Being Buckeye Disciples post 4
(Part numbers in the document are from the original full text)


Part Three -- Some Consequences
"Christ has risen." Whoever believes that
Should not behave as we do,
Who have lost the up, the down, the right, the left, heavens, abysses,
And try somehow to muddle on, in cars, in beds,
Men clutching at women, women clutching at men,
Falling, rising, putting coffee on the table,
Buttering bread, for here’s another day.
Six Lectures in Verse, Lecture V
Czeslaw Milosz

Some of the concerns recently voiced among Disciple clergy have to do with a trend that is seen by many as a more coercive, punitive, and legalistic approach toward forcing coherence and community among the members of the Body. Frankenstein methods make for monsters, bolted firmly together but only weakly in harmony between the constituent parts. Good intentions, whether as to clergy sexual ethics or a stand against racism as sin, can pave a long stretch of road to perdition.

How are some of these dismembered, reanimated parts related to who and how we as Disciples understand covenant? Are we digging up limbs from Episcopal or Reformed traditions and trying to graft them with lightning bolts of authority onto our own wounded body? Is there an integral reason for some of the most public actions we’ve taken recently as a region other than "other Christian bodies have done it, and so can we"? We can teach a good thing in a bad way, further undermining by unconscious example the fragile connections we carry into those interactions.

I’d like to go back to my marriage example, and quote a stretch from the tentative close of the meditation, a hypothetical wedding speech/message, especially since covenant is the key concept at work here:
"But today, Bill and Serena are making a new claim: Their relationship will not be characterized by condition, but instead by something that is called covenant.
Please notice that I didn’t say contract. A contract is an agreement between parties under certain conditions and is enforceable by law. Certainly the marriage license that will be signed later has a sense of contract to it, but that license isn’t what makes the marriage.
The kind of covenant that I’m talking about has a lot to do with the God of the Bible. According to the Bible, God established covenant relationships with people. He didn’t negotiate or bargain with them, but in essence said to them, "I will be your God and you will be my people." God took the initiative in these relationships and promised to be faithful to the people. In turn, he called them to be faithful in their love and worship of him.
The people didn’t always live faithfully toward God. Yet, God remained faithful to them. Covenant is all about faithfulness and promise.
So what does this have to do with Bill and Serena? They have already spoken to me of their shared commitment toward one another. They have made promises to one another to live faithfully together. In a few minutes they are going to speak those commitments and promises before you and before God. They are making public something that already exists in their hearts: The transition from the world of condition to the world of covenant. There will be no looking over the shoulder, no question about permanence. It is their intention that theirs be a life of faithfulness and promise."

How do we live out covenant without contracts and enforcement? With the Biblical example of loving initiative as our guide, started with Noah and Abram and vividly fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ, let me offer these self-giving proposals for our regional life. Most of these are means of providing an example, of living out a different kind of embodiment appropriate to the kind of "church" a region is to Disciples:

1. A Training emphasis for the region, aka "equipping the saints." Seminary is not seen by hardly anyone (including many seminary faculty) as a place where the work of parish ministry is communicated – or even necessarily affirmed. So why not take our vaunted Ohio certification and supervisory process, plus the human resources of a region like ours, and create a benchmark training program for new pastors during their first three to five years. . .when the odds of departing ministry are also the highest. This also allows us to offer a gift while mandating a certification or set of benchmarks, instead of just imposing requirements.

Elders also need and in many cases want training, but our workshops at regional assemblies et alia assume basic training and orientation to Disciples’ theology, history, and polity, and offer advanced skills, which can be confusing for many/most elders who aren’t up to speed with the concepts and principles involved. A majority of elders in many/most of our churches (to repeat myself) did not grow up Disciple, and carry a wide variety of assumptions about how the larger church works into their service and teaching.

And the diaconate and officers common to most of our churches would benefit from the availability of regular baseline training. Each of these would give regional staff and leadership an opportunity to scout for prospects to groom for regional leadership.
(Note: we and other regions/conferences already do this for camp directors and counselors, which gives us a good model to work from and an example to point towards.)

2. Focus on Gift and Call. If you know how to translate from Catholic dialect to Protestant lingo, see www.siena.org for a model here. If covenant has any meaning at all, then God is giving to us more than we are being asked to give: how are we faithfully expecting and anticipating God’s participation in this covenant?

The unique training issue for us as Ohio Disciples is the near-universal phenomena of "Nominating Committees," which in many congregations are statutorily required to exclude key leadership (pastors, even elders as a whole) and are deeply shaped by secular models of "slot filling" along the lines of Kiwanis, Lions, and Eastern Star. Christian leadership needs to focus on identifying spiritual gifts, from administration (Rom. 12:8) to hospitality (Rom. 12:13) to persistence (II Tim. 4:2), and the ministry of linking, of re-membering the Body of Christ together with where their vocation, their calling can be fulfilled. My favorite quote as to this profound theological truth is Fredrick Buechner’s: "God’s calling is where your heart’s desire and the world’s deepest need intersect."

This also has everything to do with burnout as both a clergy and laity phenomena. I have a near heretical belief that burnout has almost nothing to do with how much/how hard you work, and everything to do with whether or not you have a sense of calling about your work, with the consequent ability to be spiritually fed by right use of the gifts God gives you. You can burn out on one small task or in a 30 hour a week job if it feels at odds with where and who you are called to be, or if you cannot be filled faster than you are being emptied by the work.

Elected, appointed, or employed staff of the church (in any manifestation) need to have gifts identified in line with the call to be extended. Job descriptions help, but they don’t replace a whole lotta prayer and discernment versus slot filling, whether for the diaconate locally or for regional president and pastor. And the discernment goes both ways, toward what we call someone to do, as well as illumining whether an individual is the one gifted to fulfill the call, even when the search has gone on a long, long time.

By the same token, if the responsibility/authority balance is out of skew ("You are held entirely accountable for how this turns out, and we give you precisely no influence in how the task will be done") then whether extravert or intuitive, introvert or sensing, the person in the role will be drained while the structure blocks the hidden sources of renewal, the involvements that can fill one even as the demands tax you to your limits. God’s gifts are promised to those involved in the work of the vineyard, but we can stop their delivery at the garden gate; for our leaders in congregation, region, and general life, we often do just that, and then wonder why the ideal person for a job staggers away some time later looking dazed and weary.

3. Regional elders. Well, recent developments have outstripped suggestions here, and save me some space; but let’s make sure this isn’t seen as simply a cost savings measure for the short term – this is a good idea even if we had tons o’ cash and staff to spare. We need to be visible, be present, be embodied, and be teaching and preaching as the region in the congregations, and for most of our folk, that rarely happens. For implementation, see items 1 and 2.

4. Who’s Afraid of WWW Woolf? Again, we’re already seeing some movement on this front with the ministers’ mailing, but under the auspices of "cost savings." Nope, this is just plain a good idea; it is, in fact, the iceberg tip of a good idea. We need further conversation and communication about what the Restoration Christianity theology and ethos in Ohio means for our day, and in our day that means a) e-mail lists, message boards, and weblogs, b) on-line publicity and registration for events and programs, c) teleconference and internet connectivity for regional staff and contract workers (see items 3 & 5), and d) distance learning for things like items 1 & 2. Until recently, it appeared that faxes were about the only technology we had adopted since 1975.

This point is not about efficiency only, but one about increased communication on intentional, structured grounds to explore what contemporary Disciple theology says about the questions that nag at us, and to share the results of that conversation. As the general office discovered through the discussion boards at disciples.org, there are many challenges to doing this, but the problem is that someone has to be willing to shape the discussion – it doesn’t just happen. A discussion board left to its own devices is not pure democracy, but becomes total anarchy in a matter of months. A managed, moderated discussion (see http://www.marriagedebate.com/mdblog.php for one example) can move in constructive directions fairly steadily, but someone has to be willing to take on the teaching office, on-line just as in a circle of folding chairs.

5. Staffing and Portfolios. Along with technology, new approaches towards organizational strategy and institutional affiliation indicate that a more dispersed approach to staffing should be deployed. This may include a new look at what makes for an ideal location, or even the best configuration is for the regional office, as well. Rented space, contracted work, and more effective use of volunteer help are more and more common in congregational life and with new church starts – should the region be able to model and teach by example on this, as well? Fellowship ministries (women’s, men’s, youth and young adult), special initiatives (see items 1 through 4, for instance), and other programmatic administrative responsibilities could be assigned to volunteer or short-term paid individuals who have the identified gifts for a particular task and who can embody calling in their context. We already do this with three camps, but some still see that as "what we have to do because we don’t have enough staff." Affirming and supporting that kind of regional ministry as a positive option instead of "a second best that we’re settling for" opens the door to further application of the principle of "a pilgrim people."

We will always need full-time, set-apart, called individuals to serve the regional office; but "until someone can articulate a clear, strong vision for the regional manifestation of the Christian church, it will be difficult to support these regional positions." A gifted, talented lay member of our congregation here in Hebron said that in response to "how many regional staff do we really need;" which is another way of saying: first, we have to explain to people why we need one. Then, later, we start to extrapolate from that how many the region needs. That’s what my wife says, anyhow.

Part Four – A Conclusion

The Prince of This World governs number.
The singular is the hidden God’s dominion,
The Lord of rescues and exception’s Father
Who from the start inhabited my errors.

One against the multiplication table.
Particular, free from the general.
Without hands or eyes yet real.
Who is, every day, though unrevealed.
One And Many
Czeslaw Milosz


One place where covenant still feels real, where it never really went away, among both conservative and liberal Disciples’ congregations and even in the midst of some of our independent kin as well as with ecumenical partners, is at the communion table. We come to be made one, and where God has promised to be present, the signs of God’s presence are made manifest. God’s love is embodied in the beloved community assembled around the joyful feast, whether in the form of fish food and thimbles of grape-like juice (symbolizing our too often frugal parceling out of good news?), or through a hearty loaf and rich red wine. One bread, one body, one Lord of all, one cup of blessing, which we bless. . .

Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope
Zechariah 9:12

We have some great strengths in our Stone-Campbell tradition, in this branch of the Restoration Movement. The central rock on which we stand is a broken loaf of bread and a cup of crushed grapes, which by eating and drinking as Jesus asked "in remembrance of me" makes of us a whole, as the living Body of Christ. Our times of communion together as Buckeye Disciples have seen us through many times of brokenness and season of fracturing. I wonder if there aren’t more occasions, when we are about the task of re-membering the divided and drained body, when we could have communion together? Do we do that often enough, at regional board and commission meetings, at other gatherings whether district assemblies or work group rallies? And when we have communion before starting a shared task, we create a circumstance for reflection and conversation on the meaning of what we’re doing.

All things are possible at the table of remembrance and re-membering, even Widow McGillicutty speaking warmly to Mrs. Wilson and her rambunctious brood in the pew behind her. Even Elder Morris to the pierced teen can show acceptance and welcome when sharing the loaf and cup; the grim relax their jawlines and the hopeless take heart, while the weak become strong and the mighty unbend, even if only just a bit.

Everything we do in reforming the Christian Church in Ohio should be measured against the yardstick of the communion table, and we should say so as we’re doing it. Can we say such and such an action is in harmony with our practice of the Lord’s Table? How does this decision fit into the example of the Last Supper? In a church body with little affection for theological benchmarks, the communion table is one standard that everyone can agree on.

But just as we shouldn’t unconsciously appropriate random elements of other faith traditions (signs of the cross over the elements, presence lamps in the "sanctuary") without understanding the whole into which they fit, we shouldn’t imagine that our trials are ours in isolation, either. In the Catholic Church, where theology and ecclesiology is quite different from our own, the task of modern missions asks many of the same questions of Jesus’ friends, however they may live out that relationship. Quoting Amy Welborn on "open book," her weblog: "People are just so tired of institutional conversations. They are so tired of programs and mission statements and policies and long processes that stifle the Spirit. They are tired of layers put by institutions between them and God. The Church is an institution, and its purpose is not to obscure, but to enlighten, to give people not only guidance, but a place, a moment in time in which they know the presence of Jesus - healing, forgiving, binding, nourishing, loving. It is not that complicated. . . . There is nothing to re-invent. There is merely the ancient charge, the commission of Jesus to heed and put into action." (http://amywelborn.typepad.com/openbook/)

You, by reading this, have shown – embodied, even – your interest in the reformation and restoration of a community of believers who see weekly communion, lay leadership, and belief preceding repentance leading to baptism, as crucial means towards having a personal relationship with God, as the Way of Christ into deeper fellowship and lasting meaning for today and into forever. Thank you for your interest and commitment, and know that our prayers and reflections together are part of that movement towards perfect communion that is God’s purpose in creation. We are not alone, we should be unafraid, and Jesus has indeed prayed "that they may all be one." (John 17:21)

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time . . .

Quick now, here, now, always –
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one
Little Gidding
T.S. Eliot