Take your pick: movement or institution?

Is it better to be part of a movement or an institution?

Once again, Seth Godin has me thinking about factories. During this time of economic restlessness and ennui, some call for America to return to its industrial revolution days and make things. When America made things, many people had steady paychecks and pensions. Middle-class America worked hard, saved money and many sent their kids to college, trade school, or set their children up for a good life. Institutions felt safe.

The church participated in the world of factories, too. In my Lutheran church world, good children of Northern European immigrants worked hard, canned vegetables and fruit, saved their money, and sent their children to Lutheran colleges (hat tip to Garrison Keillor to help me understand the cultural history of my tradition), which theology and religion departments served as factory feeders for Lutheran seminaries. That world was changing when I attended a Lutheran seminary in the 1990's; we were told that demographics were shifting, and more seminary students were coming from state colleges and universities than every before, quickly approaching 50 percent. I remember there were adjustments to the factory. Paul Sponheim told one of my classes that he used to be able to count on seminary students having a solid background in philosophy, but no more. He adjusted by giving a 2-3 lecture survey of philosophy.  There was some flexibility in the institution, but it was hard.

I became a pastor/product of a Lutheran seminary, prepared to enter other smaller factories including the ELCA Board of Pensions, Thrivent Financial for Lutherans (formerly Aid Association for Lutherans and Lutheran Brotherhood), and a series of congregational factories producing meetings of all kinds, including Women of the ELCA, church councils, Sunday School, and a whole host of committees. The idea was that if I faithfully participated in all of these institutions, I will be assured to have money to live on after my working days are done.

There are still places where the factory/institution of church still exists, and often times it is supported by the culture or demographics. Sometimes the institution is supported by hard working and intelligent leaders. However, in many places (I live in one of these places), Lutheran and other Mainline/Oldline Protestant traditions are part of crumbling institutions; there is no guarantee of security for any pastor or church professional. Some of my colleagues long for the institutional days of security. Some are angry at the culture. Some are angry at other colleagues for making the church what it is today and question their faithfulness or their understanding of theology or tradition.

One of my good friends and colleagues invited me to a discussion about 5 years ago regarding his tradition. He was part of a relatively new tradition, full of passionate people and congregations. People had toiled and worked tirelessly to develop a movement of grace, hospitality and justice. Some people who had been working in the grass roots of the movement were concerned about the continuation of the movement for generations to come. Pensions, health insurance, and constitutions became part of meetings and regular discussion. What was once a movement was becoming an institution. What was once full of energy, passion and care became meetings with minutes and boredom.

What happened?

I am not writing today to decry institutions. I am curious about society and the church of which I am a part, and our over-dependence and skewed expectations of institutions to make life good. I appreciate many institutions in my life that helped provide for me in my life. From government safety nets, to church organizations, to educational systems and to congregations, I am thankful for the generosity of God and the collective work of many. The problem is that institutions exist to self-preserve, and my understanding of following Christ is that our attention is directed toward God and neighbor, and that our institutions, at least in the understanding of Christian faith never exist for the sake of themselves, only that they turn our attention toward God and neighbor--that is a movement.

Are movements and institutions mutually exclusive? Can an institution behave like a movement or beget a movement? After my first season of ministry (about 12 years) studying and being the church as an institution, is it possible to be the church as a movement? Do movement-minded people abandon the institution? Do institution-minded people shun the movements? I do not know the answer to these questions, but I do know that my desire for security sometimes keeps me from challenging myself and others (wouldn't want to risk my pension), so I am willing to uphold the church factory system while I happily attempt to break through it. We don't live in a factory society anymore, but my fellow citizens and I behave like we do. The big problem is, regardless of institution or movement, I am a person of mixed motives and allegiances. But I also know that God does something even with the mixed motive people. Thanks be to God.

Baseball, Church, and Writing

Just because I haven't posted writing on the blog recently does not mean I haven't been writing. I've been writing a lot lately. An opportunity arose to audition for one of my favorite baseball blogs, thinking I could make the leap from mostly church stuff to baseball. Waiting patiently for future vocational turns is not my strong suit. The time may come to share some of my baseball writing on this blog, but I'm not sure about the direction this writing is taking. Your average pastor will never become a baseball blog, but I am curious about what I have learned in my processes in writing about baseball and church.

The writing process in baseball is surprisingly similar to writing about church--preaching, congregational development, and biblical scholarship. Over the past decade, baseball has gradually developed new methods of research to understand truths about baseball. For about 100 years, baseball used very specific methods for understanding the game that did not change much. As baseball revenues and salaries have reached new heights and computer/electronic analysis moved into the game some questioned the assumptions and validity of older methods. Those who held control over the older methods of baseball knowledge struggled and still struggle (to the point of hatred and vitriol) with the new methods.

For some, the new methods of baseball analysis come with great ease, especially those who work well with statistical analysis. Information about baseball is not dependent on newspaper beat writers with large travel budgets or national commentators, or even sports networks like ESPN. Anyone with internet access and a desire to execute extensive research can make compelling arguments about many facets of the game, and I find their arguments quite persuasive. The validity of any measurement, whether qualitative or quantitative should be a priority. Are we actually evaluating what we say we're evaluating?

Sound familiar?

The church, biblical scholarship and preaching have changed because of access to information. Some people whose livelihoods or power status were based on older knowledge methods have challenged newer methods of research and analysis. Seminaries have had to change their methods some (though not all too quickly) and ordination tracks and sacramental access has shifted (though not too quickly). The common thread in developing new hierarchies and authority matrices is that control over information is crumbling (or has crumbled). It affects both the baseball world and the world of the church. Luther and his followers, colleagues and adversaries saw it with the dawn of the printing press. The authority structures are crumbling again. Feel free to deny it, or even decry it--I'm not sure it will do you any good.

What I have learned is that for all the doctrinal purists in both baseball and the church, they are still about relationships. Though it will always help to keep certain skill sets up to date and develop new knowledge bases, the world needs people who can navigate these changing times by managing their own anxiety and stay connected to people of different viewpoints. I haven't even touched on politics--and I think this is a primary issue in the current American political climate.

The fun part for me is that the opportunity to write about these topics and stay connected with you does not flow through a publication like The Christian Century, a local or national newspaper, or even a book that I write. I can connect with you--now. I am gladdened by our shared creative energy. I think that is God at work in the Spirit.

Clear eyes, full hearts, can't lose--for the church. An ode to Friday Night Lights

Do you think Friday Night Lights is a show about football? Think again. Football is part of the story, but FNL is about relationships. A creative culture makes it happen.

FNL makes its last hurrah as a current television series this Friday night. I'm not sure I've mourned the end of a series as much as this one. I admire the show for its passion and its creative process--and how a culture was created that facilitated and encouraged the creative process. This culture inspires me as a pastor. I hope that I can facilitate such a culture in the congregation and community I serve. Creation (not the "Intelligent Design" brand) is a theological foundation for me.

For a peek into the creative culture of Friday Night Lights, check out this oral history of FNL in Grantland (and if you haven't read Grantland yet, I commend it to you for writing on culture and sport that is moving far ahead of what any periodical is offering on similar topics).

Though the church has a history of inspiring creativity, the history is also long on burying creativity. Several teachers in seminary that I respect taught me an understanding of church based on replication. I took that teaching at face value for awhile. While there are some essentials in the life of the church to be replicated (and these things have been debated since Jesus arose from the dead), I believe much is up for creative interpretation. There are numerous periods in the life of the church where creativity has been squashed for a variety of reasons. This has happened and continues to occur in Mainline Protestant traditions. Even when there are wellsprings of creativity, these wellsprings are quickly institutionalized and become their own turf wars (see "contemporary" worship).

Mainline Protestant traditions were able to spread because of replication (plenty of cookie cutter church architecture out there). What else spreads because of replication? Chain restaurants. One may be able to get survival nutrition from a chain restaurant, but can people thrive? I have great hope to encourage a congregational culture where encouraging creativity is foundational to our relationship with God and one another. To me, this seems to be connected to the Great Commission: Where Jesus said, Go! Make disciples! Baptize! I am with you.

This is a creative directive from Jesus, with encouragement to go with it.

Encouraging creativity is contagious. The motto shared by Coach Taylor with his players and supporters: "Clear eyes. Full hearts. Can't lose." Though Taylor had some "my way or the highway" methodology to coaching--he always took into account the gifts and individual situations of his players (sometimes learning the hard way), which was linked to the creative process of the series. I love thinking about this in a community of faith.

Kyle Chandler, who plays Coach Taylor on FNL, talks about how that creativity spread from the show to a basic interaction in his life:

Chandler: I was back home in Los Angeles and we wanted to put a gate up in our yard. The fella came over and said, "Mr. Chandler, how do you want me to build this?" I said, "I'm not going to tell you how to build this gate. You just look around at what's here, and you build the best gate you can. Be as creative as you want. Take your time, and just give me a good gate." That gate's probably going to stand for 400 years.

Place matters--how do your surroundings affect how you see the world?

How does where you live--culture, environment, physical surroundings and their corresponding relationships affect how you look at the world? How does it affect how you look at faith and congregational life?

My passion for these questions took a sabbatical over the past few years. After living for 20 years in the Midwest, I moved with my family to the Seattle metro, where I grew up before taking off for college and early adulthood. I am thankful for the relationships (where I met my wife), mentoring and opportunity in the Midwest (I lived and worked in rural and urban areas in KS, MN, WI, SD and IA). However, there was always some dissonance about my perceptions (particularly of faith and congregational life).

That dissonance runs both ways. I watched it last night at a grant planning meeting, where my Minnesota-native wife raised a particular point to the group. Someone responded, "is that a Midwest (church) thing?" No, Melanie responded, the congregational cultural attribute was part of her Las Vegas congregation, where she served her internship. She hears this kind of question/response loop in her work with congregations. In the particular expression of Lutheranism in the Pacific Northwest, it is common to hear about the church prowess of the Lutheran Holy Land of the Northern Great Plains (MN, ND, SD, IA), with the implication that the Pacific Northwest expression is somehow inferior. It appears from folk culture to church structure to leadership orientation.

One of my colleagues in South Dakota and I discussed this dissonance of place and perception on occasion. I had perceived that sometimes the Midwestern ethos is connected to a moral superiority. I had collected a series of op-ed pieces and letters to the editor that rejected the values of the West Coast and espoused the life in South Dakota. I was attempting to interpret what was behind that understanding. She responded that a Coastal ethos often depicts a cultural superiority. It was hard to disagree with either observation.

In congregational life the diversity of backgrounds is hard to ignore. For every perception of a degree of homogeneity, there are several divergent variables that affect perceptions and relationships. I remember seminary days with scholars and students who espoused some kind of pure faith and theology where culture didn't matter, and that somehow that pure theology could exist in a vacuum. To say there is a pure Christianity apart from culture reeks of gnosticism, where only insiders get to know and understand the "pure" theology.

Today's reflection was inspired by Kansas native Chris Suellentrop and his thoughts on the Kansas City sports landscape. Maybe you're interested in sports and place. If not, what caught my attention was one particular observation about the intersection of place and life, and one that didn't come from a Midwest outsider like me (if you don't want to read the entire article):

"Combine this romantic, backward-looking vision with the traditional Midwestern delusion that you are more American than the rest of the country, and you're left with a strikingly insular self-conception, a sense that you are in a place in righteous decline."--Chris Suellentrop, grantland.com, 7/7/11

That post re-awakened in me the importance of place as a variable to understanding our relationships with God and one another. It made me think about what it means to be a Lutheran Christian in the United States. Who once lived in the Midwest and married someone from the Midwest. Who loves everything about the geography of the Pacific Northwest (reacquainting myself with this love has distracted me from the deeper questions--they're now back). All of these things affect my relationship and vocation. The question is how? What does it mean?

Place matters. For a person of faith, place matters. The Bible features several stories and reflection about the land--think about the Promised Land. Even buildings receive special billing--the Bible features several stories about building programs. There is lament and hope intertwined with building destruction and reconstruction, and all that goes into the construction and recognition of place.

The question for me about the intersection between place and life is not that it exists, but how and why? What do you think?