Minor Car Accident
I was involved in a minor car accident on the way to work today.
I won’t go into details for legal/claim reasons. Nobody was injured, and I have minor damage to my bumper. The other driver got a ticket.
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If the other driver hadn’t been trying to get ahead of other people through unlawful means this would never have happened.
Bruce Reyes-Chow for Moderator
Better late than never, I always say.
I am proud to endorse Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow for Moderator of the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA).
Let me start by saying that I think most of the candidates will do a good job in the moderator role. The differences between them are primarily differences in style, not differences in substance (the perennial debate about homosexuality being the exception that proves the rule). All love God. All support Jesus as Lord. As far as I can tell, all meet the essentials of our faith as I see them. I enjoyed meeting all of them when they came to Lawrenceville, NJ.
Bruce stood out in one huge way – he has a plan for the future. Well, maybe not a plan per se, but a direction. Bruce is the one candidate who gets the problem of the aging of the church. He sees both the problem (that young people are not remaining engaged after high school, and that they are NOT following the pattern of returning when they have children) and solutions.
Most importantly, Bruce sees the need for local solutions for local cultures. He pastors a very successful congregation in San Francisco called Mission Bay Community Church. This church is at the same time traditional and non-traditional. Services there bear some resemblance to traditional Presbyterian services, but likely would also cause some members in our churches to blanch at the differences. Bruce has found a way to reach out to a population not being fed by traditional practices and bring them into the faith. Too often, we expect people to become like us (in behavior, dress, etc) before they join us (in our traditional service). Bruce has turned that on its head, he and his church expect people to join us (come as you are) before you become like us (followers of Christ).
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I also believe that Bruce challenges the assumptions about the essentials of our faith. How many of us believe that it is essential to the Presbyterian faith to sit in rows of pews, sing 100+ year-old hymns with a pipe organ, and have a choir sing at us before the sermon? I believe that we have confused practice with faith. Bruce has undergone a process where he has broken down the essentials and his church sticks to those that are truly essential while ignoring those that are simply the product of our cultural inertia.
And it works. His church has people of all ages present in reasonably well-spread numbers.
Another area where Bruce excels is in listening. When the candidates met in Lawrenceville, the format had each candidate sitting in the center focus of a U-shaped set of tables. In some cases, the discussions were straight question and answer sessions – even when the candidate chose to ask questions of his audience. In the case of Bruce’s session with each table (and in one other case), there was more of a dialog. Bruce was truly listening to what the questioner was saying, and thinking. Silence was not the enemy – it was time to process. And Bruce was remarkably consistent in his responses. He did not shade his responses to meet the desires of the questioner – he answered them openly and honestly and authentically. And it wasn’t “this is what I think – deal with it”, it was more like “this is what I think – what do you think?” This is what our denomination needs now more than anything else – questions rather than answers. Everybody (and PCUSA bloggers are particularly bad at this, including me) comes to the forum ready to present and defend their answer before they hear the question. What we need now is more understanding of what the other person is saying and thinking – how they came to their answer – and less posturing. Bruce is humble when working with others in discernment – he really tries to get your point of view.
If you are a commissioner to General Assembly, I hope that you will consider Bruce Reyes-Chow for the Moderator position. I won’t say “hope that you will vote for Bruce”, because that’s not how it should work. You should consider Bruce, (and Bill, Carl and Roger) and make your own choice. I just hope that I have provided an opinion that is useful as you and the Spirit decide how to vote.
Deacon-elect delayed
Apparently, the folks on the church staff have decided to delay new officer training and the ordination/installation service to September. One reason is that our senior Pastor will be at General Assembly on the date previously mentioned.
By the Book of Order that means that I’m actually not serving on the Board of Deacons until I am installed, but I will be happy to volunteer for duty during the summer as required. I guess this means that the Session will have to meet using the old group all the way through the fall, since they are the examining body that will approve the new officers.
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UPDATE 6/18: It looks like installation will be on 9/14, with officer training on 9/6.
Blogging and the local congregation – part 3
Outside of this blog my pastor and I have started a bible study on the subject of blogging the local congregation. He’s about to go to General Assembly so we’re putting it on the back burner until he gets back.
In the meantime, I’d like to ask you for help with this project. What scripture do you think applies to the subject of blogging non-anonymously about your local congregation?
My pastor has suggested 1 Corinthians as a starting point – particularly the parts that call for us to build up the body of Christ rather than tearing it down. Others have suggested Matthew 18:15-17, which seems like a good fit for conflict and the use of the blog. I have also looked into the confessions and found the Confession of 1967, 9.38 to 9.40.
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Do you have any ideas?
While this study is going on I am suspending my blogging about my local congregation, with the exception that I may mention briefly what I am involved with as I complete activities or take on new roles or assignments. As a result I will not be blogging about the all-church retreat, the congregational meeting, details about my installation, and likely will not be blogging about the youth trip to Montreat (depending on when this study is finished).
Deacon-elect
I am a deacon-elect.
The congregation also elected the first elder under the age of 18 in our 310 year history.
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Installation is scheduled for June 29.
Busy Weekend
This is going to be a busy weekend.
On Saturday, I have to be at ETS in Princeton by 6:30am in order to work with my fellow ham radio operators to support the American Diabetes Association Tour de Cure bike race. We’ll be providing radio support to handle bike rider problems, such as needing the sag wagon to get taken back to the start/finish line, needing repairs, or getting into accidents and needing medical attention. There are 3 races occurring simultaneously and it should be complicated. Right now I’m scheduled to be a “net control”, roughly equivalent to a central dispatcher.
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Sunday I’ll be at church for worship, followed by the Annual Congregational Meeting. That meeting will take a while because this is the meeting where organizations make their annual reports. There is also the election of elders and deacons. In the afternoon I’ll need to get the lawn cut and get bills paid and such.
Blogging and MY local congregation
It’s been a few days since I posted the question about blogging and the local congregation. I’m still mulling over the question. I can’t seem to let it go – blogging is reflective of several major parts of my personality (the top 3 on my Goals for How to Live My Life), and I’m entering a new phase of my relationship with the congregation (though it will probably look a lot like the current phase). This question/problem is gnawing at me.
This post is kinda stream of consciousness. Please keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle, pull back on the bar until you hear the click, and hang on.
So far, the comments on blogging about one’s congregation (and the comments, concerns and complaints received offline) fall into a few categories:
- Be who you are. You’re good enough, and people will always pick on what they don’t like. (With a tiny bit of “what’s wrong with them?!?”)
- You should never write anything negative about your congregation. If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything.
- It might make things more difficult for you (and usually for the speaker) if someone in the congregation gets upset about what you write.
- You need to be sure you’re willing to take the consequences that come with writing about the congregation.
- You should always discuss any criticisms with the subject person first.
Surprisingly, nobody is talking about the upsides that I see of a person blogging about their congregation, positive or negative.
-
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- For positive posts, a potential member/attendee sees good things about the congregation. Pictures make an even greater impact.
- For positive posts, having individual feedback on the congregation can be more effective than the “insider” church website. Today’s seekers take individual reviews of a product, place, or service more seriously than the “advertising” of the “seller”.
- For positive or negative posts, the leadership gets a chance to “read the mind” of the blogger. (Of course, the good blogger knows this …)
- For negative posts, the blogger may provide early warning of a problem within the congregation.
There are a few other conclusions to draw from this stream of posts and comments. It seems to me that my fellow bloggers see me differently than the folks from my congregation. Some of that has to do with the fact that each side sees me in a different forum – the folks at the church see me in person and the folks online see me only through my writing (more rarely in person). It feels like the folks from my congregation see me as a nice guy, a little strange, and I have this annoying habit of blogging. The folks online seem to see me as a thoughtful writer, measured in criticism, sometimes prophetic, and sometimes a bit of a loose cannon. It really does feel like the folks online understand me better than most in my congregation – the online community has a level of activity and intimacy that is missing in the church model of one to a few times a week interacting in groups.
I’ll be honest – all of this feels a bit like a personal attack to me. What I’m hearing is “we really like your gifts, but we don’t like the way you’re using this one.” What I’m feeling is “we want you to be yourself, but not this part of you.”
All of this has me tending toward a decision never to blog about my congregation – good or bad. There are side-effects of that decision. This will likely decrease my feeling of being connected to the congregation. This will likely increase my feeling of being an outsider in the congregation. It probably won’t hurt my faith, though it will be something of putting at least part of my light under a basket. This will also reduce my ability to ask others for help with issues that come up through my work in the congregation.
Blogging only the good is not an option for me. There is no way that my psyche would allow it. I’m a person with a scientific mind – unchallenged ideas are of little value.
I haven’t made a decision yet, and I value your feedback on it. I particularly value the feedback of people from my congregation – either here on the blog, in e-mail, or in person.
A short break
Blogging will be light this week.
I really do intend to post something about the all-church retreat this past weekend, but I’m still catching up on sleep and I have several meetings in the evenings this week. The short version of the story about the retreat: it was HOT, it was fun, and I connected with different people than last year.
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Also, I’m wondering if anything unusual will happen next Sunday.
I got invited to the Deacon end-of-year picnic tonight along with the other newbies, but I have to miss it because of a meeting scheduled months ago that will take up 3 hours of my time tonight. Sorry, but for those of you who don’t know me I’ll meet you later sometime.
Blogging and the local congregation
As you know (if you’ve read the post below or one from last weekend), I recently agreed to stand for election to the deacons at my church.
The Nominating Committee asked our pastor to be the person to contact me. They also reportedly asked him to express to me a concern over the existence and content of my blog. Apparently they were concerned that I would blog about sensitive information or children or other events related to my service as a deacon – with the implication (as seen by me) that such blogging would be inappropriate.
I believe that I have shown an adequate track record of handling sensitive information (within the youth group or Project Open Door, for a few examples) while blogging about the church. I would also like to note that the majority of what I write about my congregation is positive. Last, I avoid as much as possible making individuals identifiable when posting my less positive thoughts or feelings.
My pastor has encouraged me to ask my readers the following question:
What is the effect on both a blogger and the relationship with his/her congregation when said blogger blogs about the local congregation?
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I know that many of my readers have chosen to blog anonymously (generally under a pseudonym like "Tall Steeple Preacher" or "Calvin’s Understudy" or such) and that they do write about events in their churches with some level of detail but with all identification of the people involved (and church) removed. Others have chosen to avoid writing about their local congregation altogether, whether or not they use their real name. Still others are doing something similar to what I am doing – blogging about local events and stories under their real name with their church clearly defined or easy to determine – but with different levels of detail and identification of people or churches.
What do you think? My pastor and I are very interested in hearing your opinion. What does blogging do to the relationship between the blogger and congregation?
Because this conversation discusses anonymity, and because in order to prevent massive amounts of spam I need to require at least a minimal amount of information regarding your name or e-mail for comments, I have an offer for this post only. If you have comments that you would like to post anonymously, please feel free to e-mail it to me along with some moniker that you want me to use, and I will post it myself.
Oh, boy – part 2
I have agreed to stand for election to the Board of Deacons, Class of 2011, at the Presbyterian Church of Lawrenceville. The election will be held June 15.
The decision involved a short but intense process of discernment (I was only asked last Saturday) with several phone calls to the pastor and a member of the Nominating Committee.
I would like to thank everybody here who has commented on this question, where I might be called, and me personally over the past few months. Part of the discernment process involved reading the comments here. There were two common threads among the responses (some non-public conversations, too) from folks whose opinion I value highly that ended up being the deciding factor.
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I have received a note from the Central Jersey Deacon Candidate Host Committee about an event …. just kidding! (If you don’t get the joke, click here.)
Thanks. I know a ton of you were praying for me.
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