Saint Paul’s, Seattle: the search process #1

Saint Paul’s is in a search process.[i] I decided to use that as a starting place to write about the transition of ordained leadership in our parishes. So, this is about St. Paul’s but it’s more about the relationship between search processes and parish development.

What will come next?

On the Feast of Saint David I attended the consecration and enthronement of Melissa Skelton as the 9^th Bishop of New Westminster. A wonderful event. Susan Ohannesian added a comment to the Vancouver Sun on-line coverage -  “I love her smile and her sense of humour. This was a very momentous and solemn occasion for the Anglican Church and Melissa Skelton embodied the holiness and solemnity and let in the lightness of the Holy Spirit and avoided pomposity. I think she is going to be great for this diocese.”

Melissa brought that reverent lightness to Saint Paul’s in Seattle and helped that parish lighten up and in many ways also “drill down” into a more profound reverence. My guess is she’ll bring the same to her new diocese. She’ll help it grow in reverence, solemnity and awe while developing a lighter spirit.

Driving back to Seattle I found myself thinking about Melissa’s beloved Saint Paul’s and what would come next for that magnificent congregation of the baptized. And that got me reflecting on the church’s processes for transition and search.

 A time for ….

In the mid 1970’s. Bill Yon wrote “Prime Time for Renewal.” and the title captured one aspect of the approach that became normative for many years—in a time of transition the parish church can engage certain developmental tasks that can advance its renewal.[ii]

These days there are multiple strategies in use for a transitional period. We have no idea if any of them are any better than the others or what we used in the past. The increased choice is wonderful. The half thought through strategic thinking going on as we use them is less wonderful.

I don’t think the transition period is really a prime time for renewal. Sometimes it is but mostly it isn’t. Renewal that brings sustainable improvement, increased health and faithfulness, comes with a priest in place. It comes when that priest has the needed competencies and wisdom and the parish is ready. And it comes after years of hard work and common prayer.

The transition period is a time when the parish community may begin to let go of the former rector, take stock of their current situation, and seek a new rector with whom life may be shared in the years ahead. It is by its nature an opportunity to disentangle from existing ways that may no longer serve us and explore new ways.  It’s a breathing space. It can be an opening of minds and hearts. Sometimes.

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.”[iii]  The parish needs to engage that twice during the transition. First as lay leaders make an initial discernment. As they explore for themselves, “where are we and where do we need to go?” And again when the new rector arrives. The same questions need to be explored again because the new priest changes the initial answers. Her skills, wisdom and temperament will bring a shift in how things are seen and what is possible.[iv]

The place of Saint Paul’s in all this is that it’s the parish in which I participate in the Sunday Eucharist and weekday Masses and Daily Offices. And being a fairly typical person engaged in such a pattern, the “devout but institutionally uninvolved,” – I know little of what’s happening in rest of parish life. A happy state of affairs. However …

However, I do know a lot about the culture of the parish and about the patterns of parish dynamics and culture more broadly.[v] So, I thought I’d use the occasion of my own parish’s current transitions as a starting point for a broader reflection. 

There is no perfect priest and rector that creates the perfect parish

Yes, yes! We know that!

More precisely, we know it but there is a part of us that doesn’t believe it. There is in parishes a child like illusion that seeks the perfect priest and the perfect parish. Sometimes it sits on the edges, other times it takes over the center.

I think Melissa Skelton was perfect for the moment in which she served.

The parish needed a more extroverted energy. It needed someone with skills in parish development. It needed a priest who would appreciate and love the parish as it was while taking it into a new and broader life.  She brought all those things.

Mother Melissa knew how to assess the situation, build on parish strengths, and add the strategic elements needed to generate the kind of energy that attracted many new members and brought the parish to a new level of vitality. She had the mix of temperament, experience, and training[vi] that Saint Paul’s needed.

She knew how to look at the whole system, think long term, provide strong leadership with charm and finesse, and push forward in the face of challenges and resistance.

I want to begin with two models that can be used in understanding transition issues: Transition Dynamics and Iceberg image. 

Transition Dynamics

There are dynamics that get set loose among parish leaders when the rector leaves. Those dynamics amount to pathways the parish can walk down during the transition.

With the announcement of the rector’s departure there emerges two broad pathways for the parish—acceptance or denial. The acceptance pathway accepts the complexity of feelings and tasks. There is anxiety and excitement, grief and anticipation. There’s a kind of balance.

The denial pathway is focused on anxiety. People avoid their feelings and consider various forms of withdrawal as a way to manage their anxiety. 

The first is reflective and productive; the other is tense and may become cynical and passive.  

        Here’s a PDF of the model – “Transition Dynamics: The Rector’s Departure”

Are there dangers for St. Paul's? Places where the denial pathway could claim ground? I’ll be surprised if it happens but if it were to happen, where would it come from at Saint Paul’s? Here are a couple of the possibilities – 1) Something related to idealization of the past rector. That could show up in the profile or the expectations of the search committee or vestry. Or it might not appear until several years from now when the new rector is unable to navigate the disappointment phase of the process in which people and priest move toward a mature relationship. 2) Old issues reemerging. One would be a tension about being Anglo Catholic. During Melissa’s first year as rector there were those who thought that the parish would be better off if it stopped calling itself Anglo Catholic. Others feared not being “catholic” enough.

The other places where that kind of anxiety might arise are around what I call “key factors” – overall satisfaction, the formation of members, the extent to which the parish remains vibrant, questions of alignment, and the Sunday liturgy. If the parish was to have difficulty in these factors where would that develop? My guess is that it would happen around alignment or formation issues. Again, I don’t expect it. But parish systems are living communities and susceptible to forces that we pay little attention to.    

          See the PDF on “Some Key Factors”

My impression is that Saint Paul’s has accepted the new reality and is getting on with life. As in any parish there are likely to be individuals who are personally caught up in their own anxiety. However, there seems to be a center that is holding the parish in a graceful stability as it listens and considers new directions. That center is a mix of spiritual and emotional maturity, constancy in liturgy, and not “doing stupid stuff.”[vii] It is the parish’s cooperation with the Holy Spirit.

The iceberg

Do you know the iceberg model? It’s the image of an iceberg with a portion that is visible above the water line and the larger part that is invisible, below the water line. Here’s a PDF of the model. The PDF “OD Looks Under the Tip of the Iceberg” is a secular model. Useful in itself. For the church, in addition to all those forces, are the forces of the Holy City and faith. “The assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”[viii]

Real icebergs typically are 10% above the water and 90% under. And from what I understand, the shape of the portion under the water can’t really be determined by looking at the part above the water. 

It’s the unseen part that sinks the ship.  It's also the unseen part that provides needed balance to the visible part.

Search processes are understandably centered on the more visible aspects of the transition. We attend to the day-to-day work. The formal steps and structures of the search are managed. The values and identity of the parish is affirmed. And that’s often all that we need to do.

Usually we only concern ourselves with the stuff under the surface when something is already going wrong. We notice trust issues when trust is low. It's the exceptional parish that works on developing trust as part of its parish development work.

Trouble can come from a lack of empathy and inclusion in a parish group or even the search committee. It can develop if the process feels as though it is dragging out and those responsible are not seen as working hard enough. It can arise if enough people believe that some things are ”undiscussable.” It can surface if the leaders or consultants of a process are seen as screening information or limiting choices.  There are dozens of ways in which the generally invisible life of a parish community can do damage.

And if adequately attended to – all the same unseen forces can offer harmony, beauty and joy.

rag+

Worship that swept us off our feet
Worship that swept us off our feet
So what’s transferable?
Small issues with large consequence
Instinctual and intuitive leadership
The role of the bishop and the diocese 

The Search Process
Saint Paul’s, Seattle: the search process #1

Saint Paul’s, Seattle: the search process #2

Saint Paul’s, Seattle: the search process #3

 A List of All Postings

Saint Paul's Parish Profile - posted in early October 2014 

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[i] The parish notices say that the profile is about to be released. I’ve been waiting on that. I didn’t want to post this before the committee completed its work because it might influence that work (if anyone happened to read this blog) and I wanted to post it before the document came out because that would allow this blog and the profile to each stand on their own.

[ii] I don’t think the transition period is really a prime time for renewal. Sometimes it is but mostly it isn’t. It is however a time when the parish community may let go of the former rector, take stock of their current situation, and seek a new rector. In 1988 the Episcopal Church defined the interim period as “the time between rectors when educational and developmental opportunities abound.” Transition activities were seen as including: reviewing history; evaluation and planning for the future; encouraging lay ministry; dealing with grief, loss and anger; and leadership development. This was still seen as the work as late as 2007.

[iii] Ecclesiastes 3: 1 – 8.

[iv] A mistake made by some parishes is to develop a fearful investment in the way forward, vision, or issues to address offered in the profile. Most would deny it if challenged but what such an investment means is that we expect the new priest to come and do what we have already decided. This is an illustration of the pathway of denial and anxiety mentioned in the “Transition Dynamics” model.

[v] My own connection with search processes has included: being considered for positions, being the exiting priest and the entering priest, consulting with parishes, being a diocesan staff person with direct responsibility for placing vicars in our 21 assisted parishes and for helping the consultants facilitating all diocesan search processes to bring into their work attention to group and system dynamics, emotional intelligence, understanding the spiritual dynamics of the parish church, and so on), working with non profit organizations on their search processes, and consulting with the Episcopal Church’s deployment office as it explored a new direction and managed the retirement of a long time director.

[vi] This is an area of confusion for some people.  There are those that point to her MBA from Chicago and her extroversion. I believe that the story is considerably more complex and included—a natural inclination to lead with the training and mentoring received at Procter and Gamble; experience with parishes ranging from Trinity Wall Street to the Community of Julian of Norwich with its shared homilies, jazz, silence, and communal dancing in the liturgy; formal training in the Church Development Institute and with NTL; and in the first couple of years at St. Paul’s a willingness to seek advice from someone with a very different temperament from her own.

[vii] It’s not so much that leaders during a transition have to be incredibly wise. They just need to not to “stupid stuff” that will generate reactivity in the parish.

[viii] Hebrews 11:1

Barnabas the Apostle: Making space

Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch where Barnabas had already been doing good work.

They worked together in Antioch and in time the Holy Spirit called them as something of a team to travel and spread the Good News.[i]

Barnabas made space for Paul to find his place within the Body of Christ.

Later he did the same with Mark when Paul didn’t want Mark to travel with them.  And in time Paul came to greatly value what Mark brought to the work.[ii]

In Henri Nouwen’s Reaching Out we hear:

In our world full of strangers, estranged from their own past, culture and country, from their neighbors, friends, and family, from their deepest self and their God, we witness a painful search for a hospitable place where life can be lived without fear and where community can be found.

Hospitality, therefore, means primarily the creation of a free space where the stranger can enter and become a friend instead of an enemy. Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them a space where change can take place.

There’s a task for the parish church—the creation of a “free space.” Space in which people might find their place in the Body and grow in holiness of life.

How are we to make such a space in parish churches?

First it is to be a community of prayer, with a common life. A climate that is unhurried and measured. Not rushing from one thing to another but offering peace to all. A place in which you can breath. A place in which you regain week-by-week your baptismal identity and purpose.

Second we accept the person and take them into this parish community. Benedict wrote, “All guests must be received like Christ.” To seek Christ in all people of the parish—those we are at ease with and those that cause us discomfort; those we like and those we dislike; the familiar and the stranger.

Third to maintain the boundaries of the community – the community’s life must be protected so it might serve its members and the guest and stranger.

The guest/visitor is not to be allowed to disturb the reliable and nurturing order of the parish.  The community needs to do its work and live its life—a work and life of Mass and Office, community and reflection, and service grounded in awe and adoration.  We are to protect the rhythms and ways of the parish community both in service to the baptized members but also so the guest may have "the experience" of that life.

rag+

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[i] Acts 11-13

[ii] 2 Tim 4:11; see also Col 4:10 and Phil 24

Feast of the Ascension 2014

I think the point of the Ascension is two-fold: 

First – Accept responsibility for your life and your world.

Second – There is, in God, peace, love, harmony and justice. Accept that even with all your best efforts and those of millions of others, you will not bring complete peace, harmony, love and justice to the world or even fully to your own life. That is in God’s time and God’s way.

The two men in white robes wanted to know, “why do you stand looking up toward heaven?” (Acts 1:11) And Jesus said, “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.” (John 14:3)

Every parish has the immature and tentative of faith (those staring into the skies for comfort) and their seeming opposite (those insisting we must change the world and they know exactly how Jesus would do that). Those who step aside from responsibility because the Christ will provide for us and those who no longer believe that he either fills all things or that God provides many mansions for us.

The presence of all these Christians is a sign of a healthy and faithful parish church. The Holy Catholic Church is all the baptized—the apostolic and the immature, the stable sacramental and the tentative, the Christmas and Easter people and those progressing toward a more apostolic faith and practice. The church is a mixed bag. That's the shape of the parish church.

The Feast of the Ascension is, as are all feast days, a proclamation and practice of apostolic faith. To celebrate the Ascension is one more act of participating in the Divine Life and shaping an apostolic parish climate in which all may, for a moment, experience God’s glory and power. The Apostolic are fed, the tentative given a glimpse.

Bishop Benhase of Georgia presiding and preaching at an Ascension Eucharist and confirmation pointed those being confirmed to that apostolic faith and practice:

Tonight as we celebrate our Lord’s Ascension, we also celebrate the privilege (and it profoundly is) that our Lord has given us to leave the safety of this place so that we can be the hands and heart of Jesus; so we can be the Body of Christ in this world that God so loves.

For those being confirmed tonight: Let’s be clear, you aren’t receiving a heavenly life insurance policy in your confirmation. I don’t lay hands on your head so you’ll be removed from the tough places. No, you’re actually being commissioned to be a part of the living, breathing Body of Christ so that you can leave the safety of the church to go to those tough places and witness to the liberating and life-giving love of God incarnated in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus.

Jesus tonight isn’t removing you from the struggle. In your confirmation, he’s actually bidding you to follow him into those tough places knowing you go there ‘with power from on high.’  The full sermon PDF

Presidents are powerful people with great responsibilities

Yesterday President Obama was at West Point speaking to the first class of cadets since 9/11who will not be going to Afghanistan.  He spoke of a policy of foreign affairs and military force that was his attempt to create a rationale and way forward for our times. He is a man accepting responsibility for his life and his world.

President Reagan was of another time, a time when we faced different challenges.  His approach was really twofold. One element was to reduce the danger of nuclear war, and the other was to exhaust the Soviet Union. He contributed to both. He, too, was a person accepting responsibility for his life and his world.

At the funeral of President Reagan—not my favorite president, maybe my least favorite president of modern times—his body is being brought down the aisle of the cathedral by warriors without weapons. In front of it all is the crucifer and torchbearers. And the music of the recessional is from a movie starring Mel Gibson.  From a distance it’s rather funny—the movie star president going out to the sound of a movie’s theme song.

I saw it on Tube – it’s actually touching and dramatic. Great liturgy.

It’s the other part of the paradox—we die and things are not finished. The world hasn’t come to justice, peace and harmony. We have lived our vocation and now we give ourselves in trust to the Christ who has gone before us, the God with many places in which we may dwell.

The recessional hymn that day has in it these lines:

Where no rockets fly nor bullets wing ..

No more weeping,
No more fight,
No friends bleeding through the night ..

Where no mothers cry
And no children weep,.. 

It’s a soldier’s hymn. Men and women attempting to accept responsibility and live in hope. The West Point Glee Club singing it in the chapel[i]

This is the 50^th anniversary of Freedom Summer[ii]

In June 1964 college students arrived for basic training at the Western College for Woman in Oxford, Ohio. Six hundred of them came from all areas of the country. They were all middle class kids, about 85% of them were white. Up until then it was mostly the black college students that had carried the battle in the South. As they gathered they talked in small groups about what they would be doing--voter registration, teaching in Freedom Schools, staffing community centers, changing the South, struggling for justice and liberty.

Many in the group felt as though they were being sent to Mississippi as sacrificial lambs. They all knew--students, trainers, veterans of the struggles and leaders of the civil rights groups--they all knew that the needed publicity and federal involvement was only going to come if there were white victims. It was simply a truth. And the feelings had to be worked through. That was part of what the week of training was about. Bob Moses was the director of the summer project. 

He spoke to the students, "When you come South you will bring with you the concerns of the country--because the people of the country don't identify with Negroes." He told them about how because whites where involved a team of FBI agents was going to Mississippi to investigate. "We have been asking for them for three years. Now the federal government is concerned; there will be more protection for us, and hopefully for the Negroes who live there." Moses went on speaking about the task at hand--no worker could carry guns, and what if a gun was the only way to protect people, arrest and jail, the lack of money. He then moved in another direction. "There is an analogy to the Plague, by Camus. The country isn't willing yet to admit it has the plague, but it pervades the whole society. Everyone must come to grips with this, because it affects us all. We must discuss it openly and honestly, even with the danger that we get too analytical and tangled up. If we ignore it, its going to blow up in our faces."

There was an interruption in the back of the room. Bob Moses bent down to listen. "In a moment he was alone again. Still crouched, he gazed at the floor at his feet, unconscious of us. Time passed. When he stood and spoke, he was somewhere else; it was simply that he was obliged to say something, but his voice was automatic. 'Yesterday morning, three of our people left Meridian, Mississippi, to investigate a church-burning in Neshoba County. They haven't come back yet, and we haven't any word from them." The missing workers were James Chaney (CORE), Michael Schwerner (CORE) and Andrew Goodman (Summer Project). 

The 600 were accepting responsibility for their lives and their world. And now they knew they faced danger and along with courage and skill, they needed hope.

California

We live in a time when most of us believe that everything can be controlled. At least a part of us does, some of the time.

It's obvious what to do about the mass murder in California isn't it?

Keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill. No, give more people guns so that the sane people can shoot the crazy people. No, it's really about confronting sexism and misogyny. No, it's about managing angry, loner males

The pictures seem all-too-familiar –people in procession holding candles, tacky shrines at the place of death, young people kneeling in a church. All images of relentless grief.

And then there are the other images – not really images – words, and more words --all the talkers. All the people coming up with the solutions – if only we would ...  if only we would do what I say, all will be well.

All will be well

When Julian was around 30 years old she was close to death. During her illness she had 15 visions or “showings.” She spent the rest of her life trying to understand the meaning of the visions.

Some 15 years after the showings,  she wrote this – 

And from the time that [the vision] was shown, I desired often to know what our Lord's meaning was. And fifteen years and more afterward I was answered in my spiritual understanding, thus: 'Would you know your Lord's meaning in this thing? Know it well, love was his meaning. Who showed it to you? Love. What did he show you? Love. Why did he show it? For love. Keep yourself therein and you shall know and understand more in the same. But you shall never know nor understand any other thing, forever.'  
    Thus I was taught that love was our Lord's meaning.

Her learning was that whatever God does is done in Love, and therefore "that all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well." All is well not because we get the answers right. All is well not because we work so hard. Rather, “all is well” because we go where the Christ has gone, we go to the Mansions of the Lord.

Parish churches and the Ascension

I hope you have celebrated the Feast of the Ascension in your parish today. And if not, you place it on the schedule for next year. It’s one of the seven principle feasts of the church. He is raised and the Spirit dwells in the church—and in between all that comes the Ascension of Christ—the experience of abandonment, responsibility and hope. He has prepared “a place for us; that where he is, there we might also be, and 
reign with him in glory.”

It’s OK if there are only 4 or 5 people at today’s mass. Offer it for all the baptized and give thanks for all who accept responsibility. In our age it may be a celebration for the apostolic of the parish that feeds them for their place within the Body of Christ.

The point of the Ascension is two-fold

First – Accept responsibility for your life and your world.

Second – There is, in God, peace, love, harmony and justice. Accept that even with all your best efforts and those of millions of others – you will not bring complete peace, harmony, love and justice to the world or even fully to your own life. That is in God’s time and God’s way.

Order of the Ascension

I’m a member of the Order of the Ascension. OA sees its charism as being the development of parish churches grounded in Anglican pastoral and ascetical theology, especially Benedictine spirituality. We also draw on the fields of organization development and organizational psychology.

There’s an earlier posting on this blog in which three members reflect on the ways in which the Order has supported their work and served as a vehicle for the expression of their vocation. Bishop Benhase adds another dimension whenhe writes:

Most of all, the Order has grounded me in the catholic faith through Benedictine practice. I’ve experienced God’s grace embodied in my sisters and brothers in the Order. They have loved me and stayed connected to me often in spite of myself and far beyond what I have deserved. We all need regular reminders that God’s one-way love is real in this world. 

Developing healthy parish churches is the vocation of every parish priest and some of the baptized. If you share that vocation would you be strengthened by participation in the Order of the Ascension?

rag+

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[i] The title is “Mansions of the Lord.”  The lyrics 

West Point Glee Club on Veteran’s Day (beginning at 44 sec) 

[ii] PBS will offer a film on June 24 about Freedom Summer. It's Stanley Nelson's new film for the “American Experience” series.  

I wonder: Useful adaptation or fearful reactivity?

It's the Feast of Anskar, Bishop and Missionary to Denmark and Sweden. The collect for the day captures something of his life. 

Almighty and everlasting God, who sent your servant Anskar as an apostle to the people of Scandinavia, and enabled him to lay a firm foundation for their conversion, though he did not see the results of his labors: Keep your Church from discouragement in the day of small things, knowing that when you have begun a good work you will bring it to a faithful conclusion; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

There's some wonderful work going on in the Episcopal Church these days--parishes that are growing, efforts to create and sustain urban ministry, work with young people. There's also a tendency toward legalism, bureaucracy and maybe a bit of flailing about. Some new ideas get offered under the rubric of adaptation but have the smell of fear and anxiety about them.

-We need to restructure

-We need to focus on the mission of God rather than the mission of the church

-We need to be missional and emergent

-We need more parishes to close or merge

-We need more attention outside the walls of the parish

-We need to say it's a myth that we are declining

-We need communion before baptism

I wonder: Useful adaptation or fearful reactivity?

It's always hard to tell from within our own time. It's usually safe to assume it's some of each. 

A useful exercise is to take each of the "adaptations" being proposed and restate them within a broader context. For me that context is a mix of: 1) what are the facts? 2) an appreciative stance toward our tradition and ethos, 3) an understand of pastoral and ascetical theology with a systems perspective, and 4) a grasp of the research and experience about how organizations successfully manage the need for adaptation while maintaining and advancing institutional integrity, identity, and integration. 

Here's what occurs to me.

-Instead of "we need to restructure" how about "We need parish clergy and bishops able to manage change; to advance the church's identity and integrity while adapting. We require leaders with an increased sophistication regarding the ongoing task of aligning people, direction, dynamics, structures and process, and leadership in a changing environment."

-Instead of "we need to focus on the mission of God rather than the mission of the church." How about "We need to have a critical mass of people in each parish who understand 'the business we are in.' We need leaders who see the line running through the mission of God, the mission of the church, the primary task of a diocese, and the primary task of the parish church."

-Instead of "we need to be missional and emergent." How about "We need to look to our own resources of common prayer and ethos for ground on which to stand. We need to stop looking to evangelical sources for our signals--church growth to church planting to emergent to missional to the new Calvinism." (When spell check doesn't recognize a word sometimes I need to add the word. Other times I need to stop using the word.)

-Instead of "we need more parishes to close or merge." How about we need bishops to say "We will focus on creating and sustaining healthy and faithful parishes. This diocese is not in the business of closing parishes. And, there are some parishes that will end up closing and merging."

-Instead of "we need more attention outside the walls of the parish." How about, "We need to nurture within the parish such a life of common prayer, reflection and community that it overflows into lives of service outside the parish walls."

-Instead of "we need to say it's a myth that we are declining." How about "We are declining in membership. We don't know how to address some of the causes. We do know how to shape healthier and more faithful parish churches and we trust that such churches will attract people."

-Instead of "we need communion before baptism." How about, "Parish clergy need training and coaching to better shape healthy parishes, create a welcoming climate, and maintain the needed polarities of acceptance and invitation/challenge. Our respect for human dignity both requires a radical acceptance of all people and a radical invitation to choose to be in community, to be baptized."

Yes, it takes more words to move from bumper sticker solutions to actual direction. You may have better ways of expressing what I'm struggling with -- please give it a try. 

It's an exciting and difficult time for the Episcopal Church. Any of us, including me, can get things wrong; can misread the times; and can lack the needed competencies and wisdom for the work. 

So I say the Office and trust that God is faithful.

rag+

For your use --

PDF of Six Primary Elements of a System - Note there are a number of models like this. They all help identify the elements and suggest the interdependence of the elements. 

PDF "In Your Holy Spirit" spiritual map

Conversation on the spiritual life

I've had a very interesting exchange recently about how to understand the spiritual life. I love the person's willingness to engage this. I want to share a few elements of the exchange as it might be useful for other priests when similar opportunities arise.

The person was responding to the material in an earlier posting Ways of dealing with conflict.  The message was along these lines, "I was  disheartened when I read the section in which you talk about proficiency and awareness of core spiritual practices. Does the church expect me to be at a certain level of knowledge and ability?  I don't come to church for that.  When I come to church I want to be in the experience and see what happens.  I don't wnat to have to measure up to something other than being engaged and thoughtful and kind to people."

My response -- 

I'm not sure if this will help but let me try.

The handout isn't about the spiritual practices of any particular member of a parish church. It is about how parish churches are able to keep tensions and disagreements at a level that is productive. The more each of the four items is true, the more likely a parish can keep things productive. So the handout is not about what the church expects of its members let alone what it might expect of any individual. I have seen such lists. Most aren't very useful in my opinion. We each probably have one tucked in the back of our head. You identified your list -- "being engaged and thoughtful and kind to people."  Some would see that list as expecting far too much of members; others might think it expects too little. In practice the church doesn't even expect that much of those who come to the Eucharist each Sunday.Michelle Heyne and I developed a list of assumptions about the spiritual life -- Twelve Assumptions on the Spiritual Life. Even that list is for us a set of assumptions rather than one of expectations.

The dynamics related to parish health are less about expectations and what people "should" do than about what "is." For example,

-All parishes include people in a wide range of places in their spiritual life--from those who show up only for funerals, to the Christmas /Easter people, to those who are regular but a bit tentative, to those newly open to spiritual growth, to some who are more stable, and to people who are rather proficient in the practices of the spiritual life. Parishes also have people with a wide range of consistency about virtues such as kindness, persistence, courage, openness, awe, generosity, self-control, and so on. They all have people that make a pledge and those who don't make a pledge.

-Most parishes welcome people where ever they are in their spiritual life. 

-The Anglican/Episcopal tradition assumes that a parish includes this range of people and that this is as it should be. It's part of what it means to be catholic and not a cult. Our tradition also assumes that to be healthy a parish needs a critical mass of people with some degree of competence in the spiritual life. 

In a second round the person was appreciative for what I sent and noted that the comments were "helpful." 

The person then wrote of feeling challenged by the use of the word "proficient" in  relation to spiritual life. There was also an interest in what seemed to be a distinction between people who can be proficient in spiritual practices without any heart, and vice versa. 

My response went this way --

The word "proficient" can be challenging. It is one of two words standard to pastoral theology and seems to surprise some. The other is "efficiency." It comes as a shock to some people that efficiency in spiritual practices is a desirable condition. The notion on proficiency is that there are skills and attitudes of the spiritual life that we can learn and incorporate into our lives. Some of these are considered "common" as in a competency that all are invited to learn. Others are dependent on each person's uniqueness. We come to God both as a people, together, in common prayer; and we come as unique individuals.

My own pastoral thinking about head and heart is along these lines.

1. Don't allow your feelings to control your spiritual life!  That's a standard piece of spiritual guidance. I remember Dick Norris saying that as he oriented new seminarians to chapel practices at the Philadelphia Divinity School. He said something like this, "The rule of the school is that you will be in chapel daily for Morning and Evening Prayer and the Eucharist. That's the rule! But as a priest of the church I'm offering you this guidance--if you decide to ignore the rule and to only come for Thursday Evensong, then come to Thursday Evensong and do that even when you don't feel like coming. Don't allow your feelings to control your spiritual life."

It's grounded in the reality that our moods and feelings shift easily, from day to day and moment to moment. People that work with others around the area of emotional intelligence speak of the need to be aware of your feelings and those of the people around you and also to accept responsibility to self manage your feelings. 

2. That leads onto the idea of basing our spiritual life in a spiritual discipline that we establish for ourselves; a Rule of Life. The usual guidance is to base our Rule on a mix of what's common to our tradition and what fits our personality. In fact everyone has a spiritual disciple. It may not by thought of as such, it may not even be part of our conscious awareness. But we all have habits of practice. For example, some follow the church's norm of Eucharist every Sunday and on certain major feast days while others only attend on Christmas. A rule of life is intended to be changed as we mature and as we face new conditions in life.

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First Sunday of Advent, 2013

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