From Former to Searching

Many apologies to anyone who has tried to get on this lately and hasn’t been able to. After some advice that I needed to consider and with the need of finalizing some legalities I briefly restricted access to it. I will write about this later.

For now I want to write about a small change on this blog. I changed former pastor to a searching pastor. I must also admit that I really don’t know what word to use. People’s response to me over the last several days has encouraged me to reconsider whether I truly want to publish former, at least at this point. Also the reality is that calling is something deep, it is hard to just walk away even when almost every fiber of your being and many of the people who love you are wanting you to.

Don’t let anyone fool you. Each of us have a calling. Just take the time to look. What is it that when you do it, it most fully expresses who you are? What is the point where your deepest desires meet the world’s need? That would be your calling. And “your’s” isn’t quite right. Being called is not something private, it come from both God. I thought, and it was affirmed by many, that I had found that in the position I was terminated from. Mmmm . . .

For me thought whether I am called to the church is a serious question for me. The reality is that I have now been repeatedly beat up by the church. Each time those in power in the church protected my accusers and attackers. Each time those who made the accusations were protected from making them directly, each time the accusations were left vague and highly personal, each time when the accusers and accusations where invited to come into the open and be substantiated they melted away. Once the damage was done. Each time the church has protected my accusers and then told me how much they loved me. The nice thing about having a psychiatrist as a wife is that she will call things as they are. What she said to me was “You have to realized that this is an abusive relationship, and if you were one of my clients I would be working to help you see that you need to get out of this relationship.” What saddens me is that I know that I am not alone in my experience.

How many others are there lying around who have been deeply wounded, while the church protects those who wounded them? Just ask all the people in Boston about this, or anywhere else.

The proper answer is that "the church is a sinful institution like any other human institution." . . . I don’t think that this is an adequate answer any more. Much for the same reason I don’t like the answer that the church’s problems began with Constantine, it might express some truth, but its vagueness protects us from addressing the deeper issues and working to change what isn’t working. We must begin to seriously ask the question of why does the church actively hurt and destroy people while protecting the perpetrators? Why do people find the church blocking their encounter with God instead of facilitating it? Why does the church repeatedly become a place of oppression instead of liberation? Why do churches close their doors to the hurt of the world around them? Why does the church devour those called to serve it? What can we learn that which heals, builds faith, gives hopes, and realizes justice both in and outside of the church? There are no simple answers here.

This is why I am left searching. The quick answers are rarely complete. That is why there is a need for open dialogue, for probing questions, for creating a space where people can speak and freely be wrong. Instead of offering vague generalities, we need to search together. We need to gather and start digging together in the muck of what has crippled us. We need to keep at it. No nice set of strategic directions or mission statement developed over a weekend, no matter how eloquent will do. What we need are the shovels of open discourse, and deepening questions that will help us dig down to the roots of what has been choking us.

This is one reason for this bog. Please take nothing here as a final answer. I make no claims to be right, I am just searching, and I expect to be wrong. So if you see that I am wrong post a comment and let me know. It is not a monologue of perfect speech that will allow us to figure our way out of this mess, it is rather the conversation amongst friends, with all its imperfections, and misspeaking, need for apologies, but also moments of clarity and solidarity and insight that will help us not only get out of this mess, but figure out where God is calling.

As for me it is still an open question. Is it worthwhile any more to put one's life into serving the church?
As a friend of mine wrote (quite insightfully)

"those of us who've remained loyal to our institutions or denominations are putting our credibility on the line, by asking others to recognize the value of organizations that are so obviously dysfunctional, and often at cross-purposes with our Christian vocation."

Enough said, time for some searching.