Church Growth & Parish Clergy, Part Two (eCrozier #288)

On February 5, 2016, in congregational development, Laity, leadership, by bishopbenhase

Last week, I made this point about parish clergy’s role in growing the church: The initial experience of visitors is overwhelmingly determined by their emotional connection to the clergy. Clergy need to put more time into preparation of not only their sermons, but also into how they preside, how they make announcements, indeed into their entire interaction with “the public” on Sunday. Rather than be trapped in the sacristy corralling acolytes before the liturgy or chatting with parishioners after the liturgy about a committee meeting, clergy must be out front greeting everyone, especially visitors, welcoming them, asking their names, and then making a point of following up with them after the liturgy.

This week I’m addressing how lay leaders are important partners in effective connection with visitors. The first significant role they play is to liberate clergy from much of the liturgical and logistical housekeeping chores on Sundays. And they may have to do this without the complete cooperation of the clergy. You see, we clergy sometimes are control freaks. Ok, more than sometimes. And since we can’t control the outcome of someone’s visit to church, we tend to focus on what we can control: Things like the order of acolytes for the procession or who’ll hand out bulletins to worshippers before the liturgy. Needless to say, this is the worst way clergy can steward their time on Sundays. And lay leaders are often co-dependent with clergy in this, leaving clergy to handle these “housekeeping” details and not insisting that everyone, clergy and laity alike, play their important role in welcoming visitors helping them make a connection with the clergy.

Another significant role lay leaders play in growing the church is their work of personal invitation to friends, co-workers, neighbors, and others to join the church in worship. Experience tells us that the invitation shouldn’t be impersonal, offered off-handedly or in a nonchalant way. The invitation must be highly personal, including an offer to bring them to church, sit with them during the Eucharist (helping them navigate the liturgy), and then personally introducing them to the parish clergy. The invitation also should include taking the clergy and visitor to lunch or coffee in the coming week (the vestry ought to set aside some money in the annual budget to pay for such “extravagances.”) If evangelism is as Martin Luther said: “one beggar telling another beggar where to find bread,” then growing the church is one person inviting another person to be a part of our common life in the church.

What if every baptized member of our respective congregations saw it as their calling to bring one person into the life of the church each year? Just one person over 52 weeks. Our membership would double. A social media presence is important and so is a good website that’s visitor-friendly. I’m sure radio spots, online advertising, and the like have a place in drawing folk to our congregations. The data shows, however, that 3 out of 4 people join a church because somebody they knew (and trusted) personally invited them. Such personal invitations don’t cost much money (lunch, coffee?). Engaging in personal, one on one, connections is, however, costly of our time and energy. Important things are always costly. Need I remind us about the costliness of God’s grace?

+Scott

 
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Church Growth & Parish Clergy, Part One (eCrozier #287)

On January 29, 2016, in congregational development, leadership, by bishopbenhase

A clear proclamation of God’s redemption by our Lord Jesus grounds the growth of any church in its particular context. Yet, we must also be aware of the stance we take in such proclamation. It should be based an astute understanding of how people connect to and stay in a particular community. To do this, we have to avoid any wishful thinking or by clinging to certain sentimentalities we thought were true. Both stances are unhelpful.

One of the things we now know about human behavior and how we connect with others is that it’s not rational at the beginning. Our emotions, as David Brooks points out in The Social Animal, determine our first reactions to anything new. As much as we’d like to see ourselves as purely rational, we actually respond to new experiences emotionally. Only later might we reflect rationally. This means when people visit our churches, they need to make an emotional connection. And such emotional connections aren’t made to a new group of people as a whole. They are focused on the leader. In our case, the one up front wearing the unusual dress. If visitors can’t make an emotional connection with the clergy, then they likely won’t return. This doesn’t mean they must experience total adoration or that they must be swept off their feet by the clergy’s homiletical brilliance, but it does mean that visitors have to “connect” emotionally with the clergy. They have to be able to imagine the clergy as someone they could come to trust and relate to.

Now, we might think that it should be different; that visitors should connect with everyone in the liturgy and the pews, but what we know about human behavior doesn’t bear that out. The inconvenient truth is that the initial experience of visitors will be overwhelmingly determined by their emotional connection to the clergy. This reality should change the way we connect with visitors to church. Clergy need to put more time into preparation of not only their sermon, but also in how they preside, how they make announcements, indeed their entire interaction with “the public” on Sunday. Rather than be trapped in the sacristy corralling acolytes before the liturgy or chatting with parishioners after the liturgy about an upcoming committee meeting, the clergy ought to be out front greeting everyone, especially visitors, welcoming them, asking their names, and then making a point of following up with them after the liturgy to arrange to take them to lunch or to meet them for coffee in the next few days.

This, of course, places a significant burden on the clergy to make emotional connections. And that time meeting for lunch or coffee is when the connection can be solidified, not through a “sales job” on visitors, but by listening with genuine interest to their life story and their spiritual longings. That’s when the clergy can connect the visitors’ lives and their spiritual longings to the congregation’s ministry, helping them see how the church can be their partner on their spiritual pilgrimage.

Next week, in Part Two, I’ll address how lay leaders can be important companions in effective connection to visitors mainly by liberating their clergy from much of the liturgical and logistical housekeeping chores on Sundays. Stay tuned!

+Scott

 
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Grace Insists We Be The Adults In The Room (eCrozier #281)

On November 20, 2015, in Benedictine, grace, leadership, by bishopbenhase

“That’s not fair!” I said that a lot as a child when my older sister got to do something I didn’t get to do. It just didn’t seem right to me. My parents should have treated my sister and me the same. I heard the same things coming out of my own children’s mouths when they were young. Kelly and I would let one of our children do something and not the other two. That was “unfair!” It seems we’re all born with a built-in fairness barometer that determines from our perspective when life’s circumstances don’t go our way or appear to be fair to us.

We take this idea of fairness with us into adulthood. When we see someone cut in line outside a movie theatre, get preferential treatment at a busy restaurant, or get a social or economic benefit we think we deserve (or, possibly we think the other person does not deserve), we declare those situations to be “unfair.” Examples of this are programs like the SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (better known as “food stamps”), animal grazingrights on government-owned lands, college admission standards, etc. We see some benefit or privilege going to someone else and we ask: “where’s mine? It’s not fair that they get that.”But fairness as a concept is sometimes trapped in the eyes of the beholder. It is often highly contextual and many times we do not know all the mitigating factors. Still, our fairness barometers go off because we presume that everyone should be treated equally all the time.

Fairness is not a Christian theological concept. In fact, our Christian faith is grounded on the central proposition that we are not treated fairly by God. Fairness would presume that we get what we deserve for our sins. It is out of God’s complete mercy that we don’t get what we deserve and are forgiven through the mediation of Jesus on the cross. So, we thank God that God is unfair, giving us a “benefit” that we have neither earned nor deserved. Grace, which is central to the Christian proclamation, is ultimate unfair deal.

This grace then should be incarnated in how we live with others. It should shape our leadership in the Church as well as how we make choices and act in relationship to others in the world. St Benedict in his Rule states that the abbot (the monastery’s leader) should treat all his monks differently, which may at times appear to be unfair. As Benedict writes: “One he must treat with mild goodness, another with reprimands, yet another with the power of persuasion, and thereby accommodate himself according to everyone’s nature and capacity of understanding, and thus adapt himself to the other, that he not hurt the flock entrusted to him.”

Notice how Benedict presumes the abbot is the one who must adapt in his relationships rather than the abbot assuming all those around him must adapt to him. Grace-filled living in the world is then about us adapting and changing our behavior toward others and not expecting them out of some cosmic or internal barometer of fairness to adapt to us. Put differently, grace insists that we be the “adults in the room,” that we not get sucked into insisting on fairness above all else, but rather recognize the deeper action of grace, which trumps fairness always.

 
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Bishop’s Address at 194th Convention of the Diocese of Georgia November 2015

On November 13, 2015, in Body of Christ, Community, Convention, Diocese of Georgia, discipleship, Evangelistic Witness, faith, gospel, grace, Laity, leadership, mission, by bishopbenhase

The field of moral psychology endeavors to understand why people make moral choices and the rationale they use to justify their choices. One of moral psychology’s recurring findings is that we have a higher opinion of ourselves than we ought to have. Of course, St. Paul arrived at the same conclusion about human nature nearly 2000 years ago when he wrote that very same message to the Church in Rome (Romans 12:3).

Experiments and surveys have repeatedly shown that we believe we possess attributes that are better or more desirable than the average person. For example, we believe by a wide majority that we’re above average drivers. The same is true when we’re asked about a virtue such as honesty. A high percentage of us report that we’re more honest than the average person. Even folk in jail for theft report such superior honesty. High school students consistently judge themselves to be more popular than average. And nearly every state claims that their average student test scores are above the national average. Of course, since we know something about statistics, we know that such judgments about ourselves cannot be true.

Moral psychologists have termed this phenomenon The Lake Wobegon Effect. It’s named for the fictional town of Lake Wobegon from the radio program A Prairie Home Companion, where, according to host Garrison Keillor: “All the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.”

What these moral psychologists are documenting is as old as humanity. Our tradition names it as sin born from the cardinal sin of pride. Our creation story reminds us that Adam & Eve were quite clear that their judgment about a particular fruit in the Garden of Eden was superior to God’s judgment.

This truth about ourselves needs to be front and center when we spread the Good News of Jesus Christ. Yes, when sharing our faith with those who aren’t Christians we do need to have a “I-know-something-you-don’t-know” quality to it, because we do “know something they don’t know” when it comes to God’s grace in Jesus. But it’s how we share our faith with others that matters. It should be humble. We’re not morally superior to those outside the Christian faith. We may not even be morally above average.

So, from this humble stance, what is it we are to share?

I want to propose three Bible verses that will help remind us of how we should spread the Good News of Jesus.

The first verse is Isaiah 55:1: “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and drink!

Notice how the Prophet Isaiah pronounces God’s word here. Everyone who thirsts is invited. All should come and drink and eat without money or price. God’s invitation to humanity is complete and without condition. Isaiah’s prophecy is a bold declaration of God’s intention, made perfect in Jesus’ words in John’s Gospel, that Jesus when he is lifted up on the cross will draw all people to himself.

That means Jesus is doing the drawing. Our congregations then must be places where we’re trained for our role, not Jesus’ role. It may be a conversation you have in the living room at Columba House. It may be you comforting an exhausted Scout Leader after his troop meets one night at your church. It may be you listening to a co-worker over coffee about her current troubles. Whenever and wherever, we need to say to everyone in our communities: “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come!”

The second verse is Isaiah 25:9: “Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, so that he might save us.”

Spreading the Good News involves us waiting for God to act. Our salvation, indeed the world’s salvation, isn’t our own doing. But our waiting should never be passive. It must be an active waiting, all the while recognizing that salvation is God’s action and God’s property, not ours.

If we remember that, then we’ll maintain a humble stance with those outside of our faith. Even though the Gospel is God’s bold declaration to the world, we should be compassionate and tender in how we share it, because we know many people have only received a false, toxic version of the Gospel.

Waiting for God to save is actually liberating. We’re free from playing the age-old game of who’s in and who’s out. We can collaborate with anyone, regardless of their faith, if they’re willing to do Gospel work with us in our communities.

If someone wants to partner with the Food for a Thousand Ministry at St Patrick’s, Albany or the community garden at the Oak Street Mission in Thomasville, we won’t worry if they don’t share our faith. We’ll feed hungry people with anyone. The Community Cares Café in Darien serves children whether or not they or their parents believe as we do. After all, we’re not on God’s “Program Committee.” We’re on God’s “Welcoming Committee.”

“Lo, it is God who saves us.” And we’ll share that Good News with anyone.

And the third and final verse is Matthew 28:19: “Go, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

It’s not a liturgical accident that each Sunday our deacons send us out with this short, powerful verb: “Go!” “Go” doesn’t mean, “stay.” “Go” doesn’t mean hang out inside the church walls until somebody shows up. And “Go” doesn’t mean being so hamstrung by political correctness that we refrain from sharing with others God’s forgiveness in Jesus. “Go” means, “Go!”  

Go into the communities of this diocese with a “humble boldness.” Go share good news with the poor. Go tell the spiritually blind that God wants to give them sight. Go speak to the spiritually thirsty and let them know how you’ve learned that Jesus is the Water of Life.

Go to everyone. Go to the NSA, the NRA, the NAACP, the Rotarians, the Elks Club, the Booster Club, the Garden Club, the Optimist’s Club, the Pessimist’s Club, just Go! Wherever God has placed you, Go!

When we actually do go, God does some amazing things.

  • The community youth group in McIntosh County decided to go and this last year we baptized five young people.
  • The Cornerstone Ministry in Augusta chose to go and now regularly has 35 or more youth participate. And some of those aren’t members of our churches. They’re being evangelized by our youth.
  • In the summer when we go to Lake Blackshear with the Good News, people respond. Because the people of Christ Church Cordele decided to go, their worship attendance has doubled in the last few years.

What might God do in our communities if we all decided to “go?” Because when we “go,” we discover God’s already there. When we go to the ends of the earth or just to the end of our block, we find Jesus already pitching his tent there.

My friends, I firmly believe that the future vitality of this Diocese is directly related to our collective willingness to “go.” Our vitality will only grow in direct proportion to the number of us who are willing to “go.” And, this going can’t be a clergy-centered movement. A few laity still think that since we pay many of our clergy to go, they themselves don’t have to go. But that’s not true. The clergy’s primary task is to equip the laity to be the ministers of the Gospel. As the great lay teacher & preacher Verna Dozier wrote: The layperson’s primary function is out there in the world.  And the wise Archbishop of Canterbury, William Temple, wrote: Nine-tenths of the Church’s work in the world is done by Christian people fulfilling responsibilities and performing tasks which in themselves are not part of the official system of the Church at all.

That means when we “go,” we don’t go to church, we “go” to the people and places of our lives taking the Good News of Jesus with us. And if the Good News of Jesus saves us, it will save anybody and everybody.

I know I’ve gone a bit long here, but please stay with me for a few more minutes. I want to end on a personal note. Some of you know that I was diagnosed with cancer two months ago. I’m happy to report to you that I’m cancer free today. And I’m most thankful for all of your prayers. I felt each one of them.

The Diocesan Staff has been amazing, as usual, dealing with their already full responsibilities while also picking up after me, which is nearly an impossible task.

I also couldn’t do even one small thing as the Bishop of Georgia if it weren’t for Kelly, who puts up with me even as I am and loves me anyway, far beyond what I deserve.

There were upsides to my getting cancer. It’s been a great excuse for getting out of stuff. When someone asked me to do something I didn’t want to do, all I had to do was say: “You know, I’d love to, but I have cancer.” That worked every time.

The other upside is that it’s sharpened my mind and soul. It’s helped me see how often I’ve taken for granted the truly wonderful people and blessings that surround me.

And cancer has helped me get clear about what I want my life to stand for and how I want to spend the rest of my days on this earth, however long that is.

So, to quote that wonderful hymn by the Reverend James Cleveland:

Right now, I don’t feel no ways tired!

I’m ready to “go!” And I hope you’re ready to “go,” too.

“Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters”

“Lo, this is our God who has saved us.”

“Go, make disciples”

Deacons, please stand now wherever you are.  Please help me dismiss all of us from this overly long address with one powerful verb. It begins with a G and it ends with an O. On the count of three: One, two, three – Go!

 
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Grace & Forbearance Between Priest & People (eCrozier #279)

On November 5, 2015, in congregational development, grace, leadership, by bishopbenhase

My friends and colleagues, Bob Gallagher & Michelle Heyne, are currently writing a series of excellent blog posts on clergy transitions in congregations. You can find them here. The basic premise on which their posts are based is that there’s a natural, unavoidable process as a new priest arrives and begins his ministry with the congregation. There are three stages: Honeymoon, Disappointment, and then, if given time, Realistic Love & Reasonable Expectations. Let me explore each of these stages a bit from my own perspective and experience, but please do read their wonderfully insightful posts.

During the Honeymoon, as one might expect, everything is great. People love their new priest. One might hear things like: “Her sermons are great. She’s so personable and accessible, etc.” For the priest, she might be saying: “What great people! I’m so thankful to be here, etc.” But this is really a time of inflated and unreasonable expectations by everyone. Just like in a marriage, the honeymoon inevitably comes to an end. If it’s falsely extended, then fantasy and self-delusion rule the day. It has to end so that a more realistic and mature relationship can be born in the future.

The next stage is Disappointment. It has a door that swings both ways. Eventually, people learn their new priest isn’t perfect. An incident occurs or an interaction happens and they’re disappointed. The spiritually mature will accept this because they know the priest is human and won’t always live up to their expectations, but the less spiritually mature will murmur, gripe, and gossip (often in the parking lot) about what’s lacking in the new priest. The priest also must face his own disappointment when he, in due course, realizes the parish isn’t all he hoped for, that the people aren’t everything he wanted them to be. This is a crucial time for all. If it can be navigated with perspective, grace, and forbearance, then the fruit produced in the future can be glorious.

The third stage is a time of Realistic Love & Reasonable Expectations where the parish comes to love the priest for who he is, warts and all, and form reasonable expectations for the leadership he brings. And for the priest, it’s a time where she can fully accept the “mixed-bag” her parishioners are (aren’t we all?) and can love them as they are and not as she fantasizes them to be. She can even love those less spiritually mature folk who can’t accept her humanity, failures, and faults. This can be a time of great fruitfulness in the parish. Most often this happens sometime in the third year of the priest’s tenure (although it may be somewhat earlier or later) and it can last many years as long as together they remain focused on the spiritual practices of grace and forbearance.

Of course, sometimes a priest and people never make it to stage three. And occasionally, the stages can be quite short. I once had a honeymoon of about 20 minutes (a long story). If the priest and people don’t work together through the first two stages, they can get stuck, resentment can set in, and often either can emotionally and/or spiritually “check out” even while staying in place. They must commit to work through the Honeymoon and Disappointment to reap the fruit of the shared love that will come.

+Scott

 
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St Francis & Gleicher’s Model for Change (eCrozier #274)

On October 2, 2015, in leadership, by bishopbenhase

Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible. – Francis of Assisi

This Sunday thousands of churches across the world will hold annual pet blessing liturgies on St Francis Day. There’ll be the usual dogs and cats, less common animals like guinea pigs and ferrets, and the occasional exotic snake or two. I’ve always been careful to keep my distance when asperging such exotic animals. You just never know how holy water might be received in such circumstances. I think it wonderful that the Church holds such liturgies. It’s a celebration of the whole of God’s creation, something our brother Francis daily encouraged.

Yet focusing only on this part of Francis’ witness doesn’t do justice to his genius as a transformational leader of the Church. You’ll no doubt recall that Francis came to adulthood in the early 13th Century in Europe when the Church seemed everywhere and nowhere at the same time. As an institution it controlled vast wealth, but as a movement following Jesus it had grown poor. It was more concerned with keeping people chained to rules than liberating them through the Good News of God’s grace in Jesus. It was like a big, old leaky barge still afloat going down the river, but it needed transformation.

Enter Francis. Whether Francis deliberately set out to be a transformational leader is unclear from the historical record, but he actually followed closely what has come to be known among organizational theorists as Gleicher’s Model for Change. This holds that change happens when there’s dissatisfaction with the way things are, a vision for the way things might be, and then the first few concrete steps toward that vision for change. If all those steps are greater than the resistance one encounters, then the change will occur. Gleicher’s Model for Change is written like this: C = D x V x V1 > R.

Francis first tapped into his personal dissatisfaction with his own life. By acknowledging his own dissatisfaction, he invited others to do the same with their lives. He and they did not need to go along with the way things were. But dissatisfaction alone just produces grumbling and complaining. It never brings transformational change. Francis also had a vision for how things might be. What if we followers of Jesus sowed love where there was hatred, hope in the midst of despair, or pardon where there was injury? That was the vision Francis put before himself and the first folk who gathered around him. They then took steps to incarnate such virtues in their life together. Soon others shared this vision and the movement grew. The old, leaky barge of the Church never did accept Francis’ vision. In fact, he faced powerful resistance from bishops and princes who were threatened by such a simple vision for living the Gospel together.

While Francis didn’t change the whole Church, he transformed some of it. His witness continues today. His vision calls us in the Church to really become instruments of God’s peace in all parts of our lives.

+Scott

 
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Empathetic Leadership in Times of Conflict (eCrozier #269)

On August 28, 2015, in conflict management, congregational development, leadership, by bishopbenhase

One of the most important spiritual gifts for church leaders is the gift of empathy for others, particularly those whom we lead. It’s important for leaders to be able to place themselves in other people’s shoes, so to speak, and to try to understand what they’re experiencing from their perspective. But having the gift of empathy for others is not all that is needed to lead a church (or any group) to become collectively more spiritually vital and healthy. Such leadership requires both a good knowledge of how change happens as well as the gift of patient determination.  

For example, most clergy I know have a pretty good idea of what a healthy Christian community looks like and acts like. But many of those same clergy are reluctant to lead the congregation to incarnate such communal practices and norms. Why is that? They’re rightly concerned that they might run afoul of individuals or groups within the parish who have a stake in maintaining an unhealthy status quo. In other words, people don’t want their turf messed with even if what they are doing is failing or ineffective. So, unhealthy practices around, for example, children’s Christian formation, or music in the liturgy, or a particular community ministry continue because attempts to change them are seen as attempts to take away the authority of the Sunday School teacher or the organist or community ministry coordinator.

Some of this leadership reluctance is based on a natural desire to avoid conflict. Conflict can be hard and unpleasant. Another part of the reluctance of leaders to make changes that would bring greater spiritual health to the congregation has to do with a misunderstanding about the nature of change. We often mistakenly think people don’t like change. That’s not true most of the time. People don’t dislike change, per se, but they will probably dislike any change they don’t understand or a change they had no say in. Also, if they cannot see the blessing the change could produce, they aren’t likely to even consider embracing it.

And that’s where the leader’s gift for empathy comes in. If the leader exercises genuine empathy for the people who are being asked to accept some change, then the change has a good chance of succeeding. But if those folk are treated as obstructionists, or saboteurs, or “standing in the way of the Gospel,” then they’re likely to dig in their heals and become real obstructionists or saboteurs. The one leading the change must consistently stay in the role as leader and not withdraw, listen to all the voices in the congregation, and retain empathy for the people who oppose or question the proposed change. And the leader must do all that while not allowing those folk to take over the agenda or control the emotional climate. That’s a lot for the leader to handle and it takes real skill and training to negotiate it all well.

This is why we in the Diocese of Georgia have put so much time, energy, and resources into training programs like the Church Development Institute, Emotional Intelligence, Human Relations, and Conflict Management training, and peer coaching. Church leaders today more than ever need these practical skills to lead effectively.

+Scott

 
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Attending Relationships, or Accomplishing Tasks, or Vice Versae (eCrozier #247)

On January 23, 2015, in Community, leadership, by bishopbenhase

People are complex, amazing, exasperating, and funny creatures. If you doubt this, look in the mirror (and be honest about who you see there). We’re able in one moment to engage in remarkable acts of love and devotion and then, in the next moment, act in petty, vindictive ways. All this complex and exasperating behavior shows itself in our social interaction. Our interaction with others can produce in us both joy and anxiety, and yet it’s fundamental to who we are as God’s creatures. We drive one another nuts at times, but the other is blessedly necessary for us. In theological terms, we might say that God has hard-wired us to be in communion with one another (thus, it’s God’s fault!).

David Brooks, the author and columnist, tells in his book, The Social Animal, of a psychological research experiment (although he can’t find a source verifying that this experiment was ever actually done). In the experiment, middle-aged men were hooked up to a brain-scanning device. Then they were shown a horror movie while the device recorded the reactions in their brains. Later, they were hooked up to the same device when their wives were present. They were then asked to share their feelings with their wives. The researchers then compared the first and second brain scans. They were the same: complete terror during both episodes!

I share Brooks’ tale partly because I think it’s hilariously true, but also because it illustrates our complexity and differences. And those aren’t just in terms of gender. Personality research and insight, such as produced by the Myers-Briggs Personality Inventory, informs us about our complexity and differences in how we take in and relate to the world around us. Some of us are innately introverted, while others are given to extroversion. Some think first and then feel second, while others feel first and then engage their thoughts. All this causes great challenges for us as we try to navigate the complexities of our myriad relationships in the world, especially in the church.

Maybe the most challenging difference we experience in community is the one related to the tension between accomplishing tasks and attending to relationships. And this tension is a core challenge for those of us who are leaders in the church. Some folk are task oriented. When they’re faced with a job to do or a role to live out, they just want to get it done. Others, however, attend themselves more to relationships. Accomplishing tasks are less important to them. This doesn’t mean task oriented folk don’t care about relationships or that relationship oriented folk don’t care about tasks. It means that in every community there will be people who tend to be more of one than the other.

The key skill here for church leaders is to help people stay on task while also helping them attend to the relationships in the group. God’s mission is not well-served if a particular task is accomplished, but in doing so people are at each other’s throats. Likewise, we’ll never engage in mission if we ignore the real tasks required to do so. If we wish to be effective leaders in the church, then we must practice mindfulness about this basic reality and attend to it in every part of church life. Both kinds of people are a part of every group within the church. That’s why church life is never boring!

+Scott

 
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Bishop’s Address at 193rd Convention of the Diocese of Georgia November 2014

On November 7, 2014, in Body of Christ, capital campaign, congregational development, Convention, culture, Diocese of Georgia, Episcopal Church, Evangelistic Witness, gospel, grace, Laity, leadership, mission, by bishopbenhase

Some of you know I’m a huge fan of the singer-songwriter John Prine. And it’s a testament to my love and devotion to the Church and to this Diocese that I’ll be present at this evening’s Convention Eucharist because John Prine is performing tonight at the Savannah Civic Center. Prine’s lyrics are magical and almost always funny while also plumbing the depths of the human condition. A song he sings as a duet with Iris Dement evokes an affect that I want to share in my Bishop’s Address this year. The song is entitled “We’re not the Jet Set,” and part of it goes like this:

No, We’re not the jet set. We’re the old Chevro-let set
Our steak and martinis, Is draft beer with weenies
Our Bach and Tchaikovsky, Is Haggard and Husky
No, we’re not the jet set, We’re the old Chevro-let set. But ain’t we got love

In this Diocese, we’re not the jet set. Most of us are more comfortable with draft beer and weenies than we are with steak and martinis. Haggard and Husky are more likely to be on our play list than Bach and Tchaikovsky. Here in the Diocese we don’t have what a lot of dioceses have in terms of financial resources. We don’t have many large metropolitan areas that provide amenities that would draw people to move to them. With a few exceptions, the counties in our state that are projected to have significant growth are all in that certain diocese to the north, just above the gnat line.

So the demographics aren’t very favorable to us. Demographics, however, aren’t destiny and dwelling on them isn’t faithful. We trust in a providential destiny only God provides. Plus, as John Prine sings, “ain’t we got love.” We have God’s love for us incarnated in Jesus and we have our love for one another. And we have hope, hope that God is moving in our midst working out through us God’s plan of salvation.

Our call, then, isn’t to bemoan what we don’t have or what’s not favorable to us. It’s to celebrate and be thankful for what we do have and the favor God has shown us, and then to put all that we have and all that we are into the coming of God’s Kingdom on this earth, as it already is in heaven.

No, we’re not the jet set. We’re the old Chevro-let set. But this Chevy has many great miles to go and we’re fueled by the hope of what God will do through us to bring about the Kingdom.  And I want us to dwell on that sure and certain hope for these next few minutes. For as the Scriptures say: such hope will not disappoint us.

Now, we’re schooled by cable news and through social media to be afraid of just about everything from Ebola to the dirty ring around our bathtubs. If that were all the news we had, then it would be prudent to be afraid and to feel hopeless. Yet, if we have eyes to see, there are hopeful signs all around us.

1. While as a whole our diocesan Sunday attendance is basically flat, we now have more congregations that are significantly growing than are declining.

2. The core leadership training we’ve offered for clergy and laity through the Church Development Institute (CDI), Emotional Intelligence training, and peer coaching has now begun to bear fruit in many places. Clergy and lay leaders in many congregations are now better equipped to lead growing, vital congregations in the 21st century.

3. Our support for and focus on community ministries has led many congregations to reach out in real, concrete ways into their neighborhoods developing signature ministries that serve to transform people’s lives. We must remember that Jesus did not leave people stuck in their hunger or their sickness or their sin. He fed, He healed, and He liberated them. That’s what our community, signature ministries are all about. From Thomasville to Augusta, from Cordele to Darien, our congregations are embracing a vision of vitality through engagement with their communities.

4. Honey Creek, as you will see this afternoon, is being reborn into a more strategic missionary asset of the Diocese. In the last year, 70% of its ministry directly supported the mission of the Diocese. And 93% of its ministry was church-related. That didn’t happen by accident. We consciously renewed Honey Creek’s mission to be all about supporting God’s mission in and through this Diocese. And, I should add, we’re doing all this operating in the black for the 3rd straight year. When you see Honey Creek’s Director, Dade Brantley, this afternoon, please give him a big hug and a thank you.

So, there are many things we’re doing to help our congregations thrive. And thriving congregations must be our goal if we’re to accomplish God’s mission.

In this last year, while I was on retreat with the Sisters of St John the Baptist, I spent long periods of time praying for you. I did. I spent hours of time praying just for you and for each of our congregations.

There on retreat, thanks to Canon Logue, I brought with me the Field Guide to the Diocese. With that objective data and with my own direct experience with each of our congregations over the last four years, I placed each congregation in three, separate categories: Those that were thriving, those that were treading water, and those that were in decline.

I had some assumptions ahead of time about what congregations in each of those categories had in common that would tell me why they were in the category they were in. I discovered that my assumptions were mostly wrong (it’s good to have our assumptions challenged on a regular basis). It wasn’t the congregation’s location, or its size, or the amount of financial resources it had that defined whether it was thriving. The thriving congregations were of all sizes, in vastly different locations, and had widely differing resources.

There’s only one variable that all the thriving congregations have in common and it’s this: they’re all focused beyond their own doors and their own property lines. They’re concerned with that co-worker who had given up on God saying that if Jesus were real, then he must not love him. They’re focused on that hungry child down the street who won’t have enough to eat tomorrow. They’re alarmed to learn about that senior citizen who was all alone in the nursing home across town. Those are the topics dominating coffee hour conversations and discernment at vestry meetings. How might we reach them with the Good News of Jesus? How might we love them? How might we humbly serve them? Those are the questions being asked and discerned in our thriving congregations.

In contrast, what about the congregations in the two other categories? They’re anxious about their inward issues and talk mainly about surviving and protecting what they now have. Rather than be open to their community, they may feel that they have to struggle against it. While not always the case, this may lead to an unhealthy focus on things like the color of the new carpet in the narthex, or the rector’s recent haircut, or the choir’s lack of musical range. Or more dangerously, they may become focused on finding someone to blame for why their church isn’t thriving. And that blaming, often of the clergy, becomes what fuels the congregation’s life.

So my epiphany while I was on retreat is really quite simple: if we want thriving congregations and thus the transformation of our Diocese, then that’ll only happen when, as Bishop Lesslie Newbigin wrote, local congregations renounce an introverted concern for their own life, and recognize that they exist for the sake of those who are not members, as a sign, an instrument, and a foretaste of God’s redeeming grace for the whole life of society. (The Gospel in a Pluralist Society)

Now, it would be wonderful if the Diocese had the financial resources to help congregations engage the Gospel in their communities. We’re trying to raise those financial resources. We’re working to get every ounce of mission out of the limited resources we have in the Diocese. We have one of the smallest diocesan staffs in the Episcopal Church for a diocese our size. Frank, Mary, Elizabeth, Rudy, Vicki, Gayle, and Libby, not only put up with me on a daily basis, they’re committed to help all our congregations thrive. I’m blessed to serve with these amazing people.

Yes, it would be wonderful if we had more money and as I said, through the Capital Campaign, we’re working on finding those financial resources.

But, you know, we don’t need money to love our neighbor. We don’t need deep pockets to care about what happens to kids in the school next door or the overwhelmed single mother across the street or the lonely man in the nursing home around the corner. Each of our congregations can make a Gospel difference in their communities without having a dime to do it. All we need is the will to set aside our inward focus and embrace our neighbors with the Good News of God’s redeeming grace in Jesus.

I see hopeful signs of this in so many of you and in our congregations. We must not lose heart or believe we’re incapable of changing our local mission strategy. As a church, we’re facing nothing short of an avalanche of social and cultural change. I don’t need to list all those changes for you. You’ve read about them and you see them every day in your community.

When I was first ordained in 1983 to serve Lake Wobegone Episcopal Church, all we needed for what we understood to be “success” back then was a nice church building in a semi-decent location with passable worship and acceptable music. It didn’t hurt if the priest’s sermons were mildly entertaining, but not too challenging. If we added a clean, safe Church school, then we had a congregation sizable enough to pay all the bills.

But those days are gone and they’re not coming back. Please hear me when I say this: Those days are gone and they’re not coming back. Nostalgia for the past is hindering us from embracing our present mission.

The old road maps for “success” in our congregations are no longer applicable. We can’t just show up anymore, say we’re the church, and people will pay attention. We must take the Gospel into the public life of our communities with a passion and a commitment we’ve not had before. The people of our society are suffering from a lack of grace and compassion in their lives. They’re living in the “mean time” in both senses of that term. Mercy and empathy for one another is in short supply. Only the Gospel of Jesus Christ has the power to renew and redeem us and our neighbors.

As Bishop Newbigin wrote: If the gospel is to challenge the public life of our society…it will only be by movements that begin with the local congregation in which the reality of the new creation is present, known, and experienced, and from which men and women will go into every sector of public life to claim it for Christ, to unmask the illusions which have remained hidden and to expose all areas of public life to the illumination of the gospel. (The Gospel in a Pluralist Society)

Many of you are realizing that. That’s why I see so many hopeful signs of God’s redeeming grace in our congregations. You and I need to see more of these hopeful signs from one another, so we can encourage each another to live into the changes we must make locally in order to grasp the new mission God is placing before us.

The congregations that recognize what time it is will be the congregations that will thrive in the future. Those congregations who don’t, who insist on making the church’s mission only about those who show up, or only about what’s good for me and mine, those congregations will die a slow and banal death. That’s simply the truth.

So, can we let go of our inward focus and embrace our neighbors with Jesus and his Gospel in new and creative ways? Can we take the Gospel out of our churches and into the public square, not to nag or cajole, not to finger point or to blame, but to love and to serve and to bring hope to those who, as St Paul so aptly described, are literally perishing without the Gospel?

Can we do this? I know we can.

It’s true. “We’re not the jet set. We’re the old Chevro-let set. But ain’t we got love.” We sure do have love. We have the love of Jesus for us and for this wonderful and beautiful, yet sinful and broken world in which we live. And the love of Jesus is all we truly need.

 
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“He Had a Hat!” (eCrozier #219)

On May 2, 2014, in leadership, by bishopbenhase

There’s a story told of a grandmother who took her grandson to the beach on a beautiful summer day. She brought everything they needed: blanket, umbrella, sand toys, and a good book for her to read. She laid out the blanket, put up the umbrella, and instructed her grandson to go play at the water’s edge, but not to go in the water. With that, she began reading her book. Just a few minutes later, she looked up only to discover that her grandson was nowhere to be seen. She looked everywhere. Then, off in the distance, way out in the ocean, she saw him screaming and waving his arms. Her heart sank. She screamed, got up, and ran toward the lifeguard tower yelling and pointing out to where her grandson was quickly beginning to go under the water and drown.

The lifeguard sprang into action. He grabbed his rescue sled, sprinted into the water, and swam out to the boy. The current was unusually rough and it seemed like hours before he reached the boy. Once he did he placed the boy on the rescue sled and began the long, arduous return to the shore. When he arrived on the shore, a huge crowd had gathered to witness the dramatic rescue. The boy had been underwater for some time and was not breathing, so the lifeguard commenced with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Minutes passed, the lifeguard kept at it, and then the boy finally coughed up the ocean water and began to breath again. The crowd cheered. As the boy sat up, the lifeguard rolled to his side exhausted. Every muscle in his body ached. He couldn’t sit up, but he managed to prop himself up on his elbows and look up at the grandmother. She looked down at the lifeguard and all she could say to him was: “He had a hat!”

This humorous story, at least I think it is, instructs church leaders in our ministry context. No matter what we do, or how hard we work, or how Gospel-focused we are, someone is bound to say to us the equivalent of “he had a hat!” Of course, in my experience at least, it’s no good to say to them: “Are you kidding me? Don’t you know how hard I’ve worked and the sacrifices I’ve made?” Some people will always choose to see our shortcomings rather than the work we’ve done for God’s mission.

We should pay attention to our shortcomings. We shouldn’t dismiss criticism, especially when it’s offered in a humble, helpful way. We can, however, become too focused on those who say to us “he had a hat!” Leaders, especially clergy leaders, seem to be of a type who want everyone, and I mean everyone, to universally conclude we’re doing an excellent job of ministry leadership. We can become obsessed with winning over the “he had a hat” crowd. This is a fool’s errand that leads to exhaustion and then resentment.

Actually, our efforts should go in the opposite direction. While not ignoring the “he had a hat” crowd or those with constructive criticism, we should spend most of our leadership energy working with those who are NOT looking to see a dark cloud in every silver lining. My experience tells me that many folk in the church do desire to passionately pursue God’s mission and want to do so in partnership with their leaders. The “he had a hat” crowd, like the poor, will always be with us. Love them, care for them, but don’t find your leadership identity and purpose in them.

+Scott

 
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