Women's work

It's a bit past the event...umm...like a month. But, I finally got around to uploading pictures from my camera last night and came across these - taken at Prosser UMC's Spring Fling. The United Methodist Women invited me to come talk with them about women in ministry and I got to share one of my favorite stories with them.

A great-great uncle of mine, James Thoburn had gone to India in the 1860's as a missionary. Frustrated with his lack of ability to connect with women because of the cultural norms of the area, he fired off a letter to his sister. Oh, if she could only come and join him in the work!

Much to his dismay, she wrote back and said, "I’m on my way! " It took her 3 years to do it, but she convinced the Methodist Board of Missions to commission her as a deaconess and send her to India as one of two women missionaries who would focus on education and health care for women. (check out the recent article in UMWs Response) Upon arriving, Isabella promptly started what became in short order the first college for girls in Asia.

Now, this ran counter to a widely-held premise in that region that women were unteachable. Not only was educating women a waste of time, but it threatened to upset a social order based on the superiority and domnance of males. But, Isabella persevered, and the school is still going strong today, providing undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate education for women.

Though mortified at first that a woman would claim this kind of calling, her brother developed a new understanding of how God works..... and wrote in his book, My Missionary Apprenticeship:

"It seldom happens that the church is wise to know her day of visitation. When God would have her move forward and take up some new enterprise, it usually happens that God has to beckon often and long before he is obeyed. In 1859, Dr Durbin told me that he was astonished and perplexed by the general wish to engage in missionary work found among the young women of the Church. “If I wanted fifty young ladies,” he said, “I could find them in a week; but when I want five young men, I must search for them for a year or more.” It did not occur to him, it did not occur to any body, that the presence of a conviction so strong and general was an indication of the will of God."

Hmmmm.

Stop. Breathe. Look around.

Everything matters.
You are not alone.
You are more than you know
The awful thing is not the final word.
Today is all we have.

Today is enough.
We need each other.
St. Benedict's Way of Love

If it was my home...

Whoa. I'm stunned. I've hardly got words.

Like everybody else I've been following the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. But the scale of the event has been hard to visualize. IfItWasMyHome.com takes the size of the spill and superimposes it on a map of where you live.

My stomach hurts. I think I need to just sit here in some silence for a bit.

Transition Workshop

The conference's annual transition workshop for clergy is next week. For the last many years Gail Grossman has facilitated this event where pastors get their heads around leaving one church well and starting strong in the next...all without much time in-between. In addition to managing the practical nuts and bolts of the change, there is the much trickier work of relationships to think about. Gail does a great job.

This year, the workshop has been lengthened. In addition to the content Gail brings, the bishop and us district superintendents get to be present. Learning alongside the clergy will better prepare us to support them and the congregation. In addition, there will be time for the superintendents to talk with his or her pastors about the specifics of the church and community to which they'll be moving. Together they can begin thinking through that pastor's "assignment."

Now, a critical part that will need to follow, is finding a way to bring the staff parish relations committee at the local church into this conversation. You can imagine the mess (and the bind that the pastor is is) when the Superintendent thinks their assignment is one thing...and the local church thinks it's something quite different.

The workshop is being held much later this year than in previous years - the whole appointment process was slow. I'm helping with the section on leaving well. Given that the pastors have less than a month left, that section will be different than in the past. I'd love to hear your comments about what you think are the MUSTS about leaving well. (Thank you to all you who sent comments via email on the post about guaranteed appointments. Interesting that people had opinions...but no one wanted to post them publicly)

But wait! There's more! Transition workshops for laity (people in churches who are getting a new pastor) are scheduled in each of the districts. Vancouver's was yesterday. Seven Rivers tomorrow. Inland District's is Saturday the 12th. Tacoma's and Seattle's are Sunday the 13th. Call your district office for more information.

From Functional to Visionary

A functional congregation may look and feel like a healthy church. The bills are getting paid, programs run efficiently, and the members are satisfied. That may make for a functional institution, but it doesn't guarantee a healthy church.

In my consulting work, when I assess congregational vitality I look for three marks of health.

• Relationships among people than embody the "kindom" of God; relationships that are honoring, forgiving, loving, caring, mutual, and generative
• Spiritual Formation as an essential for everyone, rather than an activity pursued by a few
• A deep, pervasive concern for the temporal and spiritual well-being of people beyond the doors of the church - a concern that manifests in action.

I've been in any number of churches across the country whose numbers looked good, but having lost their understanding of and commitment to their fundamental purpose, ( making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world, for those UM churches)

were actually in decline - the numbers just didn't show it...yet.

This morning's article from the Alban Institute does a great job of summing up what happens in congregational renewal and the shift from being a functional congregation to being what the authors call a visionary congregation, where people have "an integrated sense of sacred community." The authors (Aron, Cohen, Hoffman & Kelman) write from having researched synagogues - but it's all very applicable to a Christian church, and it's well worth your time.