Posts

Can We Talk?

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Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. The majority of blog posts this month will share stories from church leaders who participated in a pilot coaching cohort in 2017. They will share the challenges they face, the movements they’ve made, and what they are learning along the way. We hope they will connect with your “me too” moments and give you a glimmer of a way forward, and the knowledge that you are not alone. We invite you to join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter! 

by Don Meeks

Background
I am currently in my 17th year as the Pastor of a medium size, predominantly white, conservative church located thirty-five miles west of Washington DC. The changing cultural landscape in recent years has left many of our folks in a somewhat confused and anxious place, often feeling disconnected from the larger denomination.

In 2012 our Session voted unanimously to affiliate with the Fellowship of Presbyterians (now The Fellowship Community). Overall, this affiliation has been a positive experience for our church and has (mostly) helped folks to calm down.

With some training in Bowen family systems theory, I have been trying to offer non-anxious and self-differentiated leadership. One critical strategy for keeping myself calm has been an intentional effort in the past several years to reach across the theological aisle at our presbytery in an attempt to build relational bridges and mutual understanding.

A Calculated Risk
Like many, I followed the June 2014 General Assembly with keen interest. The night the marriage overtures passed I received an email from Jeff Krehbiel, a colleague from the ‘other side of the aisle’ whom I had begun to know through some shared presbytery work. Jeff acknowledged, with a gifted pastor’s touch, that the same news being celebrated at his church was likely to be a source of disappointment in our church. He was right.

Jeff offered himself in support of me in any way he could. In reply, I took a calculated risk and invited Jeff to address our Session and Deacons on how he makes the case from Scripture for same-sex marriage. This experience began a rich conversation and collegial relationship that grew as Jeff and I committed to facilitating an on-going conversation within our presbytery. We simply called this effort, “Can We Talk?” Jeff’s untimely death earlier this year has been a huge loss for so many, including myself, as we had begun to extend this conversation beyond our own presbytery, including an Ignite presentation and workshop at the 2016 NEXT Church National Gathering in Atlanta.

Beyond Either / Or
It’s no secret that the growing polarization in our culture tends to push us towards a binary paradigm that views things in terms of ‘us/them,’ ‘conservative/progressive,’ or ‘for/against.’ One of my greatest challenges has been to find a way beyond the ‘either/or’ dilemma that many denominational conservatives like myself believe we are faced with: either seek dismissal from the PCUSA, or stay and face membership defections and leadership battles.

Not surprisingly, I am finding few examples and fewer colleagues with the appetite for doing the relational work necessary to move beyond this ‘either/or’ mentality. For some it may be a lack of vision, imagination, or desire. For others it may be asking too much to abandon deeply embedded patterns of binary thinking.

I have also found a real tension lingering at the edges of this work: Can we be in meaningful relationship across the aisle without also being seen as a traitor, of sorts, to our own convictional community? Or from another angle, will our convictions be an honest stumbling block to others’ living out their own theological convictions?

Quite frankly, many times I have wondered if this is all a fool’s errand.

A Modest Attempt
I believe the implications for this work are profound, not only for the health of our churches, but also as a witness for Jesus Christ in our polarized and fragmenting culture. I have been greatly encouraged by the warmth and receptivity by the NEXT Church community and a pilot coaching cohort experience following the 2017 National Gathering in Kansas City.

Is respectful and robust theological conversation about issues that divide possible? I think so. Could it ever be more than conversation? I hope so. But unless we first learn to sit and talk, it’s going to be virtually impossible to see ourselves as ministry partners in any meaningful way.
As I have continued to ponder and pray on all this, I believe the place to begin is with some kind of simple covenant that I would quietly commit to in my own life. I think it would be a covenant that commits to live toward unity with other Christians, that acknowledges the ‘log in my own eye,’ that honors the intentions of others as noble and just, and that respects the convictions of others even when they stand apart from my own convictions.

In short, I find myself wanting to make a modest attempt to be part of the solution, rather than part of the problem with our denomination and our world. And I would be honored to have others join me.

Don Meeks is the senior pastor of Greenwich Presbyterian Church in Northern Virginia. He is active in the Fellowship Community within National Capital Presbytery.  His vision for ministry is to invite people to experience and express Christ-likeness in all of life. He is an avid golfer, psalmic intercessor and songwriter.

Toward the Purple Church

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Each month, we post a series of blogs around a common topic. This month, Sarah Dianne Jones is curating a series written by our workshop leaders at the 2017 National Gathering. What excites them about the Gathering? What are they looking forward to sharing and discussing during their workshop? We invite you to join the conversation on Facebook and Twitter!

by Dan Lewis

“It wasn’t always this way,” she said.  

I’d called to check in on her, a longtime member of our church. I wanted to see how she was doing after the presidential election. She was ok, she said, “Trusting in God.” But had I noticed, she asked, the deep sense of uncertainty around the church? Had I felt, as she had, a real reluctance to engage in conversation about these things? I had. “It wasn’t always this way,” she went on. “Not so long ago, we’d pull into that same parking lot, one car with blue bumper stickers and another with red, and it wouldn’t be a problem at all. We’d joke with each other, even around election time, poking fun. And then we’d head off to Bible study or worship together, laughing. Now we just stay quiet most of the time. And angry.”

What changed? Surely we’ve always had disagreements in the church as in the nation, different viewpoints and preferences concerning politics, theology, and such. But why is it that these differences now seem profoundly debilitating? Why are we so unable, or unwilling, to be around those with whom we disagree?

The answers to these questions are surely complex. Sociologists and historians will point to any number of factors, including increased immigration and globalization, as well as the gradual weakening of public institutions – including the church – that had once served as a kind of American cultural glue.  

But we in the church of Jesus Christ do not think of ourselves as simply another institution, do we? We are a body – a living, breathing “enfleshing” of God’s purposes in Jesus Christ. He is, the scripture says, our peace, breaking down the dividing wall of hostility between us. For us, the problem of division is far more than a mere frustration – it is an existential threat. We cannot not seek unity in the church of Jesus Christ and still be the one body of our Lord. Our witness demands that we push back against the division, and actively work for new unity.

Yet it must be said that there are no easy solutions. Inasmuch as the apparent unity of yesteryear was just that – apparent – it is no model for the church of today. The unity we seek cannot be achieved through the silencing of dissent and the marginalizing of minority voices – both of which were a part of the church of the 1950’s. We seek a deeper and more organic unity now, something founded on surer stuff than the sameness of days gone by.

This March, my friend Pen Peery and I will be leading a workshop at the NEXT Church National Gathering called “Toward the Purple Church.” We are both ministers serving churches striving to find a new middle way through the current divisiveness in politics and theology. We want to talk about ways to move toward the church that is less clearly red or blue in its orientation, but more purple – that is, more representative of the diversity of our great nation and church, more reflective of a coming kingdom that we know must supersede all ideologies and platforms. The key word here is toward, because we must admit we all “see in a glass, dimly” regarding these things. Pen and I simply want to share a bit of what we’ve learned in church-based research projects aimed not only at examining the various causes of our many divisions, but also exploring new unity in Christ. Will you come and join the discussion? See you in Kansas City!

“Toward the Purple Church” is being offered on Tuesday during both workshop blocks 2 and 3 at the 2017 National Gathering.

Dan Lewis is pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Statesboro, Georgia. His DMin project, “Stories to Bridge the Gap: Postliberal Preaching in a Changing University Town,” uses the theological perspective of Hans Frei, applied to preaching, to speak to a diverse and growing congregation.

Pen Peery is senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, North Carolina. His DMin project, “Identifying Suspicion as a Way to Move Forward in Hope,” challenges a large and ideologically diverse congregation to find new unity in celebrating, rather than flattening, difference.