What I'm Hearing
Over the past several months, I've been traveling quite a bit. When I am with people, I ask a lot of questions. I'm just a curious soul who wants to understand what is going on in the world that we encounter every day. The tenor and substance of my conversations about the PCUSA are changing.
There are a range of topics that I hear. One is a deep concern about the state of presbyteries and how they will function in the future. Another is the impact that the Fellowship of Presbyterians / ECO: Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians will have on the church. A third conversation is a mixture of topics related to GA overtures this summer addressing the definition of marriage and ordination standards, the response by churches and presbyteries to GA votes, and a call for a moratorium on these issues while the new Form of Government has time to be fully implemented in the presbyteries.
I'm no seer with a crystal ball. I don't know what will become. It certainly appears from the conversations that I am having that we have a perfect storm of institutional change awaiting us on the horizon.
Trust
At the spring meeting of my presbytery, I heard appeals from the floor that as Presbyterians we need trust one another. I agree, wholeheartedly. Trust, however, is an outcome, a result, not a strategy.
Trust is the outcome of our attitudes and behaviors toward people and institutions. It is a product of the active expression of dignity, respect, and honor. When it is missing, some barrier stands in the way of the relationship exhibiting these qualities.
It reminds me of what Machiavelli wrote about ingratitude, that it "arises either from avarice or from suspicion." He wrote these words as advice to rulers and their treatment of the people they serve. If the people feel avarice, it is for the power and privilege that the ruler has. If suspicion, it because the ruler has not acted to build trust and confidence in his or her leadership. In our context, I'd say the issues are about who holds power in the church and the fear of those who believe differently that we do.
When ingratitude is present, trust is missing. When trust is present, then expressions of gratitude are evident. This is why my Five Actions of Gratitude are not just a set of nice sentiments, but rather a strategic approach to relationships in the church, and any institution.
Here's how the Five Actions of Gratitude build trust.
Saying Thanks establishes a relationship of appreciation and gratitude with a person. To identify a reason to say thanks is to begin to create conditions where trust can be built.
Giving Back completes the circle of giving. I take my cue here from Thomas Merton in the beginning paragraphs of his book, No Man Is An Island.
"A happiness that is sought for ourselves alone can never be found: for a happiness that is diminished by being shared is not big enough to make us happy."
"There is a false and momentary happiness in self-satisfaction, but it always leads to sorrow because it narrows and deadens our spirit. True happiness is found in unselfish love, a love which increases in proportion as it is shared. There is no end to the sharing of love, and, therefore, the potential happiness of such love is without limit. Infinite sharing is the law of God's inner life. He has made the sharing of ourselves the law of our own being, so that it is in loving others that we best love ourselves. In disinterested activity we best fulfill our own capacities to act and to be."
For Merton, it is not enough that we are givers of love. Our love is to have a result, a response, an effect that is tangible. To love is more than about our obligation to love. It is about what is to be the impact of our love.
"Yet there can never be happiness in compulsion. It is not enough for love to be shared: it must be shared freely. That is to say it must be given, not merely taken. Unselfish love that is poured out upon a selfish object does not bring perfect happiness: not because love requires a return or a reward for loving, but because it rests in the happiness of the beloved. And if the one loved receives love selfishly, the lover is not satisfied. He sees that his love has failed to make the beloved happy. It has not awakened his capacity for unselfish love."
"Hence the paradox that unselfish love cannot rest perfectly except in a love that is perfectly reciprocated: because it knows that the only true peace is found in selfless love. Selfless love consents to be loved selflessly for the sake of the beloved. In so doing, it perfects itself."
"The gift of love is the gift of the power and the capacity to love, and, therefore, to give love with full effect is also to receive it. So, love can only be kept by being given away, and it can only be given perfectly when it is also received."
I'd like us to consider the importance of these words not solely in the context of our personal relationships, but also in our professional relationships within the church. If this type of love was characteristic of our relationships in our presbyteries, we would not be asking the questions about why we cannot trust one another.
I am not naive as if I'm simply asking for us all just to get along. Rather, I am suggesting that our attitudes and behaviors are conscious choices we make based on emotional states like avarice and fear.
Do we believe that perfect love casts out fear and produces magnanimity rather than the need for control? It isn't a rhetorical question.
Making Welcome opens ourselves up to those whon we may feel are our adversaries. The practice of hospitality is the domestication of reconciliation. Trust builds relationships of reconciliation.
It was in a similarly divisive church context that the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthian Christians,
"On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and those members of the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor, and our less respectable members are treated with greater respect; whereas our more respectable members do not need this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to the inferior member, that there may be no dissension within the body, but the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it."
How ironic that Paul leaves it to us to decide who is the weaker, less honorable, less respectable member. We make that judgment. Practicing open hospitality is a strategy that creates an environment of trust.
Honoring Others treat people with dignity, respect and care. Of the Five Actions, it is this action I've learned that the other four depend. It is the most difficult because it strikes at the heart of our own weaknesses of our fear, insecurity, and self-righteousness. We can practice the first three actions of gratitude in a sort of detached, mechanistic way. But to place the honoring of others ahead of our own welfare forces our egos to either give way to humility, or abandon gratitude as impractical and unreasonable. Ultimately, trust results from how we treat one another.
Creating Goodness provides the conditions where trust can grow. Note in these words from Paul to the Ephesian church that God's gifts to us are summarized as kindness and that the goodness we create is the way of life that he has prepared for us to live.
"But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life." (emphasis mine)
To live the good life that God has prepared is to create an environment where trust is realized. Trust isn't some strategy for working out our differences. It is a measure of how well we are living out God's call.
Moving into the Next Era of Trust
I don't know what will happen this summer at General Assembly. I don't know how churches or presbyteries are going work together in the future. I don't know what the next two years much less the next 50 years will bring to our church.
Here's what I do know. The future of the church is not determined yet. I'm certain that it will not look like the church of our past. Virtually everyone I know admits that the present structure is not sustainable. The larger question is how do we change while preserving the best of our Presbyterian tradition. How do we prepare for the next generation Presbyterian church?
Given time and opportunity, maybe the new Form of Government will spark an entrepreneurial grassroots rebirth of the church. If it does, then trust will grow. New models of mission will develop. New worshipping communities will emerge. New ways of designing presbyteries will grow. We will thne see the present as a moment in time rather than the end of time.
Trust is a key outcome and measure of our future. If trust is present, the church will grow. If not, it will continue to lose membership and churches. It is a choice that we individually make, that is expressed through our churches and councils of the church.
How do I make this choice? I choose to act, as one colleague has graciously shared with me, as a bridge. A bridge between people. A bridge between the past and the future. A bridge between the church as it has been and what it will look like in the future. A bridge between those who represent different sides of issues. A bridge for those who are afraid, angry and disaffected.
My offer is to any person, church or presbytery who is willing, to let me be in conversation with you about the future of the church. Let us together ask these questions.
What should the church to look like in the future?
What new forms of the church do we need to develop?
How can those forms be structured to create trust?
How can we live into “the good works that God prepared to be our way of life?”
Let's talk, and may God build trust and kindness as the hallmarks of our future life together as Presbyterians
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