gavoweb

spiritual | cultural | technological life

pastor

Add Theater Class to Seminary Training

By

I was reading this not so exciting article titled “Why ‘Boring’ Preachers should be Fired” and it stirred some old thoughts in my warped brain.

Before I get into my warped brain let me disclaimer that I do think some preachers should be allowed a graceful exit. They have in many cases served God’s ministry well and are probably in need of walking away to heal and be fed instead of being held to a commitment where they have to feed while being barren themselves. By ‘preachers’ I am also batching together a preacher, priest, pastor not just a teaching pastor whose only responsibility is to preach.

I used to constantly rib one of my pastors I had served with about showing me his MBA. He knew where this was headed so he’d respond with a “keep looking” or “I know, and they still hired me.” Because my point who on earth would hire someone and put them in charge of leading a 1.8 million dollar entity that didn’t have some business experience. Seems like an illogical hire all the way around. But we do it all the time. Yes, committee systems are there for a checks and balances, but time and again our congregations give so much of the daily business power to the pastors, who rarely have formal business training.

Sorry, getting off that soap box.

Back to original box..

Back in the day one got away with giving a good sermon through the oratory methods shown to us in academia. John Wesley had his book of sermons and had specific instructions of, “if you can’t give a decent sermon just read this and it will work” (or something to that account). So the bar for ‘presenting’ a sermon that would engage and stimulate was not much different than a university lecture. It would teach and give the listener something to think about & learn. Today though we have a culture that is so conditioned to learning through entertainment. We also call new learning methods ‘active learning’ or ‘discovery based learning’ the list can go on. Our seminaries teach preaching and I know they give classes on teaching styles and preparations. However, do we need to encourage our seminaries to require theater work so that our preachers can shift where they can preach with a little flare? Maybe a semester of improv would do nicely..

Anyways, just a thought to help those ‘boring’ preachers.

What Google Images Teaches Me about My Faith

By

Maybe it is me, but I find myself troubled by the things that Google Image shows me about the faith that I claim. This is significant in my opinion because google will push those things that are referenced or used the most to the top because they have been deemed as having the most worth & credibility for that particular search. I would put the bible in this thought captured in image, but it is boringly predictable. So..

WORSHIP

I probably have the most issue with worship.. Seriously, these black silouette hands raised is the predominate image for worship?.. really?..

DOCTRINE

Doctrine doesn’t get a good rap with the image folks. It also gets mixed up with politics and other cultural items.. Is that telling us something?

GOD

I’m glad to know that God is pretty much the same yesterday, today and forever. Except for that muscle character HE is some nice shining lights with a white beard.

THEOLOGY

I must say, I liked the motivation theology poster a whole lot. contemplated making that my laptop wallpaper. It is intriguing the images constructed to try to explain theology. Throwing out the 10 commandments makes for a limited theology in ways, might not be a bad thing though.

PREACHER

This one kinda freaked me out…

PASTOR

I like the safe pastor look better.. Except for maybe that guy in the top right.. Or the movie Troy, not a very good movie.

BAPTISM

I suppose another arms up in the air type image is suitable. I did find that infant baptism rising to the top in so majority of images to be interesting. But maybe those are just baby dedications..

SERMON

I suppose with two or three Sermon on the Mount images we can call this legit. At least there isn’t a benny hinn pic.

PRAYER

Boy am I glad my mommy taught me to fold my hands together and hid in dark lit rooms because apparently that is the way to go about praying to God.

JUSTICE

The gothic nature of all these images has me shaking my head.. Maybe justice is just for goth people.

CHURCH

I like how there are no people in the churches. That’s nice.. Wait a second….

COMMUNION

I could have chosen Eucharist, but those results were too catholic. Reminds me of the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. “You must choose wisely.” Looking at these, we seem to want to choose poorly.

Last but not least

JESUS

I like my white soft skinned Jesus. Especially the contemplative sensitive type. But when I go out on Friday night I want Buddy Christ!

NOTE: If you are curious, I didn’t do any scrolling for these. This is the first set of results in each case.

So what does this tell you about your faith?

 

Naming it.. We’re stuck in between Pastor Roles

By

The other month I was a church communications conference and had the privilege to meet Dr. Craig van Gelder. Now, Craig (cause we are close buds now) wasn’t on my radar per se, but we were both speaker peeps at this thing and he sat in on my session & I on his and we got to chatting in between times. I really enjoyed the guy.

Anyways, his main keynote went through a history of roles for the pastors of churches. It was rather fascinating to see how he broke it down. How I’ll break it down for you is this, in the earliest histories of the church the pastor was a “resident theologian” (the guy who did all the study and translation for the individual church) or maybe the “civic leader” (you see this in movies how the pastor is always one of the town leaders, or main leader). Fast forward and you get into the 20th century and the pastor role has shifted to the “pastoral counselor” (we want mainly pastoral care as well as a good sermon). But today’s church has moved into more of this “entrepreneurial pastor” role (we want a pastor who can build, and build big.. as well as give a good sermon).

All this swirled in my head as I started reading this posting by Mark Meyer on what the church can learn from business. Mark has some fine points for record, I wouldn’t argue out that they are thoughtless or anything like that. I will say, they do reflect this new culture of pastoral leadership, this ‘entrepreneurial pastor’ type.

The problem here is that many of our pastors and those who have grown up to be a pastor came into the calling with a ‘pastoral counselor’ identity. They want to give guidance and assistance to people, they were not necessarily called to build big temples and have huge audiences (though some believe they were, that’s fine). The trip here is that our congregations are stuck in some limbo that they can not name. And it is that tension that exists because people don’t know how to examine and name that cultural set up we have.

Truth be told, business is taking over way more church practices than church needs to take from business (the base of Stick Sheep, go read it!). Churches are already well versed in business world practices, they’ve been around for a few centuries or more.. not sure many businesses that can claim that. Mark’s issue & many others is just that the church doesn’t want to become entrepreneurial again..

So I’m naming it, in my own UMC we’re stuck in this in between of a culture of pastors taught to be pastoral counselor when yet, our culture is telling our congregations that we want a pastor who will come in an be an entrepreneur. It’s a real pickle to be in and has been the torture of some really great pastors.. that unfortunately were not called to an entrepreneur.

transgendered pastor comes out to congregation : what’s in a history

By

i stumbled upon this article about pastor david weekley who recently came out to his congregation about his sexual reassignment past.

He told them that in 1984, just nine years after undergoing
extensive sex-reassignment surgeries, he was ordained by the Methodist
Church without telling anyone of his original gender at birth.

i am pretty stoked to hear of the congregations response, which was positive in support. it shows a wonderful example of grace & acceptance. i do have a wonder when it comes to the big umc church. what is in a person's history that needs to be vetted out in the process of ordination?

in the little segment i have quoted, it is said that he didn't tell anyone of his original gender. i'm fine with that not being an everyday conversation piece, but when we talk of an ordination process (one that i understand to be extensive and thorough) that it isn't a topic of conversation i find hard to imagine.

who is responsible for asking the question or being open? is it even an issue?

what do you think?

update: we are getting a good conversation over the posting at my facebook wall. if you're a friend chime in. if you're not a friend, ask, and then do the same. or just drop a thought here.