
For my research on listening, I interviewed 63 church leaders – lay and ordained – about the role of listening in their congregational life and mission. A Presbyterian ministertold me, “We’re failing in the wider church to listen to each other well. It’s our central failing right now.”Daniel, a theological college lecturer who teaches evangelism, said,“We’re coming to understand the centrality of listening. The danger is to think it’s a part only of the beginning of the process, but the need for it continues.” He advocated a repeating cycle in all forms of ministry and mission: listen-reflect-act-listen-reflect-act.
Much of the emphasis on listening in congregations has focused on pastoral care. Listening as a part of caring ministries matters now as much as ever, because personal needs are as complex, if not more complex, than in years past. Listening skills have also been emphasized for cross-cultural mission. I am convinced, however, that in these rapidly changing times, listening skills are essential for all aspects of congregationalministry and for all kinds of mission.Many of my interviewees expressed their belief that healthy congregations are composed of people who listen well.
Several of my interviewees also pointed out that as the West moves deeper into a post-Christendom culture, the people coming into congregations, as well as the people in the wider community, are less likely to be operating from assumptions they share with each other or with the people already attending the congregation. With worldwide migration reshaping our communities and congregations, people in our neighborhoods, workplaces and congregations bring diverse perspectives from their varied cultural and religious backgrounds. In order to understand how to minister in this changing world, my interviewees indicated that we need to know what people value and how they think.
Many writers focused on congregational mission today emphasize the necessity of paying attention to the local community, watching for God’s presence and action already there. These writers encourage congregations to partner with the Holy Spirit, who is already working in the communities beyond the walls of the church. This kind of paying attention requires the ability to listen, and I believe seminaries and congregations fall short because we seldom affirm or teach those skills for the purposes of congregational mission. Most of my interviewees agreed with this premise.
Listening to God is another aspect of listening that is gaining attention in our time. My interviewees noted that many congregational leaders have become weary of thinking about church as a business. Many are looking for authentic experiences of God’s guidance through consensus building and communal discernment, rather than through decision-making models shaped by business or government. Listening is an essential component in both consensus and discernment. And, in fact, becoming a better listener to the people in our lives can help us grow in the ability to listen for God’s voice, and growing in listening to God helps us improve our ability to listen to the people in our lives as well.
Dr. Lynne M. Baab is the author of numerous books about Christian spiritual practices and congregational life. She is a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) minister who teaches pastoral theology in New Zealand. She blogs at www.lynnebaab.com.
Read more from Lynne Baab »
What do I owe you?: The nature of exchange in congregations by Ryn Nasser
For pastors and other congregational leaders, it is important to understand the different dynamics of gift and market exchanges -- both of which exist in modern congregations. by Jeff Kunkel
Not long ago, I officiated at the funeral of a young man I did not know well. After the funeral, his mother, whom I had never met, asked me, “What do I owe you?” This is the question we are always asking and answering in our exchanges with one another, isn’t it? What do I owe? What am I owed? I knew the way I chose to structure the exchange with that bereaved mother would create a certain economy between us and shape our relationship. If I said to her, “Please accept my work as a gift,” I would be offering a gift exchange. Or, if I said to her, “My honorarium is two hundred dollars,” I would be offering a market exchange. Understanding the different results promoted by gift and market exchanges—both of which exist in modern congregations—can benefit anyone who works with congregations or other small communities. Throughout the article, I will build upon the fine work of Lewis Hyde in his book, The Gift.
Gift ExchangeThe giving and receiving of gifts—or gift exchange—is one way we structure our exchanges. We give and receive gifts on holidays and special days. The communion liturgy speaks of the bread and wine as “the gifts of God for the people of God.” Jewish blessings offer thanks for the gift of the Sabbath, the sunrise, the bread and wine. Gift exchange is not neutral. Gift exchange, by its nature, initiates or deepens ties of affection and gratitude. This is why we feel freshly indebted whenever we accept a gift—from God or a person. This is also why we refuse to accept certain gifts—we don’t want to accept the debt of affection and gratitude which is created by accepting that gift. By accepting the gift of freely given care from a congregation, a lay or clergy person is obliged to enter or deepen the ties of affection and gratitude with that congregation. By accepting a gift from the Holy Spirit, “peace, patience, kindness….”, a person or community is obliged to return thanks and praise to that Spirit, as the liturgy reminds us: “It is good and right that we give You thanks and praise.” Those in Alcoholics Anonymous speak of their sobriety as a gift and remind themselves that they have work to do as a result of accepting that gift: “When anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help, I want the hand of A.A. to always be there. And for that: I am responsible.”
I recently attended Burning Man, a fire festival and experimental community set up in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert. Gift exchanges were strictly encouraged among the thirty thousand Burners. The survival guide for the event says, “Black Rock City is a place of sharing and free exchange within a gift community.” What did this mean? No vendors, no logos, no advertising, no bartering, no sales, just gifts given and received—or declined. Gifts I was offered: lemonade, a shot of tequila, a Hawaiian luau, cookies, bike repair, hugs, and handmade objects. Gifts I offered: watermelon slices, coffee, meals, and help with setting up camp. The only exceptions to these gift exchanges: the entrance ticket fee, and a price for coffee, tea, and ice at Central Camp, which made these market exchanges.
Gift exchanges create gift economies, and gift economies thrive best in small communities where people want to know and care for one another—families, support groups, clubs, congregations, neighborhoods, tribes, small towns, convents, and monasteries. The United Methodist Church asks each member to support the church with his or her “prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness,” language which encourages the practice of a gift economy. The collection plate passed during worship is an invitation to give to the gift economy of the congregation. Other such invitations to join the gift economy of a congregation: the loaf of home-made bread given to a first-time church or temple visitor, the flowers taken to a hospitalized congregation member, or the food given to homeless folk. The Realm of God can be viewed as a pure gift economy.
Market ExchangeA market exchange is characterized by an exchange of goods and services rather than gifts. Gifts have inherent worth and are not easily priced—just try to set a price on your favorite family heirloom or helping a friend! But goods and services have comparative value which easily translates into a purchase price. Purchase price is objective, neutral, and separate from the ties of affection and gratitude. So it follows that we exchange goods and services and create a market economy in order to initiate or preserve our freedom and independence from others. Price, fee, salary, wage, and honorarium all are characteristic of market exchange and tend to diminish the motivating force of affection and gratitude.
Market exchanges tend to dominate between people who do not know one another well—and do not necessarily want to get to know one another any better. Childcare, once done as gift exchange within a family or village, is now often done between strangers. One woman says it this way: “In Manhattan, they have nannies. In Brooklyn, we have grandparents.” Nannies charge a price for their services, a market exchange. Grandparents volunteer their help, a gift exchange. Our nephew, a saavy wild mushroom hunter, gives some of his harvest to my wife and me as a gift, but he sells the rest of his harvest to area restaurants – a market exchange. Ancient Israel practiced a gift economy among tribal members and a market economy with those outside the tribe. The New Testament story of the Good Samaritan is remarkable in part because it is the story of two strangers—a Samaritan and a Jew—who unexpectedly create a gift economy between them.
Gift Exchange, Market Exchange: Side by Side in CongregationsMost families, convents, monasteries, small groups, and neighborhoods are still dominated by a gift economy, but in today’s congregations—especially large or urban congregations—a market economy exists right alongside a gift economy. For example, most congregations practice gift exchange through volunteering, donating, and bequesting, but also practice market exchange through negotiating salaries, setting certain fees, making purchases, negotiating loans, or investing in market securities.
Long ago, my great-grandfather, John Roeck, pastored a church in the small Wisconsin town of Kiel. He was given no salary, just gifts: a home in which to live, a share of each farmer’s harvest and slaughter, free visits to dentist, doctor, store, and stable. Today, a clergy person usually receives a salary, typical of a market exchange. But that same clergy person might also live in a church-owned house or receive other benefits which are gift exchanges. I was single and broke when I arrived as pastor of my first church, and even before I received my first paycheck, members gave me a kitchen shower, filling my empty cupboards and larder with practical gifts. The newly arrived executive of a corporation is not likely to receive such a gift.
Over my years as a pastor, I have been offered other gifts, like the use of mountain cabins or beach homes owned by members of my congregation. These were fine, attractive gifts, often offered privately with that lovely four letter word, FREE. But over time, I realized that accepting any substantial gift from an individual in my congregation was not really free: the inevitable “price” was a deepened sense of gratitude and loss of freedom toward them. I could become TOO grateful to that person, just like a member of Congress who accepts a free vacation from a lobbyist can become TOO grateful to that lobbyist.
Certain congregations—and most clubs and associations—now assess fees for membership. Such fees make sense to those who want the satisfaction of being paid in full. But such fees make little sense to those who want the satisfaction of ever-deepening ties of affection and gratitude. Friends of mine withdrew from their temple when faced with membership fees – a market exchange which felt ” too businesslike” to them. As a rule, small congregations – or small groups within a large congregation – will tend to practice gift exchange, while large congregations – or large groups within a congregation – will tend to practice market exchange.
Structuring Exchanges Within CongregationsSometimes, one person or group will want to practice a gift exchange while another person or group will want to practice a market exchange. The result: a conflict about the nature and purpose of exchange. For example, some people see tithing as an assessment or fee to be paid in full. Others see tithing as a challenge to deepen affection and gratitude for gifts received. Or this example: an outside choral group tried to set up a performance at a congregation I was pastoring. The choral group wanted a certain price for their performance, a market exchange, but the act of pricing didn’t “feel right” to that congregation— they were all part of the United Methodist family—so the congregation asked the choral group to accept a love offering instead, a gift exchange. The choral group, after some discussion, agreed, and the congregation took up a collection for the choir based on “love and gratitude” rather than price. The result: about the same amount of money collected for the choir, but on different terms, terms which deepened the ties between that choir and congregation.
Another example: during the recent economic downturn, a congregation felt unable to give a staff member a raise in salary, a market exchange. Instead, the personnel committee arranged to give the staff member a free stay at a member’s condominium in Hawaii, a gift exchange. Another example: a man in one of my congregations offered a large sum of money as a gift to help the congregation with financial difficulty. To my great surprise, the congregation turned down the money as a gift—but accepted the money as a loan, a market exchange. One member said, “If we take his money as a gift, we’ll be TOO grateful to him.” This person understood that substantial gifts—whether they are given by a person, a group, or God—vastly deepen the debt of affection and gratitude between the giver and receiver of the gift, and the receiver might not be ready or willing to take on such debt. In such a case, a market exchange will seem preferable to a gift exchange: “We’ll take the loan, not the gift.”
So, if both gift and market exchange are practiced in modern congregations, which way might be best or right for any given exchange? This question can only be answered by asking ourselves what we want to accomplish through that exchange. Do we want the exchange to deepen our sense of affection and gratitude? If so, a gift exchange will make sense. If, on the other hand, we want to be “paid in full” without further obligation, a market exchange will make sense. This does not mean that a market exchange disallows affection and gratitude or a gift exchange disallows freedom and independence. It just means that each kind of exchange will tend to promote a different result.
Remember my opening story—the mother at her son’s funeral who asked me, “What do I owe you?” Since I wanted to initiate ties of affection and gratitude between us, I answered, “Please accept my work as a gift.” She did so and said, “Thank you,” and our relationship deepened in a particular way as a result of that gift exchange. Remember, she could have said, “Nonsense. Here’s a check for two hundred dollars.” Paid in full! No further obligation! Market exchange! No relationship necessary! The nature of what we want to give and receive from one another shapes our exchanges, and our exchanges shape our relationships.
Congregations, 2010-10-01
Fall 2010, Number 4
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FROM THE ALBAN LIBRARY
Blessed Connections: Relationships that Sustain Vital Ministryby Judith SchwanzNo pastor sets out to fail, but statistics say 15 to 20 percent of pastors leave pastoral ministry within the first five years. One seminary administrator said that every person he had heard of leaving the ministry had done so because of a relationship failure. We cannot escape relationships in ministry, yet few seminaries offer courses in how to build healthy relationships. The assumption is that the type of person who is called to ministry will have all the "people skills" they need, which sadly is not always true.
In Blessed Connections, seminary professor Judith Schwanz focuses on the person of the minister and the relational system of the minister's life. She spotlights three areas of connection -- relationship with self, relationships with other people, and relationship with God. Attending to these three primary connections will strengthen the pastor and cushion her or him against the pressures and stresses of daily ministry.
Blessed Connections is ideal for seminary students and new pastors and includes "Assessment Journal" questions at the end of each chapter for personal application.
Book Details
Author
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers / Alban Books
Pages: 206 • Trim: 5 1/2 x 8 1/2
978-1-56699-356-2 • Paperback • January 2008 • $21.00 • (£13.95)
978-1-56699-477-4 • eBook • January 2008 • $20.00 • (£13.95)
Subjects:Religion / Christian Ministry / General
IDEAS THAT IMPACT: CONGREGATIONAL CARE
Pastoral care as healing presence by Ryn Nasser
Holistically practicing the presence of God in ministry enables us to prepare and to respond to various dramatic and ongoing pastoral care crises.
A single parent, Deborah recalls that during her first month as pastor of a United Church of Christ congregation in Western Pennsylvania, she performed nine funerals, four of which related to a boating accident. Already weary from moving across country to a new parsonage and getting to know a new congregation, Deborah knew that she soon would be spiritually and relationally depleted if she did not take time for self-care and personal and professional support. She asked her recently retired parents to come visit for two weeks to help her organize the house, cook meals, and care for her ten-year-old son. She also called her regional judicatory official for a referral to a spiritual director who would help her stay “spiritually grounded during this time of congregational crisis and personal stress.” In addition, she also sought out the spiritual and professional counsel of two experienced women pastors in the area. Several years later, Deborah still meets regularly with her spiritual director and has become close friends with the colleagues she initially called upon for nurture and support during this critical time.
Thankfully, the majority of our pastoral care encounters are not as fraught with complex congregational and community dynamics of grief and loss as what Deborah faced. Most encounters typically relate to ongoing issues of illness, personal growth, relationships, self-discovery, trauma, and bereavement. While these pastoral care issues are not as dramatic as unexpected deaths and diagnoses of life-threatening illness, they require just as much pastoral sensitivity and healing care, because every crisis is unique to those who are in the midst of it. Every crisis is a spiritual emergency in which the care of a sensitive and professional pastor can make the difference between hope and hopelessness, courage and cowardice, and responsibility and helplessness. Indeed, one of our tasks as pastors is to present images of hope and new life to people for whom, at the moment, the future appears bleak and uncertain.
Holistically practicing the presence of God in ministry enables us to prepare and to respond to various dramatic and ongoing pastoral care crises. A life devoted to prayerful attentiveness to God’s lively presence in our bodies as well as our minds opens us to unexpected guidance in responding with care and sensitivity to unexpected deaths, traumatic situations of grief and loss, and life-threatening illnesses among our congregants. Such prayerful awareness also enables spiritual leaders to minister patiently and creatively with chronic issues of mind, body, emotion, and spirit. Each encounter can be a potential theophany—a moment when God appears to us within the guise of another’s physical and emotional pain. God is here, embodied in your life and the one with whom you are ministering, giving you insights into ways you can respond in a healing way.
Process-relational theologian Bernard Loomer believed that size or stature was among the most essential spiritual and theological virtues. According to Loomer, spiritual and theological stature involves our ability to embrace as much of reality as possible, including contrast and contradiction, and joy and depression, without losing our personal center. Stature is not just a matter of our ability to entertain a variety of theological perspectives. It involves our openness to experiencing another person’s emotional life by opening to their body as well as their emotions as reflective of the dynamic interplay of pain and healing.
A person of professional and spiritual stature can embrace stories of pain and hopelessness, let go of the need to fix situations, accept others’ anger and anguish, and even unbelief, while maintaining an open heart and a non-anxious presence. Pastors become God’s healing partners when we follow the way of Jesus; we grow in wisdom and stature through integrating holistic spiritual practices and theological reflection with pastoral care skills in responding to the realities of trauma, bereavement, chronic illness, mental health issues, sickness, and death.
Spiritual stature involves the dynamic interplay of radical acceptance and healing intentionality. On the one hand, radical acceptance involves empathetically identifying with the experiences of others and claiming our own experiences as completely as possible without judgment, fear, or revulsion, while remaining grounded and aware of our authentic responses to these experiences. In pastoral care, radical acceptance is anything but passive. To listen completely to another and claim the fullness of your own experience in response requires tremendous effort and focus. On the other hand, healing intentionality enables us to see our presence in every pastoral encounter as a crucible for creative and healing transformation. The lively interplay of radical acceptance and healing intentionality in pastoral care joins the virtues of contemplation and action, listening and responding, letting go and moving forward, and fluidity and boundary keeping that are characteristic of God’s holy adventure in our lives.
Growing in wisdom and stature is a theological as well as a spiritual issue that beckons us to experience God’s overarching lure toward healing and wholeness in all things and, in particular, God’s ever-present, lively healing possibilities in every situation of need and brokenness. Because of God’s constant and graceful lure toward creative transformation, we can trust that God will provide a way when there is no way, both for us and for those to whom we minister. As pastoral care givers trusting this ever-present healing force, we are comforted and guided in such a way that we realize we are never alone, nor are the people who come to us in all their pain, anger, and uncertainty. God’s acceptance, affirmation, and possibility encircle and embrace pastor and congregant alike.
Pastoral care also deals with those unfixable events of life, whether dramatic or chronic, that force both pastors and parishioners to face their limits, vulnerability, and mortality. Just as the pastor’s calling to be a spiritual guide inspires his own commitment to spiritual growth through practices of prayer and meditation, the pastor’s call to share in people’s vulnerability and pain calls her to face squarely her own experiences of brokenness, pain, hopelessness, grief, and mortality.
Fear often comes in many disguises. The senior pastor of a midsized, multigenerational congregation, Ed found himself dragging his feet or delegating hospital visits to the associate pastor whenever the hospitalized person was someone with a life-threatening illness. One day his associate asked him point blank, “Why don’t you ever visit people with cancer? Do you have a problem with death?” As he reflected on his colleague’s remark, he realized that he was still grieving his father’s unexpected death from pancreatic cancer several years earlier. “I really hadn’t given myself a chance to grieve when my father died,” Ed admitted. “I was asked to conduct his funeral and a week after his death, there were two deaths from cancer in my congregation and I felt that I needed to be present at the deathbed and in comforting the family. I guess I just shut down emotionally. I was there in body but not in spirit. I guess I’ve been shut down ever since. I never realized that I may have short-circuited my own tears and grief.” Following this realization, Ed chose to enter counseling not just to support his pastoral ministry but also to claim the whole range of emotions that he had been suppressing as a result of unhealed grief. When we suppress or deny one area of our emotional life, the whole range of our emotional life suffers.
After a few months, Ed noted, “Now I can feel joy again, and I’m beginning to minister with a whole heart. I feel comfortable with tears and laughter, even my own, when I am responding to families facing a loved one’s impending or recent death. I am grateful that my associate was courageous enough to share his insights.”
Healthy interdependence, grounded in the recognition that we live in a dynamic web of relationships, palpably strengthens us and reminds us that we are all in this together. We have come to realize that within the body of Christ, there is no ultimate distinction between giver and receiver, healthy and sick, pastor and layperson, caregiver and patient. When we face our own vulnerability and fear embraced by God’s faithful companionship and the gifts of faithful friends and communities, we discover strength in our weakness and grace in our vulnerability. As we open prayerfully to God’s inspiring and comforting companionship, our wounds become the media of God’s healing touch to other vulnerable people.
__________________________________________________________
Adapted from Tending to the Holy: The Practice of the Presence of God in Ministry by Bruce G. Epperly and Katherine Gould Epperly, copyright © 2009 by the Alban Institute. All rights reserved.
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Lynne Baab: "Why Listening Matters for Mission and Ministry Today"
In these rapidly changing times, listening skills are essential for all aspects of congregational ministry and for all kinds of mission.
by Ryn Nasser
For my research on listening, I interviewed 63 church leaders – lay and ordained – about the role of listening in their congregational life and mission. A Presbyterian ministertold me, “We’re failing in the wider church to listen to each other well. It’s our central failing right now.”Daniel, a theological college lecturer who teaches evangelism, said,“We’re coming to understand the centrality of listening. The danger is to think it’s a part only of the beginning of the process, but the need for it continues.” He advocated a repeating cycle in all forms of ministry and mission: listen-reflect-act-listen-reflect-act.
Much of the emphasis on listening in congregations has focused on pastoral care. Listening as a part of caring ministries matters now as much as ever, because personal needs are as complex, if not more complex, than in years past. Listening skills have also been emphasized for cross-cultural mission. I am convinced, however, that in these rapidly changing times, listening skills are essential for all aspects of congregationalministry and for all kinds of mission.Many of my interviewees expressed their belief that healthy congregations are composed of people who listen well.
Several of my interviewees also pointed out that as the West moves deeper into a post-Christendom culture, the people coming into congregations, as well as the people in the wider community, are less likely to be operating from assumptions they share with each other or with the people already attending the congregation. With worldwide migration reshaping our communities and congregations, people in our neighborhoods, workplaces and congregations bring diverse perspectives from their varied cultural and religious backgrounds. In order to understand how to minister in this changing world, my interviewees indicated that we need to know what people value and how they think.
Many writers focused on congregational mission today emphasize the necessity of paying attention to the local community, watching for God’s presence and action already there. These writers encourage congregations to partner with the Holy Spirit, who is already working in the communities beyond the walls of the church. This kind of paying attention requires the ability to listen, and I believe seminaries and congregations fall short because we seldom affirm or teach those skills for the purposes of congregational mission. Most of my interviewees agreed with this premise.
Listening to God is another aspect of listening that is gaining attention in our time. My interviewees noted that many congregational leaders have become weary of thinking about church as a business. Many are looking for authentic experiences of God’s guidance through consensus building and communal discernment, rather than through decision-making models shaped by business or government. Listening is an essential component in both consensus and discernment. And, in fact, becoming a better listener to the people in our lives can help us grow in the ability to listen for God’s voice, and growing in listening to God helps us improve our ability to listen to the people in our lives as well.
Dr. Lynne M. Baab is the author of numerous books about Christian spiritual practices and congregational life. She is a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) minister who teaches pastoral theology in New Zealand. She blogs at www.lynnebaab.com.
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What do I owe you?: The nature of exchange in congregations by Ryn Nasser
For pastors and other congregational leaders, it is important to understand the different dynamics of gift and market exchanges -- both of which exist in modern congregations. by Jeff Kunkel
Not long ago, I officiated at the funeral of a young man I did not know well. After the funeral, his mother, whom I had never met, asked me, “What do I owe you?” This is the question we are always asking and answering in our exchanges with one another, isn’t it? What do I owe? What am I owed? I knew the way I chose to structure the exchange with that bereaved mother would create a certain economy between us and shape our relationship. If I said to her, “Please accept my work as a gift,” I would be offering a gift exchange. Or, if I said to her, “My honorarium is two hundred dollars,” I would be offering a market exchange. Understanding the different results promoted by gift and market exchanges—both of which exist in modern congregations—can benefit anyone who works with congregations or other small communities. Throughout the article, I will build upon the fine work of Lewis Hyde in his book, The Gift.
Gift ExchangeThe giving and receiving of gifts—or gift exchange—is one way we structure our exchanges. We give and receive gifts on holidays and special days. The communion liturgy speaks of the bread and wine as “the gifts of God for the people of God.” Jewish blessings offer thanks for the gift of the Sabbath, the sunrise, the bread and wine. Gift exchange is not neutral. Gift exchange, by its nature, initiates or deepens ties of affection and gratitude. This is why we feel freshly indebted whenever we accept a gift—from God or a person. This is also why we refuse to accept certain gifts—we don’t want to accept the debt of affection and gratitude which is created by accepting that gift. By accepting the gift of freely given care from a congregation, a lay or clergy person is obliged to enter or deepen the ties of affection and gratitude with that congregation. By accepting a gift from the Holy Spirit, “peace, patience, kindness….”, a person or community is obliged to return thanks and praise to that Spirit, as the liturgy reminds us: “It is good and right that we give You thanks and praise.” Those in Alcoholics Anonymous speak of their sobriety as a gift and remind themselves that they have work to do as a result of accepting that gift: “When anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help, I want the hand of A.A. to always be there. And for that: I am responsible.”
I recently attended Burning Man, a fire festival and experimental community set up in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert. Gift exchanges were strictly encouraged among the thirty thousand Burners. The survival guide for the event says, “Black Rock City is a place of sharing and free exchange within a gift community.” What did this mean? No vendors, no logos, no advertising, no bartering, no sales, just gifts given and received—or declined. Gifts I was offered: lemonade, a shot of tequila, a Hawaiian luau, cookies, bike repair, hugs, and handmade objects. Gifts I offered: watermelon slices, coffee, meals, and help with setting up camp. The only exceptions to these gift exchanges: the entrance ticket fee, and a price for coffee, tea, and ice at Central Camp, which made these market exchanges.
Gift exchanges create gift economies, and gift economies thrive best in small communities where people want to know and care for one another—families, support groups, clubs, congregations, neighborhoods, tribes, small towns, convents, and monasteries. The United Methodist Church asks each member to support the church with his or her “prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness,” language which encourages the practice of a gift economy. The collection plate passed during worship is an invitation to give to the gift economy of the congregation. Other such invitations to join the gift economy of a congregation: the loaf of home-made bread given to a first-time church or temple visitor, the flowers taken to a hospitalized congregation member, or the food given to homeless folk. The Realm of God can be viewed as a pure gift economy.
Market ExchangeA market exchange is characterized by an exchange of goods and services rather than gifts. Gifts have inherent worth and are not easily priced—just try to set a price on your favorite family heirloom or helping a friend! But goods and services have comparative value which easily translates into a purchase price. Purchase price is objective, neutral, and separate from the ties of affection and gratitude. So it follows that we exchange goods and services and create a market economy in order to initiate or preserve our freedom and independence from others. Price, fee, salary, wage, and honorarium all are characteristic of market exchange and tend to diminish the motivating force of affection and gratitude.
Market exchanges tend to dominate between people who do not know one another well—and do not necessarily want to get to know one another any better. Childcare, once done as gift exchange within a family or village, is now often done between strangers. One woman says it this way: “In Manhattan, they have nannies. In Brooklyn, we have grandparents.” Nannies charge a price for their services, a market exchange. Grandparents volunteer their help, a gift exchange. Our nephew, a saavy wild mushroom hunter, gives some of his harvest to my wife and me as a gift, but he sells the rest of his harvest to area restaurants – a market exchange. Ancient Israel practiced a gift economy among tribal members and a market economy with those outside the tribe. The New Testament story of the Good Samaritan is remarkable in part because it is the story of two strangers—a Samaritan and a Jew—who unexpectedly create a gift economy between them.
Gift Exchange, Market Exchange: Side by Side in CongregationsMost families, convents, monasteries, small groups, and neighborhoods are still dominated by a gift economy, but in today’s congregations—especially large or urban congregations—a market economy exists right alongside a gift economy. For example, most congregations practice gift exchange through volunteering, donating, and bequesting, but also practice market exchange through negotiating salaries, setting certain fees, making purchases, negotiating loans, or investing in market securities.
Long ago, my great-grandfather, John Roeck, pastored a church in the small Wisconsin town of Kiel. He was given no salary, just gifts: a home in which to live, a share of each farmer’s harvest and slaughter, free visits to dentist, doctor, store, and stable. Today, a clergy person usually receives a salary, typical of a market exchange. But that same clergy person might also live in a church-owned house or receive other benefits which are gift exchanges. I was single and broke when I arrived as pastor of my first church, and even before I received my first paycheck, members gave me a kitchen shower, filling my empty cupboards and larder with practical gifts. The newly arrived executive of a corporation is not likely to receive such a gift.
Over my years as a pastor, I have been offered other gifts, like the use of mountain cabins or beach homes owned by members of my congregation. These were fine, attractive gifts, often offered privately with that lovely four letter word, FREE. But over time, I realized that accepting any substantial gift from an individual in my congregation was not really free: the inevitable “price” was a deepened sense of gratitude and loss of freedom toward them. I could become TOO grateful to that person, just like a member of Congress who accepts a free vacation from a lobbyist can become TOO grateful to that lobbyist.
Certain congregations—and most clubs and associations—now assess fees for membership. Such fees make sense to those who want the satisfaction of being paid in full. But such fees make little sense to those who want the satisfaction of ever-deepening ties of affection and gratitude. Friends of mine withdrew from their temple when faced with membership fees – a market exchange which felt ” too businesslike” to them. As a rule, small congregations – or small groups within a large congregation – will tend to practice gift exchange, while large congregations – or large groups within a congregation – will tend to practice market exchange.
Structuring Exchanges Within CongregationsSometimes, one person or group will want to practice a gift exchange while another person or group will want to practice a market exchange. The result: a conflict about the nature and purpose of exchange. For example, some people see tithing as an assessment or fee to be paid in full. Others see tithing as a challenge to deepen affection and gratitude for gifts received. Or this example: an outside choral group tried to set up a performance at a congregation I was pastoring. The choral group wanted a certain price for their performance, a market exchange, but the act of pricing didn’t “feel right” to that congregation— they were all part of the United Methodist family—so the congregation asked the choral group to accept a love offering instead, a gift exchange. The choral group, after some discussion, agreed, and the congregation took up a collection for the choir based on “love and gratitude” rather than price. The result: about the same amount of money collected for the choir, but on different terms, terms which deepened the ties between that choir and congregation.
Another example: during the recent economic downturn, a congregation felt unable to give a staff member a raise in salary, a market exchange. Instead, the personnel committee arranged to give the staff member a free stay at a member’s condominium in Hawaii, a gift exchange. Another example: a man in one of my congregations offered a large sum of money as a gift to help the congregation with financial difficulty. To my great surprise, the congregation turned down the money as a gift—but accepted the money as a loan, a market exchange. One member said, “If we take his money as a gift, we’ll be TOO grateful to him.” This person understood that substantial gifts—whether they are given by a person, a group, or God—vastly deepen the debt of affection and gratitude between the giver and receiver of the gift, and the receiver might not be ready or willing to take on such debt. In such a case, a market exchange will seem preferable to a gift exchange: “We’ll take the loan, not the gift.”
So, if both gift and market exchange are practiced in modern congregations, which way might be best or right for any given exchange? This question can only be answered by asking ourselves what we want to accomplish through that exchange. Do we want the exchange to deepen our sense of affection and gratitude? If so, a gift exchange will make sense. If, on the other hand, we want to be “paid in full” without further obligation, a market exchange will make sense. This does not mean that a market exchange disallows affection and gratitude or a gift exchange disallows freedom and independence. It just means that each kind of exchange will tend to promote a different result.
Remember my opening story—the mother at her son’s funeral who asked me, “What do I owe you?” Since I wanted to initiate ties of affection and gratitude between us, I answered, “Please accept my work as a gift.” She did so and said, “Thank you,” and our relationship deepened in a particular way as a result of that gift exchange. Remember, she could have said, “Nonsense. Here’s a check for two hundred dollars.” Paid in full! No further obligation! Market exchange! No relationship necessary! The nature of what we want to give and receive from one another shapes our exchanges, and our exchanges shape our relationships.
Congregations, 2010-10-01
Fall 2010, Number 4
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FROM THE ALBAN LIBRARY
Blessed Connections: Relationships that Sustain Vital Ministryby Judith SchwanzNo pastor sets out to fail, but statistics say 15 to 20 percent of pastors leave pastoral ministry within the first five years. One seminary administrator said that every person he had heard of leaving the ministry had done so because of a relationship failure. We cannot escape relationships in ministry, yet few seminaries offer courses in how to build healthy relationships. The assumption is that the type of person who is called to ministry will have all the "people skills" they need, which sadly is not always true. In Blessed Connections, seminary professor Judith Schwanz focuses on the person of the minister and the relational system of the minister's life. She spotlights three areas of connection -- relationship with self, relationships with other people, and relationship with God. Attending to these three primary connections will strengthen the pastor and cushion her or him against the pressures and stresses of daily ministry.
Blessed Connections is ideal for seminary students and new pastors and includes "Assessment Journal" questions at the end of each chapter for personal application.
Blessed Connections
Relationships that Sustain Vital Ministry
JUDITH SCHWANZ
No pastor sets out to fail, but statistics say 15 to 20 percent of pastors leave pastoral ministry within the first five years. One seminary administrator said that every person he had heard of leaving the ministry had done so because of a relationship failure. We cannot escape relationships in ministry, yet few seminaries offer courses in how to build healthy relationships. The assumption is that the type of person who is called to ministry will have all the "people skills" they need, which sadly is not always true. n Blessed Connections, seminary professor Judith Schwanz focuses on the person of the minister and the relational system of the minister's life. She spotlights three areas of connection--relationship with self, relationships with other people, and relationship with God. Attending to these three primary connections will strengthen the pastor and cushion her or him against the pressures and stresses of daily ministry. Blessed Connections is ideal for seminary students and new pastors and includes "Assessment Journal" questions at the end of each chapter for personal application. « lessBook Details
Author
Rowman & Littlefield Publishers / Alban Books
Pages: 206 • Trim: 5 1/2 x 8 1/2
978-1-56699-356-2 • Paperback • January 2008 • $21.00 • (£13.95)
978-1-56699-477-4 • eBook • January 2008 • $20.00 • (£13.95)
Subjects:Religion / Christian Ministry / General
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Alban at Duke Divinity School
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