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Community Examen

This idea came to me this afternoon as I was reflecting on the practice of church life, having just written a long piece about leadership and mission in the church.

You can consider this post a companion piece to this one, then.

It was undoubtedly inspired by some time I spent with this book on Ignatian practice at the book store the other day. You may be wondering why I never mention God. The reason is that when I had this idea given to me “out of the blue,” (or by Spirit, or the Muse) it did not come with any mention of God’s purpose for the church.  I think that every congregation should be in discernment about their holy calling — their purpose for being. However, this examen is not an attempt to do that. It is an exercise intended to help individual members or participants in the community re-connect with, and become conscious of, their own purpose in being there.

Community Examen

In the season of examen, every member of the community is first asked to spend some time every day reflecting on this question:

What is my important reason for me to be part of this community? 

The word “important” is central. When you identify your important reason, ask the same question again of that reason: ie, “What is important about that important reason?” Keep going deeper. Listen for the deeper truths. Accept what comes without judgment. Be as honest as you dare to be. No one need know your important reasons, but it is imperative that you know them and that they are brought to your consciousness so that you can begin to be responsible for them.

Rumi said “If you are here unfaithfully with us, you are doing great damage.” If your examen uncovers destructive or ego-driven reasons for being in the community, consider that important and helpful information. These are human tendencies. We can work on these things. Those who discover unpleasant information about their own hearts during examen may choose to enter into spiritual direction for help. Doing this as a community means that we are all supporting each other in being present to our truth.

After the community has spent their determined amount of time in prayer and reflection on the first question, they enter into a time of reflection on the second question:

Knowing my important reason for being part of this community, what do I now understand about the role I have chosen to take within the community?

In this part of the examen, we identify the role we have taken on for that time or season. Perhaps we are the Visionary. Perhaps we are the Agitator, or the Healer, or the Worker Bee, or the Gatekeeper. The community should not attempt to create a list of roles but rather leave it to the creative minds of the congregation and the holy spirit to communicate those in whatever way seems appropriate for the individuals. Some people may use language from Jungian archetypal psychology, others from Scripture, others from the Twelve-Step program, others from Greek drama. It doesn’t matter. Each individual will understand the language they choose.

Again, we are working to bring to consciousness our reasons for affiliating with the community, and now to understand the roles we have taken on within it.

Once we have taken some time to consider this question, we move to the third question which has two parts:

Knowing my important reason for belonging to this community, and understanding the role the role that I have chosen to take within it, (1) how do I see myself in harmony with others in the community who have their own important reasons for belonging? (2) How do I see that I may a source of conflict or interference with others who have their own important reasons for belonging?

Our prayer in this time of the examen is to become more aware of the ways that our presence within the body of the church interacts with and influences all the other parts of the body. Where do we contribute to health? Where might we be experienced as a source of dis-ease for parts of the body? Again, the goal is spiritual awareness, not to anticipate problems or conflicts or to provoke anxiety or guilt.

Conclusion and Re-Covenanting

As the community concludes the period of examen, they engage in some kind of sharing of their process, perhaps through small groups, a written manual, or within a worship setting.

The congregation honors its work and re-covenants in some meaningful way. This might be a good time for the renewal of baptismal vows.

The point of doing this examen every year is that the questions and awareness that come with asking them become woven into the fabric of everyday life in the congregation.

The worship life of the congregation should focus on examen themes, and newcomers might be invited to discuss their “important reason” with the pastor in a small group setting. It’s a perfect season for welcoming new members.

– Rev. Dr. Victoria Weinstein

Please use as you like and adapt to your purposes.

 

 

 

 

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Napping On the Floor Of the Aerobics Studio

 

On Church Leaders

We must encourage church leadership by considering the word encourage literally: to fill with courage. Courage comes from the heart, from coeur (French for heart). If the church has been a place of personal transformation and meaning-making for someone, they will grow to love it. In the meantime, they will likely have experienced healing and spiritual growth and achieved a measure of evident health and wholeness within the community. That’s a person who’s ready for leadership, and who should be approached to discern where their talents would be best used; where they want to do some good. Church leaders must be equipped with opportunities and language by which they can express and share the inner and outer events that brought them to the place of being ready for leadership with the larger congregation, so that everyone knows that leaders are not just people who are doing drudge work out of a sense of obligation or a love of power or influence, but out of devotion and gratitude for the blessings they have received. I may be hearkening back to the Cambridge Platform when I begin to consider that it’s wrong to appoint church leaders who have not demonstrated love, gratitude and spiritual maturity within the community.

Does this seem too idealistic? Sure it is. We all know that we’re short on leaders. But we’re not short on love, if I may be so corny. But hear me out. Changing consciousness comes first. Intention matters. When we have the intention to have every leader of every ministry team be someone who has experienced and demonstrated a sense of blessing from his/her church experience, that matters. That’s operating out of a blessing model rather than a desperation/poverty model. It matters how we think and how we set our spirits and our intentions.

Church members, friends, newcomers and leaders should be nurtured in spiritual practice and equipped with the language of our faith traditions so that they can articulate the gifts they both give and receive from their experience with the church, the community that is gathered by God (or by the deepest yearnings of the human heart, if you’re a humanist). The congregation should be in the regular practice of spending time discussing their spiritual experience. It should be as natural as a potluck. We should be ready to turn conversations away from petty gossip to deeper reflections. The congregation should consider that part of being in covenanted community together.  Not to do so in a shaming, chastising way, but a thoughtful and pastoral way. “Okay, that was fun, but given that we don’t know what anyone else is thinking, we should either ask them directly or change the subject. Who should we be calling on this week?”

If I go to the gym and people are sprawled out napping on the floor of the aerobics studio, I will think the gym management is not just remiss, but nuts. It’s no different in church. We’re all there for heart strengthening of a different kind. Leaders should be empowered to be able to say: “Get off the aerobics floor, please. You can nap at home.” This isn’t about not loving people. It’s about being clear what church is for. “Napping on the floor of the aerobics studio is not part of our mission, so we won’t be addressing your complaints about the pillows.”

Leaders should be able to challenge people who constantly want to talk about the minister to talk about their own ministry, or about the church’s ministry. As a clergyperson, I am always amazed how often people take my name in vain. I hear that “Vicki doesn’t want us to do ___________” or “I didn’t ask because I heard that you didn’t like ______________.” Most of the time this is totally manufactured information (tr: lies). Misunderstandings, sometimes. In any case, these statements should always be treated as suspect and the minister should be asked about such claims. Taking the minister’s name in vain is one way that change-resistant folk maintain the status quo. It’s the same game as “Lots of people are saying….” Who, exactly? Are they contributing in any positive or productive way to the ministry and mission of the church? No? They’re there because their mother and grandmother went to this church, and they’re only known to be critical? Then I think we can move along.

Are leaders in your community allowed to actually lead? Or do they have permission only to establish careful, traditional agendas and to ask for permission for every tiny step they take toward institutional health and mission-fulfillment? For every step forward, is there an interminable process of obtaining permission from every critic and worrier? Why? Who holds your congregation hostage?

Every congregation I have ever worked with at any point in the process of change has someone raise their hand to express the fear that “if we do such-and-such, we will leave someone out.”  My response to that is simple:  Then don’t leave them out! Bring them along! Tell them that change is coming, visit with them to help them adjust. Teach them a new technology. Assign “change mentors” to make sure they know the new times, practices or expectations. Use change and innovation as an opportunity to forge generational bonds. If we believe that revelation is not sealed, neither should we resist responding to new times with new practices. To resist change is to deny our theological tradition. How is that any less hypocritical than the hypocrosies of which we love to accuse religious conservatives? Move on! If your church slogan says “God is still speaking,” your congregation should appear to be listening!

On Ministry and Mission

Liberal religion must have a broader mission than to collect the religiously wounded and enable them to stay that way. It is a natural psychological response to express relief when one finds oneself in a group of people who have similar dissatisfactions and wounds from traditional or conservative religion, but that’s no place to stay and build an identity.

It especially confounds me when Christian congregations enable perma-victims, as to do so is so obviously contrary to the gospel. Do you or do you not worship a healing God? Do you or do you not seek to follow in the path of the man who, again and again, bade those who came to him wounded to pick up their pallets and walk? I don’t get it.

Do we work as hard to dismantle entrenched victimization as we do to dismantle oppressions? Just as we challenge the separate specialness claimed by the privileged, so should we critique the divisiveness perpetuated by those who build victim camps at the edge of our communities and throw rocks from the outskirts. We must say, “We are all welcome here. There is a hospital wing here. But no one takes up permanent residence in that wing. They get better and leave the bed open for the next person.” We must monitor that wing of the church, recognizing that ministering to just one person in one bed requires tremendous pastoral resources. We are companions, fellow pilgrims. We are not saviors, social workers or even nurses. Be clear about the difference.

What would liberal religious communities look like if there was no religious right? What if we spent much less time analyzing what they’re doing, engage with them as equals with whom we simply disagree, and get on with it? What would our sermons sound like, our readings, our prayers, our inner lives? As is said of adult children of alcoholics (ACOA) in 12-Step meetings, “we had become reactors rather than actors.” How would we — especially Unitarian Universalists —  articulate and talk about our religious life, commitments, theology and community if we could not use fundamentalist or conservative religion as a way to define ourselves by comparison?

Have we not yet realized that to most of the unchurched world, all religions are basically the same? The theological and doctrinal distinctions between us which we love to debate over centuries are invisible to the unchurched. And they don’t care.  To the non-affiliated and unchurched, churches are places where people do weird, old-fashioned stuff and think weird, old-fashioned things. If we’re not out in the community virtually and actually, being known and respected, interested and interesting, pushing back against the broad cultural assumptions about “church people,” we are hiding our light under a bushel. You can’t just put out a pretty church sign and newspaper ad and expect people to come over anymore. Unless we live in the Bible Belt (or perhaps especially if we live in the Bible Belt!), we have to work to actively shift the perception of church and church people. Evangelizing by smugness has no integrity. We have to risk being genuine, sincere and enthusiastic about our religious communities and the good they are doing in our lives, hearts and souls.

To put it in images as I did this weekend in Iowa, to those of us who love the church, our churches look like this:

969182_10151470888573520_2125374349_n

 

To those who have not experienced vibrant, 21st century church community but who have only heard its bad press and seen its sentimentalized irrelevance as portrayed in the entertainment industry and fiction, they imagine it like this:

First Parish Norwell 1917

 

Shift the focus from the minister to the ministries. Encoeurage leaders. Make healing and spiritual maturation an expectation and provide ways for it to happen. Move the nappers off the aerobics floor; don’t just walk around them (for every body napping on the floor, there’s less room for someone who wants to boogie). Stop defining ourselves as a reaction to the religious right.  Push back against the common perception that church people are petty and fusty.

Let it shine.

 

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Is The Internet Good For Religion?

I got this question a few days ago via Twitter from a Colorado colleague who was following the Minns Lectures this weekend in Boston: Is the internet good for religion?

I think the internet is really good for liberal religion.

Liberal religion is about interpreting, evolving, being open to the cross-pollination of ideas and theologies. Liberal religion has inquiry at its heart and delights in challenge (or should!).  I think the internet has been great for that. I don’t know if it has been as good for orthodoxy, which is dedicated to tradition, hierarchy and authoritative interpretations. I see orthodox traditionalists having a really hard time online because the internet just becomes a place for orthodox or conservative fundamentalists to gather to express anger and frustration against the incursion of new and challenging ideas. That’s not very fun or interesting. The internet is essentially a creative space for the free and ephemeral exchange of ideas, feelings and questions. Orthodox religion doesn’t thrive in that atmosphere. I think it’s fantastic that liberal and progressive religion, which is experiencing such a precipitous decline in the form of mainline Protestant churches, is finding expression on-line. This is a blessing and a curse. The question I am constantly asked is, “Vicki, how do we get those people who find you/us online and love what we have to say into our churches to participate in real time?”

But to me, that isn’t the question. The question is, “How can we transform our congregational culture so that it better reflects the things that make digital ministry so appealing and so effective?” Because what do people find in on-line liberal religious community? They find authenticity. They find irreverent humor. They find links to articles, ideas, pop culture, high culture, politics, international trends, technology, business that connect to religious and moral values in a way that church doesn’t do and doesn’t think necessary to attempt.

I met with a United Church of Christ minister of a large church five or six years ago and we talked about the Unitarian Universalist parish ministry versus the UCC parish ministry. This minister said to me in a kind of condescending way something like, “We preach from the Bible, we have a sacred story.” And I didn’t say anything at the time but I was thinking, “First of all, that you think I don’t know that is insulting and ignorant. Beyond that, good luck with the Bible being your only sacred story.” I realized in that moment how grateful I am to not be limited to one sacred narrative in the ministry of worship and preaching.  I don’t mean to sound bitter. I guess I am still a little bitter at her condescension and ignorance. I love the Bible and my heart is in it. But I think God’s story of the sanctity of creation is told in many scriptures. I feel that we are in an urgent time. If people are repelled by the Bible (and for good reason — it has been used as a weapon against many of them), we have to help people read the scripture in other places. I would love it if the whole world had a common holy text and language but we don’t. The minister’s job in this era is not just to instruct in scriptural literacy but to read the whole world as a sacred text.

I am essentially a mystic. I see God in everything. I experience God in comfort and discomfort, life and death. I am constantly listening for the word of God in everything, because my foundational faith is simply that this all has meaning. God is in the baked beans. God is in the blizzard-broken trees. God is in the moment with the homeless guy on the street and God’s wrath is a sting on my conscience when I’m crappy to someone online and have to go back and fix it. I am in conversation right now with a total stranger who wrote me a bit of nasty hate mail calling me disgusting for something I had written. I came back at him with what I thought was kindness and a compassionate suggestion, and then he attacked me again. So I was like, “Fine, the hell with this dude.” And I was mean and snarky back. And then he was mean to me again (of course!). And then — and this was like the fourth or fifth exchange — I said, “Look, we can do this. We can talk about this in a productive way. Just tell me what you need. I really want to know.” And then he started relaxing. And then I started relaxing. By the ninth or tenth exchange, we were thanking each other for staying with the conversation because it was such a serious and important one to both of us. I feel the movement of the holy spirit in that. That man and I are no longer strangers.

When I check in with my on-line community throughout the day I’m not saying, “Let’s open our Bibles and turn to chapter this and verse this and look for what God is saying about justice.” I’m saying, “Let’s look at Syria, let’s look at the Oscars telecast last night, let’s look at India, let’s look at southeast Asia and Congo and see what God is saying about misogyny, about rape culture, about the bodies of women on this planet right now.” The sacred story, the prophetic call, is right there. A click. A bit of information. A sense of revulsion, moral outrage. A call to pray, reflect, discuss. This is, in my experience, the way digital ministry does Scripture study, you know what I mean? The Scripture is in life unfolding in that moment. And yes, I tie the story of right now to ancient stories and to biblical scripture. My theological education makes it easy for me to do that. Even in my comedic writing on Beauty Tips for Ministers blog I include a lot of theological reflection. Because even though I’m having fun and trying to make BTFM a space where ministers can come in the door, put down their heavy bag of responsibility for a moment and dish about lipgloss or what kind of suit to wear to a wedding, it’s still serious religious work.

I don’t know how, or if, the goal of digital ministry is to get people into our brick-and-mortar churches or houses of worship. Someone asked me that during an interview again just the other night. I think about it a lot. What I wonder is how churches can be worthy of the kind of openness, trust and enthusiasm people bring to online conversation and participation. Of course I understand that typing some comments onto a Facebook page isn’t high commitment, but it’s too easy to stop there and say, “Well, the church is a deeper and more important place than FACEBOOK because FACEBOOK ISN’T REAL.” That’s just too easy! It’s not productive to stop there! I have to ask, “What is it about online liberal religious community that creates such warm feeling and the kind of long loyalties that I have experienced as PeaceBang?”

There are people across town who think I’m a fine speaker and good person who wouldn’t drive ten minutes to be part of the congregation I serve.  They think we’re lovely people and friendly and our building is beautiful and the music is great and we have a terrific Sunday School and all those good things. They’re busy, they’re maybe just not interested in joining a church and they don’t want to experience that pressure of “joining.” Okay, I get that. I’m sorry because I’m a church joiner and it has meant the world to me to practice faith in the context of a covenanted church community. I don’t think there’s any substitution for that same time, same space, in-and-out-of-the-seasons together way of life.  But that’s me, and I can’t force anyone else to get involved in church life and stick with it. Then I think of that person who drives several hours to attend a conference where PeaceBang is a speaker. Or they even fly there. They sit in the chairs and then they come up and introduce themselves to me and tell me who they are and we fall into each other’s arms, really, we do! Because we have shared our lives on-line for years, maybe, and you had better believe that I KNOW them. They KNOW me. We are really, real friends in spirit before we ever meet in the flesh. I look into their eyes and we just stare at each other with goofy smiles like long-lost lovers sometimes. What’s going on with that? What is God doing with THAT? Something important, and real and instructive. I’m not sure yet what we’re to learn from it, but I’m starting to figure it out.

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