{"id":2918,"date":"2020-09-19T18:18:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-19T23:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/?p=2918"},"modified":"2020-09-15T18:18:50","modified_gmt":"2020-09-15T23:18:50","slug":"church-and-non-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/fearofwhales\/2020\/09\/church-and-non-church.html","title":{"rendered":"Church and Non Church"},"content":{"rendered":"

So one of the odd realities of having a blog about ministry is that there are a lot of things that come up worthy of reflection in my daily life, which really aren\u2019t wise to talk about, especially not right then. I have talked about this before<\/a>. So let\u2019s circle back and talk about some of what was going on as I wrote that article which I couldn\u2019t talk about then,<\/p>\n

Basically I was planting a church. Until I wasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

I got out of seminary, I was called to minister, called to preach. I didn\u2019t have a job but I had plenty of time, and I went to work, finding people who would listen to me, people I could serve, Jesusy things to do, and I tried, Oh! how I tried so hard to follow all the rules and expectations of the PCUSA as I sought ordination following my degree.<\/p>\n

I was weak and vulnerable, I didn\u2019t want to tick anyone off at the moment when they were \u201cassessing my readiness for ministry\u201d Now that I am ordained I have no such concerns. It\u2019s really hard to defrock someone, and you can\u2019t do it just because you disagree with them or they annoy you. Then, not so much.<\/p>\n

Anyway I started this church-like-thing. I preached sermons with some people, lead Bible Studies, did mission projects, but it was disorganized. Some people who did the mission projects did not come on Sundays, some people who came to Bible Studies were also at other churches. <\/p>\n

Presbyterians (who dislike disorganization) have come up with a name for these church-like-things so that they do not have to conform to all the expectations of a normal PCUSA congregation (having elders, an ordained pastor, a filed 501c form and so on) we call them New Worshipping Communities (NWCs)<\/p>\n

So fine, I went about trying to become an official NWC so that I wouldn\u2019t be coloring outside the lines. I met with a committee. I met with another committee, they gave me a grant to take a trip to Florida, which lead to a trip to California, then we met back in another committee. The whole time the ministry in Texas was growing (at least it was for the weeks I was permitted to actually BE in Texas) I counted about 50 people involved, 30 of which regularly attended monthly potlucks at our tiny apartment. I was ready to take a major pay cut and work towards ordination to this emerging ministry. But the latest committee told me I wasn\u2019t ready for that yet, that I should take more training at my own expense before moving to the next threshold. \u201cWhat\u2019s after that?\u201d More thresholds \u201cHow many?\u201d we\u2019re not sure \u201cWhat do I get at the end?\u201d We aren\u2019t sure of that either.<\/p>\n

It came to be that as an unemployed person I had two full time jobs, one building the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and one going on trips and committee meetings and filling our forms to try to legitimate that work to people who had never visited, never seen my context, and who, by the way, had never successfully planted anything themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201dWhat would you do, as a committee\u201d I asked \u201cIf you ever decided I was good enough?\u201d and then came the reply \u201cWe are still figuring that out\u201d so there it was. Turtles all the way down. Becoming an NWC, and then a Presbyterian church was not a file bound up in red tape, but rather a Gordian knot consisting of red tape entirely<\/p>\n

So what did I do?\"Hakuho<\/p>\n

There is a move in Sumo called a \u201chenka\u201d which is perfectly legal, but considered dishonorable. When your fellow athlete comes against you full speed, you simply get out of the way.<\/p>\n

\u201dI\u2019m sorry I wasted your time\u201d I eventually said. \u201cI thought I was planting a community that could be a church some day, that it matched what it is that a NWC is supposed to be. Really it\u2019s not like that. It\u2019s just a group of people who love Jesus and help each other, I\u2019m not planting a church I\u2019m just being a Christian, doing regular kingdom work like everyone should be doing\u201d<\/p>\n

They had nothing to say against that. It didn\u2019t require any more forms or meetings. Granted, I never got any money or recognition our of them, but I wouldn\u2019t have gotten much of that otherwise and I would have had to earn it against bias. For the hours I would have put in, I would have gotten more of both working at Starbucks.<\/p>\n

It turns out, that there is no real way to define a church, and no real way to say what isn\u2019t a church. A church is a gathering of people who are curious about God, so is your average 8th grade field trip, or softball team, or collection of people at a bus stop. We try to make rules and draw lines, but that\u2019s all it is. Us making rules and drawing lines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So one of the odd realities of having a blog about ministry is that there are a lot of things that come up worthy of reflection in my daily life, which really aren\u2019t wise to talk about, especially not right then. I have talked about this before. 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