{"id":100,"date":"2008-02-27T14:49:02","date_gmt":"2008-02-27T19:49:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marktime.org\/?p=100"},"modified":"2009-02-13T12:37:27","modified_gmt":"2009-02-13T17:37:27","slug":"this-seems-like-a-good-time-for-introspection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marktime.org\/?p=100","title":{"rendered":"This seems like a good time for introspection"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s Lent.\u00a0 In a recent post<\/a> I took a deep dive into my soul to figure out what my principles are.\u00a0 Today it’s time for another dive.\u00a0 (Now that I’ve finished writing this, I see that it is VERY long.\u00a0 Sorry about that.)<\/p>\n

Depending on when you mark the starting point, it’s either coming up on 2 years or 18 months from the beginning of my return to church experience.<\/p>\n

Today’s question – how has it changed me?<\/p>\n

Spiritual Practices<\/strong> – Prior to this process I was a C&E (Christmas and Easter) Christian.\u00a0 Both were with Carolyn at her church.\u00a0 Except for the occasional wedding or funeral, I set foot in a church twice a year.\u00a0 Sunday mornings were for reading the paper, watching an old movie on TCM and waiting for Carolyn to get home from her church with bagels.\u00a0 Sometimes it was a good time to schedule a small airplane flight.<\/p>\n

Today, Sundays are busy days.\u00a0 I’m up with Carolyn at 7:30am and read most of the paper before heading to church.\u00a0 After church about every other week I have Confirmation Class or occasionally an early Sr. High youth group activity or Adult Forum.\u00a0 Sunday evenings almost every week are taken up with the Sr. High youth group.\u00a0 Some Sunday afternoons are given to a church activity (alternate worship or other special event).<\/p>\n

I also have a church meeting one evening every other week or so.\u00a0 Work for those groups (youth, Project Open Door, other groups) takes up some personal time during the week as well.\u00a0 The 2nd week of the month is the worst – I have Youth and Young Adult Council on Tuesday evening, a ham radio meeting Wednesday evening (not church), and Theology on Tap on Thursday evening.<\/p>\n

As I write this I’m noticing that it’s turning into a list of “church time” rather than a list of spiritual practices.\u00a0 To a certain degree that’s because I feel that any work done on behalf of the church is a spiritual practice.\u00a0 On the other hand – that’s about it.\u00a0 I really need to come up with a daily practice (or at least 3 times a week).\u00a0 I had settled on taking Lent to read the book of Acts and all of Paul’s epistles – I need to get more comfortable with Paul.\u00a0 Most of the problems that I have with our beliefs right now come from Paul’s writings.\u00a0 Unfortunately I’ve been busy enough lately that I haven’t picked up the book.\u00a0 I gotta fix that.<\/p>\n

Using My Gifts<\/strong> – Prior to joining the church, my gifts (spiritual and otherwise) were used at work and that’s about it.\u00a0 Maybe a little time providing Family Technical Support for computer and other electronic issues.\u00a0 Even my flying was generally for me rather than helping others.\u00a0 One exception was Camp Johnsonburg, but now I see that my re-involvement in camp was just the embryonic stages of this process (and continues today).<\/p>\n

The first few months after I joined the church I wasn’t using my gifts at all.\u00a0 I was waiting to be invited to do so.\u00a0 (Well, I was writing here, but I don’t know how much of that was use of gifts and how much was letting the ideas out of my head.)\u00a0 Finally I mentioned that to someone and I was invited to work with the youth.\u00a0 About the same time I got involved in the Green Team and wrote a paper on the bible and environmentalism.\u00a0 Those writings and activities along with my blogging got me noticed by others and I was invited to help start Project Open Door.<\/p>\n

Now I’m co-chairing Project Open Door, working with the Sr. High Youth group and youth council, blogging about the church, I’ve been asked to do another short-term task, and I’m informally working with the pastor and others on things within my knowledge and ability (like consulting on the church website and kicking around ideas that resulted in the church’s blog).<\/p>\n

I’m using a lot of skills built outside of church for church work.\u00a0 These include:\u00a0 communications, planning, project management, execution, writing, technical skills, and with the last lock-in – percussion.\u00a0 I’ve also brought back some old ones that I’d developed in the last church go-around:\u00a0 caring deeply about youth, working with youth, church and theological knowledge, Presbyterian stuff, working with volunteers.\u00a0 I have to be honest – when it comes to church and theological knowledge I feel somewhat inadequate at the level that I’ve been using those skills.\u00a0 I have no formal theological training outside of Sunday School, confirmation, and a religion minor in college.\u00a0 I feel very much that I’m using the “fake it until you make it” method when it comes to working with theological concepts and relating them to others.\u00a0 That’s one reason that I keep looking for validation from my pastor, youth director, and others – I want to be sure that somebody is watching me as the novice carpenter plays with the power tools.<\/p>\n

Working with People<\/strong> – I’m an introvert.\u00a0 I test out as a strong introvert.\u00a0 I have sufficient speaking and musical experience to have gotten over the fear of speaking with strangers and in front of groups.\u00a0 Most people would consider me somewhere between outgoing and at least fairly social – few would consider me shy.\u00a0 The truth is that I’m a “loud introvert”.\u00a0 I am able to speak and work with others, but few get to see what’s going on deep inside.\u00a0 (This blog being the one big exception.)<\/p>\n

I had a challenging childhood when it comes to social skills.\u00a0 I’ll even go so far as to say that I carry scars today from many failed social interactions as a child.<\/p>\n

Up until coming back to church, my “working with people” experience was limited to:
\n– work (almost all of it)
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\n– family and friends<\/p>\n

The “church” world is very different from the work world or even the family and friends world.\u00a0 In the work world, it is permissible to be selfish or closed as long as you are furthering the company’s goals.\u00a0 In my work experience being selfish and behaving in ways that I consider to be unethical seem to be the norm and you get rewarded for such behavior.<\/p>\n

I have to say – I find working on church committees to be the most frustrating part of my return to church.\u00a0 The committees (a generic term encompassing anything that involves meetings) have gotten a lot done, but the lack of efficiency in church work is maddening for a project manager and IT person like me.\u00a0 In the work world, the strength of your idea is priority #1, and a secondary priority is how others perceive you as a person.\u00a0 The church world flips that – the work that gets done is not nearly as important as HOW it is done.\u00a0 Everybody has to have their input heard, and everybody has to be extremely careful not to step on somebody else’s toes while getting the work done.\u00a0 There’s probably a truism about church committees that says that 10 to 20 percent of the team do 80 percent of the work.\u00a0 I don’t mind doing the heavy lifting – but I do dislike having to pussyfoot around the people who are doing the remaining 20% of work (or none at all).<\/p>\n

I operate best in an environment where people speak their mind and lay all of their cards out on the table.\u00a0 When you believe that somebody else is saying what they truly think and feel it’s a lot easier to ignore the rough edges and to be able to determine when they are actually upset or are just making noise.\u00a0 I’ve said before – I believe that church debates should be like hockey fights, with the two players bashing each other on the ice but then going out for a beer after the game.\u00a0 The same is true with committee work – let’s bump and slash each other up and down the ice a little but as soon as the whistle blows all of the little annoyances are forgotten.\u00a0 Church isn’t there yet, at least as far as I can see.<\/p>\n

The really ironic part of all of this is that I enjoy the “systems” work behind church committees.\u00a0 I like working with complex systems and finding the best and most efficient way to achieve objective X using resources Y and Z.\u00a0 I like the PCUSA polity in that it’s a complex machine built on some simple principles.\u00a0 I suspect I’d make a good clerk at some level of the polity.\u00a0 The unfortunate fact is this – in order to get to have an impact in positive ways you have to also put up with all of the negative baggage of interpersonal interaction with volunteers.<\/p>\n

One very dark spot here is the online interaction with other Presbyterians nationally on the Internet.\u00a0 The divisions in the PCUSA end up turning into chasms online.\u00a0 When people are able to hide behind their computer screens (even when they use their real names) they seem to feel that respect and humility are no longer necessary.\u00a0 I confess to falling into that trap from time to time.\u00a0 What bothers me most is the partisan nature of discussions.\u00a0 There are websites where poor behavior by those who agree with the website owner towards those with whom he disagrees is tolerated and even encouraged, while poor behavior by the other side (often in reaction to the owner’s supporters) is punished.\u00a0 There’s something about the Internet that leads people to believe that the rules of discourse and interpersonal behavior do not need to be followed.\u00a0 It’s really sad – it hurts the mission of the church more than it helps.<\/p>\n

The very bright spot has been my work with the youth group.\u00a0 As I said before I’m an introvert.\u00a0 Introverts lose energy through social interaction – often introverts will talk about a party draining their energy.\u00a0 Extroverts on the other hand gain energy through social interaction.\u00a0 (That’s a simplification, but true enough for now.)\u00a0 I can tell when I feel most at home because social interaction actually gains me energy.\u00a0 I’ve only felt that in a few situations – my marriage, Camp Johnsonburg much of the time, work at the Synod level as a youth, and my current church’s Sr. High youth group most of the time.\u00a0 I LOVE working with our youth.\u00a0 They are refreshingly open and honest and unafraid to say what they are thinking.\u00a0 The feedback that I get leads me to believe that I’m making a difference.\u00a0 One very telling anecdote – in Confirmation class we were talking about how we view the world.\u00a0 We were asked to identify whether we were an optimist or pessimist.\u00a0 I’m a pessimist.\u00a0 When I raised my hand to answer, one of my favorite youth turned to me and said “Really?”\u00a0 That shows how much I enjoy working with the youth – they turn me into an optimist.<\/p>\n

Me Outside of Church<\/strong> – This is a toughie.<\/p>\n

I work in a culture that is often 180 degrees removed from what we call Christ-like behavior.\u00a0 I’m struggling with that very openly right now.\u00a0 What do you do when behavior that you are taught is unacceptable is actually rewarded?<\/p>\n

I believe that prior to getting reinvolved in church I did the right thing (morally) most of the time.\u00a0 I was probably a bit rougher around the edges than I am now, but the difference is small.<\/p>\n

Now I believe that I’m more intentional about right behavior.\u00a0 I can link it to my beliefs more exactly.\u00a0 I do know that I talk about church more than I used to and do so positively.\u00a0 Before I returned to church, “church” was a negative and “Christian” as a term generally applied to the fundamentalists who try to control everybody’s behavior.\u00a0 Now “church” is a good place and a good people and “Christian” is a standard to live up to.\u00a0 I don’t think I’ve reached the annoying point yet, but I do look for opportunities to invite others to the faith when they appear.\u00a0 Nobody’s biting yet, but my line is still in the water and there have been a few nibbles.<\/p>\n

I think I’m going to have to ask a few people to see if they see changes in me.<\/p>\n

There is one downside.\u00a0 I think I’ve lost some free time with Carolyn.\u00a0 She is only involved in one church activity outside of worship (the garden ministry – which doesn’t interest me).\u00a0 I am involved in many at my church and so far she hasn’t been interested in joining any of them on a regular basis.\u00a0 This means that my church membership has reduced our time together.\u00a0 I thought that stopping my flying would help, but it seems that I just traded 1\/2 day on the weekend at the airport for 1\/2 day on the weekend at church.\u00a0 Add a few days during the week and our schedules miss a little more.\u00a0 I’m hoping that this will work itself out over time.<\/p>\n

Thank you for reading.\u00a0 This is very long and I appreciate you reading it.\u00a0 I welcome any feedback, affirmations or corrections.