Faith Works 5-13 & 5-20-17

Getting ahead now for a very busy three weeks ahead . . . and I don't want to miss any deadlines! Here are the next two Saturday columns.

Faith Works 5-13-17

Jeff Gill

 

Leadership and mothering are close companions

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Yes, tomorrow is Mother's Day, and no, it's not a church commemoration per se.

 

Folks want to treat Mother's Day (and to an ironically lesser degree, Father's Day) like a younger sibling to Christmas and Easter, but it's more like Cinco de Mayo or Fourth of July when it comes to the universal church calendar. Other nations and cultures celebrate mothers and motherhood on different days entirely.

 

But I'm not proposing to walk you through another columnist's attempt to get at the roots of the American Mother's Day tradition (it's interesting, honest). What I would like to say is that there's a faith-rooted set of reasons for Christian communities, at least, to make something of the occasion. And being a Protestant, I'm looking to go back to the Bible.

 

And this all ties back to an earlier conversation about leadership. As we struggle with the competing demands on time and scheduling, with work no longer a Monday through Friday 9 to 5 for most people, with leisure pushing into vocation and play turning into traveling sports teams, with everyone busy and stressed and somewhere else, the thing about motherhood that stands out is: you have to be there.

 

It starts with childbirth. Dads may be able to skip out, but moms can't. They have to be there. And so it goes down through the years: many times and places dads have their hunting and gathering to do, but moms are there. Dad may have flocks to tend on the other side of the mountain, but mom has to go to the conference at the one-room schoolhouse. Moms may have careers and jobs today that pay more than men at times, but dads are more likely to miss events and programs and meetings than is the mom. Moms show up.

 

This is the aspect of leadership that we need the example of mothers to help us all with, male and female alike. You gotta be there sometimes. Virtual doesn't put dinner on the table, or give good hugs.

 

Orpah was there for Ruth. Ruth was a daughter-in-law to which Orpah had no obligations, nor vice versa, but Orpah's faith in God that she taught by word and example got the both of them through tough times, and to a place in the story of salvation. Check out the Book of Ruth, four short chapters, but read with an eye to Orpah.

 

Hannah is such a lovely story. She really outdoes her better known forbearers, Sarah and Rebekah. Both her husband and her pastor sell her short, but she persisted. She stayed where she was planted. And the Lord rewards her faithfulness, and gives her a place in the wider story that you can find if you go to the first chapters of I Samuel. Hannah's song of joy becomes the model for the much better known "Magnificat" of Mary in Luke 1 – read the original!

 

How about King Lemuel's mother? You don't remember her? Go to the start of Proverbs 31. Is what follows a description of how she lived her life, or how she wished she had and wanted her son to remember? It doesn't matter: she gave Lem a wonderful model of motherhood that says something about life in family to men and women both.

 

Gomer is a bad mother. No, really. But she is redeemed, a good thing to remember can happen, for wives and husbands alike. Hosea takes on quite a challenge in the first few chapters of his book, but the point is that the relationship is redeemed. It does happen sometimes. Bless them both.

 

Go to Acts 16, and glean what you can about Lydia. She's a matriarch of the first order, proud and open hearted; a businesswoman and owner of household enough to give Paul and Silas a place of refuge.

 

And to 2 Timothy, where we get but a verse, but also the example they left, of Lois and Eunice, grandmother and mother of Timothy himself. Their faith is present in Timothy, Paul reminds him, and so then are they. Which means as we learn about Timothy, we're also given a bit of a revelation about them.

 

For all of us in leadership in faith, we are shown that even Jesus wished he could offer himself as a mother hen, in Luke 13:34, re-echoed in his last approach to the holy city at 19:41-42. To gather us together within a maternal embrace, safely closer to him.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him about your favorite mothers and fathers in scripture at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

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Faith Works 5-20-17

Jeff Gill

 

Hidden in plain sight

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With graduation season marking the beginning of the summer for many families and churches, we're heading into a blank space in the Christian calendar.

 

Pentecost is a couple of weeks away, and then we're in "Ordinary Time" right around to Advent. But whether you have a vacation planned these next few months or not, it can be a good time to explore some corners of your Bible you might not otherwise get into.

 

Just as a summer trip is a way to shake out the cobwebs and reorient your assumptions, whether living off the grid in a tent for a while is your taste, or just living out of suitcases on the road for a few days, so can a little off-roading benefit your year-round Bible reading.

 

Have you ever read the narrative of David, not as young slayer of giants or as king with a wandering eye, but his years as a guerilla leader in the wilderness, fighting as a resistance captain with a rag-tag band of followers? I Samuel 20 through 31.

 

If you enjoyed that, let me pull you back to a story that may seem familiar, but more from Broadway musicals and children's book retellings than in actual personal reading: Joseph the dream interpreting castaway who becomes a ruler. It's an amazing tale: Genesis 37 to 50. Don't let chapter 38 throw you; it seems like a digression of sorts, but it gives you a sense, especially if you haven't read the previous 36 chapters recently, of what a raucous and violent place Canaan was in the "time of the patriarchs."

 

Back to David, as he ages, and a new generation comes into its own: read 2 Samuel 21, where you can find the brief but evocative story of Rizpah, whose courage turns the heart of a king; or chapter 23, verses 8 through 39, where memories of days gone by mingle with an accounting of those who will lead when David is gone.

 

That passage reminds me of my own affection for a close and slow reading of Romans 16. Read it too quickly, and you get impatient, like waiting for an elderly relative to finish their leave-taking in the driveway; read it slowly, and you peel back layers of understanding about the nature and structure of the early church.

 

Likewise, you can too quickly skip over the seeming "list" following Nehemiah 1 & 2. The narrative is the return of the exiles to the ruins of Jerusalem and the temple built by David's son Solomon, but who were these exiles? Take some time and think through the roles and relationships as you read chapters 3 through 7. Little vignettes jump out if you let them, such as the strange counsel of Shemaiah in chapter 6, verses 10 through 14.

 

Or have you ever read about Paul and the shipwreck? With faint hints of an inversion from the prophet Jonah's plight (and there's an Old Testament short story that rewards a careful reading), in Acts 27 & 28 you get to see a very different apostle than the one we tend to think of, in the faith or outside of it. "If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, and blaming it on you . . ."

 

And oh, Philemon. One chapter only, 25 verses, but there's so much going on in this little letter. Think about that assembly when first the seal on the latter was picked apart by a knife, the wax falling away, the costly parchment unfolded, and the appointed reader (with a nervous glance at the owner of the homestead where the church was meeting) beginning "Paul, a prisoner for Jesus Christ . . ."

 

You can get a further sense of some of those early assemblies if you take up the first three chapters of Revelation. Yes, some folks have developed an allergy to the last book of the Bible, but it's a hard book to sample, and perhaps a long vision to keep before your attention span. But try those first three chapters, with the pencil sketch of where and how John came to be writing it, and the initial messages to seven congregations in his care. You learn quite a bit about the variation in community and conflict in those vivid prophetic images.

 

And who knows, as you finish just that much, you might find that "behold, a door will stand open in heaven" for you to read more.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him about your favorite obscure passages of scripture at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 5-6-17

Faith Works 5-6-17

Jeff Gill

 

Keeping track of the Joneses

___

 

One of the many staples of church life that's passing away, like mimeograph machines and filmstrips, is the pew pad.

 

Sometimes called the attendance register or the membership sign-in, it was one of those administrative rituals that, if you grew up with it, seemed like something Paul and Timothy and Lydia and Priscilla all had back in the dawn of Christian worship.

 

Of course, like many of those perennials now fading, it had a specific genesis, with the rise of literacy, the end of "pew rents," and a desire to keep track of people in general and members in particular . . . which was itself largely an outgrowth of the organization and systematization of American life springing from the two world wars, and the influence of military life on our whole culture, especially the managerial side of it.

 

They had a pastoral as well as a pragmatic side to them: no more would you have to wonder, after worship with 350 in attendance, "was Mrs. McGillicuddy in church yesterday?" You could check the register and see if she was present.

 

Sunday school attendance pins and church roster awards became a standard part of worship management, and those pew pads were the front end of the system. That's how you kept track, monitored well-being, shepherded the flock.

 

Today, with 90 year olds taking cruises, 80 year old couples traveling cross country multiple times a year, families with sports practices and events, and a general loosening of the obligation of worship attendance, most churches have backed away from the ritual of "pass the pad along the pew, then pass it back to the center aisle so we can see who we're sitting with today." Tracking attendance isn't what it used to be.

 

But at the same time, we do care as church communities, we do want to know if all's well or if it's just that all's busy. And we're back to those Monday conversations, but it's more about "when did you last see Mr. Jones? Three weeks ago?"

 

Yes, pastors get tagged occasionally, even in this day and age, with "you didn't notice I was gone!" And I've heard that complaint from folks who are often gone a stretch or two a year, but when they were sick and out a few weeks, no one called to check, nobody from the church came to visit . . . didn't churches and preachers used to do that?

 

(Deep sigh.) Yes, yes we did.

 

I'll admit to a ministerial caution myself; when you call or drop by (if you can catch people at home these days, a whole 'nother subject) and try to ask genteelly and hear "why, I was in church two weeks ago, didn't you notice? But I went to my granddaughter's recital in Poughkeepsie last weekend. Hmmpphh."

 

Folks today resist being "tracked," and I sympathize. I also sympathize, as a church leader, with those "in the back" who are tasked with getting up the deacons (or ushers as some churches call them) for collecting the offering or sharing communion. THEY know who's here and who isn't, and especially who said they'd be here, but "something came up."

 

Among clergy, it's a common conversation to say that church "average Sunday attendance" or ASA doesn't mean quite what it used to. If you averaged 100 a worship 10 years ago, and 20 died or left, and 20 new members joined since then, you might think you'd still have 100 ASA. But if folks who are "regular members" who used to be present four out of four Sundays now are three of four, your ASA may be 75, even though the number of giving units is the same on the treasurer's desk and the faces at events through the week are about the same. It's a numerical decline, but not necessarily a church decline . . . until it is.

 

So when do you start checking up on people, and how do you know whom should be checked on? That is a much trickier question today than it was in 1990, and I don't have a good answer. Our congregation has a body of elders, and we're looking at improving our "shepherding" of the church, where each one has a section of the membership and regular attenders they personally and visually keep track of (and check in with the pastor about).

 

But if the elders are more irregular in attendance . . . let's talk more about leadership next week!

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he tends to be in church every week even when he's on vacation. Tell him about your views on attendance at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Notes From My Knapsack 5-4-17

Notes From My Knapsack 5-4-17

Jeff Gill

 

Second nature, maybe even first

___

 

We are an addicted, not to say addictive society.

 

Addictive behavior is general considered to be a problem, even a bad thing, but in fact it can also be rewarded, encouraged, even promoted.

 

Our culture is in many ways bound up with the addictive side of human nature, which is a natural tendency run amok, just as growth is good, but uncontrolled growth is the logic of the cancer cell.

 

When we experience some substance or experience as good, we want more of it; when we want something to the exclusion of any other good, to the point where it's bad for us to want the one thing, it's bad. That's addiction. That's how you sell stuff to consumers, how you market products to customers. It's also how you survive in nature, looking for good food, safe places to sleep, and the right way to live for yourself and your family.

 

But as one addict to many, many others: do you see it? Can you feel it the way I'm trying to describe, that we're all tending to addictive behaviors? If you've ever opened a box of Girl Scout cookies, and shortly after unexpectedly found your fingers touching cardboard bottom, you might have some addictive tendencies.

 

Have you meant to eat a little ice cream, then scraped the carton? Thought "I won't have more chips" and soon finished the bag?

 

And our most common social addiction: much of the sleep shortage we're known to have in this country, a physical ailment that may well have its own influence on other more recognizable addictions, is due to the shocking hours we all put in watching screens. Big ones on the wall and little ones in our hands, bingeing on series TV and snacking our way through myriad short videos. Hours and hours that largely come out of our growing sleep deficit. We say we won't watch one more show, and then shake out of a doze an evening lost, far into the night.

 

"I can stop any time." Sound familiar? Yeah, addict-speak.

 

We're in the middle of "Turn Off Your Screens" week, which the Granville Recreation District and the Granville Public Library and some 15 community organizations promote each year for our own good. Yes, you may be reading this column on newsprint, or it may well be on a screen, but the message is the same.

 

You see, there are few substances out there that are bad in and of themselves. It's the how and the when and the how often (and why) that make a habit into a compulsion, a problematic addiction. Even morphine has its place, rightly used.

 

So no one is saying smash your smartphone or shoot your TV like Elvis (and he bought a new one the next day anyhow). But can you turn them off? We're not calling for a ban, but for that blessed boon of self-control. Of course, self-control is not just about will power. Any of us needs nudges, tools to help us leverage better choices. Look around this week, and you'll find a whole bunch of outdoor activities and indoor programs to distract us and turn us aside from the screens of our lives, to a different sort of living.

 

I like that this comes each year at spring. The leaves are opening out, flowers blossoming, warblers in the trees, summer constellations starting to show. It's a good time to see and live differently, to partake of "the better angels of our nature."

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's prolific on social media, but on speaking terms with "tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything." Tell him your tale at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 4-29-17

Faith Works 4-29-17

Jeff Gill

 

I read the news today, oh boy…

___

 

Along with preaching and social media and, well, this column, I've got a church sign that I can use to express myself.

 

The purpose, of course, for that sign is to a) help our congregation communicate the Gospel to the world, b) share information about upcoming events or special announcements, from births to deaths or the dates of our clothing bag sale, and c) to let public programs use our sign for awareness and promotion if they don't conflict with our church need to keep a) and b)  before c).

 

As I've said in this space before, a church sign is a challenge that makes Twitter look loquacious. No 140 characters, it's more of an informational haiku of three lines but less than 90 characters, which limits your expression and forces some creative rephrasing. "God is love" is eleven characters, but anything more complex gets tricky, fast.

 

Sometimes, we do a favor for outside groups who ask nicely and when there's not a church need, and put up a few words and dates about noodle dinners or plant sales or outside service opportunities.

 

What makes that choice a rare one is that once you do it, there's an expectation that you'll always do it. Answering "well, we have a church event this year that's the same week" gets a testy response; telling someone "yes, I changed it, because what you sent me won't fit" turns into an odd discussion of "what do you mean you only have 90 characters?" And yes, even my own church folk sometimes ask why I can't cram more on the big board.

 

All of which I recount to explain that I understand all too well why the "powers that be" or "the suits" (not that many people in the news biz these days wear suits, or even ties) or whomever has decided to bring the feature "Church Notes" to an end.

 

Yes, I've gotten your emails. I try to answer, even if briefly, every email I get, but this was a busy time (Easter, etc.) and lots and lots of unhappy people. "Church Notes" as page 2 or 3 of the "Your Faith" D section of the Saturday Advocate has been around for decades. MANY decades. As in, back when the "news hole" was big, and ads sold easily, and we had printing presses in the basement.

 

The presses are gone, there's a smaller paper, and frankly, fewer people backstage. Trust me on this. I'm just an outside contributor, but I've been contributing a long, long time, going back to when the newsroom was a long narrow flight of steps from Main St. that just got torn down a few weeks ago. There's just not many people all doing many more things working to put this paper out.

 

And I'll say what they'd rather not: church folk sometimes thought they had a right to that space, and were rather unhappy at having their paragraph edited. Like community groups unhappy with me about not getting the signboard this year, it really is frustrating to be accused of an event's lack of success "because you didn't give us the free space."

 

This is, I have to say, and I'm not paid to say it, an opportunity. As a pastor and church communicator, I have to speak the truth, and say it clearly: putting something in "Church Notes" was a way of pretending to publicize an event. It really was mainly something our own people looked at to make sure our own church was "there." It was not, has not been an effective way to reach unchurched, non-churched, de-churched people. And that's the goal, right?

 

If the end of "Church Notes" means that congregations will have to be more intentional, more anticipatory, more targeted in our communications, with social media and mailings and ads and church signs and, yes, purchasing ads in the Advocate from time to time, then it will be a positive step in our outreach and engagement. Let's be candid here: as newspapers get tighter, why would they give away the space and the editing time to material that they've got other churches paying for?

 

There's a part of me that will miss that weekly discipline of the Wednesday 3:00 pm deadline, but just as most bulk mail newsletter operations are now history, let us bid a fond farewell to "Church Notes" . . . and look honestly around us at how we as faith communities can reach and communicate with our ministry context.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him how you like to tell your faith story at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.