It has been a while since I posted here.  Been a little crazy with the pandemic and trying to know how to serve in the midst of chaos.  I was looking through old files today and found this blog I had written some time ago.  However, it still rings true with me and who I am, so I trust that God will enable this to help you move forward in your leadership and discipleship.

First a little self disclosure.  I am really a closet Hippie!  I grew up a bit too late to hang out on Haight Ashbury neighborhood, although in full disclosure I have driven past it.  I also have to say, I have been to Berkley, (although I was in High School, and it was a marching band competition).  Despite all that my “Hippie” credentials include growing my hair longer than allowed by the school dress code (major infraction in 1971.)  But most impressive, I spent time with the original Hippies who started the Church in the Park to which our current Christian music scene owes some allegiance.  So I am not a real hippie, as someone put it if you remember the 60s you were either too young or too old.  I was too young.  However, because I am a native Californian, and there is something in the atmosphere that tends to generate some unusual ideas, this concept of sanctified subversion strikes me.  The goal of the Hippie generation was to drop out, not to change the world directly, but indirectly, hence they were subversive in ways that the mainline culture didn’t know, or really appreciate, and the current set of Christian musicians came from this “subversive” stock.

What do I mean by that term “subversive”?  We all know what subversives are, but we picture people in remote places with computer terminals trying to hack into our computer and steal our banking information.  No one really imagined it might be those were the kids hanging out on the street corners, driving psychedelic Volkswagen Vans.  No one really cared for the ones who had love beads and roach clips around their necks, and many of the older generation would tell them to go out and get a job, because there was something unsettling about a person who did not follow the traditional system of the day. But, this attitude, this behavior has subtly changed the world we know today in ways that we may not even know.  However, subversion is really not an attribute we generally associate with Christianity, but maybe we need to think about that again.

For you see this is not the 1950s anymore.  The culture does not revolve around the schedule of Sunday morning and Wednesday night.  When was the last time the schools let students go early from school to attend a religious activity sponsored by a church?  (Before you think I am throwing schools under the bus, not this guy, they at least respect a Wednesday night, Sunday mornings religious effort)  But with the increase separation of church and state, no release time religious activities, like I did as a child in the 60s even in secular California.  No the times they have changed, and so the church of Jesus Christ, if it is to survive, must change as well, and this is where my call to sanctified subversion comes from.

Let me put a definition in place:  “Thus it is misleading and finally counterproductive for us to fixate on the dramatic act, the quick fix, the heroic stand.  Church as a way of life is incremental obedience, passion subdued but sustained over years.  It is discipleship for the long haul over a road that is inevitably bumpy and includes detours, switchbacks and delays… Church is a way of life lived not with the expectation that Christians can through managerial arts or sudden heroism, make the world right.  It is instead a way of life lived in the confidence that God has, in the kingdom of Christ, begun to set the world right, and that someday Christ will bring his kingdom to fulfillment …  Accordingly, worship and the spiritual disciplines of  prayer, fasting and Bible study are ways we gracefully fail to absorb the distorted ethic of the world system…” What we can hope to do, most often and over the long haul, is survive it and subvert it to its own good.  What we are about might then be called sanctified subversion.”   Now that comment comes from a book published in the 1990s.  If that statement about no quick fix was appropriate then, how much more now!  You see I have stated for years that the Church cannot win the day with the right Supreme Court Candidates, or by electing the right person to the White House.  We will never promote the cause of Christ via political action.  You see Jesus did not send his disciples out to run for Emperor of the Roman Empire, not even to candidate to become part of the Senate.  He said go into all the world and make disciples!  He sent them out to subvert the common order of life.  He sent men and women out to make a difference, by being different.

What does this look like?  First of all church is a way of life.  So ask yourself, if you identify with someone who is a member of a local church, what is there that sets my life apart from the rest of the world.  Now I am not suggesting that this means a distinctive dress code, or some prescribed lifestyle.  But what is there in your life that sets you apart?  Or is there something that sets my life apart from those who are outside of the church?  I believe that if we are part of the body of Christ, a self identified member of the Church that there will be times when we cannot do what others are doing.  There are going to be times when we cannot afford to pay what others pay for things.  Why?  Because of our commitment first to Jesus Christ.  Again that doesn’t mean you have to wear specific clothing or subscribe to a particular doctrine.  But ask yourself, what is there that sets my life apart?

Second where do you place your confidence?  What are you confident about?  I read a book a while back or should I admit I read parts of it, it has a rather long title: The True and Only Heaven, Progress and Its Critics.  It is an interesting book as the author critiques the idea that the world is getting progressively better and better.  That the more educated we become, the more we learn, the better the world gets is a simplified version of what he is challenging.  However, remember Dr. Martin Luther King?  Toward the end of his life, he made a shift in his thinking: “Near the end of his life, King told his old Montgomery congregation that that he was no longer an optimist, although he still had hope… He had seen too much suffering to embrace the dogma of progress, even though he was always careful to explain that he objected only to theories of ‘automatic’ or ‘inevitable’ progress and to ‘false’, superficial optimism”.  I have pondered that comment for some time since I first read it.  He was no longer optimistic, but he had hope.  He was not optimistic that he could/would end racism in his time, not have we done much better.  But he had hope that the God he served, would set things right.  Where is your confidence?  If your confidence in the idea that if you do the right things, say the right words, or attend the right events that life will be alright?  Or do you live each day in the hope that the God who called you is faithful and he is working out his plan in your life and in the world around you?  Maybe your hope is that if you do the right things, say the right things and believe the right way, life will be easy, and God will bless you?  Maybe, but is that optimism or hope?  Maybe God isn’t really all that interested in his people being happy and content?  Maybe when we get happy and content we get lazy?  Could it be that God is most interested in our depending on him?  Could it be that God is most excited when we have nothing left but hope in Him?  What would happen to our culture if we as the body of Christ actually lived that way?

The final part of this subversive plan is how do you nurture your spiritual life through worship and the spiritual disciplines of prayer, fasting and Bible study?  Before you think I am going to put you on a guilt trip and want to know if you are in worship on a given weekend, think again.  You see I am subversive, and if you went down that road, maybe you need to listen to that prompt, but know it is not from me.  But what you are doing?  You see in congregation I served there was a recognition of an increasingly mobile congregation and difficulty in doing regular Christian education.  Did we give up? No, we have adopted some more mobile approaches to teaching.  Some people would criticize that because we are not engaging in “Christian Education” as we didn’t have a Sunday School program.  Let me ask you this when did discipleship become education?  When did the learning and modeling Christ like behaviors and attitudes become acquainted with knowing and repeating some set of doctrine to a group of leaders in a church?  If you want subversive, ask yourself is my church life, is my dedication to prayer, worship, fasting and Bible Study leading me to become a wholly devoted follower of Jesus Christ or not?  Maybe as you read that, you start to realize that you have not been faithful in worship of any sort, be it an organized church or a small group/home church worship environment.  You might begin to consider that it has been a long time since I opened that Bible I have in my house to ask what God might have to say to me today.  You see this is not some mysterious book that holds hidden secrets.  God somehow has decided to use this record of his interaction with his people to speak to people like you and I thousands of years after they were first recorded.  Now, do I need to go into fasting and prayer?

You see if we want to change the world, if we want to follow the direction of the Rend Collective song and change the atmosphere of the world, it will not be done by lobbying congress, or the South Dakota legislature.  However, if we are willing to be a bit subversive, and follow the way the church has changed the world in days gone by, then maybe, just maybe we can make a difference.  If we do that, it won’t matter if we ever visit Haight Ashbury or not, I can tell you I have been there and it is really not that great.  However, I am confident that if the Church would go back to its strengths of worship, prayer, study and fasting that some great things could take place.  But I am not a bit optimistic that this will happen, but I have hope, and that hope is in God and Him alone.  Because of that I remain forever a subversive!  It is my prayer that I will remain a sanctified subversive.

I was reading an article in “Psychology Today”, May/June 2020 issue.  (I know I am behind in my reading).  The article was about burnout among the medical profession.  The author documented how health care practices over the recent past have changed the way the doctors address our medical needs.   What used to be a simple doctor-patient relationship, where the doc listened sympathetically to our complaints and then worked to find the appropriate support has changed, and not for the good.  With the advent of more and more hospital systems owning the clinics.  Insurance companies dictating how much time and how much effort a doctor can put into a patient.  Increased workloads, etc., the profession, despite its pay scale is leading more and more physicians to suicide every year.  All this was happening before Covid made life even more difficult and life and death decisions more imperative.

By now you are wondering what I am about here.  Am I going to work to make a case for sympathy for the docs and the medical profession?  I could and it would be appropriate, but not here.  What I took away from this article was not just the pressure, and the problems, but the resistance to self-care that is endemic to the medical world.  Doctors are among the worst when it comes to caring for themselves.  Despite all their training about the body and its functions, when it comes to taking time to focus on their own health it is often not on the radar.  Does this mean that they are ignoring symptoms?  That they just do not care.  Not at all, for doctors to seek help for health problems, particular mental health issues puts their ability to practice at risk!  Not only that, but in order to keep up with the demands of the job, they have little time to be with their families, or exercise or even eat healthy meals.  While for others, the long hours means sacrificing sleep!  I wonder if you are beginning to see some parallels to your life.  The demands of a church family seem to be never ending.  There is always one more call to make, another sermon to write, a Bible Study to prepare for.  Then there is your spouse who wonders who you are married to.  Exercise?  Who has time?  Eating right, with potlucks (pre-Covid), night meetings, and late night hospital calls…   What about time away? Even if we are fortunate, enough to have vacation time in our call or contract, real time off and away is a rarity. (I realize now I had an ideal situation.  There were, at least on paper, four weeks of vacation a year and a week of study leave.) However, most of my pastoral ministry that time away was also not entirely away.  Without a secretary to manage the day-to-day stuff, there were regular calls back to check an answering machine.  Now with cell phones, unless you turn it off, and do not listen to messages, you cannot get away!  However, for many of you, that idea of five weeks paid leave is only a distant hope.  The reality is for most pastors; even scheduled vacation time is shortened due to emergencies back home, which often are never compensated, or recognized.  After a few vacations cut short due to emergencies and the board never mentions another time away, bitterness and anger can begin to build.

What is a pastor to do?  First, recognize that the calling, which is what ministry is, depends not on our own ingenuity or resources.  We need to take some time to meditate on the meaning of Zechariah 4:6, “…Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord Almighty.”  Think about Zechariah, he is facing the incredible task of rebuilding the temple.  What does God say?  You cannot do this alone; you cannot do this at all.  It requires Me!  I think that for too many of us we have become dependent on our skills, our training and our sheer will power to accomplish the task of leading the body of Christ.  Then there is the sheer volume of work expected.  I have talked to pastors who congregations expected them to work the same hours they did.  Up early and to bed late.  Keep in mind this was a farming community, but what was never factored into this load was the winter months when there were lots of flex hours, but not for the pastor!  Somewhere along the way, we have substituted hard work for prayer and meditation.  We have decided that might and power compensate for the Spirit of the Lord.  Then add to this the idea that we are “hired” by the church…  You get the idea, the “Hired hand” is supposed to work hard and be glad to get the work.  The reality is that over time, the vision of service begins to look a lot like servitude.  Most of it comes down to forgetting who it is that has called us and empowers us to do ministry.  When this happens, burn out, compassion fatigue and for some moral failure is just around the corner.

Lest you think that this idea of God’s empowering is strictly Old Testament ideal, listen to Paul, in Colossians 1 where we find this prayer. “…so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy.” (Colossians 1:10, 11)  You see Paul knows we cannot serve Christ on our own power or in our own strength.  We cannot be faithful over the long haul or a ministry that should last up to and sometimes beyond 40 years without depending on the strength of the God who has called us!  Yet all too often, I know this from experience, we neglect the focus on God to do the “work” of ministry.  Neglecting to nourish the spiritual well that is our only true source of sustenance!

What did the docs do in my article?  Some chose to get off the corporate treadmill trading in a secure payday for a place where they could do the kind of work they saw before med school.  Others implemented tools that other docs could access anonymously to assess themselves for suicide, and then seek help, maybe in a neighboring city!  Just for the record on this website, you will find tools to help you assess your own potential for burn out.  The bottom line is that some of them, at least recognized that they could not keep doing what they had been doing and made substantial changes.  That is what you and I need to do as well.  Recognize that what we have been doing is not sustainable.  As this Covid era begins to wind down, it is time to reconnect with the one who promised to be with us always, and who promised that in his might and power we can do what he has called us to do.  However, this begins with self-care.  Taking time to get away, unplug and disconnect from the demands of ministry.  If you are not able to get out here, find a cabin or a remote campsite where you can be alone with the One who has called you.  Whatever you do, don’t think a little extra effort on your part will ever make up for time spent with the Master! Be at least as wise as our physician friends who understood that something needed to change.  What we have that many docs don’t is an understanding and empowering from the Holy Spirit.

I wonder if we should not dub 2020 the year of the virus.  I know if is simplistic and maybe overworked.  It might also be a way to dodge the problems that many of us face.  I wonder, if we could just face up to the reality that things have changed in ways we never anticipated back in 2019, or even January 2020.  What changes if we admit this is an intractable problem that just will not go away?  What happens if we face the reality that the many of the changes that have occurred will not “reset” once we have a vaccine?  Wow, that is not what you wanted to hear from a guy who is focused on helping you become renewed and revitalized is it?  What we expect is a sense of we can get through this.  Kind of like the old disaster movies of the 70’s.  If you are old enough to remember the movie The Poseidon Adventure”,  it was a story about a cruise ship that capsizes in a tsunami. Then you follow a small group of survivors attempting to escape this disaster.  What stands out for me is the song, “The Morning After”, by  Maureen McGovern . “There’s got to be a morning after, If we can hold on through the night. We have a chance to find the sunshine, Let’s keep on looking for the light.”  If you are old enough to remember these movies, there was also one called “Towering Inferno”, “Airport”, and few others.  The theme was always about holding on through incredible odds, and at the end, everything would turn out fine.

I am a bit of a skeptic, but I must admit I did go to the theater to watch some of these, but what strikes me now in life is that each film held out an idea that human ingenuity and determination would always win out.  Of course, the back-story was always some other human ignored some safety standard, which puts everyone else at risk.  At the end of the movie, some unlikely hero carries the day and people return to normal.  Hence Maureen McGovern’s song about holding on through the night.  Unless I miss my guess that is what a lot of us have been doing.  If we can just hold on, everything will be all right.  However, look at the subtext of the 70’s.  Nothing was going exceptionally well.  We had the oil embargo, the Cold War was in full swing, and life was filled with anxiety.  Therefore, we turned to the movies to see disasters turn into feel good moments.  If it were not for the virus, Hollywood would probably be churning out blockbusters to distract us from the reality of life around us.  But alas, with the virus we cannot gather to worship much less pack theatres!

What happens when we realize life has fundamentally changed.  What is different if we know we are not going back to pre-Covid 19 reality, any time soon if at all?  Some would encourage you to focus on self-care and resilience. I for one am a strong proponent of that.  However, an article in “Psychology Today” makes me wonder if there is more at work than meets the eye.  The article that appeared in the May/June 2020 edition is “The Healers are Hurting” and details the way the medical professionals are experiencing this season.  While there is a lot of good information in the article, what caught my attention was the experience of one physician, who noted he was approaching burn out.  So he hired a coach, started yoga, changed his diet.  All the things we encourage people to do.  Here is his comment: “I felt great at the beach.  But coming back to work on Monday morning, I felt exactly the way I did before; the environment was eating away at me.” (PT, May/June, 2020) I wonder if that is not where the church is.  After all, we can practice our own personal resilience and self-care.  However, if the environment has become toxic and inflexible what can the pastor do?  I want to throw a disclaimer in here; I am not blaming anyone, or any particular situation.  The rate of change required by the virus has far exceeded our ability to adapt.  When that happens the system becomes anxious and leaders are susceptible to not just fatigue and burn out, but total loss of self.  At this point, hoping for a vaccine or some miracle is not enough.  Adapting to this is the recognition by pastors and church leaders that the system is not going to suddenly spring back to pre-Covid levels once a vaccine distributed and we achieve the fabled “Herd Immunity”.   I am of the mind that what has happened since the beginning of this year signals a shift in the world as we know it and now is the time to consider what this means for us as pastors.

What I am suggesting here begins with self-care and resilience.  That begins with facing the reality that none of were trained to deal with the situation we find ourselves in.  Like the early church facing persecution, the time for pointing fingers is past, the time for what is God doing and how do we join him in that is at hand.  The time for business as usual is past, the time for adaptation and innovation is at hand.  This is not something you will find in a bookstore or a pod cast. Now is the time for each congregation to begin the hard work of innovation based on our own context.  This is the time, to paraphrase an old saying, “For all good Christians to come to the aid of their communities.”  This will mean different things for different groups.  It may mean the end of silos of ministry in communities.  This may mean that large congregations will cease to exist.  Then again, I could be wrong.  My point us, as long as we attempt to maintain what was, we will find the environment stifling and restrictive.  However, if we are willing to innovate, the step outside the box, we just might find God has some exciting things for us to do, and ministry will no longer be a “burn out” position, but a life giving and invigorating place to be. I also want to add a caution in this; once again, the adjustment rate may exceed the ability of the community we serve to adapt to this change.  What that means for leaders is once again we have to put our trust in the God who called us not the place that is paying our salary.  However, if the body of Christ is to overcome the challenges it will be adaptive change, similar to the Israelites when they left Egypt. We cannot long to go back there, regardless of how difficult the journey may be.

At the end of the day, I may be completely missing the boat here.  You can dismiss my ramblings as that of a “has been”, washed up pastor who could not cut it, so he wandered off into the woods.  You could, and you might be right.  However, I want you to consider that God is always at work and the world has shifted dramatically since the 1950’s.  What this year might reveal is an inherent weakness in the way the church has operated and God may have given us a good swift boot to move us in a new direction.  At the end of the day, it will be history that will record the good the bad and the ugly.  It is my prayer for you that you will find the strength and resilience to continue to serve wherever God is leading.

I wonder if as the world, rushes back to the task of commerce and we all attempt to find our footing again in a world that is turned upside down, if we will miss some important lessons God desires to teach us.  I use the word wonder, as I have no word from God, I am not a prophet, with a new word from God, as I said in an email last week I am just a “Crusty Old Retired Guy” with more time on my hands that might be useful.  However, as I think back to my days studying philosophy in the glory days of the 1970’s in the hallowed halls of Northwestern College, it was the philosophers who had time on their hands that tended to guide the culture.  I wonder, once again if it is not time for a bit of reflection before we allow the technocrats to tell us how to live into this new future.

Over the past couple of days, the phrase, “Be still and know that I am God…” (Psalm 46:10) has come to mind more than once.  This morning as I was looking for that Psalm, I also found Psalm 37 has similar language, “Be still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him.” (Psalm 37:7)  In this day of instant everything, when was the last time you waited for something?  Since we moved out here to Custer, I have not had a regular enough routine in the morning that I could set my coffee maker to come on before I wake up.  Now I have to wait for that first cup of coffee in the morning.  I am not sure it is the wait, or the anticipation, but there is something about waiting for what we desire that adds value to that experience.  Then I have to take our location, high in the Black Hills.  This means, as my neighbor reminds us that it snows 8 months out of the year.  Up here, we wait with anticipation for the first signs of spring, only to see them covered in snow once again.  Deb and I are learning the virtues of waiting.  In the evenings, we wait for the deer to return to our meadow, in the morning we look out to see if they are back.  At night, we wait for the stars (when it is not snowing).  Waiting has become part of our lifestyle.  While I occasionally get in a rush, I find myself slowing down a bit more to watch the world go by.

What about being still?  I grew up with sound.  My mother loved to listen to music, and our house was “wired” to the old phonograph player (this predated MP3 by the way).  So wired in fact, we could load up the phonograph player with multiple records and head outside and still hear the music.  Then someone introduced me to a transistor radio, and I learned I could listen to music wherever I went. (I even remember trying to sneak a transistor into school so we could listen to the World Series)  Since that time, we have all gotten the smart phone with a variety of music apps, we have Pod Casts, and other ways to fill our ears with sound so it is increasingly difficult to be still and know what God is saying.  Even out here, Deb and I have noticed an increase in traffic, an increasing level of noise, so we retreat the wilderness areas to hear silence again.

Back to being still?  I still did not get to that did I?  What if this virus time was part of God’s plan to invite his people to notice some things we have been rushing by?  What if during this quarantine time, we were supposed to learn something about who God is and how He works?  What if this was a time to be still and see God exalted and instead we rushed to figure out how to keep things the way they used to be.  You see if we back up a bit in Psalm 37, we read “Commit you way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn and you the justice of your cause like the noon day sun…” (Psalm 37:5-6)  Maybe God is trying to teach the church today, and you and I, that all our plans and efforts to control our life and destiny are just as worthless as all our plans prior to the this pandemic.  A former president just critiqued the current response saying no one seems to know what to do.  Right wrong or indifferent, I am not sure that former president or our current president or presidential contender would have done things differently.  When faced with unprecedented challenges, and seemingly insurmountable difficulties, it is easy to second-guess those in charge.  I too find myself in that same position, so I am not going to tell those of you who are responsible for making difficult choices what to do.  What I will do is invite you to consider, what might God be saying in this time that we need to hear?  Where do we need to be still and know that He is God!  I heard one pastor comment that many believers are running about acting like there is no God!  I read on Twitter about Christian’s promoting conspiracy theories.  Why?  Why are we not spending time being still and listening to that still small voice of God?

Maybe you are still in the midst of the chaos and confusion.  Maybe you are still not clear what God would have you doing.  Then may I suggest that you look to a place like New Trails where you can get away from the news, stop listening to the latest pod cast, and come and find quietness and stillness where you might be able to listen to the voice of God?  Maybe our past president is right, maybe the people who are supposed to be in charge don’t know what to do.  However, I know that the God whom we worship does know. I am also convinced that if we as the body of Christ would take the time to pray for those who are in authority over us (Romans 13) then maybe, just maybe we can find ourselves emerging from this time in a place closer to where God would have us to be.

Then again I am just a “Crusty Old Retired Guy” with too much time on his hands.  Then again, maybe that is what I am supposed to do, now that I have time to be still, and notice what God is up to.  Either that or the isolation and quietness are getting to me.  That is for you to decide.  At the end of the day remember Psalm 46:10, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”