Carol over at Tribal Church posted about a pastor-friend of hers who is moving to Arizona to accept a new call. She describes the situation thus:

He had multiple interviews with the church nominating committee, he preached for the congregation, he went through the excruciating congregational vote. Finally, he met with a clearance committee from his denomination.

A Pastor from the Committee said, “You have a blog.”

“Yes,” Pastor Friend answered.

“Well, that could be a problem,” Committee Pastor continued, “Some of your opinions are ‘out there.’ And you need to gain trust with your congregation. In order to do that, you really shouldn’t tell a congregation your opinion on anything for at least the first three years of your ministry.”

I have friends whom have been placed in this situation themselves, who are cautioned about blogging candor and their pastorates. Some have had the matter discussed by the Associate Pastor Nominating Committees they related to, whose members weren’t sure whether they wanted a blogging pastor, only to report to me that their lead pastor already blogs (albeit anonymously).

This is so so different from the posture that others take, such as Bruce Reyes-Chow. Bruce, who was elected Moderator of the General Assembly this summer, has a policy of transparency and openness.

I think this posture makes for healthier relationships, but it requires some skill and wisdom on the part of the blogging pastor. Not everything ought to be published on a personal blog; discretion is called for, certainly, and I’m certain that Bruce has it in spades. But not so others I know of.

The notion that someone should hold-back whom they really are, for three years, as an effort to build trust doesn’t make any sense to me. That doesn’t necessarily mean that one should broadcast their innermost thoughts to the world, willy-nilly, but something about the advice to this pastor is really off.

So there’s a certain something that is required for pastors who blog, and who do so transparently. I just hope that I’ve got it…

Carol has a healthy discussion going about this over at her post…

Thoughts? Offer them there or here, please!

As heard (and reported) by Tony Marr. Thanks to Jim the church geek for the pointer.

My favorite:

7. “How dare you try and bully my daughter. We have be preparing and planning her future for years and I am not going to let you persuade her away from our plans. I could have you fired for this.”

Said to me by an elder at our church when I talked to his daughter about not going to a state university to study biology, but to go to a Christian college and be a missionary. She felt it was what God was calling her to do. Dad did not. Dad won.

Eugene Cho has a post up about ‘pastoral health,’ that is, the health of pastors out there. Sobering statistics:

• 80% of pastors say they have insufficient time with spouse and that ministry has a negative effect on their family.
• 40% report a serious conflict with a parishioner once a month.
• 33% say that being in ministry is an outright hazard to their family.
• 75% report they’ve had significant stress-related crisis at least once in their ministry.
• 58% of pastors indicate that their spouse needs to work either part time or full time to supplement the family income.
• 56% of pastors’ wives say they have no close friends.
• Pastors who work fewer than 50 hrs/week are 35% more likely to be terminated.
• 40% of pastors considered leaving the pastorate in the past three months.

(h/t Michael Kruse, who wants folks to begin rethinking their understanding of pastors)

Instead of photoshop (thanks to the recs to look at paint shop pro), I’ve decided to spend what remains of my meager expense budget on some liturgical items that I need: mainly a chalice/paten/pyx/pitcher set and a new stole.

So, while I had the opportunity, yesterday I visited the studios of Gospel Colors and picked up a new white stole. I needed one, since my other white stole isn’t quite appropriate for all the occasions for which I’d wear white.

I’ll try to get a picture of the actual stole I got, but I went in thinking I’d get this one. The one I ended up with is more quilted, and its more kenetic (which is in tune with my theology of what God is doing at Christmas and Easter, informed as it is by Moltmann‘s theology of God’s novum decisively moving the world towards the Kingdom of God). But I do like this one a lot, too…

I’ll wear my new one for Christmas. Its also appropriate for Easter, or funerals, or weddings.

I think a lot of Gospel Colors’ work is beautiful. Check out their website. The stole I bought is an interesting complement to my other stoles, which include items from Peru, Guatemala, Bosnia-Herzegovina, one made as an ordination gift by a pastor I interned with, and one bought from a more formal outfit (Slabbinck). Pretty cool having a more-or-less “local” complement to that global list….

Jan Edmiston says she hit a nerve in a discussion about membership numbers. I had the opposite experience from her: I grew up in a church with barely 100 people on the rolls, and now serve a church with 370 or so. Some comments have urged shutting down small churches, others have lamented how their small church is seen by others as one that should close.

My view, I guess, is mixed, and depends on some assessment of the vitality of the ministry taking place at the church, the location, some practical questions (such as financial assessments, considerations of  prospects for stability, not necessarily huge exponential growth but concern for its opposite): some of these churches do need to enter hospice, some we need to redouble our efforts on as a denomination.

The other side of this coin is that we Presbyterians need to be doing a far better job at New Church Development and Redevelopment. In the Presbytery I serve, we do poorly. A huge obstacle here is money, but another major obstacle is vision and commitment. And as the ties that bind us together as a denomination are fraying a bit, I don’t have anything but prayers that this will improve.

Her recent follow-up post is interesting, because it gets into issues of established churches vs new churches, about where the emphasis should be:

The numbers discussion hit a nerve it seems, and I received more private comments via email than posted comments. Some were deemed too personal and/or painful to share with the masses, especially from . . .

people about to lose their congregations because they are “too small”

people who adamantly believe that small churches should be closed & fast

people who intentionally chose to join the “It” church in town because it’s cool to belong to the big cool church.

Most intriguing were Wendy’s second comments (‘Most of our churches are “established” and “institutional”. We don’t do the Christ follower real well).’

And if we start new congregations which are clearly not yet established with few adherents who care about being institutional, we need to start those churches in a new way:

1) make contacts,then 2) build Christ-centered relationships, then 3) grow disciples, then 4) start worshipping together.

Instead we’ve made the mistake of starting new congregations this way:

1) create worship service, then 2) organize Bible study, then 3) set up small groups, then 4) start mission projects.

We are starting a new worship service after many years of prayer and planning – God-willing – during Lent 2007 and it’s occurred to us that this is not the place to begin. Yikes – is it too late to back up a little?

Before the new worship service begins, we hope to spark something in this very busy part of the world by offering some casual “curious about Jesus but don’t do church” gatherings. We are leaping into this thing inspired by something Rob Bell wrote in Velvet Elvis: he knew it was time to start a new church when he didn’t care if the church was “successful” or not.

(Some emphasis added; some in the original).

My confession: something inside of me is interested in starting a church. I’m not sure yet if that is where God is calling me. Perhaps, maybe a few years down the road. So something gets flagged when I read things like this, something for me to remember. In the meantime, this is good meat for us to consider: should we just willy nilly create that “contemporary” service to draw new folk, or should we find a way to build networks of relationships first? And how, pray tell, would we do that?

(ed note: post slightly modified 11/14/08)

Michael Kruse has a link to a good interview with Rob Bell on Premier.tv. (NB: the interview link has caused some people some difficulty; see Kruse’s blog for suggestions if you have problems).

Bell is the one who has put out those Nooma videos I wrote about earlier. Good stuff. Good comments, too, about Bell over at krusekronicle.

…of the meeting recently between Mark Driscoll and his peers, this one on Dwight Friesen’s Blog. It is rather revealing, I think. A few thoughts to make, after a lengthy excerpt:

If we had simply met and nothing tangible would have resulted I still would have been thrilled by the fact that we met face-to-face as our Scriptures invite. But as further evidence of the grace of God, I’m delighted to report that the meeting was a time of frank and honest discussion, where everyone had opportunity to hear, to speak and inquire.

Mark demonstrated a desire to hear and to learn, and told a number of stories of the impact of the response to his language that illustrated his need for change. He told the story of his contact with a member of the Haggard family after his comments went public and how as a result of that conversation Mars Hill Church will have a female researcher read his blog posts prior to publication. With tears in his eyes Mark spoke of his fear for his family’s safety as a result of the public response to his language . . . threats of violence must stop. Please, if you or anyone you know has responded to Mark or (anyone) with such threats of violence please, for the sake of Christ and the love of humanity explore your heart and repent of your sin. Violence is not the Way of Christ. Also, Mark’s pastoral heart was evidenced as he spoke clearly about the need to model humble leadership which appropriately acknowledges failure; he even confessed his need for wisdom as he wasn’t sure how best to proceed. Although the primary focus of our conversation was the tenor of Mark’s comments in recent years, he wasn’t the alone in making movement during the course of this conversation. Paul, the organizer of the protest, asked Mark’s forgiveness for labeling him, “Mark the Misogynist.” Not only that, the protest was called off. Further, for those in that conversation who had seen Mark as something of an an adversary prior to our meeting there was movement toward being advocates one for the other. I left that meeting with greater hope for a reconciled church in Seattle, and beyond. For all of us the proof will be in the pudding. How will Mark use his wit and prophetic platform in the future time only will reveal, but I do believe that he loves God and is desirous to serve Christ and to finish well the race he has been called to run.

We all know that actuating lasting change is difficult and slow as our greatest strengths are often our greatest weaknesses. And so the very things that brought us together for this meeting may bring people together again around future matters; and this is the nature of human experience. It is also the hope of Christian reconciliation that our differences and disagreements can bring us together at the foot of the cross. Our goal is not to agree on points of theology, as clearly we don’t, rather our goal is to grow in love and to move toward reconciled union because of God. This is just one of the many reasons why Trinitarian theology has such practical application in our lives. Three Divine differentiated persons in humble service of one another, and simultaneously one God: genuine plurality/genuine oneness. As followers of Christ we must disagree with another and we can still move toward one another in grace, love, humility and curiosity while recognizing that our oneness does not rest in our creeds but in our Creator.

I’m moved by this account. I’m glad that some practical, systemic measures are being taken to work on Driscoll’s public blogging (though, again, I hope he really has heard what the biggest complaint was; I don’t know if he has). I’m deeply troubled that Driscoll has received threats of violence. And I agree, this is a great model for future health of the church community in Seattle.

Driscoll’s latest on the controversy he sparked and his later response is up. Like his last post, I’m impressed by the spirit he brings to this latest message. I have no doubt that he has experienced these few weeks much like he mentions from the Book of James. That is impressive. I have no doubt that he has seen the effects of his words and might temper them in the future. I get his desire to mature more slowly, and am fascinated by his thoughts about how his sort of ministry in the 21st century is impacting that.

Still, while there’s quite a bit admirable in this post and what he’s learned, there’s nothing substantively new here on the original matter, and so far as I can tell there likely won’t be. An excerpt:

I came to the meeting expecting God would speak to me through fellow Christians and had much joy because He did. I learned that my theological convictions, even the most controversial ones, are as unwavering as ever. But I also learned that as my platform has grown, so has my responsibility to speak about my convictions in a way that invites other people to experience charity from me, which means inflammatory language and such need to be scaled back. I was also sad and sorry to hear that various things I have said over the years have been received very personally by some people who felt personally attacked. A female pastor had a very good insight: as my platform has grown, so has my audience, and that in some sense I need to consider myself the pastor of two churches. In Mars Hill where I labor as a pastor who deeply loves his people, they are gracious with my faults and flaws because they know me and they know of my love for them. But outside of Mars Hill, for those who do not know me or my pastoral affection for people, the perception of me can be very different. Therefore, I need to learn how to function most effectively in a new role as someone given a broader voice to speak for Jesus. There is much to learn. To be honest, this is all new to me and comes quicker than I would have hoped for; I wish I was at this place in my fifties or sixties, following a longer period of maturing. However, Jesus obviously has something different planned for me.

Either he still thinks this is just about him singling out Carolyn Haggard, and thus he’s missing the larger impact of what he wrote and what it means to say about women, or he’s got that and actually believes it. Either way, I think he’s likely done commenting on it. I note, also, that he’s a good and clearly thoughtful writer, and in nothing he’s posted on his blog has be apologized or retracted what he wrote about wives letting go for their bound-pastor-husbands. But I’m ready to move on.

Also helpful is this blog entry from one of the pastors who recently met with Driscoll about this matter, Rose Madrid-Swetman. (h/t Scot McKnight) As she says, “We are all life long learners on this journey where confession, forgiveness, and reconciliation is one of our highest callings.” Amen and amen!

And I’ll reiterate what I said before: no one should protest a church’s worship service. I hope the concerns about that he expresses in this post don’t come to pass. Driscoll, Mars Hill, and those who are upset with him all have my prayers.