Congregation as Communitas: Rare, but Possible

In several of the more recent posts in the series, "A Missional UM Future," I've noted that in general terms the congregational format of Christian community is fairly incompatible with the level of trust and the depth of "communitas" (as Alan Hirsch uses the term) to form disciples well or send them into mission with some hope of good returns.

This weekend, I've met an exception-- a congregation that IS making and sending disciples, and against some pretty high odds. Siemers-Fulton Christ United Methodist Church of the Deaf, or, more simply, Christ Deaf Church, in Baltimore, MD, is that congregation.

I've never met a more connected, deeper community in a congregation anywhere. This congregation is literally saving people's lives-- transforming them, providing a venue for deep celebration in worship and real-life fairly constant connections (in all kinds of ways) not only to their pastors but to each other.

How is this possible? Actually, because they're not an exception. Their community IS communitas. They share at least one common ordeal-- being deaf in a hearing world (some are blind and face other challenges as well)-- but with a common commitment to being in ministry in the name of Jesus Christ with all they can.

Christ Church of the Deaf has not contrived its communitas. It simply lives it. Powerfully. Together and individually.

And it fits perhaps none of the typical stereotypes of an "emerging" church-- or even a "contemporary" church. There is no praise band-- but there is a deaf choir that sings with their hands and bodies. There is no PowerPoint-- but there is a video camera that functions as the "amplifier" -- by enlarging the image of the movements of the presider so those who maybe can't see them in person can get them in a larger format. And there is someone who voices the ASL for those who do not understand ASL (myself included!), and someone else who types up everything being said for viewing on a large TV (yes-- TV-- and it's even a CRT-- not even plasma!). They sing hymns. They celebrate Holy Communion straight from the liturgy of the 1989 hymnal-- but not by reading it with spoken words, but by enacting it in ASL with their bodies. Way more multi-sensory in every way than most congregations, even though at least one of the senses is inaccessible to the majority of folks there. Certainly more kinetic. Ages are all over the map. And its the most diverse congregation in terms of ethnic background and national background I've ever worshipped with.

Communitas. In a congregation. But a congregation in which their communitas PRECEDES their congregational format. They care for each other interpersonally first. And when they gather as congregation, it's a celebration of all the ways they are already communitas.

I don't believe anything like this is close to replicable in the average congregation. Sure-- a lot of the technologies they use could be repeated, and maybe they'd help a little in hearing congregations. But that would be missing the point. Sort of like adding "typical" emerging doo-dads and gee-whiz techniques to a worship event at an attractional congregation doesn't replicate what a truly emerging missional church, living out its mDNA, can actually do. To borrow a phrase from John Houseman describing the sound of an electronic organ that was digitally mastered from a variety of original pipe organs in the movie "A Christmas without Snow"-- "It is a good imitation of a great sound." But in the end, it's the great sound that's needed. This deaf congregation in Baltimore hears that great sound and reproduces it faithfully.

May we all find or find the willingness to find such communitas in or alongside our churches-- even when it may not be possible or reasonable to think it can be expressed as part of our current congregational formats.

Peace in Christ,

Taylor Burton-Edwards

A Missional UM Future: Path 4: Strengthening Clergy and Lay Leadership

Part 14 of 21...

Path 4: Strengthening Clergy and Lay Leadership

Leadership is critical in any enterprise. As Jim Collins and many others have pointed out, it is not enough to have the right techniques-- what is needed is the right people, the people who care passionately about getting done what needs to be led with excellence. To focus efforts on strengthening the leadership capacities of lay and clergy leaders can be a very good thing for the life of our church.

The United Methodist Church already has no shortage of programs and proposals for doing just that. The Texas Annual Conference has developed a Center for Clergy Excellence which is aimed at helping "to set standards for pastoral leadership in local congregations" and holding pastors accountable for ongoing growth in excellence. Other annual conferences are looking closely at what is happening here, and developing processes to ensure similar outcomes in their settings. The Florida Annual Conference has a Center for Clergy Excellence as well. Conversations about how to move ineffective pastors into other careers with both clarity and compassion have led to the development of at least one piece of legislation that will be considered by the upcoming General Conference. Meanwhile, GBOD, GBHEM and other agencies sponsor a wide variety of programs to train and support laity in ministry-- including Lay Speaking Ministries, Certified Lay Ministry, and a variety of other certification/training programs for specialized ministries.

The question we need to raise, to discuss, and perhaps begin to answer if we are working for a missional UM future is... strengthen these leaders to do what?

Let me make some bold and assailable proposals. I hope they are bold enough. And I hope they will be assailed.

But first let me offer something of the background for why I'm making these proposals.

If we're trying to recover or retrieve or create in our own day the kind of "network church" (or connexion, as Wesley would have said) that characterized early Methodism and that reflects a missional understanding of church in our current contexts, one of the first things we need to do is be clear about what different kinds of institutions, and so their leaders, can and cannot do well.

Congregations are and have been (since at least the sixth century) public institutions. They do public things very well. Thus, congregations historically have been at their best in offering vital public worship connected to the depths of our faith, teaching the core doctrines of the faith, and being a hub of connections in the institutional life of communities. As essentially public institutions, they have also been, at their best, models of inclusivity in the community. Though not everyone in a community may have had equal power, through most of Christian history since the creation of the congregational format as the public institution it still is, anyone and everyone could attend its worship, hear its teaching, and benefit to some degree from the connections it could provide to other institutions and people in the larger community.

That very sense of inclusivity, which is a gift of the congregation's public role, also diminishes its capacity to form disciples and send them into ministry as missionaries in Christ's name. Real discipleship formation requires a degree of exclusivity that is incompatible with the inclusivity of congregational life. There are things that need to be said, critiques that need to be offered, but most of all relationships that have to be very deeply trusted for people's lives to be transformed from being public participants to passionate missionaries in Christ's name. That work cannot and does not happen in public settings. Good relationships at the public level may foster or support good missional discipleship formation, but they do not actually develop it. Thus, such work is not the core work of the congregational format, nor can it be-- at least not effectively nor for many. But it was the work of the Methodist class meetings and societies, and it is the work of organic groups, neo-monastics, and others living out what Alan Hirsch describes as "communitas" today.

Alan Hirsch has put forward an understanding of the kinds of gifts for missional leadership based on Ephesians 4, which he labels with the acronym APEST (or actually, in the piece from The Forgotten Ways to which the link points, APEPT). These are Apostolic (sending people into mission), Prophetic (declaring the word of God to the present context), Evangelistic (declaring the good news of God's kingdom opened to us in Jesus Christ), Shepherding (caring for the needs and relational dynamics of the flock), and Teaching (offering the core truths of the faith and their practical application to current missional and relational contexts).

A key point of Hirsch's work is to note that no one person can or should in fact be thought to possess outstanding skill at all five of these fundamental gifts for the church's ministry at once. Not even Jesus was equally strong in all, he says. At the same time, any Christian community probably does have people who, if brought together as a leadership team, could be said to express all five powerfully and effectively.

So the question is, if we're living missionally in network-church, following our Methodist mDNA, what kinds of institutions need what kinds of gifts to be particularly strong for what kinds of leadership purposes?

Lets start with congregations. Given their public role-- a feature of this format of Christianity that nearly everyone since the sixth century has thoroughly imbibed and is very unlikely to change-- let me suggest that the two primary gifts needed by pastors/elders are Shepherding and Teaching. I include in the shepherding role both the public forms of ritual leadership (pastoral care of the congregation gathered as congregation in worship) and the care of individual souls (pastoral visitation, care groups, and the like). In terms of teaching, I mean the ability to convey the core doctrines of the faith with passion and eloquence so all in the congregation can understand the call of God in their lives and for the life of the congregation as a whole, and at least have some handle on what to do with that call. This teaching role would also have some implications for training others to teach in other ways as well. These would be the chief gifts and role of clergy who are elders.

PROPOSAL 1: Evaluation for Elders
Clergy excellence for elders would mean excellence as shepherds and teachers of the congregation, as well as training some in the congregation for some of their ministries. But no more than these, most typically.

PROPOSAL 2: Evaluation for Deacons
Elders are not the only clergy with a calling to congregational ministry. Deacons have a role to play here as well. Various deacons can have various gifts and roles historically. Some have been evangelists. Others have been prophets. A few have been apostles. All have been servants who call the congregation to service by their example, both in liturgy and in their work in the world. With respect to their evaluation as part of a congregation, the specific public roles of deacons relating to their particular gifts and their effectiveness for the public vocation of the congregation are what should be given most attention.

The vast majority of United Methodist congregations do not have deacons, of course. And our own history as a denomination with making the role of deacon only a stepping stone, as it were, toward FULL ordination as an elder (as if a deacon were not fully ordained as a deacon with specific ministries to offer) has often meant that we have discounted the historic role they can have in our public life. But even if we do not have ordained deacons, we still need leadership for all of the possible ministries of diakonia in the missional network-church.

So far, I have only described clergy leadership and only for the congregational format. Certainly there are plenty of non-clergy who provide good leadership there, and have always done so. But in missional Methodist network-church, the congregation is not the be-all and end-all. It is not the only measure of effectiveness, nor the only venue for vital and valid Christian ministry. It is necessary, but it is not sufficient for making or deploying disciples on mission with God in Christ Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit.

Pre-Preposal for Evaluating Lay Leadership
Pretty much all of our current programming and systems for evaluating the effectiveness of lay leadership assume that the congregation is the venue for determining the quality of lay leadership. It is ONE venue. I would propose (and ask that you may assail this) that the congregation may be about the least important venue for evaluating lay leadership.

Methodism as a movement was not about congregations. (Yes, I've said that a lot. I'm finding I need to keep repeating that for it to sink in, even for me!). And it was not primarily driven by parish clergy leadership. Both of the Wesleys were clergy-- but they were in what we would call extension ministries, NOT parish priests! Most of the actual hands on leaders of Methodism-- class leaders, society leaders, exhorters, local preachers-- the vast majority of these were not clergy. Some, yes. Most, not by a long shot.

And what were the missional gifts needed and used in these lay-led and lay-driven Methodist structures which formed and sent disciples into mission? Apostleship, Evangelism, and Prophecy-- with some measure of teaching and shepherding as well, but not in a public realm. Remember, the Methodist systems were not public. Class meetings were private. So were society meetings. So were the love feasts and the covenant ceremonies. Field preaching was public. But most of what actually formed disciples was neither in the congregational structures of 18th century England (because it couldn't be) nor was it public. It was in these lay-led, lay-driven, para-congregational and exclusive structures that met in secret.

Some congregational clergy may be good at providing some measure of leadership in these venues. Many will not. The same is true in reverse. Some leaders of such accountable missional formational structures could also be good as congregational leaders-- but many will not.

John Wesley is case in point. He was a terrible parish priest. He would always have been a terrible parish priest. If he were being evaluated for pastoral excellence in his own day, he would have been an unmitigated failure, and some way may have been found to escort him to another career path. He lacked the tact and the patience that the public shepherding role of the congregational format of the Church of England required. It was a good thing he found himself serving in an extension ministry-- as professor at Oxford, and ultimately as co-father (with his brother, Charles) of the Arminian branch of Methodism-- rather than as parish priest.

But he was a brilliant teacher, organizer, and apostle-- for those who wanted that kind of leadership, for those who were ready for more than the congregational format could ever provide, for those who were about to launch on an experiment of missional network church that both intentionally included and yet was not circumscribed by the limitations of the congregational format.

And so were the vast numbers of non-clergy leaders who were so critical to making Methodism the effective disciple forming and deploying system it was.


So the question about how to improve the excellence of lay leadership begins with the question of where we expect laity to lead. If we continue to expect laity to lead and so be evaluated primarily in terms of their leadership in the congregational format, we already have systems in place to help with that. And we also are developing ways to helping to improve the clergy/lay partnerships in local congregations. (No links yet-- but you'll see some in the coming months and years).

PROPOSAL 3: A Missional Network-Church Based Evaluation of Lay Leadership
But if we embrace the Methodist missional network church, lay leadership especially needs to be formed, offered and evaluated in terms of what is happening in para-congregational systems that many clergy formed and suited for typical congregational leadership may never lead effectively. Perhaps the gifts needed most of all are apostleship (for organizers of these systems and deployers of them), evangelism (for field preachers), teaching (with a focus on missiology, soteriology and direct practical application for class leaders), and prophecy (for class and society leaders, and organizers of witness to larger culture).

PROPOSAL 4: A General Principle
This is by no means to say that laity are unsuited for leadership in a variety of ways in congregations, or that all clergy should just stick to congregations and be done with it. It is rather to say that each kind of institution-- congregational or paracongregational, public or more private-- needs its own specific kind of leadership for it to function optimally itself and for the sake of an effective missional network church.


Therefore, leadership evaluation needs to be based on the kinds of institutions in which leadership is asked to serve.

That may not be so bold as a principle. But it would be, I put it, a bold departure from current expectations and systems of evaluation.

Yes, strengthen lay and clergy leadership-- but do so for reasons and in ways that lead us to a more missional future.

Peace in Christ,

Taylor Burton-Edwards

A UM Missional Future: Path 3-- The United Methodist Way

Part 13 of 21...

Path Three: "Teaching the Wesleyan model of forming disciples of Jesus Christ"

"The United Methodist Way," was a paper presented by Randy Maddox at the Extended Cabinet retreat in Lake Junaluska last November, where bishops and their extended cabinets (DSes, DCMs and some other conference staff) heard Lovett Weems's Ten Provocative Questions, reflected around what "The United Methodist Way" might look like, and were offered sort of a first round of what will be in effect a 6 hour presentation at General Conference linking the Vision Pathways and the Four Focus Areas-- and how this is hoped to play out for the good of the mission of the denomination. They also got a first look at Bishop Reuben Job's new little book on the General Rules called Three Simple Rules. (I'm not trying to promote the book here-- just let you know it exists. I won't even be discussing it in this series-- if you want to talk with me about it, contact me directly at: burtonedwards at gmail dot com).

A lot was presented in Junaluska. And a lot of it was very good and very hopeful for a missional United Methodist future.

Here, I want to keep the focus primarily around "The United Methodist Way," a critical paper developed by a team led by Randy Maddox. It's well worth the read. I've downloaded it into a file I call "basics"-- a place where I store what I consider to be core documents for my life and ministry. I think it's that essential. I hope its insights about early Methodism can be widely felt.

"The United Methodist Way" begins by noting the degree to which United Methodism today looks far more like the Church of England (and I would add, the vast majority of all the various churches in England) during the eighteenth century than it looks like Methodism-- "marked by much nominal commitment and spiritual lethargy." Why has this happened? Maddox suggests this in in part because we traded our heritage of an accountable way of life for bragging rights about our peculiar polity and institutional strength. I'd say it's also in part because we got confused about what church was and could be after we were changed from a movement alongside churches into a church by Mr. Wesley's action and the General Conference's affirmation in 1784.

Maddox reminds us that Mr. Wesley was afraid this kind of thing could happen. In the most-quoted line from his 1786 piece, "Thoughts upon Methodism," Wesley wrote:

I am not afraid that the people called Methodists should ever cease to exist either in Europe or America. But I am afraid lest they should only exist as a dead sect, having the form of religion without the power. And this undoubtedly will be the case unless they hold fast both the doctrine, spirit, and discipline with which they first set out.

Maddox uses the last few words about "doctrine, spirit and discipline" (though in a slightly different order) to organize his thoughts about the critical elements of early Methodism that made it the missional, incarnational, evangelical and transformational dynamo it was. It was "centered in the work of the Holy Spirit," "shaped by vital Christian doctrine," and grounded within "a rich set of Disciplines" described and lived as the General Rules.

What the paper then proposes is that we as a denomination seek to help congregations recover these core principles and practices. It suggests we begin by lifting up places where these kinds of things are already taking place among United Methodists-- and particularly in its programmatic life-- resources such as Disciple Bible Study (doctrine), Covenant Discipleship (discipline around the General Rules), and Volunteers in Mission (rule 2 practices). (But also see my colleague, Steve Manskar's blog post, Programmitis).

Then it suggests we take the second step, both a systematic analysis and a "creative retrieval" of "those dimensions of the Methodist Way that have been lost over the years due to neglect or abuse." This, it notes, will be a challenge that has to be carried out at all levels of denominational life, including pastors (who will need to retrieve the role of "practical theologians").

Here's the problem I see with this proposed remedy: It won't work. Indeed, I'd argue it can't work-- at least not well. The politics and institutional realities being what they are, what can be generated by this sort of "denomination wide" analysis and training for creative retrieval will be a lot of work, a heck of a lot of bills (of the financial and legislative sort), even more resistance (because every stakeholder will want input), and almost no progress. Frankly, I think that trying to do Step 2 as a primary means toward a more missional Methodist end could end up being be a serious distraction that could mean and perhaps even ensure a more rapid decline on every front.

Why?

Think missional and think early Methodist. Our early Methodist mDNA has no bias toward analysis and institutional process. It has a bias toward action. It did not try to reform the Church of England per se. Let me say that again. Methodism was not a reform movement to rescue moribund Anglicanism, nor moribund congregations of any other denomination. It was a movement to make Christians who were living every day the ritual they enacted and the faith they professed in their various congregations of many traditions on Sunday morning.

Try to take this new wine into the institutional mechanisms of the existing denomination and you'll get one of two results: a busted wineskin and a wine-stained floor, OR given enough institutional pressure/inertia, a deeply watered down or domesticated version of the original that won't be recognizable as new wine at all.

Sound familiar?

"having the form of religion without the power"

This isn't because institutions are bad per se. The problem is that the denominational and congregational institutions as we have them are simply not designed to make missional Christians, much less to enable or deploy much of what early Methodists were up to. We're idea and continuity structures and supply houses, not on the ground missiologists. A variety of UM institutions can and do provide SOME supports for those among us who may try to OPT to live into Methodism, either as individuals or as groups within or around congregations. We do have Covenant Discipleship, and a staff person (my colleague, Steve Manskar) to try to help that happen in more places. We do have a lot of folks inside GBOD (and other agencies) who get it that some of the best help we can provide might be to ask really good questions that help tease us into thinking and acting missionally rather than offer ready-made, plug and play fixes. We're not the enemy. We can be helpful in a variety of ways. But we're not the answer.

You are.

If Mr. Wesley had waited around for the Church of England to engage in a massive self-study about how it could reclaim the core practices of, for example, Celtic Christianity in appropriate ways in the various missional and cultural contexts in which congregations found themselves in England, Methodism wouldn't have happened. Methodism was not generated by the institutions of the churches, nor by the congregations. It was often opposed by them (for a variety of reasons, and at times with due cause!). But the C of E (or church of whatever denomination) did not and could not have done what Methodism was doing or even have helped it very much. The institutional churches couldn't take much if any credit for Methodism, though they could (and did) benefit from the renewal of life happening in Methodists who happened also to be part of their congregations and institutions.

Methodism was the peculiar work of God enacted by the people, the vast majority of whom were laity, ALONGSIDE (and neither within nor over against) their existing denominational/congregational/institutional structures, doing what they did without big studies and organizational realignments and bureaucratic approval/authorization systems, but with deep clarity, passion, and commitment. These were people out to become holy, to live and serve as Christians all the time, and to invite others to do that with them. If the congregation and other C of E (or other denominational) institutions came along and were supportive at times, great. If not, at least until 1784 on this side of the pond, the commitment was to stay Methodist AND whatever else they were first-- to be present and fully engaged with both as much as they could.

That said, the institutional forms of the United Methodist Church (including UM congregations) can be helpful-- just not generative. And the "appendix" of Randy Maddox's article offers some helpful indicators for what a congregation that is being more "Methodist friendly" (my term) might look like and a list of proposals for actions bishops could take to provide leadership into a more "Methodist friendly" way. My only quarrel with that list is what appears to be its inherent assumption that the congregation, the denominational, or the pastoral leadership being "Methodist friendly" is the same as Methodism actually happening in the lives of Christians in, around or in spite of it.

The take away: Let's live the Methodist way! Let's support institutions trying to do this, too. But let's not get confused and think the latter is the same as the former. When WE live this way, maybe someday the institutions (including congregations) will figure out how to relate more helpfully to Methodism and mDNA. If we expect them to do it for us or even generate it among us, well...

Peace in Christ,

Taylor Burton-Edwards

Emerging Church for the Existing Church Conference

Emerging Church for the Existing Church

To see the brochure for the conference click here.

This conference will provide opportunity for dialogue between younger leaders of the Emerging Church movement and leaders of the established church. It will be held on April 8-10, 2008 at St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in Denver, Colorado. Speakers include:

Doug Pagitt ... Dan Kimball ... Tony Jones

Bob Whitesel...Janet Forbes...Katherine Turpin

not pictured: Lilly Lewin, Karen Sloan and Don Payne.

This conference is being cosponsored by the Emergent Village, Clergy Uniting for Growth and Ministry, Iliff School of Theology, and the United Methodist Publishing House in cooperation with Denver Seminary. For more information send an email to info@leadershipnexus.net

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Another conference that might be a great one for us, but also for pastors that might be ignorant about the emergent/emerging church. I hope to see yall there! Thanks!

In Trinity,

D.G. Hollums