firstpreswaconew

Figuring in Eights

lking@firstpreswaco.org (Leslie King) — Thu, 01 Feb 2024 23:56:15 GMT

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Leadership is quite a ride. Over the years, I have heard various people describe it in various ways. Some have imaged it as a rollercoaster because leadership has its ups and downs. Others, because of slips and falls, have imaged leadership as a rugged, mountainous climb to various levels of success. Still others have experienced leadership as a sort of black hole of need – vacuous and never ending.

Leadership is quite a ride. I’ve experienced it best and most intensely as the flow through a figure eight landscape. The upper loop is a sort of high place in which theological, psychological and sociological concepts inform the vision for ministry. I’ve ridden this upper loop with so many wonderful people. The lower loop is a specific and pragmatic place of real challenges and logistical or adaptive responses. There have been wonderful people to ride this loop with as well.

Leadership is quite a ride. The most important place for me within the ride is at a threshold that tempts me to cycle in one loop or the other. It can be challenging to come out of the lower loop and find constructive time for concept and vision. Equally, it can be challenging to emerge from concept and vision to take a hold a pragmatic concern. The ability to flow around one loop and make my way through the threshold to the other has been a marker of leadership for me.

Leadership is quite a ride. The leader needs an intrapersonal discipline that both provides momentum and exercises one toward strength. Conceptual and visionary work has never failed to provide momentum. I so enjoy the teamwork in that loop. But in as much as I experience momentum with concepts savored and vision honed, I find myself tempted at the threshold back down to the lower loop. Perhaps someone else can do the pragmatics or logistics. Perhaps someone else can work out the problems that emerge.

Leadership is quite a ride until it isn’t. There comes a time in every leader’s life when they are going to be tempted to relegate themselves to an upper or lower loop because some how they seem to “belong” in one or the other. This temptation thwarts flow and the waters of ministry begin to stagnate. Burnout and cynicism are examples of stagnation’s symptoms.

The lower loop of pragmatic challenge never fails to impart the chemical gifts of serotonin, dopamine or endorphins. The exercise of rising up from the front lines of ministry feeds back into the loop of vision, but just before rising through the threshold, there is a temptation to be held to the tasks and the details. “I can’t do the thinking work right now. There are too many things to do.”

Ministry on Monday and each day of the week is about the spiritual discipline of getting through the threshold of temptation that I belong in one loop or the other. It’s a spiritual discipline to give myself to the ride.

Authority, Audacity and Creative Response

lking@firstpreswaco.org (Leslie King) — Wed, 24 Jan 2024 21:38:47 GMT

Leadership beyond reactivity

Authority is an ultimate concern within our Scriptures. Who has formal authority? Whose authority is emerging? To whom do you and I give authority in our lives? They say that culturally, we are at a low ebb in respect for authority; fewer people formally join civic groups that claim authority. Institutions are suspect in their intent and thus their authority. It’s a great time to assess and reconsider authority.

In as much as the church has emphasized the ultimate authority of God as enthroned authority deserving of adoration and praise, the biblical imagination often imagines and offers us a much less enthroned God. The biblical God is often alongside and entrenched in the human experience. This God is assessing, reconsidering and responding to the limited circumstances in which human beings find themselves.

The biblical imagination arrives to a fullness in the Gospel wherein Christ’s authority is recognized per his relevance to human circumstances. Authority, not given to him formally, is given to him by the people – and not only given to him by the people who were physically proximate. People still tell this story -- now the Old, Old Story still whispered, lauded and taken deeply into memory today.

Authority remains an ultimate concern. When traditional forms of authority seem irrelevant, people can become desperate to express their dissatisfaction. To some, the way people reallocate authority over their lives can seem irrational and out of touch with reality. In fact, it is a reaction against tradition that can remake itself.

God, within the Scriptural tradition, is deeply attuned to the reactivity of people and the reallocation of who or what has authority in their lives. Whether it be golden calves, foreign kings or idle anxiety, the biblical imagination portrays a God who strategizes for relevance in the human condition. It’s a strong example and expectation for the church or any institution who identifies with the Judeo-Christian tradition. When people react, the issue of relevance and relationship are at play. It is the burden of tradition to adapt and respond for the stability and creativity of the human community.

To greater or lesser degrees, every ministry faces reactivity or desperate messaging on Monday. It is part of the burden and privilege to respond and remake.

Meaning Making

lking@firstpreswaco.org (Leslie King) — Wed, 24 Jan 2024 21:32:15 GMT

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day

MEANING MAKING

“Mostly people will just imitate what they see.” This was a statement from a prominent theologian while making an argument for why the church should be intentional about the God they model. I could not disagree with it more. People are not simply imitators. Human beings are interpreters of their life experience for the sake of meaning. In the presence of God, human bein0gs are authors of their lives, even given all of life’s constraints.

Preachers and teachers within local congregations can benefit from identifying with great writers who seek to describe the human experience for greater reflection. One of those writers, John Steinbeck, is particularly inspiring for me. He crafts poetic thought into the mind of Okies in his 1939 novel, Grapes of Wrath. In so doing, he portrays the tremendous depth of human longing for examination of -- and commitment to -- the beauty that is their specific life. They are “types,” but they are imitators.

In the wake of the anniversary of the January 6 ^th raids on the U.S. Capitol, we are asked to reconsider what ultimately motivates people. Fueled, enraged and violent, what ultimately motivates people to behave in such a way? We might decide that they are imitating a person. Or, maybe we will take a more complex and challenging view: they have hit a wall in the ability to make meaning from the circumstances of their lives, so they scale some of our most important walls. Consequences for those who acted out violence on January 6th are important, but so is the public imagination that makes meaning out of the event itself.

In his 1962 Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Steinbeck said:

“..the writer is delegated to declare and to celebrate man’s [sic] proven capacity for greatness of heart and spirit—for gallantry in defeat, for courage, compassion and love. In the endless war against weakness and despair, these are the bright rally flags of hope and of emulation. I hold that a writer who does not believe in the perfectibility of man [sic] has no dedication nor any membership in literature.”

If a writer has such a charge, how much more does the church of Jesus Christ? What should our view of humanity be if we believe that God arrives to the human circumstance to be deeply affected, even crucified by it? Our understanding of human beings will decide how we interpret and respond to the events of January 6th. Our interpretation is in part a measure of how congruent we are to the Gospel we seek to steward.

Neither science nor Steinbeck assert that human beings are mere imitators. Rather we are a reflective, meaning-making species. This is the church’s primary Christ-charge. What is more persuasive to the Christ-call than to experience your life as meaningful to God? Every week, clergy and staff members labor over another Sunday bulletin. The construction of a worship bulletin is all about how to fuel the human being’s construction of meaning (no matter how uncertain their circumstance) so they can fill their tanks on Sunday, offering glory back to God in day-to-day life. Here’s to that bulletin, the meaning-making framework, that is the recurring effort of every Ministry on Monday.

Fear and Flow

lking@firstpreswaco.org (Leslie King) — Wed, 24 Jan 2024 21:27:42 GMT

Baptism Sunday

It was 1992 when I first learned of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced: "cheek-sent-mee-hah-yee") and his concept of flow. Fascinated by his research, he added insight to pastoral care and the depth of human experience in “flow state.” Csikszentmihalyi developed the term “flow state” for the many of the people he interviewed who described their optimal states of performance as experiences when their work simply flowed out of them. There was such mental synchronicity that competency was engrossed by the task at hand. Time did not lag.

The human body is, itself, a flowing state. Holding all our bones, nerves and muscles together is a web of fascia that runs across and through all parts of our body. Within it, the lymphatic system fluid is managed throughout the body, making sure tissues get the protective white bloods cells they need. Here, however, the flow state is not effortless. This flowing requires the extension and contraction of the entire body. Movement is required to move fluid through the lymphatic system. Action and effort are essential.

As baptized people, we value flow. We value the flow of competence and effectiveness. But we also value the flow that fights off infection that might otherwise compromise the body. The primary infection of any community is that of fear. Fear, an important, informing emotion, can bring a community to high alert and help them take corrective action. But fear that takes up residence in a community can do great damage. If fear becomes entrenched, it creates blockage. Flow is impeded.

There are so many reasons that fear gets our attention in the life of the church. Some of the more profound reasons have to do with cultural change, depravity of finance or loss of communal vitality. Whatever the reasons for fear, a most powerful cure for fear is flow. In the first instance, a flow that we enjoy. Csikszentmihalyi’s flow-state did not come by doing what a person thought they should or ought to do but by doing something that they loved doing. There is a lot of joy in ministry, and each congregation needs to find the joy of engaging their optimal flow-state. In the second instance, flow is the action taken that reaches out to the world and draws some of it back in toward the communal heart.

While entrenched fear threatens to arrest corporate development. Baptism washes us forward into the courageous work of Christ that is both joy and exercise. Ministry on Monday is about flow -- for the health and competence of Christ’s church.

Muscling Resolutions

lking@firstpreswaco.org (Leslie King) — Wed, 03 Jan 2024 17:06:38 GMT

Beyond Coercion

MUSCLING RESOLUTIONS

Coercive power is not the most admired form of power, but it can be the impulse of leadership when things get difficult, complex or frustrating. Coercion might be imaged as a significant muscle that can apply pressure to move an object. It is suggested to many in leadership that they are to have significant muscles of ascribed or acquired authority in order to move circumstances or people. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Coercive power might make something happen quickly, but it is not correlated to lasting change or enduring effects on a system. Lasting change happens through persuasive strength. There are at least three hallmarks of persuasive strength:

1. Persuasive strength intends to be affected by others. Whether listening or observing, persuasion begins as discovery that takes genuine delight in what is discovered.

2. Persuasive strength makes demands of itself before making demands of another circumstance or another person. This could be likened to bodybuilding in the gym: one sets aside time to develop one’s own strength to have functional strength in the world. Very often, the persuasively strong person has spent time in the proverbial gym building the “listening and observation muscles” through weighted patience and repetitious reflection. “What is being asked of me from this circumstance that requires my persuasive leadership?”

3. After being affected by others and building strength through patience and reflection, persuasive strength asks itself what is possible. Persuasion gravitates toward possibility. Even further, persuasion is motivated by the possibilities that have integrity for the whole community.

When persuasion taps possibility, the one in leadership cannot tell who is persuading who. It is as if something like the Spirit has taken over and catalyzes each individual. In such circumstances, the communal effort makes it very difficult to understand where a good idea began or to whom a good outcome belongs. Persuasion persistently abides betwixt and between.

In a radically individualized culture, we are tempted to muscle our way into individual resolutions that are so hard to actualize on our own. It may be that coercion does not even work upon the self.

May the possibilities be yours in this New Year.

Nerves and Navigation

lking@firstpreswaco.org (Leslie King) — Thu, 28 Dec 2023 21:40:22 GMT

Holding Nerves a Administrators

In a season of navigation, church administration is strengthened by remembering that before there is navigation, there is wandering. Its biblical! Church administrators, any leader, have been encouraged in countless ways to hold onto their nerves when managing others. “Don’t be afraid of conflict.” “Be direct about concerns.” “Keep your eye on the details.” “When in doubt document.” It certainly is important to keep our nerve when trying to navigate for a local congregation or congregations.

Even more important, perhaps, is staying mindful of what is wandering when administrating people for the sake of a purposeful church and her ministry.

A mere 16 weeks after conception, a child forms a neural tube from which all the nerves of the body will grow. Among the largest nerves in the human body is the Vagas Nerve. “Vagus” comes from the Latin term for wandering. This nerve is generous all along the spinal column, branching throughout the body its densely located around vital organs and across the face especially around the eyes. This nerve literally wanders all around essential locations of the body for the sake of introception. Introception is the body’s ability to sense changes within itself. It is a process that is essential to survival. This body-to-brain connection is made through the vagus nerve. So, the Vagus nerve, within any individual, sends more to the brain that it receives from the brain.

Part of a church administrator keeping their nerve is to attend to the nerves of their team, committee or group. Leaning into the metaphor of the Apostle Paul’s Body of Christ, an administrator does well to imagine a shared nervous system that is sending messages to the shared brain of a team.

There are three key Vagus-like messages within a team environment that need the steady nerve and careful attention of the administrator:

1. I do not feel reasonably safe in the task at hand and I am avoidant

2. I do not feel reasonably safe in the task at hand and I am detouring away from the greater purpose. This usually involved detouring other members of the team.

3. I feel so safe in the task at hand that I am moving independent of others.

One caveat is important to mention. There is a difference between Vagus-like messaging with the essentials of safety in question and emotional immaturity. Emotional immaturity is not so much about feeling safe as it is about an intent to avoid purposeful growth. Emotional immaturity is nearly impossible to coach-up or to draw into navigation. Administrators have to be clear about their own standards. An EI person, in a situation that demands purposeful navigation and growth, will be miserable in their job. They will communicate that in lots of ways. Administrators have responsibility to release the agony for institution and individual. This means holding our nerve on firing with or without cause of the state allows.

These three messages require different kinds of attention from the administrator. Here are some play by plays on responses:

1. Unsafe/Avoidant: Appropriate directness and or conflict to bring the task back to the “front burner” of attention for the employee. If conflict and directness is a challenge for the administrator it can help to outline a script for engagement. The essential message to the employee is: “You are reasonably safe in this task and here are our next steps.”

2. Unsafe/Detouring : Two steps here.

a. Appropriate directness (that may feel like conflict or tension) in the presence of the team. This directness does not scapegoat or blame any individual but reiterates purpose and draws the teams attention back into focus. Its very beneficial to allow the team time to comment and converse on the focus. There may be more than one person detouring effort and that will become obvious in the conversation.

b. Individual meeting with the “detour catalyst” to provide appropriate safety and next steps.

3. Safe and Unaccountably-Independent: Two steps here:

a. Individual who feels so safe that they are functioning independent of the team is invited to provide an update on projects and efforts to the entire team.

b. Administrator’s roll is to observe and learn how the team is reacting and if the team is feeling as safe as the independent person. Where are the week spots if both groups feel just fine with less accountable independence.

c. Administrator follows up with any observations and comments. This action of observation and comment can increase the safety of any team when delivered with right tone – any autocracy subtracted.

Some believe that administers get tenured away from the front-line Vagas-messaging of their employees. For those we directly supervise, the ministry and mission of the church is absolutely dependent on us knowing something of the somatics of the Vagas Nerve that legitimately message safety to each individual brain. Our job is to welcome their introception, which can be difficult to articulate, to the interpersonal realm and provide guidance so that their brains can move forward to ministry and mission.

The magical result can be a team, curated with discerning compassion, who, themselves honor issues of safety and have a growing awareness when the congregation is not feeling safe. They are able to slow down and become navigating shepherds themselves.

Bone Rattling

Tue, 19 Dec 2023 03:07:23 GMT

Organizational Work at the deepest level.

When an individual person is diagnosed with osteoporosis, they know they cannot reverse it but can manage it. It is a natural part of any biological organism for their bones to eventually become a management issue. Sociological organisms, like local congregations, also have structural issues. It is constant management. The prophetic book, Ezekiel, chapter 37, gives us an imagine of dry bones in a valley. The dry bones of the people in a life of exile begin to rattle. Then bone to bone, sinew, flesh and breathe. It’s just a wonderful passage of church management. I so often need the reminder of the layers of life that is Christ’s church.

When an individual person is diagnosed with osteoporosis, they know they may need medication and behavior changes to curb the effects that diminish the bones. Very often this includes sunlight and weight-bearing exercise. For sociological organisms, like local congregations, the brittleness of organized life cannot be managed at the surface of our ecclesial life, in program or worship style. Whether or not we are agile and responsive depends on an administrator(s) attending to the deepest level of organizational infrastructure with weight-bearing and light-giving therapies.

The deepest level of organized life for Presbyterian congregations, and many other denominations, is the understanding of “call.” We understand the word “call” to be an intersection between God-given gifts and purposeful activity. When individuals are called in a local congregational context, they are not just called to “do”, they/we are called to be fully present for the larger body. Their work is to be light-giving and weight-bearing for the strength of the body. Their work ripples out into organized standing committees or ad-hoc committees.

The word committee has become synonymous with bureaucracy, but at its best, committees live into their etymology. From the Anglo-French, the word committee emerges from the idea of “a person to whom something is committed.” Called officers of our congregation are called to tend to the bone-strength. Can we bear appropriate weight for a weary world? Can we move responsively and with agility in a dynamic existence?

If the administrative work at the deepest level of sociological organization is neglected in the life of the church, there is nothing short of a profound impact on the larger Body of Christ (BOC). Call on God as we might, if we are not administrating weight and light at the bone depth of organizational life, response to the world around us will be increasingly difficult.

Committees, those committed to something, need at least these four energies at work for the sake of BOC bones:

· Persistent and stable rhythm of gathering with exit ramps and flow of membership.

· Relevance in the gathering, relevance measured by playful but purposeful innovation and constructive conflict.

· An intent to be affected by and effect the world outside our particular organized life.

· Accountability and interdependence with another committee(s).

There has been a trend in organized life in the last couple of decades to decrease the number of elders, deacons or organized committees. Perhaps this was to minimize bureaucracy. Indeed, bureaucracy is always a risk. But that can be managed; the bones of our shared life are at stake. Ministry on Monday is about strengthening the bones and readying ourselves for hinging and connecting to one another.

Carrying Light

lking@firstpreswaco.org (Leslie King) — Tue, 19 Dec 2023 02:59:57 GMT

The congregational clue not easily dismissed

Each week in worship, candles hold a presence in the chancel of the church: taper candles are lit on the Lord’s Table and the Christ candle is lit by the pulpit. Just behind the candles, without fail, there are beautiful arrangements of flowers.

Our Deacons are faithful in the weekly candle lighting. They don’t miss it because it is much more than something we “do”, it is the reminder in worship that it is something we “carry”. As we depart from weddings, funerals and weekly worship, we are reminded that we carry the light of hospitality from Christ’s table out into the world. No less important, we carry Christ’s light as we seek to deepen our understanding of all people in God’s world.

Ministry on Monday -- and each day of the week -- involves strengthening the church family to glow-up the world around them. This is often done in acts known as pastoral care. Such a term is a little misleading as if the care is something that a pastor does for the parishioner. In fact, there is a deep interdependence between parishioner and pastor that allows pastoral care to emerge.

What may be experienced as pastoral care begins as a clue from a congregant – a fellow priest in the priesthood of all believers. The clue arrives as a sort of hint, from and into various levels of awareness that genuinely catch the attention of pastor or congregational leader. Now, to be sure, over-instruction to one another is always a part of Sunday mornings, but I’m speaking here of something that is less a lecture and more something “left.” Something that has a life of its own. The clue (a word, a glance or shift in posture), once discovered, is so compelling, that its presence is not easily dismissed from the mind. At this point, the clue transforms to opportunity.

The pastor or congregational leader becomes alert for right timing and the method to take up the opportunity. While no timing is perfect, there is a sort of locking-in between opportunity and spark-filled response. In this way, there is a congregational conduit of light. The result can be illumination far greater and longer lasting than any one individual could sustain. It is the act of sharing light that is ministry on Monday.

Prayer at the Shorelines

lking@firstpreswaco.org (Leslie King) — Tue, 05 Dec 2023 23:19:19 GMT

Ecclesial prayer for congregants

Ministry on Mondays can feel a lot like sitting in front of a vast expanse of water. Upon the water, the pastoral heart is able to imagine various sizes and styles of vessels heading away from the ecclesial shore, back out toward deeper waters where the adventure of life continues. Church members and visitors, in all their variety, are charting a course back out into family and generational life, vocations, challenges of life-stage, and civic complexities. From the pastoral heart, there is a sigh at the sight of them making their way.

Ministry on Monday often begins as a sanctuaried, shoreline prayer for all wayfaring congregants and all they are holding and facing. It’s a sanctuaried, shoreline prayer for all they are capable of and all the potential their decisions will release. It’s an intent to be ready when they make their way back to the sanctuary on Sunday morning for prayer, song, community and a buoyant strength that will serve them well.

After worship, prayer wakes us up and is held for those we love, week to wave-filled week.e body content of your post goes here. To edit this text, click on it and delete this default text and start typing your own or paste your own from a different source.

Shopping Lists and Acquisitions

lking@firstpreswaco.org (Leslie King) — Tue, 28 Nov 2023 13:48:38 GMT

Finding Satisfaction

It’s the season of list-making, shopping, and acquiring gifts filled with the spirit of relationships. Throughout my career, the concept of “church shopping” has been a part of Sunday realities and midweek planning. The concept has sometimes gone to the extreme, wherein people, or church itself, suggests that there need to be readily packaged experiences that are worthy of visitor’s time -- that gives them a payoff for attending and/or supporting the church. “They are looking for something, and we need to give it to them.” This can look like a number of things:

An excellent child/youth experience built on an attraction model that draws friends.
A rich midweek array for adults that has that same attraction component.
A beautiful building and an excellent website that promise a physical or virtual threshold.

Ministry on Monday can be an exhausting treadmill trying to keep up with “church shopping” and getting on people’s list. The struggle is real, so it’s good to get grounded. What science and faith tell us about satisfaction -- deep and abiding satisfaction -- is that it does not come from what is already built for us. Rather, our satisfaction comes from our belief that we can make a positive contribution. Satisfaction comes from the things that we build, both for ourselves and with others.

Our church just participated with sweat equity in a Habitat for Humanity build in Waco last Saturday. Our job was to install siding. Participants in the siding project were not experts but we measured, held, drilled and hammered and together we were building. There was an adrenaline rush in it. There was laughter at our inadequacies and pride when we finished a row of siding. There was fatigue and satisfaction at the end of that Saturday morning. It carried into the ensuing days.

“Church shopping” is real and fair with such a wide array of Christian communities in Waco. People aim to shop their values. Admittedly, there are many church products to “acquire” out there. In the end, though, church shopping can feel like a cruel Christmas in which every gift you want is unwrapped around the tree, yet you still feel there’s something missing. Perhaps we might best focus on how to invite purposeful building each and every week in the ongoing project of First Presbyterian Church. As one Roman Catholic theologian, Bernard Prusak, says, we are always the “church unfinished.”

The Things We Carry

lking@firstpreswaco.org (Leslie King) — Tue, 21 Nov 2023 12:23:42 GMT

Faith and the Allostatic Load

The human body was a map for Jesus when addressing social well-being. The eyes, ears, mouth, heart, hands and feet were all parts he gave attention to so that we could imagine our own purposeful action and perceptive communication. Later, the Apostle Paul gave new dimension to Jesus’s work when he invited his congregations to understand that they were part of a larger, mystical body -- the Body of Christ. We can build on this image of body in order to understand what’s possible for us as a congregation in the 21st century.

Our human experience is informed by sense perception that becomes part of our conscious life. Just below the surface of our consciousness, we are also informed by neuroception -- the messaging of our nervous system about danger, safety and reasonable homeostasis. At the intersection of our conscious perception and subconscious neuroception, we evaluate the world around us as familiar or novel. When we experience a lot of change, we can find that our bodies carry the stress of our circumstances. Sustained stress to our perception and neuroception is what psychologists call our allostatic load.

Ministry on Monday takes in all the information of Sundays: the prayer concerns, the feedback in Christian Formation small groups, and the energy of 8:30am and 10:30am worship services. On Mondays, we put it through the sieve of our prayerful reflection. What is the allostatic load of our congregation? Are we experiencing too much change and stress? Do we need a little bit more comfort and rest? Alternately, have we been lulled into too much of what is familiar, so that we are less alert and attentive to the world around us? Do we need a bit more novelty and innovation in our shared life? The rest of the week is all about attempting to respond to the allostatic signals registered as we gather on Sunday mornings.

The staff and I are fascinated by your allostatic register. We are inspired as you help one another carry both comfort and challenge. Perhaps from communal carrying like ours even the wider Waco world experiences relief. In all of this, we sense God hovering over and around, strengthening our awareness to this work. Here’s to the Christ who loved both our individual and social bodies. Here’s to Paul who called us to mystical communion and to our particular work in 2023 at the corner of 11th and Austin. Here’s to ministry on a Monday…

Attending to Attendance

lking@firstpreswaco.org (Leslie King) — Wed, 15 Nov 2023 17:32:19 GMT

Ministry on Mondays

I remember, for a time, near my father’s church office, there was a large spreadsheet that held the name of all the households in the 1500-member church he served. Each week, he would use this method to mark the attendance of each household. I never looked closely at the notes he wrote, but there was always more at work than checking a box. It inspired me.

Weekly attendance is an adrenaline-filled part of each Monday morning. As the preacher takes attendance, marking and noting those who arrived, it becomes obvious who, for various reasons, did not. What are the worries, the interests, the projects of these people, whether they are present or absent? As the preacher attends to the arrivals, it’s noted who is new and the energy that they brought. Before the preacher assesses the weekly financial offering, there is a whole other economy receiving attention.

It’s been said countless times, “The church is more than numbers.” This is certainly true, but simple measures like numbers are gateways to greater understanding. When our minds peruse the list of names and our brains cue us to check a box, the Spirit begins to have her way with our hearts. She fills us with a shepherding attention that seeks to know, in right ways, each individual within the flock. The Spirit fills us with an adrenaline that compels service to the people.

So, attendance is taken every Sunday at First Presbyterian, both from the sign-in sheets of the sanctuary and from the registration on Zoom. We celebrate our numbers, but also the knowing that comes from this attendance. We begin to know stories, personalities and styles of engagement. Our prayers for one another are informed and enriched as they focus not on the malady that we, ourselves, fear, but for confidence in and courage for each member of the community who is rising to their life’s challenges.

Attendance is taken that we may attend to the wonderful crew that chooses to arrive to First Presbyterian of Waco each week. It’s ministry on a Monday.

Cooking Up Liturgy

lking@firstpreswaco.org (Leslie King) — Mon, 27 Mar 2023 18:44:29 GMT

Local Work and Local Relevance

There is a strong argument to be made for hand-prepared, proximate food. Preparing and cooking up our own food has a powerful effect on nutrients, energy and sometimes even well-being. There is always an option to acquire food made some distance from our tables….made by other hands….other bundles of energy.

There is a similar and equally strong argument for liturgy that is written and offered in local congregations. Determining vocabulary key words, refrains and pace of content contributes to the energy of a worship service and maybe even the well-being of congregants within that worship service. There is always an option to acquire prayers and liturgy from published sources. And while those resources are excellent catalysts for our own creative efforts, they are a different and distant bundle of energy.

Whether preparing food or liturgy, the preparation can feel overwhelming. Here are some steps in the adventure and process that I enjoy each week when writing liturgy for the congregation in Waco. What do you enjoy when cooking up your liturgy?

Liturgy As Adventure and Process (not necessarily a linear process)

Identify worship theme. The more a theme is anchored to an archetype, the more feeders the theme will have. A theme is often derived from anyone of the following
Sermon series
Scripture passages
Liturgical calendar
Current events

Assess theme and its feeder ideas for any unnecessary constriction or restriction often found in negative assumptions about the people in the pews. Negative assumptions can impact liturgy in ways that paradox people from deeper prayer and reflection.
Build a vocabulary cache of experience-related key words relevant to the theme. For example if the theme is wisdom experience based key words: ah-ha moment, memorization, rote learning, trial and error, mentor, student, classroom etc.
Consider progression of experience within liturgy toward the theme that culminates in sermon or sacramental moment. On that same theme of wisdom, consider a progression from rote learning toward trial and error….toward ah-ha.
Drafting prayers or affirmations that use active experienced-based verbs that are coupled with more esoteric or conceptual doctrinal ideas. Arranging the drafts with appropriate tension as a foreshadowing of the work that often happens in the sermons. Example: the theme of wisdom is full of the tension between what is known and not yet known (emerging) or may never be known. The kingdom as “here” and “not yet”.

Refining the drafted liturgy for the oral experience and for final expulsion of unnecessary constriction and restriction. Assuring there is space for memory and imagination in the liturgy.

SB8 Is this Our Fate?

Thu, 09 Sep 2021 22:01:25 GMT

Christian language has been on a centuries long journey, too often for political exploit

It’s assumed that Texas Senate Bill 8, the new law that restricts abortion by putting enforcement in the hands of individuals, not our government, is supported by Christian principles.

It’s an assumption that is possible because of the pile-up of Christian language within political life. Christian language and doctrine have been on a centuries- long journey, too often leveraged as rationale for political posturing.

The reality is that this law, exacerbates a civic climate of distrust and even fear that threatens to return us to frontier justice and mob rule.

Our shared work, the work of any civilized culture is to find a balance between trust and critical reflection. SB8 is a distraction from real civility and civic work because of its intent to erode trust between neighbors and its intent to disable critical reflection through fear-based politics. The law threatens. It means to make us afraid of saying too much to one another when the stakes are high in our personal landscapes. The law seduces the public with inappropriate power. In it, we are encouraged to rat one another out toward a punitive end even though the welfare of individuals and families hang in the balance.

The recent journey of SB8, from legislation to law has been possible, in part, because people like me have not spoken more plainly about Christian propaganda at work in our civic life. I have a choice. SB8 does not have to be my fate or our fate.

When Christian language is held captive toward a preference it becomes propaganda. Propaganda, at its worst, intends to erode trust and critical thinking. Propaganda, at its worst, disables societies from moving forward. Civic life and Christian life are hallmarked not by fear but appropriate freedom within the scope of the common good. In days such as these, it is important for Christian communities to dismantle the propaganda that keeps the Christian message relegated to a foot-hold for political exploit.

Christian propaganda at work in politics depends on the idea that the Bible is a rule book of right and wrong. The Bible as a rule book quickly reveals a collection of inconsistencies. Many scholars and Sunday School teachers recognize that the Bible is less a rule book and more a conversation partner that begs the seeker to ask important questions. When reading a biblical story or maxim, we wonder, “How would I, with my authority and power, respond in a similar situation?”

Christian propaganda at work in politics depends on the idea that God is unchanging and rigid with expectation. Ironically, for Christianity, what is consistently unchanging about God is that the divine nature is observant, discerning and lovingly responsive to the human condition. Check it out. Again, and again, the Bible reveals a God adapting and responding to the changing circumstances at work in people’s lives. As God is, so we are called to be. Nothing dismantles propaganda like a God who is perceptive and fearless for humanity despite our limitations and flaws.

SB8 does not have to be our fate. The better essentials of my Christian faith encourage me to ask myself the hard questions about my own decision making. The better essentials of my faith help me to understand that the best authorities in my life are interested and responsive to my needs. The better essentials of my faith lead me to stand, despite propaganda, with Planned Parenthood. I stand with them because they provide health care and space for important conversations. In these conversations, individuals and their loving communities can talk, learn and decide. There is no pretense that a perfect path exists. There is no taking the Lord’s name in vain by invoking it in larger phrases of propaganda. Planned Parenthood is full of Christian people who trust the capacity of women and their loving communities to assess what is needed so that the greater good might be served. The only reason that Planned Parenthood seems contrary to Christian religious life is because of ill-used propaganda that seeks to coerce others toward a political preference.

I stand, because my faith demands it, with Planned Parenthood. I’ll not be distracted from hard work by fear-based suggestions that I should not think critically nor trust in my neighbor’s competence as they face their hour of crisis and claim important choice.

We Expect Too Much of New Buildings

Fri, 11 Jun 2021 16:32:10 GMT

“We expect too much of new buildings, and too little of ourselves.”
― Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities

It’s been a whirlwind of a week between Jimmy Dorrell’s article, The Invisible Homeless are Losing Again , and the Waco Trib’s headline, Oak Lodge to Be Demolished . Dorrell implored us, especially the churches, to consider the plight of housing for the homeless. The acquisition of Oak Lodge for demolition invited us to celebrate redevelopment. The cynics among us will recognize a pattern of gentrification and displacement. The pragmatists will recognize the benefit in removing a subpar and neglected building structure from an increasingly beautiful Waco cityscape.

While there will, surely, be ample ways to measure gains, as the church closest to Oak Lodge, I must confess the loss this change represents to our current neighborhood. As is true in any area of Waco, it is not always easy to be neighbors. But neighbors at their best, inform us about another experience and worldview. Oak Lodge and First Presbyterian have not cured nor fixed one another toward being more perfect human beings, but we have existed alongside each other gently affecting one another. I can really only speak to how these residents have educated and informed our congregation and perhaps also the individuals within it.

Oak Lodge residents have reminded us, each day, of the challenges that Jimmy Dorrell implores us to understand. Housing and a livable wage are increasingly difficult in our culture. We have witnessed individuals lose their room at Oak Lodge for inability to pay. We have witnessed residents helping one another. They have, again and again, taken each other in amid a great scarcity of resource. They have, in appropriate ways (meaning ways that worked for them and us), camped out on our premises. As they camped, they engaged intellect and strategy to find their way back into shelter. Whether working with agencies or waiting for their next check to come in, they exercised diplomacy and sought to communicate past issues of job loss, compromised mental health, substance addiction. Though I don’t like to confess it, they have, at times, arrived to our congregational events as obvious outsiders. Though I don’t relish lauding it, they have also arrived as guests and co-celebrants to share in a Thanksgiving bounty or Easter morning tacos. As we have arrived to one another, we at First Presbyterian have learned about vulnerability and strength and we have sometimes been surprised who carried the strength or vulnerability on any given day.

I will never forget one Easter morning, while eating Tacos in the Oak Lodge parking lot, a member of our congregation was visiting with a resident on the second story. I saw them from the ground as they each stood on the 2nd floor walkway. Our member was sharing pictures of his grandchildren on his cell phone. The resident of Oak Lodge said, “Oh yea! Wait a minute, let me show you! I’ve got grands too.” Then, in my mind and now my memory, they held a sacred space and communed as they shared pictures and swapped stories. The world wasn’t perfect but it was a grand moment for this pastor when two people moved past cultural obstacles to recognize one another as human beings.

Our citizenry is losing when public space is devoid of stratified experiences. Our understanding of progress can become anemic likened to a person who puts makeup upon the face in order to hide the pallor caused by a heart condition that needs loving and consistent attention. While there will surely be gain, aesthetically and economically, in the acquisition, demolition and redevelopment of Oak Lodge’s space, there will also be loss. We will be another city that trades, upon a city block, important complexity for a more ordered, albeit expensive, simplicity. In the trade, we will have to work harder to understand the human condition, its vulnerability and its possibility.

As the buildings go up on the city block of 11th and Austin, I am hopeful that we, at First Presbyterian, can take the collection of experiences with Oak Lodge residents and allow them to affect our decisions and behavior. May we expect a lot of ourselves. May we expect more of ourselves than we expect of any new building. May we be engineers and architects in profound ways. May we be hosts and guests, learning from our neighbors. May we be vulnerable and strong as the City of Waco continues to discovery what it means to be a city of hope in Central Texas.

It Begins with Signs

Sat, 26 Sep 2020 21:50:02 GMT

In honor of Woodway Park and RBG

It began with signs. Along the way, in the park, there were little pink and orange flags tied to trees. Those flags were set deep into the thicket and seemed to have nothing to do with me as I walked my familiar trails in Woodway Park. They were off the beaten path. I liked my beaten and familiar path. I could walk it without thinking and take in the smell of pine, the energy of the ground and the song of the birds. My dogs knew the path too. They marked their territory, repeatedly, day after day, along its side. They were taunted by familiar squirrels and rabbits.

It began with signs that seemed to have nothing to do with us. But now that I look back on it the signs were foreshadowing. Our path was familiar but not without its dangers. There were places where the beaten path had been worn slick. There places where I had to duck because a once glorious tree was now dead and leaning toward her felling. The path, as I look back on it, was not perfect but it was familiar and part of a habit that eroded the landscape. As I look back, I remember using the increasingly exposed roots along the ground, for my personal leverage.

Then one day, the pathway was changed. Of course, it began with signs. But I was still surprised and ill prepared when there was a new path cut through woodway park. The pink and red flags that had been tied to trees were now staked into the ground. They were to guide me and others, highlighting a new path. My dog’s ears were up. Their noses were busy to the ground. We were all managing away from the habitual, responding to the emergent. We were upon new ground that was stony and soft. We were upon new ground with freshly broken greens under our feet. The signs had been laid and the path was emerging. We were and are learning a new way in our small world.

Countless people have written about the paths. There have been Frosty roads less traveled. Enslaving stony paths trodden by the scapegoated. We are now reckoning with paths laid for urban development. We human beings have a propensity to over colonize our spaces. And Mother Nature is burning but she is not alone. RBG saw the natural world around her beyond the beaten path. She was active hanging the signs in a direction that promised to one day be a path. What was once a narrow path became wider. I’m grateful she saw so early. For my part, I have remembered those overly exposed roots feeding the canopy above. The wonderous way they anchor and draw together to prevent erosion. I think about my personal leverage and where to find it.

The human spirit can thrive in their adventure upon the emerging path whether we are hanging the signs, felling the trees or re-navigating our habits, one footstep at a time.

Two Curves

Thu, 17 Sep 2020 15:50:53 GMT

COVID 19 and Learning

THE curve. There are daily counts for our counties, states, nations, and world. Some regional curves are going down, others are spiked, and some curves have flattened out. Everyone seems to be anticipating a second wave. THE curve, over the next two years may end up feeling more like a roller coaster. But this is not the only curve at work during this pandemic. Another curve presents with an opposite challenge. The second curve, too, is steep. Even so, the goal is not to flatten this curve but to find a way to ascend it. Like any generation caught up in a pandemic or public crisis, we find ourselves in need of leverage and momentum for a learning curve.

Many have noted the urban and public health improvements that emerged from the 1918 Pandemic. Even though many in the early 20th century had an intellectual appreciation for germ theory, it took the pandemic to bring improvements to the public health through, clean water supplies, sewer systems, and the replacement of the horse with the electric street car and trolley. The crisis that claimed individual lives challenged the culture of the time to find systematic responses that would better support the urban and industrial life that was rising up around them.

Fast forward to 2020 and our global and virtual world into which the novel corona virus has arrived. This virus has spikes that have been likened to a gently deceptive music score [1] with the ability to nimbly assault multiple organ systems with A-2 receptor proteins. [2] Symptoms are not always consistent nor are they always overt. The novel corona virus deals in complexity. A complex virus for a complex world characterized by global industry and travel, instantaneous communication, and AI technology. While our quickest defensive responses are needed to flatten the incident curve, we will need a robust offense to find momentum for our learning curve.

In his 1990 book, The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge argued for the importance of learning organizations as a strong offense for the sake of the common good. This book is a classic for educators and organizational experts. Senge describes learning organizations as those who are willing to think in dynamic complexity rather than simple linear causality. For example, a school as a learning organization challenged to educate children, would think not just about how to affect the student as an individual. Rather the school, as a learning organization, considers the context and family from which the child comes in order to catalyze effective learning.

It is the nature of institutions, like schools, churches, or government, to struggle to explore and discover in the face of complexity. After all it is the nature of institutions to provide understanding and stability. All institutions began as radical inquiries. Institutions do not become institutions until they provide a sufficient amount of theory, proposition, and best practices. Once institutions emerge, they are naturally avoidant of ambiguity and inquiry that were the cornerstone of their very emergence. This is even true when a once faithful practice fails in the face of novel complexity. Thus, the disconnect between an intellectual awareness of the germ theory and failure to act in the public life of the early 20th century until after the 1918 pandemic. We may believe something about germ theory, but we have a habitual way of organizing our lives. We avoid change for the sake of the familiar even when the stakes are high, and we know better.

The stakes that confront us today are high. We will need a strong defense. We will need masks. We will need appropriate social distancing to flatten the curve. But we will need to re-examine the inappropriate way we have masked others in order to engage our learning curve. We will need to reassess the inappropriate, global distancing by way of territorial borders and self-exceptionalism the prevent us understanding our shared fate on planet earth. We will need individual testing, contact tracing and vaccines to flatten the curve. But we will need new social contracts to live well as we travel the globe and come to terms with the cloak and dagger of a virus that can infiltrate our individualism, singing us a fatal lullaby. Locally and abroad, we will need learning institutions whose honor is not bound to status but to curiosity and humble devotion to the common good. Perhaps paradoxically, such an offense promises to give rise to strong individuals across the expanse of our global community. In this way, the best defensive is a learning offense.

Bill – part two of something like this would be an article on the common ground between science and religions as learning institutions….asserting that the competition between them is a false narrative to keep us from a more powerful cosmology…thinking of a title “Data and Meaning”

[1] https://www.newyorker.com/science/medical-dispatch/what-we-dont-know-about-covid-19

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/coronaviruss-complex-spiked-structure-inspires-translation-into-music/2020/04/10/40e5dcaa-79e2-11ea-b6ff-597f170df8f8_story.html

Alternative to Throwing Stones

Thu, 17 Sep 2020 15:50:42 GMT

What's the purpose of data?

Once upon a time there was a man who looked out into the world from an easy posture through a large custom paned window. This window was in the grandest room of his home. From there he could see the changing of seasons, the habits of his neighbors and the world passing by. Life was not perfect but it was good. Occasionally, he ventured out to where the streams were flowing and waters lapped the edge of land. There, he would collect rocks of all sorts. He loved them for they were dense and weighty. Each rock was solid and could be collected according to their beauty and his preference. There were so many rocks, but he only collected a few and a few was a lot. He lined them up on his kitchen counter and his bedroom window. He kept them in bowls on his dining tables. The smoothest and most polish stones he kept in his study where he could hold them in his palms and draw his fingers around them. He found that he felt better for the weight of them in his hand. They grounded and stabilized him.

This was the way the man lived until one day. In that day, there was a terrible crash that came from the grandest room of his home. There he found his plate glass window broken. Shards of glass on the floor and a large rugged hole caused by a rock lobbed into his personal space. The rock was ugly. This rock had a piece of paper wrapped round it. The note secured with a rubber band. On the paper he found a message, “I hear you like rocks, what do you think of mine?” The truth, of course, was that he didn’t like it. It has ruined his view of the world. And he knew it would take time to order a custom paned window. Not only was the rock not to his liking, to make matters worse, this rock made noise.

The noise began as a low murmur. Barely audible and yet, the sound seemed to have imprinted on the man. He could not help honing-in, listening for any articulation. And in the honing and the groaning, a language emerged between the rock and the man. The man said, “Rock, what did you say?” And every day the murmuring took on clarity until one day that man heard the voice clearly say “I am not a rock, release me.” The man was in disbelief, “Of course you are a rock. You are hard. You are weighty and if I keep you from the weather, you will be unchanging.” But the man could not unhear what he had heard. “I am not a rock, release me.”

The plea was relentless. The man could hear nothing else. And so, one day the man put this rock in his pocket and carried it with him wherever he went. The rock was with him weather he was crying, sweating, or eating. The friction of the partnership seemed to quiet the weighty pleas. One day, at the end of the long day, the man reached into his pocket to empty his change and relieve himself of the weight of the rock. But in the clutch, the man found only some change and a seed. The seed was gritty to be sure, but unusually warm. And from the seed came a familiar resonance, “I am not meant to stay a seed, release me.” The man had been conditioned to respond. He scanned his mind to remember how one released a seed. Ah yes! Of course! One plants a seed to release it. And so, just outside the broken custom plated window, the man planted his seed. He watered it and it grew. It was a generous seed that gave him food to harvest, chew, and digest. It enriched the soil as it expanded. In a similar way, it gave him strength and energy to expand, trying new things and growing in his understanding of the world.

And so, the man’s hearing was now attuned deeply. He began to hear the low murmurs of all the rocks he had collected. As each one began to murmur, he carried them gifting them with the friction of his life. The released seeds were planted at the forefront of his life. The man found himself waking each morning ready to tend his garden. He often smiled and playfully named it, his freedom garden. When he was quite practiced in his new routine, he found himself ready to design and order a new plate glass window. This one was a bit bigger than before but it was a perfect frame on what grows from hard places.

As for throwing stones, there was no longer a need. They could be put to much better use.

Comment: We now live in an age when data has become hardened and collectible. Something to admire without investment. Something to lob in order to make a point. Something by which we can do distant surveillance on a world without any transformation to the self. But data has a plea. “Release me. Plant me deep in your context. Trust the organic way I can be integrated and take on new forms. Digest me for strength and understanding. Let me change you first before you show me off to others.” Whether it is the data of environmentalism, systemic racism, data on brain development, or data on a virus, the hard data has a plea. “Will YOU release me and take me in? Be careful how you answer! For I will change you.” As we celebrate the concept of freedom, let’s release data to its purpose. Beyond a a token or a weapon, data can help us grow beyond our preferences toward what is life-giving for all. That we may all have life, even life abundantly.

Borders, Boundaries and Diplomacy

Thu, 19 Dec 2019 19:31:20 GMT

A trip to the Border of Mexico

Leviticus 23:22 — When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field or gather the gleanings of your harvest; you shall leave them for the poor and for the alien: I am the Lord your God.

Recently, I traveled to the very edge of Texas in a trip organized by Texas pastors in the Dallas/Fort Worth area — Pentecostal, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Methodist and a whole host of others. Our goal: to lay eyes on the border situation and glean evidence to better inform our ministries.

A big coach bus of faith leaders charged south from Dallas, on through Waco and Austin, till hours later we arrived at the border city of McAllen, in many ways ground zero for the immigration crisis in America. First Presbyterian Church of McAllen fed us. Texas Impact, part of an interfaith network seeking to educate others on complicated social issues, updated us on the border crisis and the exceedingly fluid situation involving federal laws, executive orders and back-and-forth court rulings. Because the Mexican town of Reynosa just across the river was deemed too dangerous for clergy, we drove east to Brownsville the next day and crossed into Matamoros. Before crossing, we were equipped with quarters and reminded to keep our passports handy for the return trip.

We saw all sorts of people. We saw workers involved in the daily ritual of getting to their jobs by crossing the border in one direction, then crossing back at the end of their labors. We saw shoppers with bags of merchandise, evidence of the potent economics dependent on solid relations between Texas and Mexico. We saw border patrol agents armed and outfitted in protective gear. But it was not till we crossed that we began to see all of the tents.

Texas Impact officials informed us that as many as 600 migrants might be waiting in these tent cities. The day we crossed probably 250 to 300 were present. Either way, it was a significant jump from the previous average of 80 people waiting to glean American justice after being taken into custody at the border.

Most significant reason for the population increase in these tent cities: The new Migrant Protection Protocols. Enacted in January as a management tool to deal with the flood of asylum-seekers fleeing oppression and violence in Central America, this controversial policy transports migrants, after U.S. detention, back into Mexico to await their immigration proceedings, which can be months or even years off. The manager in me might ordinarily sympathize with the dilemma of overcrowded detention centers and the legal processing of migrants. Yet this so-called “Remain in Mexico” policy of the Trump administration seems only to contribute to the humanitarian crisis festering before us.

Accompanied by a translator, our group talked with three migrant families. Beneath shade trees we shared stories, tears and hope.

Edgar’s story

Consider the story of Edgar, a taxi driver from Honduras. The crime cartel there attempted to extort money from this 22-year-old husband and father. Edgar’s wife pressed him to pay off the cartel, ensuring their protection. Edgar preferred to use the money to pay for his wife’s medical treatments for a thyroid condition. Edgar won the battle. His wife’s medical treatments continued. But one night while he was transporting others about the city, the cartel broke into his home and assaulted his wife. This caused a heart attack and she died on the scene.

Now widowed, Edgar took his 2-year-old daughter Crystal and fled. By the time we arrived , they had been living in tents for 12 days after two weeks in a U.S. detention center. No one had yet asked him to tell his story or provide a reason for his leaving his country, livelihood and extended family. But his story should provoke questions of all Americans, particularly those who see themselves as religiously grounded: What would we do to save our families in such impossible situations?

Edgar is not the only one waiting on the Mexican side of our border. Cartels occupy the Mexican side of the border in nefarious ways. One migrant we talked with had been kidnapped after release from a U.S. detention center. Once his family paid the ransom, he was released back into a different tent city. Yet the longer he waits in a tent city, the more likely another kidnapping is. After all, his family paid for him once. Maybe they will pay again.

Two families we spoke with had daughters. They fled their homeland because the cartels there often demand more than money. Now, on the very edge of Mexico and with America in sight, these migrants must wonder: How could they have known their daughters would still be in danger this close to America?

“I’m sorry you have to wait so long,” I told Edgar at one point.

“It’s not too long to wait if I don’t have to return to my country,” he said. “Even a year is not too long to wait here.”

In none of my conversations did the migrants seem impatient or demanding. They didn’t complain about the tent cities. They were traumatized, yes, but they also seemed hopeful they were so close to America, famous for liberty, might and justice for all. Like the trees we stood beneath, our conversations ran well below the surface of our skin color and social circumstances. These conversations stretched out and for a while I felt we were actually on common ground. It was difficult to tell where my humanity stopped and theirs began.

As a pastor, I spend most of my time managing both time and people toward sacred and holy ends. My sympathy goes to our federal government and border patrol agents for the dangerous job they undertake in managing migrants, many of them desperate. One of my colleagues , Laura Streetman, likens the government dilemma to a plumber trying to fix a drain in the middle of a flood. What plumber would not first deal with the source of the flooding before attending to the drain?

Strategic diplomacy

If we really care about U.S. borders, it seems we would want strategic diplomacy to deal with the source of so many migrants. This requires an administration that knows the nuanced art of deploying democracy . It requires outreach and conversation with nations that have fewer resources and, in some instances, more complex problems than even we face. It means stepping forward throughout the world in respectful but courageous ways, calling upon and even cajoling other administrations into better relationships with their own people. The art of democracy spreads American compassion like seeds planted throughout a fertile world so people in other lands don’t have to seek shelter at a foreign border but can live well in places they love most. Immigration, in short, is a diplomatic mission to be addressed by dedicated and intuitive believers in democracy rather than as a polarizing issue of criminality, race, culture and crass politics.

Upon my return, a friend asked: “Leslie, do you think the migrants you spoke with were genuine? Do you think they might have been manipulating your sympathies?”

Great question! It’s sometimes difficult for strangers to be genuine with one another. After all, we were not only at the edge of the United States and Mexico, we were arguably at the edge of one another’s very humanity. Perhaps I arrived to simply glean their personal information so I could have sensational stories to tell. Was I genuine with them? Perhaps they were gleaning sympathy for money or to leverage me as a resource in their long journey. Were they genuine with me?

This then is the nature of the edge of things. We cannot be absolutely sure of one another. Perhaps this is when, as a person of faith, I must turn inward and ask, “Here at the edge of things, what is the demand upon me? Where is the most important border I experience at this moment? Is it the border of my nation or the border of my own humanity? How deeply set are the roots of my convictions and values? How far do they extend?”

Such questions conjure the trees we stood beneath in Matamoros. Experts say the root system of a tree extends four to seven times the diameter of the foliage above. After the trip to the border, deep down I feel co-mingled in a way no border security system can completely sort or separate. I’m reminded of Matthew 25:40 and my belief that God cares deeply about edges, borders and the common human condition in which we are all rooted. May I be fruitful with all that I have gleaned.

Lend an ear, heart and voice

Thu, 19 Dec 2019 19:24:50 GMT

Deliberation....not changing minds but providing space to think.

One of the greatest challenges to modern-day religious life is finding a balance between speaking and listening. The Church has a long history of over-speaking and failing to listen. It is often tempted to see itself as an institution that represents God to the world. Yet when we over-speak, we find ourselves talking about God as if we fully know the mind of God.

Such stabs at authority leave us in ecclesial debates about which particular branch of the Church is more righteous. We can find ourselves at odds with other denominational or nondeminational churches. Those of us who are mainline have certainly experienced conflict within our own denominations. An example of this futility is the way the Bible has been employed to support one side or the other regarding a political or social issue. Some say the Bible in desperation can be quoted or construed to support any argument.

But it’s not so much the content of scripture as the method in its use that leaves some invoking the Bible this way or that. Some of the finest biblical scholars remind us that the Bible is not so much prescriptive about the mind of God as provocative in truth-seeking and dialogue. More than anything, the Bible should tune our senses to a higher awareness, one that involves deep thought and deliberation.

Over the past 25 years of ministry, I have continued to appreciate the art of listening to individuals striving to live within a community of faith. They often don’t ask me to explain the mind of God on a given issue. Nor do they seem to ask God to fix their individual circumstance or challenge. They merely want their longings, ponderings and agonies to be heard by those they love and respect. Thus I have learned that if it has been important for the Church to speak in times past, it is more important at times that the Church listen .

Listening can be difficult in the best of times. Is it any wonder that in the culturally and politically polarized environment of today we struggle to listen deeply? Shallow listening abounds. We may half-listen to others while we simply wait our turn to speak. We may listen selectively to the views of commentators whose opinions echo our own, ensuring we never experience an intellectual or spiritual epiphany. We may become distracted, switching to programs on Netflix or Hulu to tune out adaptive challenges vying for our attention.

Seeking dialogue

For all these reasons, I have been captivated by recent editorials and guest columns in the Tribune-Herald on matters of civility, dialogue and communal understanding. These include insights offered during a Nov. 15 dialogue hosted by Baylor University. It showcased Robert George, a conservative professor of jurisprudence and director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University, and Cornel West, a progressive professor of philosophy at Harvard University and professor emeritus at Princeton University. Both are vocal Christians. Their dialogue packed Waco Hall; graying professors and idealistic students heaped cries of affirmation as the two bolstered the battered notion of serious and informed civil discourse amid cultural upheaval. The two scholars were experts making their point.

In the spirit of experts, I caught news about businessman and philanthropist David M. Rubenstein’s new book, “An American Story: Conversations with Master Historians.” It’s a record of Rubenstein’s experience bringing together elected officials of opposing parties to hear out master historians. He describes these as apolitical gatherings, allowing for careful listening apart from the pressures of decision-making. As such, listening is less likely to be shallow, selective or distracted. But it’s not enough for these gatherings to be orchestrated for a privileged few. Which brings me to my commitment to public deliberation and Dr. Josh Ritter of Baylor.

Ritter, assistant director of spirituality and public life, and his colleagues have been invested in deep listening for some time. Baylor’s Public Deliberation Initiative has been bringing students and citizens together for conversations about some of the most pressing challenges of our day. As part of these forums, I have been moved by people’s ability to share experiences and perspectives on matters of opioid addiction, immigration, gun ownership, climate challenges and more. I like their motto: “Doing democracy differently.”

Consider, cooperate

Quite separate from the confrontational debate style that so dominates our cable-news programs and town-hall meetings, the public deliberation method does not seek to necessarily change minds. Rather, it provides a framework of options to consider on any given topic. Thus we gain an appropriately structured environment for listening to another’s insights with opportunity to share our own . We at First Presbyterian have been experimenting with public deliberation in cooperation with Dr. Ritter and St. Alban’s Episcopal Church : Listening is not shallow, distracted or selective. It is deep and appreciative. I’ve witnessed people of strikingly different opinions appreciate and respect one another without changing their minds.

Indications are we’ll need such skills: 2020 will be a unique time in which to deliberate and discuss. USA Today has partnered with the National Institute Forum and Public Agenda. Together, they are inviting local communities to publicly deliberate on social issues that most challenge us as a nation. The idea is that in an election year it should not just be people listening to politicians but people listening to one another. USA Today will provide national coverage of local conversations. Such collaboration, funded in part by the Kettering Institute, promises to inspire and perhaps increase nationwide civility. First Presbyterian, Baylor School of Social Work and St. Alban’s will offer venues for such gatherings throughout 2020. On Jan. 4, we will host the first conversation in our Fellowship Hall at 1100 Austin Avenue. The topic: “A House Divided: What Would We Have to Give Up to Get the Political System We Want?”

Perhaps this is one way the Church can balance its claim to authority. When the Church must speak, perhaps pontification will diminish and loving provocation will sound the invitation. Come, good people, lend your ear, heart and voice. Faithful deliberation holds a promise for us in the presence of God.

What is Church For?

Tue, 25 Dec 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Recently the New York Times released an article about the Lutheran Church in Sweden. In an attempt to appeal to younger generations, the church began to include popular songs in their worship services. It was an important article for such is the anxiety of the church. How shall we appeal to the current generation of people? And like most anxiety it leads us down the wrong road. The vocation of the church is not to appeal to people as much as it is to serve them by equipping them. There are plenty of people still long for a meaningful church experience. Meaningful is something beyond appeals to popular music, pastors wearing hip clothing, or making the church a social hub. Many pastors believe that in order to serve and equip people the church must hold two experiences in tension. The first experience is that of traditional ritual. Our worship services and Sunday morning routines needs to familiar and even predictable rhythm. From the chaos of life, the ritual that is familiar can comfort and calm the body, mind and soul to deeper reflection.

On the other hand, what is incumbent upon the church that seeks to serve and equip people is to offer a refresh perspective on matters of life and faith. Too often the church dips into nostalgia to persuade and sustain the faith of its people. Nostalgia is deadly in a complex world. It’s little more than a temporary emotional high and romanticized notion of the past. There is a rigor to offering fresh perspectives informed by scripture and our life experience. It requires those gathered to think critically and contemplate their own power to decide and act in God’s world. At times, fresh thinking is an experience of discomfort in the midst of comforting ritual. But, when fresh thinking is engaged, there can be an experience of God making all things new within us. We gain insight and renewed awareness. We may not be perfectly equipped but we are strengthened for the work that our life requires of us. Within the familiar rhythm of Sunday morning worship, it is important that there are appropriate moments of agitation when we hear a call to modify our perspective, soften our will and be transformed for greater world in God’s world.

When churches are solely traditional and ritualized something like a lullaby descends over the church and it goes to sleep. When churches are only chasing the next trend, there is an anxiety that keeps the church off-center and askew of its purpose for God’s people. But when there is a balance between ritual and fresh thinking, the people are appropriately exercised for their work to be God’s voice, hands and feet in their relationships and in the wider world. It’s a privilege to serve in Waco amid so many congregations of various religious traditions who cultivate comfort and courage every week. After all, it is not so much religion’s job to appeal and hold onto people to sustain its own life. Rather, it is our job to equip people by comforting and challenging them that they may serve the divine in relevant ways that extend beyond our walls.

Outsmarting the Big Sort

Thu, 22 Nov 2018 00:00:00 GMT

Since Bill Bishop’s 2009 book, The Big Sort, there has been a lot of attention given to the fact that we are sorted as a nation. We are sorted into blue or red, states, cities or neighborhoods. We are sorted socio-economically and racially. While the sorting has real effect, it is also true that it’s virtually impossible to sort human beings into pristine categories. Each of us are a complex of experiences. We are, each of us, on a journey of questions and experiments in our vocational and avocational lives, our relationships, our opinions and convictions.

Religion and spirituality have always participated in the big sort. Within the Christian community, we sort ourselves into categories like mainstream, evangelical or fundamental. Most interesting, individuals within church can even be sorted politically according to social issues of the day. Philosophically, we sort the wider community of individuals into pristine categories of agnostic, atheist or believer. We talk about the increasing secular culture in which we live. Framing such categories, we attempt to identify boundaries, rules of engagement and standards of measure. The big sort within religious life imposes a sort of partisanship over the human condition that is otherwise just seeking truth and understanding.

If you talk to folks in the church long enough, you come to understand how truly inadequate the big sort is to define each person. How many “believers” have doubts and components of their church confessions to which they can no longer adhere? How many agnostics with an abundance of questions are sitting there in the pews with a small clutch of convictions that anchor their thoughts and behaviors? There too, one can find a person who wonders if they are not more an atheist. But there they sit hanging on at the periphery of religious life as if an astronaut tethered to a space station.

The human being is more than a state of being within a pristine category. We are more than adherents to ideologies. We experience a dynamic and rich inner life that is best characterized as wonder and longing. In this way we cannot be sorted from each other. I have always been moved by the overwhelming evidence within scripture that Jesus did not require faith statements from individuals. Rather, he responded to their questions and their longing. He outsmarted the big sort at work in his day in order be genuine and loving alongside others. How will those of us who do church in his name outsmart the big sort of our day?