Alexander Campbell, 1788-1866

Faith Works 3-7-20

Faith Works 3-7-20

Jeff Gill

 

Non-formal isn't the same as informal

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When Joyce and I first got married, we ended up fairly quickly becoming docents at the Indiana State Museum.

 

A docent is defined as a person who leads tours, or a "knowledgeable guide." A park ranger is often a docent of sorts, and later my wife would be a National Park Service interpretive ranger, a docent with a uniform.

 

Most of the docenting we've done over the years has been more along the lines of name tags and sturdy shoes, whether at Pricketts Fort State Park in West Virginia or up at the Flint Ridge Nature Preserve and ancient quarries there in southeastern Licking County. I've been a regular docent or tour guide for thirty years now at the Great Circle and Octagon sites of the Newark Earthworks.

 

And in fact, Joyce got her doctorate – at The Ohio State University, Go Bucks! – in non-formal education, or natural resource interpretation. That's the study and practice of gathering up and guiding around people who are voluntarily choosing to visit a site, a location, a natural or cultural resource, and are open to learning about it.

 

This is related to, but quite distinct from what we'd call formal education. That's mandatory and has outcome requirements, in the form of grades and such; most educational programs we're all familiar with are formal education. Attendance is state law, and participation has expectations associated with it.

 

Non-formal education, however, invites participation, and rarely if ever does a summative assessment. But park rangers and docents and tour guides are always interested in figuring out the answer to the question "is anyone learning anything from what we're doing?" And along with that, "how can we do it better?" The National Association for Interpretation has training programs, and of course the National Park Service does for their staff as well.

 

As a minister, I've always looked over Joyce's shoulder with interest at her work with non-formal education, because quite frankly, it has much more in common with modern congregational life than churches have with schools . . . but formal educational standards and methods are directly and indirectly the strongest influence on church life, especially around teaching and learning.

 

Yet no one has to come to church, and even if you attend, you don't have to take classes or participate in enrichment experiences, from special services to prayer groups and study circles. It's all voluntary, and no one is working for a grade. (There's that big final exam, but I'm not going to push that parallel here…)

 

Tod Bolsinger in his recent "Canoeing the Mountains," about churches and changes, said back in 2015: "As pastors, we were trained to teach those who come on their own, to care for those who call for help, to lead those who volunteer and to administer the resources of those who willingly give and participate." I won't reproduce his next sentence, because some might find it unduly harsh, but the upshot is: today, clergy and congregations can't just wait for people to come in because we have the right logo on the sign, wait for a direct request to find our way to healthy pastoral care, assume we have people lining up to help anytime we launch a project or plan, or even expect that people will give to support the things they do involve themselves in.

 

His point is that many things that used to happen in church life were, I'd suggest, like school. People had a sense of obligation about attendance and participation and contribution of time and money, and your job was to manage that externally created input. Today, very few people have a felt sense of "I need to be in church on Sunday" and even among those who do, you can't get them into classes or events just by saying "the pastor has started…"

 

You are much more like a ranger working the information desk at a visitor center, where many of your first time guests start with "where's the bathrooms, and where is the gift shop?" and if you want them to walk any distance away from the parking lot, you have to put some plan and intentionality into getting them to voluntarily choose to join you on your hike or campfire program.

 

And there's a case to be made that faith communities can only get stronger once we get past the "oughtness" of participation. What does it mean to invite in a compelling fashion, and to engage a visitor with the spiritual resources you know are just beyond the edge of the parking lot? I hope to discuss this more in coming weeks.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's a sucker for a good interpretive hike, but solo treks into the wilderness are pretty cool, too. Tell him where you see your engagement with the landscape of faith at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Re: Lenten Devotional Booklet

Lenten devotional – Ohio Disciples 2020

 

Ephesians 5:8-14

For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of light - for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what such people do secretly; but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says, "Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you."

___

"Sleeper, awake!"

 

What a perfect theme for a Lenten devotional. We walk through this life half-asleep, barely conscious of the glories all around us. The darkness seems to wrap us up, and we drowse through the sunrise.

 

"Sleeper, awake!"

 

The wonderful thing about this passage from Paul's letter to the church in Ephesus is that it has the potential to remind us that worship precedes Scripture; that the assembled church comes before the Bible, living into the Living Word even before the words of God are put down on papyrus or vellum or paper or pixels.

 

Most students of the New Testament agree that Paul is quoting an early hymn of the church, and one that emphasizes baptism, at that. It could be a reference to Isaiah, and the Koine Greek doesn't have handy punctuation to make us as certain as the NRSV or ESV might that this is a quoted passage, but the consensus is there. "Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." It reads and feels like a familiar hymn Paul knows he can quote to the Ephesians the way he could have to Ohioans "calling to you, and to me, come home, come home." We'd know what he's talking about.

 

"Sleeper, awake!"

 

The waters of baptism, which some fortunate few will experience at Easter, are a participation in the death of Jesus, and the resurrection of the Christ. Laid down in the waters like one going to sleep, and raised up like someone whose alarm is going off on the bedside table, sitting up to face the day. Awake, alert, and ready to get going.

 

The light is shining, the birds are singing, Christ is opening up the door to new life, and it's time to get out of bed. There are always so many reasons to stay in bed: giants outside, evil kings and faithless princes rule, wanton dancers ask for the head of our friends while our own friends betray us. Pull up the covers and stay asleep.

 

"Sleeper, awake!"

 

But if we know someone is coming to pick us up at 7:30; if there's a friend who has promised to stand with us in court; when people are counting on us and we know what has to be done – you get up. You get out of bed. You make your dang bed. And you find the inner resources to get up and get going.

 

"Sleeper, awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ will shine . . . in, and on, and through you." Before doctrine and theology and memory verses and textual criticism, the gathered Christian community came together and sang as someone beloved of God who had come to realize that they are indeed beloved is raised up out of the waters, and with one voice they, we, all of us sing: "Sleeper, awake!"

 

And shaking the water from our ears, rubbing the sleep from our eyes, stretching out our arms and standing up, if wobbly, on our own two legs, we arise. Each new day is a resurrection, and a down payment on the promise of new life yet to come in full. When we, with Jesus, will die; and so shall we, with Christ, rise again.

 

"Sleeper, awake!"

Faith Works 2-29-20

Faith Works 2-29-20

Jeff Gill

 

Pain from the past, healing for the future

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Yes, I had an "extra" column last week about the recent announcement that the Boy Scouts of America is declaring bankruptcy due to past claims against the organization around child abuse, and changes in many states to open up the statue of limitations to the 1970s and earlier. I won't rehash my sad acceptance of the necessity of that act, or why I'm still committed to the Scouting program as it is today.

 

The stories of former cases woke a number of memories for me. I have never been molested, but dealing with multiple cases of that horrible circumstance, and the denial so many in authority were in back in the 1980s & 90s, and still in some quarters today, is not a pleasant recollection.

 

And then at the end of the week, a person I've never met but whose work and writings have long inspired me, Jean Vanier of L'Arche (a global ministry with people having disabilities and cognitive impairments) was revealed after an investigation to have had inappropriate relationships with a number of people, while in his position of authority and responsibility. He died last year at the age of 90, but it was still hard to read those stories today. I was surprised and shocked and in sorrow over it. Again. But I shouldn't have been, I guess.

 

The Catholic priest who first talked to me, at Scout camp, about my having a call to ministry -- in my own tradition, not his! -- and encouraged me in developing those gifts was slated to do a scripture reading at my ordination. At the last minute, he was transferred to Arizona. I learned later he was suspected of molesting young men at his parish, and is now in prison for life after being convicted of molesting young men in Arizona.

 

So another friend, a Methodist pastor who had served as waterfront director at the Scout camp I ran one last year after getting married, stepped in and did the scripture reading. He was later convicted of molesting boys in his care, released after serving his time, and re-offended. He was married with a child, a Vietnam veteran and former police officer. He almost certainly committed acts at camp but was never charged with any. He died a few years ago, his family insisting he never did anything wrong despite multiple witnesses and convictions to the contrary. His obituary broke my heart.

 

I've been lied to and lied about by regional ministers in my own tradition. Plural. And I've had to help clean up the damage in pastoral mopping and sweeping, up to and including suicide, left by fellow clergy who have had affairs while in service with congregations that trusted them. I've lost count of the conversations I've had with people whose faith is rattled but not shaken in God's grace, but their trust in the church is demolished down to the foundations and a wobbling remnant cornerstone.

 

Thomas Merton's relationships with women, outside of the monastery where he did so much good work that's blessed many for so long, were inappropriate at best, exploitative at worst; Vanier's were not with the core members of L'Arche but still with volunteers and peers and so were still unhealthy and abusive, as he would have well known. Painful though it might be, I think we have to talk about these things and admit them and try to learn from them, to be cautious if not suspicious, to exempt no one from following the rules no matter how respected or loved. Guidelines exist to keep you on the road and out of the ditch; anyone who says they have a special right to wander all over the road and on and off the right-of-way at will should be mistrusted immediately.

 

You cannot tell at a glance, or even necessarily on long acquaintance, who is going to transgress, and some need up to protect them from themselves, let alone to be on guard on behalf of those who can't protect themselves.

 

Because you really can't tell other than: do they follow the rules and honor restrictions, or do they think the rules are for other people? The only way to know is to insist everyone follow them, and enforce accordingly.

 

I should know by now, but I keep getting surprised anyhow.

 

It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man.

~ Psalm 118:8

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he knows to trust in the Lord but keeps hoping a few more people could be trustworthy. Tell him how you hold onto your faith at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Notes from my Knapsack 2-27-20

Notes from my Knapsack 2-27-20

Jeff Gill

 

Waiting to see what develops
___

 

Apparently the question "Is Granville welcoming to business?" is right up there with clickbait like "one weird trick" and "you won't believe what happened to" for getting people interested in what you're saying.

 

When I wrote my last column, I was actually entirely ignorant of what Adam Weinberg, president of Denison University had said at a public event; when I was asked about the coincidence, I replied "this is what happens when two people who've both been paying attention, and are both interested in this community, start thinking out loud about where we're going."  

 

I saw what Adam said up on the hill, and how the mayor and council responded from their viewpoint on Broadway, and honestly, I think both have useful things to say, and I look forward to hearing an extended conversation between those perspectives.

 

But time is, as they say, a'wastin'. I've milked more than my fair share of columns over twenty years from watching the formerly bucolic drive from Franklin County to Newark turn from a two-lane road to an overcrowded artery to a highway paralleling the old road to seeing the interchanges start to erupt with new construction and expanding businesses. My wife and I lived in Newark while she earned her Ph.D. at The Ohio State University, and we both got to know the Old Worthington Road all too well in the 1990s.

 

But she got her doctorate, and years too late we got a speedy drive that looped us around New Albany, cut down the trip to Port Columbus, now John Glenn International Airport, and pulled us so close to Easton people grocery shop there.

 

As for the concerns about "losing a way of life" . . . well, yes. I mean, I get it, but . . . if you know anything at all about our local history, you know that the story from 1805 or 1802 or 1773 or go back a few thousand years is that our lifestyles keep changing in Granville.

 

We got here too late for multiple markets on Broadway; I'm glad I knew Taylor Drug as it was in the middle of the block, and have fond memories of Hare Hollow and Victoria's Parlour and so many recollections of the Granville Times bookshop basement. I dream about some of those places. I really do.

 

And we got to know Denison before the Slayter Crater was dug, when parking was scattered and rare, when Sigma Chi lived in Sigma Chi and the pool was where the weight room is. I remember the locker rooms right out of "Hoosiers" and labs out of "Son of Flubber." Sure, it's all fun to recall.

 

Heraclitus told us 2,500 years ago that life is change, and the last couple of millennia have only worked to prove him right. Things are changing, and will continue to change. The question is, will we attempt to anticipate and direct those changes, or will we try to play the role of King Canute, and order the tide to roll backwards?

 

Ask Canute how that worked out for him.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he has seen some change in his time and expects to participate in a bit more yet. Tell him how we can help guide Granville's changes at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.