Allelon/Fuller - Day Two (delayed)
I have been writing like a maniac today. I’ve got about six blog posts backlogged in my brain. I decided two of them were too private for the blog, so I sent them off to my writers group (aka Jen Lemen). But here’s one I’ll share with y’all –especially since I kind of left you hanging with the Fuller/Allelon journal posts.
____________________________
“the church, as an institution, tends to eat its young”
Day two of the Fuller/Allelon consultation was even harder for me to bear than the first. Truthfully I’m not really sure why. Maybe it was all those leader-types (myself included) trying to be heard. Or maybe it was because I just wasn’t clicking with the format. Or maybe it was because I was in California, damn it, and it was pouring down rain. (Couldn’t’ I have saved several hundred dollars and just stayed in Seattle for that?!)
Looking through my notes, I see that we were having a language problem. (Aren’t we always?) We felt we were being asked to look for a structure – as in “we need a structure for training new leaders.” I raised my hand in opposition. “I don’t think we need a structure. I vote no structure!” No one at my table seconded my motion. Dwight, who I am normally in agreement with, was all for structure. (I’m sure this has something to do with his excitement over the new MDiv program at Mars Hill Graduate School – which is not, I repeat NOT affiliated with the Mars Hill mega church here in Seattle.) But here’s why I’m opposed to structure.
First off, a little voice inside me said “As soon as you systematize it, you’ll kill it.” I’m learning to listen to that little voice. It sounds like the Muse.
Second, a structure is intentionally permanent. You build a house, an office building, a storefront and in order to significantly alter it you have to tear it down, you have to destroy it — or at least big portions of it. We see it every week on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. I don’t want to be a part of building something so permanent, so inflexible that the only way to let it morph with the ongoing, unfurling process of time is to destroy it. Can’t there be another way to help people who are floundering around in the waters of postmodernism other than building a structure? Because if you build a structure someone has to pay for it. And if you have to pay for it, only certain people can get in on it. And if only the moneyed can get in on it, well then you can’t lead from underneath, or from the margins, or from the fringes, because those folks ain’t got no money. And if you create a structure, if you institutionalize something, then there’s a piece of paper on the wall that you have to have in order to play, in order to have a voice, in order to have power. And only some folks can access that, in the face of structure, and then where are we at? Right back in white guy, modern, patriarchal, class structure land.
Sigh.
Our whole conversation has been jumping off from a place of privilege, of power. The speakers and organizers aren’t speaking and launching this conversation from underneath – they can’t – they have position and title and power. But without those things, how can you create a gathering like this? There has to be a way. Steve Taylor said on the last day, “I’m not sure we are really as creative as we think.” I wonder. He might be right. Because we cannot seem to get around this problem of access, power, and privilege. We don’t know how to find (or how to listen) to the folks who can. Or maybe we do know, but we just don’t do it, because it costs so damn much and takes too much time.
This is all very disjointed, isn’t it?
Well, here’s what I wrote in my journal on day two, when I finally had to leave the room for awhile to breathe.
“I don’t know why I keep doing this. Why I keep hoping I’ll be heard, I’ll find people – with power – who are like-minded. We’ll find a way to embrace the church’s children, and Her children…a way to get all God’s children’ dancing shoes.
My frustration level is so high, and I’m not sure the session or the organizer or the participants merit it. It probably has more to do with me than with anything else. (It usually does.) I had only one hope coming here – that I could be helpful, could actually be part of a dreamers collective that could come up with a new way of thinking and going the thing formerly known as “leadership.” (Tonight the role of “leader” will be performed by our understudy, the lesser-valued “humanness.”) I was hopeful that I could actually be a part of the crew that turned the ships stern in the right direction. But that’s not happening–or maybe it’s just not happening as quickly as I had imagined–and I’m not sure why.
“All good things start small and get smaller.” I keep on wanting to be a little bit big. But it rarely works.
I don’t know. This frustration has something to do with patriarchy. I don’t know why, but I feel it in my bones. Modernity and patriarchy are so interlinked. It’s almost impossible to pick them apart. When the very shape of the conversation if formed by men, it’s different. I didn’t feel this at the Emerging Women’s Leadership Initiative or with the gals and friends-of-gals in San Diego. So there’s something subtle here that’s happening. Something the women tend to do that creates a shared experience – that shares power, spreads it out like butter across bread.
These things pass through my gut and my mind:
“all good things start small and get smaller”
“the moment you systematize this you kill it.”
“Patriarchy lies here”
I keep thinking about an acquaintance of mine saying; “Every time women design something successful, men take it away.” Spencer Burke said, “I don’t want to give something to you to shrink wrap.” Last night I told Holly, “I feel like I’m about to give up my virginity to some guy who’s going to turn out to be a jerk in the morning.” These sentences ring with me, like the vibration of a gong.
What’s up with that? What’s with this distrust of the process? It seems so unfair, as the organizers have been nothing but generous with us. Still I can’t stave off this unwillingness to fight through the rhetoric in order to give up the goods.
“I speak __________, but it’s not my mother tongue.”
(insert noun here: patriarchy, church, modernity, left brain…)
Hi Rachelle,
You know, speaking as a white, male, father and grandfather, it is sometimes hard to hear the truth….even when in your heart you know it is the truth…Here’s the problem: Clergy have always been the privileged insiders. As an outsider, that is, one who pastored without the benefit of seminary education or “housing allowance” for that matter, I have always been able to see that while many of us could benefit from training, few of us really need ‘high falutin’ educat’n. What is needed is the “virtual” seminary. By the people, for the people and dang it, unfortunately for those who make a living out of such things, for free….Apostolic types like yourself are going to have to lead the way for your cohort….I know that many of the folks are marching toward seminary degrees, but they are only being sanitized and authorized for the “old” wineskin way of doing things. New times, new generations, new media require new ways of doing things. It is time to stop playing classroom and start playing chat room…Keep writing, I hope some of this stuff is going to wind up in your article for next-wave
Blessings,
Charlie
Rachelle,
Hey…. I love your last two posts. And while your frustration is evident and frustration often sucks ass, I think it’s great. I mainly just wanted to say that you rock and to keep pluggin along because who you are and what you are doing IS IMPORTANT. It’s frustrating that the boat never turns fast enough and it’s frustrating that no one even seems to realize that the boat even needs to be turned. I have no consolation for that, I’m just pointing out the facts, as I am prone to do.
I agree with you about structure. To a point. In this wonderful journey over the last couple of years I have come to realize that there is a necessity for SOME structure. We just have to be careful about what that structure is. It’s almost like we need another 40 years in the desert just so that we can forget all about our previous structure and start again with what is going to work for us now and in the future. Because we often fall back into old habits, working those out would be easier if we didn’t have a choice. Even in the desert there has to be some form of structure though, otherwise it would be utter chaos and a lot of us would get lost looking for the oasis. I couldn’t begin to tell you what that structure is (I have been working a lot of my life to avoid that sort of thing..
… ) so I will just have to trust that those that have more wisdom and life experience than me can find that out. I think your heading in a good direction though.
Cheers. I will see ya on Thursday, if not sooner.
yeah, what she said
link… http://www.jenlemen.com/archives/000870.html
Structure…ugh. This discussion reminds me a lot of the differences between medicine and nursing. Medicine is very problem-focused, solution-oriented. Only a small portion of physicians recognize the relationship between spiritual/ mental/ social/ and physical health. Or they say they do, but their practice does not reflect it. In nursing, though, we have a much more holistic perspective. We recognize that people are more than the sum of their symptoms…that many factors affect their behavior and capacity for understanding, etc. and so we adapt our plans/ teaching/ care to meet the need of the patient at that particular moment.
In the same way, I think that setting standards for training leaders is a flawed idea. Every new person that comes into the mix is going to change the chemistry of the group. People will have to adapt accordingly. Structure/ system…doesn’t really encourage continuous give/take/interaction/change/reshaping. Basically makes it same ol’ thing as before, but with a little more freedom at the edges (individual churches/ communities). No real change at the heart. I don’t know if this is so much a patriarchy thing as a generational thing ; our church leadership is primarily female and 45+ and they want goals/ standards/ policies/protocols/plans all clearly delineated as we are trying to re-imagine and rebirth our church…this is not going well…we want to discern our mission; they want more butts in the seats AND the service they’ve had the past 30 years.
I think much of the “system” is going to stay the same as long as ministers are dependent on the individual congregations for their salaries.
Pattern, “structure” will emerge on its own from the chaos, given time. Passion will be smothered by structure.
i resonate with your frustration rachelle. i sat in a meeting of our local ucc clergy yesterday and listened while the power games played out around me. i was soooooo frustrated.
we are supposed to be in a process of regional ‘visioning’ — and from my perspective the sky’s the limit — but the power players know what they want and made it clear that they will get their way. finally a highly enlightened male colleague asked “who’s vision are we talking about here anyway?”
structure, old and new, has a highly demonic potential that must be named as such in order to be understood and wrestled with. only then can a truly sacred order come to life.
hang in there rachelle….
This is why we call you the Abbess.
I read something about structure somewhere once… it said that all that nice, neat orderly way of doing things was straight from hell, in order to keep people in line. Look around you at nature and see that God is a god that makes good things come from seemingly chaos. Nature sometimes looks like a mess but if you leave nature alone she will bring balance to all things.
This is a really interesting conversation….the role of structure and power. The need to create “order” is so clearly linked with scientific thinking, “modern” thinking, the scientific revolution, the enlightenment. The movement of our society into the modern era. In feminist rhetoric, this is described as a distinctly masculine move. The movement further & further away from nature, in an attempt to harness her, to control her and to rule with orderly thought, the removal of chaos, with structure and discipline and technology.
So many philosophers and political theorists have debated how to move away from structure as we know it…difficult to do when it is so deeply imbedded in who we are. The oppressed, the marginalized, must compose the leadership. Theoretically, if the marginalized are given power, they will have the ability to distribute power more equally and without discrimination.
It is interesting to me that in this conversation we’re having about the emerging church…and (if I understand the post correctly) even larger-scale conversations among the leaders of the movement, are largely tipped in power toward the white male. Not to say that men cannot or should not hold leadership, or are unable to see from the marginalized viewpoint…but how would this movement be different if the leadership was comprised of women? Or ethnic minorities?
Such a large part of this movement seems to be focused around loving those that the “church” has rejected…opening our hearts to a more diverse people, a more diverse thought….how can we do that when we are still caught on a hook? How can we do that if we are hearing mostly from the privileged? How can we spread power more equally to the marginalized?
If this is a post-modern movement, if we’re really questioning the absolute values of science & rationality, don’t we by necessity have to move past the desire for structure? Don’t we, by necessity, have to transfer power from the privileged to the oppressed?
I disagree with what I read as a characterization of structure as masculine and the lack thereof as feminine. I think how we feel about the need for structure, the shape of that structure and how loose or rigid that structure is depends more on our personality than our gender. Not all women enjoy a lack of structure.
In fact, I feel some degree of structure is necessary for people to be represented fairly. With no structure, the loudest person is the one heard. Often, this means a lack of structure benefits those who do traditionally hold power in our society because they are used to control and assume power when there is no structure to otherwise distribute the power. In my opinion, the real challenge is creating a structure that differs from what we know, is loose enough for adaptation and allows, no…encourages, many viewpoints.
I think the answer to all of this is found in discipleship and emphasis on maintaining the “local” in the local church. A pastor with the gift of a shepherd’s heart (not just a gift for teaching or evangelism) should be able to identify new or existing believers with the seeds of leadership gifts, and arrange for them to be discipled (personally, or by other mature believers) for several years. Some book, conference and hands-on training should be included in all of this, along with lots of accountability, grace and room to succeed/fail.
The ultimate goal should be to release this people into their own ministriess within a local church, and/or to start new local churches under the umbrella of the home church. The Vineyard model works here — new congregations are often started when little more than a home group, with leaders who have never been to seminary but have definitely been mentored and discipled by their pastors and other mature believers. Local churches organized from the ground up via small groups allows delegation of authority so the sr. pastor doesn’t get burned out, and also 1) allows developing leaders to emerge while 2) all the saints get to help one another and practice their various spiritual giftings to the benefit of the Body.
Looking at the above comments, and many EC-related blog posts, there seems to be a lot of theorizing and discussion about worldview and structure in the EC movement — who’s helping people grow in Christ, discover/deploy their gifts, and “do the stuff” of Spirit-directed ministry, as John Wimber used to say? The real growth in Christianity today is in (mostly developing-world) churches that recognize the Spirit is raising up leaders by Himself — many places where He’s working most wonderfully, people don’t have money or opportunity to go to seminary, but meanwhile there are lots of sheep who need leading, protecting, and help growing! Isn’t that what Paul’s letters to Timothy were all about?
The Fuller/Allelon invitation-only weekend has made its way into a number of blog discussions. I’ve followed each closely with a kind of lurid interest, waiting for someone to rip off the mask, reveal the faulty assumption that fueled this particular conference. Contemporary seminaries exist almost entirely for the sake of certifying denominational leaders. I don’t mean to be crass, but seminaries live off the institutional church’s need for expertise. Emergent church has no such need.
1) Traditional church tends to focus on hiring the best, possible spokesman. Emergent churches are re-creating worship, opening space for genuine listening, trying to give God a chance to speak to us, Himself.
2) Traditional church continues to operate as a hierarchy. Yes, some progressive thinkers have turned the pyramid upside down, putting the pastor at the bottom and stressing servant leadership. But nobody’s fooled. A hierarchy is a hierarchy, no matter which way it’s pointed. Emergent churches, on the other hand, tend to look more like circles, focus on creating real connections through community, humility, vulnerability, honesty and love.
3) Traditional church sets up a kind of Sunday-morning dialogue between leadership and congregation. Unfortunately, it more often looks like a stage-to-audience monologue. Emergent church struggles to re-establish communication lines between believers (no more parallel play) and from community to God (no more middle men, either).
I agree with both Shannon and Jen - and Rachelle, I thought your post was extremely perceptive and insightful. I think you are right to trust your instincts that there is something wrong.
Might I make a suggestion for all EC types? There are a lot of people and organizations who are doing precisely what you are talking about, in terms of building leadership from a grassroots level among historically marginalized people. They are not, however, churches or even Christians - at least not ones who have ever heard of the emerging church. They are community organizers and artists collectives and non-profit organizations and sometimes even business people. Not all Christian leaders want to lead in a church - whether traditional or one where everybody sits in a circle and beats on a drum and burns incense.
Particularly in the U.S., the vast majority of EC-ers have evangelical or fundamentalist roots, which is a subculture that is very, very bad at navigating issues of race, class or gender and sharing power. Rather than having a bunch of people from this background sit around in an echo chamber and try to figure things out, wouldn’t it make more sense to say, “Hey, look around the room - obviously, we suck at this whole inclusive, power-sharing thing. We do not know how to do this. Maybe we should go talk to some people who DON’T suck at this and ask for some guidance - even if they don’t go to church and they don’t know who we are.”
Rachelle, I don’t know whether to tell you to keep going to these things so you can be a force for change or tell you to save your energy to do your thing. Blessings on you either way.
I’m hispanic. From the church margins. A former missionary trained by USA white missionaries.
My training was very informal, relational and using everymoment as a teaching moment. The good side of informal training. But it was also very loose, superficial, touching the obvious, never deep. I learned to call spontaneity to what in reality was mediocrity and to say let the “God do his thing” when laziness was rampant.
I now live with the tension of no structure and structure.
great thoughts, honest thoughts; and I think to be fair, it’s probably not an all or nothing deal. It’s (probably, I hope) not that you’re saying absolutely no structure, but that some kind structure may be needed, but it has to give room to grow, and has to help life and people to flourish. Just as a human being has a skeleton, and a tomato vine does much better with support, so too can some structures help in growing and developing people.
And similarly with power, it’s not to abolish any and all access, all power, and all privilege, but it is to say that there are maybe some better ways to share that access, to use those talents and resources in other ways then how they’re being used. Jesus had all power at his disposal, and yet he used it very selectively, in very particular ways, and has changed the course of human history.
Being male, I am wishing for a way to “fix” this..
Being reflective and poetic, I am glad for the liminality that allows it.. and grateful for voices who see past the veneer to the deeper issues.
Your post for me points up that we are not finished deconstructing yet.. that we are still “in the tomb” waiting for the resurrection .. the birth of a new kind of church. It will likely be marginal, for some of the reasons you are seeing …
The largest issue you raise for me is something I have been recently considering.. Is it possible for those in positions of power to bring lasting change? IF change means fundamental change to power structures.. then it has to be grass roots change. Rosemary Neave in “Reimagining the Church” writes to this effect, then suggests that the question is not what kind of structures but how do we empower the process we see around us? Then she shares a story..
“Last year there was news of a new island being formed in the Tongan group, as an active volcano emerged above the surface of the water. That image has come back to me as I have thought about these emerging groups and the role of networking. My feeling is that most of these groups are self-sustaining and self-motivating, few employ people, fewer own buildings, and their infrastructure is small and light. They are not asking for much (if anything) - sometimes a place to meet in, access to ideas and resources, a sense of being connected to a larger picture. They are like that island, they have emerged from the sea, and have their own life, and may even disappear into the sea again. So the question for me is not so much how we support the “emerging islands,” but how can we maintain the life of the sea out of which they come, and to which they will return. For me the network is the sea, the linking element, the place in which new islands may emerge as people and energy gather together. The sea is also what continues and sustains life when a group decides its life cycle is over.”
Hmmm. This interesting question of structure/not filters through to me as our ongoing search for what we might provisionally call: biological structure, living structure. At least two emerging shifts on the horizons portend such a theme as more than wishful thinking. First is the information revolution. Thanks to computers, internet, and virtual global connectedness …. we can have access to informational resources and connectivities that are actually mind-bloggling. Second is the New Biology. The decoding of the human genome is not just a huge new truckload of new details … although of course it is that; …. it is also yet another major foray into another paradigm, another universe …. delving into the inner dynamics, the inner life of that realm …. we go beyond the biological heuristics of phenotype, into genotype.
The question then becomes: How do we learn …. how do we translate what we will inevitably find about how genes code and build and transmit information …. into small, medium, and large interactional social processes ….. processes that can grow, change, survive, thrive, and by all means adapt and inquire?
Rachelle,
Refreshing post. I think the power questions always need to be asked, especially in regard to white patriarchy and systems. Thanks for illuminating this dynamic for us.
Peace,
Ryan
hey rachelle,
thanks for the take away on the weekend.
i have to think somehow that understanding individuals and their giftedness so that they can serve each other is the goal. unfortunatley some require structure to do that, others more intrinsically and relationaly are able to pull it off. bummer you had such a frustrating time there. was it as reciprical as you expected?
recent emerging church web articles that I appreciate
Excellent response by Jordon Cooper to the consumeristic Ooze article “Behold I make all things stale and boring” and the provocative statement: After reading a bunch of Emergent Church type blogs recently I realized almost no one is saying anything…