blogspot.

Oh blogspot, you've been so good to me. But alas, I'm moving on. Wordpress is beckoning me. And she has so much to offer. It's not you. It's me. I think I mostly just need a change.

To my few readers, it's time to update your RSS feeds. Here's the new address: matthewgallion.wordpress.com

Hope to see you there.

The Conversationalist

If the pastor’s primary responsibility in a community is to develop an environment in which growth is encouraged, then the identity of the community is not defined solely by the pastor. Instead, the pastor serves as the care-taker for a greenhouse, building structures that help budding growth continue. The pastor does not merely “cast a vision” for a community that can be fulfilled by just anybody. Instead, the pastor must know the congregation. It is true that the pastor serves in a unique leadership position, but that does not mean that the pastor is the only voice that should be heard.

 

For far too long, the pulpit has been the center of God’s activity. In any given community, the primary understanding of God’s will and revelation comes from one person. To honestly maintain such an idea, two things must be admitted: 1) Pastors are generally not over-bearing dictator types forcing orthodoxy down people’s throats in cruel ways. Such an idea is paints an unrealistic distaste for people who genuinely feel called to serve God, and who feel the burden of leading a congregation towards faith. 2) The average person in a congregation is not a brain-washed drone. People often disagree with pastors, and can make their opinions known. What is meant by such a critique of the pulpit is that people in the church have sometimes grown accustomed to looking to the center of a sanctuary for truth, rather than exploring the rhythms of God in their own lives.

 

This can be seen when people choose to live rigidly by the word of the pastor, when the pastor’s word is taken as gospel truth without thought. It can also be seen in the way people hold those in ministry to a higher standard than they hold themselves. When the pastor as a person is cut-off and distinguished too drastically from the life of the community, conversation is lost. The pastor then collapses into a “professional preacher and teacher,” having very little connection to “real life.”

 

Instead, the pastor should be the main facilitator of an on-going conversation. While the pastor serves a unique role in a faith community, it is not a totalitarian role as dictator, but instead the compiler of the many voices crying out in that community. The pastor spends precious moments listening to and collaborating with those voices that need to be heard to further define the ever-changing life of those involved.

The Environmentalist, Take 2

This is an extended and more complete version of the last post. Enjoy.

1.           Environmentalist

Up to this point in time, there have been a relatively small number of books on leadership in post-modern ecclesiology. However, one such work has redefined the way I view the idea of church leadership in a post-Christian society. Tim Keel’s book Intuitive Leadership is an attempt to reconcile the ideas of post-modernity with a living gospel as it meets the church. Keel describes the trend of the modern church to exist primarily in structures, hoping that those structures will be infinitely transferable to any context. So, we trade strategies and tactics, assuming that “growth” is mass producible. And what we have traded for all of this is creativity and imagination. We have swapped living, breathing relationships for pragmatic programming. This, however, creates huge problems for creative souls. Creativity despises vain repetition.[1] It will not tolerate the preservation of a system, particularly one that loses its primary identity. In the case of the people of God, we crave established “success” and have neglected concern for the oppressed, love for one another and genuine commitments to Christ.[2]

Creativity is easily identified, Keel says, by its fondness for tension.[3] Creatives thrive on the difficult questions that arise from differing perspectives. Creative souls love to take previously established dichotomies and discover new ways between the two. These people do not require all the answers, instead, they only long for the next set of questions. Tension allows for possibility. It opens the door to an unknown number of realities, if the environment is ripe.[4]

Such creative communities require leadership that recognizes the potential grass-rootsy type of community that a freedom of expression might create. It is a place where dialogue is preferred to authoritative lecturing. It is a community, Keel says, that values a life defined from the “bottom up.”[5] If this is truly the case, than the pastor’s primary role as the most powerful decision-maker and communicator might tend to hinder the life of such a community rather than enhance it. Keel says it best when he says:

As a result, the linear dynamics of an organization oriented around a plan are not as important as creating an environment in which values shape a creative identity and expression comes as a result of adaptive engagement within a specific context… {L}eaders become environmentalists… Such environmentalists help to create and shape cultures of trust that respond and adapt creatively to their location and what God is doing there. But that doesn’t mean that all of the organizational needs are lost in favor of a purely organic expression. Leaders who understand themselves as environmentalists must maintain a healthy regard for the operational aspects that give expression to the corporate identity and common expressions of life that flow from this identity.[6]

A pastor’s primary responsibility is to nurture an environment ripe for spiritual growth. Rather than a Sunday-morning-performer, a pastor works the soil, preparing carefully and thoughtfully to allow growth in the community.

Often times, we think of the pastor in business terms. The pastor is the CEO of the church. Therefore, the pastor's responsibilities can only be judged in dollars and attendance records. Unfortunately, such a view of the pastor neglects the primary role of the church: to serve the world and create disciples that are actively following Christ. While it's true that the big churches with their big numbers are probably reaching more people in terms of making disciples, such a system utterly neglects those churches in communities where only the few are drawn to Christ. More than that, it necessarily elevates the potential of an urban church to a rural church. The little church in the country has no chance of being deemed "effective" on this model, because the population per capita of their reach is significantly smaller. And truth be told, I'm not sure that if we focused our energies on advancing the gospel with any shred of pure honesty in suburban areas (where most megachurches seem to flourish) that people would come. It seems to me that we have simplified the gospel to make it more marketable. We've gotten exactly what we wanted, but what did it cost us?

So instead of being a CEO, the pastor's job is first and foremost to create an environment of authentic growth and development. The pastor works the soil to nurture those in her care towards a more authentic and holistic life of faith. This means that the pastor's first task is to know the shape of the congregation, to know what needs to be communicated and to find any and every way possible to challenge the people. This means that a pastor's primary responsibility ought to be to any corporate times where the pastor can lead all people at once. Having spent time working in churches, it seems that this often becomes the pastor's last responsibility, squeezed in wherever there are a few spare minutes.

Instead, the pastor ought to thoughtfully prepare a service that is coherent, that includes challenging questions and that utilizes a variety of elements to continually till the ground and sow the precious seed of the gospel. The produce of a pastor's work as an environmentalist will be evident, but immeasurable.

---

[1] Keel, Tim, Intuitive Leadership. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books), 2007, 199-200.

[2] This assessment may seem harsh, and it may be. For further thought on these ideas, see Rob Bell’s Jesus Wants to Save Christians (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan), 2008 (particularly chapters 1 and 2).

[3] Keel, 200-201.

[4] Keel, 201.

[5] Keel, 201.

[6] Keel, 202.

An Environmentalist

I'm up early today, and I'm a little bit excited. See, today is the day that my friend Roger's new church meets for the first time. In honor of him and of Wayfare, I thought I'd share some ideas about the Environmentalist of my "job description."

Disclaimer: These ideas are not original (what ideas are). This particular facet of ministry is one I learned from Tim Keel, pastor of Jacob's Well Church in Kansas City, MO.

Often times, we think of the pastor in business terms. The pastor is the CEO of the church. Therefore, the pastor's responsibilities can only be judged in dollars and attendance records. Unfortunately, such a view of the pastor neglects the primary role of the church: to serve the world and create disciples that are actively following Christ. While it's true that the big churches with their big numbers are probably reaching more people in terms of making disciples, such a system utterly neglects those churches in communities where only the few are drawn to Christ. More than that, it necessarily elevates the potential of an urban church to a rural church. The little church in the country has no chance of being deemed "effective" on this model, because the population per capita of their reach is significantly smaller. And truth be told, I'm not sure that if we focused our energies on advancing the gospel with any shred of pure honesty in suburban areas (where most megachurches seem to flourish) that people would come. It seems to me that we have simplified the gospel to make it more marketable. We've gotten exactly what we wanted, but what did it cost us?

So instead of being a CEO, the pastor's job is first and foremost to create an environment of authentic growth and development. The pastor works the soil to nurture those in her care towards a more authentic and holistic life of faith. This means that the pastor's first task is to know the shape of the congregation, to know what needs to be communicated and to find any and every way possible to challenge the people. This means that a pastor's primary responsibility ought to be to any corporate times where the pastor can lead all people at once. Having spent time working in churches, it seems that this often becomes the pastor's last responsibility, squeezed in wherever there are a few spare minutes.

The reason I feel so passionately about a pastor's duty to a weekly gathering is partially because it is the first thing a church does. For example, my friend's church which is beginning today is only a once a week gathering right now. That's all that there is. For many church's you could take away everything, and they would still consider themselves a church. But if we were to forfeit our communal gatherings for worship of Jesus Christ, we have lost the essence of what it means to be a church.

So why are we putting this things on the backburners? Why are we allowing all the other tasks of the church (most of which ultimately don't matter) to dictate our time in such a way that our sermons are crap, our services are jumbled and we feel the need for small groups to supplement our pathetic corporate experiences with God (another rant for another time)?

On the opposite end of the spectrum, it must be remembered that the pastor's job is to work the soil, to allow life to grow. This is not an obligation to put on a flashy show. In fact, a performance would seem to only entertain rather than promote genuine growth.

Instead, the pastor ought to thoughtfully prepare a service that is coherent, that includes challenging questions and that utilizes a variety of elements to continually till the ground and sow the precious seed of the gospel. The produce of a pastor's work as an environmentalist will be evident, but immeasurable.

It has its place.

I read an article today about mega- versus missional churches. The basic agenda of the article was to defend the megachurch mentality without discrediting missional churches. It seemed a little targeted at missionals in a friendly way from the megachurches just to say, "We're not worthless, and neither are you." A sentiment I can resonate with, no doubt. I suppose what makes me sad is the over-arching assumption that a church's set of strategies for filling its building with people is what makes it a church. Having been away from school for over a year, and working full-time in a church, I've found myself with a great deal of questions, as I'm sure that you-who-read-this-blog have discovered. My attitude toward the institutional church has become increasingly cynical, and I've even spent a good deal of time wondering whether I wanted to be some sort of pastor or simply sell shoes for a living. These have been dark times (I apologize to any whose life's ambition is to sell shoes). But the truth is, the thought of ministry seems to be the one thing I can't not do. I'm fascinated and disgusted by it. I'm drawn to it without thinking, though pausing long enough to think causes me to hesitate. As jacked up as the church is oftentimes, I can't leave it behind. I see too much potential.

So, I think both kinds of churches have their place. I wish we could stop competing, stop bickering about whose right, stop comparing our tactics (I throw up a little every time I hear such words), stop striving to be successful and just be churches again. I wish a pastor's primary duty was to teach the way of Jesus and inspire people to live like that. I wish my job wasn't marketing and branding, accounting, and ultimate problem-fixer. I don't want to be the Christian that a congregation lives vicariously through. I don't want to be so "in charge" that it can't be my church, too. I know the pastor serves a unique role. I know it is not an easy calling, and that every job comes with parts that suck a little. But after a year and a half, it feels like my job pushes me in directions entirely contrary to my call.

I'm gonna try to start another blog series (something I suck at). This time, I want to spend some time expounding on what I feel like I am called to do, or rather, who I am called to be as a person in ministry. I see (so far) five roles that I desire to live into as a "pastor."

1. Enviromentalist
2. Conversationalist
3. Dreamer and Story-Teller
4. Philologist
5. Philanthropist

Stay tuned for more explanation of each (hopefully).

Christian community, conflict and the role of a "pastor"

Working in ministry isn't fun sometimes. It's potentially even less fun when we as people who are "professionals" have to deal with the conflicts between our "clientele." If one wanted to heighten the degree of difficulty in our developing hypothetical, one could place the "clientele" into a delicate demographic, say for instance: emerging, self-discovering, pomo college students. And then what's a "pastor" supposed to do?

The difficulty for that pastor might be complicated in times of crisis for several reasons. First, the difficulties of dealing with such a demographic are difficult enough. For one, the entire parochial system of pastor-lay relationships has to be re-evaluated as is. College students, and particularly those of a post-modern mindset, are offended by this dichotomy of "professional Christians" and everybody else. This is partially because many students who desire to remain faithful to their religious beliefs by a college age were raised in a congregation that really hammered the importance of faith into them. This generally aligns them on a more conservative scale. However, when they start to see the world, they must deal with the oh-so-stereotyped "liberal academia" of the university life. The conflict comes when they realize that they don't disagree with everything the "liberals" say, but what does this mean for their "conservative" faith? Students begin to feel betrayed by their pastors, as if their pastors were either liars or ignorant men (and yes, they are almost all men).

Perhaps most of these difficulties are related to the existential epistemology that most college students seem to live by: reality is defined by how it feels. Thankfully, most of these pomos have realized that good feelings are probably not the truest expressions of reality, as people sometimes just don't feel good. Instead, it is feeling at all, authentic emotion that determines reality. The more authentic a thing is, the more real it is in a cosmic sense.

A second and resultant problem is the problem of the church's current state of being. Unfortunately, institutions, "professional" pastors and the church just don't seem authentic anymore. Students don't trust these things because they don't "feel" right. The questions of how we who hope to genuinely connect with these students, or worse, maintain our own sense of identity while still maintaining faithfulness to the Church that Christ (inadvertently or not) established are questions that seem unanswerable. Systems of expectation from the church and disappointment from students who tend to be anti-institutional cause identity-crisis, confusion and a feeling of picking sides between the people who are meant to be served and loved by a pastor and the church that seems so often a corruption of what it ought to be. It seems to me, anyway, that these students have some good points about our churches.

And so what role would a pastor who stands in this great chasm play? For the students, she must be relevant and most importantly real. For the students' sake, she must not simply be a "professional." She must know them well, and love them well. At the same time, she must still be a guide. There may be times when the role of authority must be re-enforced for the safety of the community. This pastor must love authentically. Most importantly, this pastor must be human. The pastor must be free to make mistakes. Unfortunately, it often feels as if they are not allowed to do so. The role of pastor from both the church and the pomo student is one of the highest standard, which I think to an extent is good. However, it seems that the church often wants the pastor to be "good" so that the church will look better. The student wants anyone claiming the title of "pastor" to speak truthfully, unlike pastors they have heard before who disappointed them. Both sides seem to have unfair expectations of the person who hopes to serve both.

What doesn't seem like an entirely viable option from my perspective is a system of "boundaries" that simply dictate what a pastor should and should not do to avoid any difficulties or complications. I agree that we need to live in ways tht will maintain the safety of all involved, that is our call as Christians; to love one another. However, it's just over-simplifying things to boil it down to rules of conduct. If a pastor is to truly be a part of the Christian community, we need freedom, mutual love and respect, and most importantly communication. Conflict will necessarily be a part of this whole process because relationships always have conflict. Tension is what allows us to grow. But what we lack is the ability to communicate. We all seem far to concerned with our own emotions and interests to share our thoughts and feelings without taking offense at those who disagree. If we hope to reconcile the church and the post-modern generations, both parties must first learn to have a Christian conversation, dealing with our conflict and clinging for dear life to the things that define us as Christ-followers: compassion, grace, patience, selflessness, honesty and a devotion to each other, to the Church and to Jesus Christ.

Summer Time, a Series of Posts and Soteriological Epistemology

Hello my few and faithful friends,

It has been a long time since I've posted, and I feel I ought to apologize for the long lull in conversation. I fully intend to pick up my conversation on the ecclesial role of women with at least one more post, but I have some more pressing thoughts on my mind at the moment.

At one point in my recent life, as I had spent 4 years in a fairly intense undergrad program studied biblical hermeneutics, theology and the distant fringes of philosophy, I thought I was beginning to see the world through the rose-tinted lenses of my own "enlightenment." I thought I had an adequate working vocabulary on theological issues, and a base knowledge of philosophical terms. After all, my most recent philosophy professor sometimes taught from the full lotus position. It doesn't get more stereotypically philosophical than that!

But this summer has challenged my idea of one topic in particular: epistemology. Epistemology is technically the philosophical pursuit of the complex issue of knowledge. By its very nature, it is a very complicated branch of philosophical study, since it is metaphysical. The other clump that muddies the water of epistemology is that it is an intricate study of knowledge itself, and therefore how can you ever know that you're anywhere close? 

This issue is particularly mind-numbing to me in the area of theology, and specifically soteriology (the doctrines of salvation). What is the epistemology of salvation? How do we know the truth of Christ's gospel? These are not questions that I mean to ask in a potentially universalist or non-exclusive way. I'm not implying that because the knowledge of salvation is so broad that there are any other ways than Christ, but instead, how do we come to experience that knowledge? The question is really one centered on a couple of huge assumptions that developed in post-Enlightenment philosophy.

After the Rational Revolution known as the Enlightenment, reason was elevated onto the altar of god-hood. The basis of reality became the knowledge that was acquired through intellectual pursuits. As this emphasis on logic fully consumed itself in an individualistic focus, questions of life in community began to be asked. Thinkers such as John Locke, Immanuel Kant and even Rene Descartes all began to assume that if reason was foundational for each individual, then its conclusions could be imposed on all mankind. Therefore, there must be a logical standard of interpersonal relationships and ethics. If a truly "enlightened" individual could figure out the moral codes appropriate to such a person, than those could be determined on a corporate and legislative level.

And thus began the myth of a Christian nation. It was assumed that Christianity, the religion of the majority of the Enlightened, was the only language that was truly logical. After all, these Enlightenment thinkers themselves were all Christians, and they were bloody brilliant. Ethics and religion became common sense and could be imposed on national levels without compromising the freedom of religion.

At this point, modern philosopher, political commentator, theologian and ring-leader of the elsewhere described Don of the Hauerwasian Mafia, Stanley Hauerwas became a popular voice in the Academic Christendom (of Post-Christendom) of America. Hauerwas, following the lead of Alistair Mcintyre, claimed that such thinking had led to the "privatization" and therefore the utter degradation of distinctively Christian faith. The gospel of Christ lost its meaning when it became simply a logical code of ethics. This is partially because the gospel, for the most part, is not rational. It asks its followers to turn the other cheek, to forgive, to love and to serve others with the tiniest regard for oneself.

This very old debate leaves me wondering about soteriological epistemology. When we hear the gospel, how do we know that it represents the God who is Truth? Is it rational? Is it logical? Is it intuitive? 

Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion in days (weeks, months, years) to come.