Transfiguration, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library

This is adapted from a sermon I preached this past Sunday—Transfiguration of the Lord—on Mark 9:2-9.

There are a handful of things that Jesus didn’t really plan for, things he didn’t really prepare his followers for. Things might have been a lot simpler if he had.

For example, Jesus didn’t set up a long game strategy for how his movement—his revolution—would develop into an institution.

After serving on the Mid Councils Commission for sixteen months, after serving as a commissioner to the General Assembly for ten days in the summer of 2010, after participating in various ways in the work of the Presbytery of Chicago, and after deep involvement in the complicated maintenance of the institution of Fourth Presbyterian Church, I often wrestle with a pretty simple question that the church—in all of its expressions—ought to think about more often: what does any of this really have to do with Jesus’ good news of God’s kingdom?

When I read the gospels and reflect on how Jesus understood his mission, I don’t see a lot in there about building or maintaining institutions. The same thing goes for what we can learn about the early church in the Book of Acts and in Paul’s letters. They were too busy actually spreading the good news to worry much about institutional establishment or maintenance. Sure, they made some very basic provisions for leadership and organization, but by and large there is no clear pattern in the early church for how to be an institutional community of faith.

Rather, these things developed over time. The Roman Catholic Church was clearly shaped by the Roman Empire. The various strands of Protestantism were shaped by nascent shifts from empire to democracy and eventually contributed to those revolutions in mutually generative ways. Now, nearly five hundred years later, in addition to Catholic and Orthodox churches, there are thousands of Protestant denominations. Each has a different way of organizing itself and functioning as a corporate institution.

This takes a lot of time and a lot of work. Over the course of the last few years, I have devoted countless hours to institutional church work. And I’m just one of thousands of people that do this in the Presbyterian Church alone. Think of all the Christians around the globe and how much time and energy is spent on this kind of thing.

All the while, God’s children are lost. God’s children are starving. God’s children are hungry. God’s children are killing each other. God’s children are dying from preventable diseases. God’s children are oppressed because of the color of their skin, their gender, their sexual orientation, their religion.

And we sit in committees and commissions. We argue about statements of social advocacy that no one pays attention to. We make symbolic gestures that don’t’ accomplish a thing. We debate rules and regulations. We craft policies and procedures. We draft vision statements and strategic plans. We build buildings and balance budgets. We sit in fancy rooms to listen to people talk and enjoy good music.

What are we doing? Is this the kingdom of God? Is this what Jesus had in mind? Is this what Jesus died for?

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Jesus took his closest disciples with him up on a mountain to be alone. Before their eyes he was transformed into something beyond words. His presence was shining like a bright light. Two of their ancient heroes, Moses and Elijah, were standing there talking with him. It was unlike anything they had ever seen. They had witnessed Jesus do some pretty remarkable things, but this was something altogether different.

What happened up on that mountain is hard for us to know with any certainty or precision. But this story represents something essential and profound about what God was and is doing through Christ: the good news of God’s kingdom is about radical transformation.

Peter, James, and John witnessed something incredible. They were given a glimpse of the mystery and wonder of all that Jesus represents. They were shown, in a startling way, that Jesus is here to transform the world. Jesus is here to make all things new.

It’s pretty clear in the story that Peter doesn’t understand what’s going on and is even less capable of making an appropriate response. At a loss, and scared out of his mind, he suggests the first thing he can think of: let’s build three shrines to memorialize this. Let’s set up some kind of religious structure to somehow contain this incredible, amazing, radical thing we are witnessing.

Jesus doesn’t even get a chance to rebuke him. According to the story, as if things weren’t weird enough, the very presence of God came upon them in the form of a cloud and God spoke to them just like God spoke to Moses on a mountain, just like God spoke to Elijah on a mountain. “This is my son, whom I dearly love. Listen to him!”

Listen to him!

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It should be clear by now how I’m reading the story of Jesus’ transfiguration. Christianity—the church—is like Peter. We’ve been entrusted with this incredible, amazing, radical vision of new life, a transformed world, the emergence of God’s kingdom. And our response is not to embrace it, to join it, or to let it change us beyond what we are comfortable with. Our response is to contain it; to set up religious structures that may witness to it, but do not necessarily participate in it. We take this wild, unpredictable, and terrifying movement of God’s Spirit and institutionalize it.

Yes, just as Peter, James, and John were terrified at what they saw, we are terrified by what the good news of God’s kingdom might make possible in our lives and in the world. We’re terrified by what this might mean for us. “You mean I might have to change my heart and my life?” “You mean I might have to not only get to know my neighbors and enemies, but actually love them?” “You mean I might feel compelled to radically change my priorities and my commitments?” “You mean I might actually experience the presence of God as more than just an idea in my head? For the first time in my life, God might actually seem real?”

Those are frightening possibilities. Those are terrifying realities.

It’s much easier to set up a shrine. It’s much easier to build a church. It’s much easier to argue with each other about whether we have cookies or donut holes during coffee hour. It’s much easier to debate the most culturally relevant organizational structure or worship style. It’s much easier to fight about who God calls to service, as if we have some great insight or intuition. It’s much easier to talk about the gospel. It’s a lot harder—and a lot scarier—to actually live it out.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I understand that the institutional church has value in the world. I realize that there are things we can do when we organize together that we could never do as individual Christians or autonomous congregations. I understand that it is worthwhile to reflect on best practices and efficiencies.

Yet sometimes, I can’t shake the feeling that we’re not paying enough attention to Jesus’ call to transformation and discipleship; that we’re not paying enough attention to his deafening silence when it comes to the question of how we do church. There is an urgency to the good news of God’s kingdom that I don’t think we fully feel. I wonder, when we busy ourselves with church, if we’re really just wasting God’s time.

There’s a whole world out there longing for what Jesus has shown us. Let’s don’t build shrines to occupy our time. Let’s show others what we have seen.

This post comes directly from the PC(USA) Mid Councils Commission report (19-20). I wrote this for the “Changing Contexts” section of the report. I am posting discrete sections of our report as a means of generating conversation, so please make comments. At the end of this post, I have suggested some questions to stimulate your thinking. For a list of all the posts in this series, please follow this link.

Unsustainable Bureaucracies

The evolution of presbyteries as the characteristic feature of Presbyterian polity in the United States is an important element of our contextual understanding. Presbyteries as we know them today developed from ecclesial institutions in Calvin’s Geneva that were responsible for church order, discipline, ordination of ministers, continuing education, mutual encouragement, and missionary work. Joseph Small notes that while order, discipline, ordination, and mission have prevailed as the major responsibilities of presbyteries, theology and mutual encouragement are no longer central. “Without the corporate engagement of pastors and elders in biblical, theological, and ecclesiological inquiry, ecclesial order is easily bureaucratized while discipline is either ignored or factionalized.”

Small goes on to describe how church judicatories became governing bodies, which were quickly bureaucratized in parallel with the bureaucratization of American society in the middle of the 20^th century. In the 1970s, presbyteries were further transformed into mission agencies and were expected to carry out mission of their own, rather than function primarily as support for the mission of local congregations. Over time these bodies became complex and cumbersome bureaucracies. Synods became equally bureaucratized and program driven. At both levels, the demand for professional staff—predominantly drawn from teaching elders—contributed to the gradual clericalization of the church as the role of teaching elder eclipsed the role of ruling elder.

This approach to mid councils made sense and actually worked quite well for an American society that valued bureaucracy and the organizational models of the corporate business world. At the time of these developments, the church had enough members to sustain such complex structures. But in today’s globalized world of flatter organizational structures, and with the realities of a much smaller and less resourced church, these bureaucratic and program driven mid council models are anachronistic, burdensome, and unsustainable. In response, most mainline Protestant denominations are moving away from centralized bureaucracies to flatter, more fluid structures.

Questions for Discussion

• Why do you think that theological learning and mutual encouragement have fallen by the wayside in presbyteries?
• Do you think that presbyteries and synods should primarily be governing bodies, or are there more (or other) things we should be doing in these councils?
• What is your experience of contemporary presbyteries and synods as mission agencies? Is this approach to mission working today?
• Do you agree that our mid councils are anachronistic, burdensome, and unsustainable?
• What would it look like for Presbyterian mid councils to be flatter and more fluid?
• If you could imagine the ideal presbytery, what would it look like? What would you do together? How would it be structured?

A Denomination in Decline

It is well known that practically every mainline Protestant denomination—and increasingly, many of the evangelical denominations—has experienced a significant decline in membership and overall strength since the middle of the 20^th century. The experience of the PC(USA) is consistent with this overall trend. The membership of the PC(USA) is now half of what its predecessor denominations were in 1965, a loss of over 2,000,000 members.

In 2008, as the PC(USA) celebrated the 25^th anniversary of Reunion, the denomination had experienced a net loss of almost 1,000,000 members since the 1983 merger, from 3,131,228 to 2,140,165. By 2010, our membership had further dropped to 2,016,091—a decrease of almost 36% over the course of 27 years. Though the rate of decline is less severe, the number of PC(USA) congregations has also dropped from 11,662 in 1983 to 10,560 in 2010, a loss of nearly 9.5%. In every year since Reunion, we have lost more congregations than we have gained.

For the congregations that remain, the situation is often dire. We are an increasingly aging denomination, with a median age of 61. The average size of PC(USA) congregations has been significantly reduced over the past quarter century. It is now the case that half of all congregations have a membership of 100 or less. During this same time, average worship attendance has also dropped significantly. The percentage of these shrinking congregations that can afford to employ an installed pastor has decreased dramatically. In 2010, 44% of PC(USA) congregations had no installed pastor.

The reasons for this overall decline in church membership are often debated. Though a widespread assumption persists that denominational controversies cause people to leave their local congregations, research has long demonstrated that this is not the case. Membership losses among all mainline Protestant denominations have been steady and consistent for half a century, regardless of particular leaders or particular controversies.

Presbyterian statistician Jack Marcum has suggested a variety of explanations for the decline of the PC(USA), all of which ultimately come down to the fact that every year we lose more members than we gain. Low birth rates are a significant cause. It is also the case that we lose more members to transfers than we attract.

Most significantly, however, is the reality that we are not reaching out to newcomers or investing in new church development. As a denomination, across all geographic areas, we are not planting enough new faith communities. Between 2000 and 2010, only 226 new churches were chartered. This is simply not sustainable. The Presbyterian Church of the 21^st century must be a denomination that encourages and nurtures new church development.

Diminishing Resources

What the membership decline of our denomination means for mid councils is clear. Though individual financial giving to congregations has steadily increased since Reunion, the sharp decline in membership has created significant funding problems for presbyteries and synods. For years, we have depended on human and financial resources from local congregations to fund and provide leadership for these middle judicatories. As both types of resources are increasingly strained at the local level, it is obvious that there is less and less available to sustain the older bureaucratic models of church governance.

Questions for Discussion

• What is your reaction to these statistics about the decline of the PC(USA)? Do these numbers really matter?
• What do you think is the primary cause(s) for our membership losses over the past several decades?
• What are the implications of the fact that the median age of all Presbyterians is 61?
• Is it problematic that half of our churches have 100 members or less? Or is this an acceptable reality?
• What, if anything, should we be doing about the 44% of our churches that are too small to afford a pastor? She we just let them dwindle to nothing, or is there hope for congregational revitalization?
• Why do you think the PC(USA) has not been planting new churches at a sustainable rate?
• Do you agree that new church development is critical for the future of the PC(USA)?
• Are funding problems a sufficient reason to make structural changes to our mid council system?

The moderator of the commission, Tod Bolsinger, and I are the most active bloggers among the group and are committed to being engaged in dialogue between now and GA. We hope that our report will, at the very least, stimulate conversations throughout the PC(USA) about some critical issues of vitality and mission. We have been energized by our work on this project and hope that we can expand this process beyond the 21 members of our commission.

It is a long report—including appendices and full data reports it comes in at over 300 pages. But the heart of our message to the church is much more digestible.

We ended up structuring the report so that the recommendations come first, followed by a series of essays and reports that describe why and how we arrived at these proposals. I understand why we needed to structure the report in this way, but my biggest fear is that people will only read the proposals without immersing themselves in the work that preceded them.

It is therefore my intention to lead readers of this blog through our report in a somewhat different way. I want to engage in conversations about the issues first and only then talk more substantively about the particulars of our recommendations.

So, I invite you to join me on this journey through the report of the Mid Councils Commission. If this doesn’t sound very interesting or important to you, I hope to convince you otherwise. Even if you are not a Presbyterian, I believe that the issues we raise in this report are critical ones for all mainline Protestants to consider at this time.

Like all mainline Protestant denominations in the United States, the PC(USA) feels like a church in crisis. For at least four decades our numbers have diminished at a steady rate. We desperately hold on to dying congregations and yet fail to see the imperative need to plant new communities of faith. What we now call mid councils—presbyteries and synods—feel like relics of the past. Created for a different time, we are incapable of supporting their lumbering bureaucracies today. Our biennial General Assemblies are locked in endless battles over regulations and persist in making social proclamations that no one seems to pay much attention to. We wonder if it is possible to maintain unity in the midst of great diversity, and we have no clear sense of what that unity might actually look like.

 

Christianity is like a river with many branches. Like others before it, the Presbyterian stream could run its course. It could disperse into nothing. Its water could run dry. But, it is just as likely that this stream will experience a resurgence of living water. For many, this is a time of hope and new life. It is a time of emergence and the birthing of new ways of being Christian—perhaps even new ways of being Presbyterian. (MCC Report, 18)

The view from the chancel of Fourth Presbyterian Church before John Buchanan's final worship service as pastor.

Yesterday, after 26 years as its pastor (and almost 49 years of ordained ministry), John Buchanan preached his final sermon at Fourth Presbyterian Church. It was a stunning and emotional day. Indeed, it was the end of an era.

Over the course of three worship services, over 2600 people filled the pews for this historic moment. The demographics of these congregations say a lot about how Fourth has changed in a quarter century. At the final service, we packed a good group of youth into three pews right in front of the pulpit. Other youth worshiped with their families at each of the three services. At two of the services, numerous Sunday School children crowded the chancel to thank John by reciting some of his favorite Bible verses. Families were everywhere; young adults, too. It was a visible sign of life and vitality in a time of struggle for mainline Protestant churches.

For years, Fourth Church has bucked the standard story of urban mainline churches. While others have diminished and faded, during the pastorate of John Buchanan Fourth has doubled in size to become something quite rare: a progressive mainline megachurch located right in the middle of a major city.

Yesterday represented for me everything that is good about the mainline Protestant tradition:

• a cathedral-style sanctuary packed with people of all ages
• classical music and traditional hymnody executed with excellence
• a masterful preacher proclaiming the gospel with clarity, sophistication, and intellectual integrity

To be sure, there is a lot about mainline Protestantism that I find incredibly frustrating and in need of revision or abandonment. But yesterday reminded me that there is much about this tradition that is worth holding on to. Rarely have I felt as Presbyterian as I felt yesterday. As the future of mainline Protestantism emerges, and in whatever role I may play in it, I will carry these memories with me. They will inspire me. We don’t have to be a dying and increasingly irrelevant relic of the past. We have something vital to offer the world.

In the end, John’s final sermon was a simple reflection on Micah 6:6-8 and Luke 10:25-37. He framed it with words he often uses in prayer before sermons and in benedictions at the conclusion of worship. “Startle us”—because we must not let the gospel become boring or too familiar. “Hold to the good”—because ultimately, what God desires of us is simple: love each other.

Text exchange with one of our teens about John Buchanan's final service as pastor of Fourth Church

For one last time, in front of 2600 people, John proclaimed his message of inclusivity and missional concern for all of God’s children. The Chicago Tribune nailed it in the second sentence of their story on John’s final sermon: “The retiring pastor called on congregants at Fourth Presbyterian Church to love their neighbor regardless of race, sexual orientation, gender, ethnicity, economics or politics.”

I’m proud to serve a church that sounds like this to the world. And I’m grateful that so many people, including the youth I work with, had one final opportunity to hear this good news from John Buchanan.

Photo by Fergus Randall

God’s kingdom is like a four star restaurant in one of the world’s greatest cities. It’s chef is famous around the globe. The restaurant is regularly cited as one of the best on earth.

A young couple made plans to eat at this restaurant. They made their reservations two years in advance. During those years, they diligently saved money for their special night, because it was a very expensive restaurant.

When the night finally arrived, they put on their best clothes. They ordered a bottle of fine wine and several courses of food. They couldn’t believe how good it tasted. They savored every bite, every flavor.

At some point that evening, the world famous chef came to know about this young couple, how they had planned and saved and so eagerly anticipated this culinary experience. He could see the enjoyment on their faces.

When their bill arrived, all that was inside the little black folder was a simple note from the chef. “Tonight, dinner is on me.”

That’s what it’s like in God’s kingdom.

Photo by LadyDragonflyCC

I certainly did not intend for my post to be construed as a response or criticism of this message. To the contrary, I do in fact have a lot of hope that something good is happening in the PC(USA). I serve a growing congregation that is full of vitality and commitment to mission. The youth I work with in our congregation, and the youth I encounter throughout the wider church, fill me with hope for our future. I have been blessed to participate in gatherings and events where promising conversations are happening. I serve on a commission that has spent considerable time discerning new directions for our denomination.

Trust me, I’m not trying to dump cold water on hope.

But, I do believe in the prophetic moment of coming to grips with that which is dying. I draw my inspiration from Walter Brueggemann’s incredible book, The Prophetic Imagination. According to his argument, prophetic ministry moves from “Prophetic Criticizing and the Embrace of Pathos” (chapter 3) to “Prophetic Energizing and the Emergence of Amazement” (chapter 4). His paradigm example of the former is Jeremiah and his paradigm example of the latter is Second Isaiah.

I often feel that we are too quick to pass over the pathos and linger in hope. It’s hard to move from hope to a new reality if we don’t make a clean break with the old reality. That is the function of embracing pathos.

So, don’t think of me as the Grinch who stole hope. Think of me as one who is trying to channel a little Jeremiah so that we can fully live into the hope so many of us feel.

My congregation, Fourth Presbyterian Church, is reading through the Bible in 2012. You can learn more about Fourth Church’s endeavor here: Reading the Bible in a Year.

This post is part of the CEB Blog Tour. Each week I can give away a free softcover copy of the Common English Bible. Comment on this post and I’ll enter your name into a drawing to receive this week’s free copy.

Photo by procristination

I’ve spent considerable time over the past year and a half reflecting on the challenges faced by Mainline Protestant denominations, especially the Presbyterian Church (USA). There are numerous conflicting assessments of the situation “on the ground”. Some have said that we are “deathly ill”. Others are quick to point out the numerous signs of life and vitality still evident in our denomination. This anecdotal evidence, drawn from positive experiences in succeeding churches and with faithful people, is offered as a counter-narrative to the “deathly ill” diagnosis. We long to believe that God is doing good things in our midst. We hold on to the energy and promise that still exists in our church. I get this. I do the same thing.

But this is a kairotic moment we cannot afford to miss. Walter Brueggemann, who has suggested that exile is a fitting metaphor for the situation in which the US church now finds itself, describes the embrace of pathos as a critical moment in the exercise of prophetic imagination. “How,” asks Brueggemann, “can we have enough freedom to imagine and articulate a real historical newness in our situation?” His answer lies in the embrace of pathos and the willingness to engage the very real possibility of our own death.

Brueggemann notes that we have a remarkable propensity for numbness about death. Apathy—the absence of pathos—characterizes our attitude toward the institutions that we turn to for order, security, and meaning. We refuse to recognize failure. We cling to familiar patterns and structures. We want to pacify our grief and reassure ourselves that everything is going to be okay.

Prophetic imagination cuts through these tendencies and brings us face to face with the realities of our situation. In order to move us into a place where we can envision new realities, we must first confront the sobering realization that our current trajectory is leading us to death.

We cannot let legitimate signs of God’s Spirit moving throughout our church obscure the equally evident reality of our slow but steady demise. We must hold these realities together in creative tension. For all of our genuine vitality, there are also critical indications of death. Our declining numbers, aging congregations, diminished resources, and debilitating conflicts cannot be ignored any longer.

Consider these facts:

• The PC(USA) has lost over 1,000,000 members since Reunion in 1983—a decrease of almost 36% over the course of 27 years.
• During this same time, we have gone from 11,662 congregations to 10,560—a loss of nearly 9.5%. In every year since Reunion, we have lost more congregations than we have gained.
• Half of all PC(USA) congregations have a membership of 100 or less.
• 44% of PC(USA) congregations cannot afford to pay an installed pastor.
• The median age of our church is 61.
• Between 2000 and 2010, only 226 new PC(USA) churches were chartered.

This is simply not sustainable.

We cannot move too quickly to obscure the grief of our situation with comfort or hope, as important as these are. We must embrace the pathos associated with admitting that what we are doing is not working.

More bluntly, we must admit that we are dying in order to experience rebirth.

For more on the embrace of pathos, see Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination, 2nd ed. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), 39–57.

Photo by susieq3c

I was clearing out my inbox and found this sarcastic list of fictional praise song collections I came up with as a smart-ass answer to a question from a colleague. If any of these titles show up in the years to come, I better get some royalties.

• Love Songs in the Key of Jesus
• Jesus is My Boyfriend
• Revelation: My Boyfriend’s Back and There’s Gonna Be Some Trouble
• Jesus, Bloody Jesus
• The Very Best of Jesus, Bloody Jesus
• The Very Bloodiest of Jesus, Bloody Jesus
• God is a Man, And Don’t You Forget It
• My God Can Kick Your God’s Ass