The most painful part of being around church leaders is not seeing dear friends suffer from white-anting, rejection, dishonouring and disillusionment. The most painful part is seeing beautiful, excellent and wonderful friends behaving atrociously. The perpetrators of injustice and stupidity are people we love. They are just like us. They are capable of great love and great evil. When I look at their decisions and behaviours, I know, I too am capable of great evil. In that moment, I become aware of the brokenness of our shared story... the one that keeps repeating on a loop of depravity. Good people behave badly - and usually, something inside their reasoning is listening to a serpent reasoning, rather than remembering to simply love God and each other.
One of my Fuller Professors, Sherwood Lingenfelter, recently released a book, ‘Leadership in the Way of the Cross’. It was painful for me to read, as some of my own case study material was in it. As I read, I remembered my own regrets - mostly people I had hurt, decisions that impacted badly on others, my inability to draw out what I had perceived as the best from people. I confess my own culpability and brokenness. I have sometimes behaved as I thought I should and have later discovered that my thinking was grounded, not in love, but in evil. Is this intentional - I think not - but we are easily blinded by our own defensiveness. Repentance requires turning away from destructive behaviours, not seeking justification for them.
One of my Fuller Professors, Sherwood Lingenfelter, recently released a book, ‘Leadership in the Way of the Cross’. It was painful for me to read, as some of my own case study material was in it. As I read, I remembered my own regrets - mostly people I had hurt, decisions that impacted badly on others, my inability to draw out what I had perceived as the best from people. I confess my own culpability and brokenness. I have sometimes behaved as I thought I should and have later discovered that my thinking was grounded, not in love, but in evil. Is this intentional - I think not - but we are easily blinded by our own defensiveness. Repentance requires turning away from destructive behaviours, not seeking justification for them.
After I had concluded as the final Director of the ELM Centre (a wonderful and quirky place for lay ministry formation), Rev John Mallison (the founder) kept an eye on me. I had gone to Newcastle, where he also had been the Minister. He actually sent me an encouraging email the morning he died (just before he went on his last walk). He reminded me to keep investing in individuals - ah - all those coffees he would have at Pages Café at Koorong! Mentoring, he said, was one of the few things the church could not control. Invest in relationships of substance and worth!
John and I held a little funeral for ELM. It was a child we had been given care of. It was flawed and fragile. There were many mistakes and people pinned too much on it. It represented all the ordinary and everyday disciples forgotten by the structures. John and I both wept and bore witness to one another’s regrets. Holding one another’s stories is not easy, but it helps us integrate all of who we are and what we have experienced. Do not forget your colleagues and friends. I especially remember those who were failed or hurt during that time. ‘Sorry’ doesn’t cover it.
Birthing a new community - The Commons - was a wonderful and terrible thing. Only recently, they have moved into new premises - rejected and outcast from a church that doesn’t want fresh expressions they cant direct or control. People who cannot name God are doing God’s work - loving people into a foretaste of the Kingdom of Heaven... God will have God’s way, with or without the Church! They are beyond comprehension now - they will not be counted in church statistics - but they are more real than the false structures that are holding us back. It is a very imperfect way of being, but The Commons is an attempt by people to live out the concept of blessing... a seeking to draw forth good. From The Commons I learnt about the God on the margins, who will never be held by a strategic plan or structure. As long as plans and structures dominate, God will turn over the tables. It will keep happening.
In my next appointment, I found myself in the centre of politics and power. In a role familiar to people in many places, I experienced the unconscious bullying and daily power games that seem to infest executive settings. The church does not equip us well to stand against such pressure. We come to believe this is part of ‘the game’, yet, this is exactly what we are called to challenged. In that setting, I learnt that personal mentoring and models of senior management of staff were important, but that the ongoing work of cultural change required spiritual interventions... the shared liminal experiences that bring about communitas... I became grateful for having written a dissertation (that no-one will ever read) for it made me notice ‘blessing’ as a form of spiritual interruption and transformation. I spent a lot of time reminding people that, for the church, God is core business... what is God’s blessing?
Since ELM days, I have thrown myself into national and international work. I co-wrote and facilitated much of the Space for Grace consultative process around marriage for the last 7 years. I write about S4G elsewhere, but essentially it is about an integrative approach to sharing stories and discovering truth together in spiritual disciplines (feasting together, dancing together, reading the scriptures together, praying together). When people refuse to hear or see one another in their real life stories, how can they read the Bible with any Truth? (I have also copped extraordinary criticism for this... mostly from people who are unable to conceive that God might still be revealing Godself among us. They seem to think God stopped operating among people with the publication of their translation of authorized text. Yet, God speaks louder in the scriptures among those who see themselves in the stories of Rachel and Leah and the Ethiopian eunuch.) I now continue some of that listening-storming work in my role on the Council of the World Methodist Church. Again - the continual reminder - God is core business... where is God’s blessing?
So - God and God’s blessings being core business - what now? When we can see with 20-20 hindsight are we still able to move forward? I will never forget the funeral of a friend, whose exercise books were full of names and commitments to pray. That cloud of witnesses again!
We came home after a difficult farewell recently, hearts heavy for friends and others in difficult situations. We prayed and lamented. It opened up questions about vocation and church. I believe we need to work to make radical change in focus. There is too much busy-work and not enough blessing. Too much problem-solving and not enough feasting. There is a heavenly party and we should be at it. I have lots of ideas! Do you?
Living with my husband’s daily approach to living with cancer makes me conscious of the value of living life to the full. Why waste time? There is too much beauty and wonder and delight and joy to spend our time creating pain. Yesterday, I spent time with a broken student, who was desperate to hear from her own mouth a word of hope in a dark world. In order to voice it, she first needed to confess the darkness around her and the impact that has had on her decisions and actions. My role was neither to condemn nor to preach, but to companion her on a difficult journey. She is suffering and has more suffering to come, but she is also now able to articulate her hope in a choice to live. Bearing witness to her word may yet bring me life.
For those of you who are able to speak out of your own brokenness, take courage - your suffering gives you credibility. For those who do not know you are broken, be silent - wait and listen - Christ is always coming.
Living with my husband’s daily approach to living with cancer makes me conscious of the value of living life to the full. Why waste time? There is too much beauty and wonder and delight and joy to spend our time creating pain. Yesterday, I spent time with a broken student, who was desperate to hear from her own mouth a word of hope in a dark world. In order to voice it, she first needed to confess the darkness around her and the impact that has had on her decisions and actions. My role was neither to condemn nor to preach, but to companion her on a difficult journey. She is suffering and has more suffering to come, but she is also now able to articulate her hope in a choice to live. Bearing witness to her word may yet bring me life.
For those of you who are able to speak out of your own brokenness, take courage - your suffering gives you credibility. For those who do not know you are broken, be silent - wait and listen - Christ is always coming.
