Why I'm breaking up with the ELCA

I have started and re-started this post so many times. I wish there was an easy way to say this. I used to love the ELCA. But I don't anymore.

This is my story of how I broke up with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

I have literally been a lifelong Lutheran. I was baptized at just over one month old at Hope Lutheran Church, in Bozeman, MT. As a child, church was a place of comfort and belonging. I played my trombone in the church. I was an active member of youth group. I went to Lutheran bible camp. "Lutheran" to me always had connotations of warmth and home.

I went to a Lutheran liberal arts college. I spent six summers working at two different Lutheran bible camps. I participated in a  Lutheran volunteer program for a year. I used to be proud to be a Lutheran.

Just before I turned 30 I followed the call to seminary. I attended a Methodist seminary, because it was in Denver and so was I. I entered into candidacy, the process that prepares seminarians to become pastors.  I had a wonderfully supportive candidacy committee. They nurtured me and helped me to grow. Seminary was a great experience. I loved Clinical Pastoral Education. I loved my internship. I got clarity on what God was calling me to do, which is the hope of any vocation, and I learned that I was called to be a hospital chaplain.

This is not acceptable in the eyes of the ELCA. 

Chaplaincy is considered a "specialized ministry" in the ELCA. Other ministries in this category are military chaplaincy, campus ministry, and outdoor ministry.  Before you can receive a call to specialized ministry (a piece of fancy paper that allows you to receive ELCA benefits, pension, and so on), you are required to serve as a parish pastor for three years. This is referred to as the "3 year rule."

I have heard from several bishops, who shall remain nameless, the following with regards to this rule:

"It is the only way that you will learn how to be a Lutheran leader."
"The parish is the location of the ministry of word and sacrament."
"We have a clergy shortage in parishes."
"We need first call pastors to be in congregations that could not otherwise afford them." (ie: cheap labor)
"The truest calling to the ministry of word and sacrament is to be a parish pastor."
"Every one else has had to do it, and so do you."

But somehow, something magical happens after three years in a parish that allows you to do specialized ministry.

I will admit that I have known about this rule since I entered seminary. I also knew that it would be extraordinarily difficult to bypass. I will own that.  However, if your bishop is willing to bring an exception regarding this 3 year rule to the other bishops, the Council of Bishops, it is likely that your exception will be granted.  This is particularly frustrating because different bishops are more rigid gatekeepers than other bishops. In other words, if your bishop likes you, they will bring an exception on your behalf. If your bishop doesn't like you, you are out of luck.

This year I found myself with a full-time chaplain job and only 6 months of parish ministry experience. (Because the yearlong parish internship doesn't count as experience.) I also found myself in trouble with my bishop.

When I asked if an exception to the three years rule could be made, I was denied. I was also advised to "leave this denomination if you can't follow the rules." Shortly thereafter I was thanked for my "caring and compassionate ministry in this city." Which feels like a kick in the stomach, given that this same ministry is not recognized as Word and Sacrament until three years have passed while working in a parish.

This denomination needs to evolve or it will die. The ministry of word and sacrament isn't confined to a church. The role of parish pastor is just one expression of word and sacrament ministry. It is not possible to make every candidate fit a parish-shaped hole. Just because you have open congregations that cannot afford to pay a pastor with more experience doesn't mean that you should force people into serving parishes who have another calling.

I am a chaplain in my soul. I love my work. It gets me out of bed every day and I fall asleep satisfied every night. I can point to tangible things that I do to alleviate suffering in this broken world every single day. I am happily doing ministry, perhaps some of the best evangelism there is, at the bedside of my patients. I hear from many people that having a chaplain at the bedside of their dying loved one is such a comfort, and might inspire them to return to a church. 

I am doing God's work. I am doing sacred, beautiful, painful, and holy work. It is not in a parish. It does not directly support a congregation. I am doing the thing that I simply must do. 

And so, because the denomination of my baptism, confirmation, first communion, and ordination will not recognize this work, I am breaking up with the ELCA. 

Chaplaincy in the Ministry of Word and Sacrament

Chaplaincy is considered a Specialized Ministry in the ELCA. The normative "first call" ministry in the ELCA is parish ministry.  The first call pastor is placed in a congregation where they serve in traditional functions of Word and Sacrament such as preaching, presiding at communion, baptizing, teaching confirmation, and so on.

First call candidates are generally not considered for specialized ministry. My own sense of call has been to hospital chaplaincy. I find this to be the place where I am most living out of my call of service to God and to the world. I frequently find myself not fitting into the mold of the normative first call ministry. So I am attempting to think through how my call to chaplaincy is an incarnation of the ministry of word and sacrament (ordained) ministry.

The ELCA defines the Word as both the holy scriptures and the living Christ. So the proclamation of the Word includes preaching and teaching of scripture, but also testifying to the work of the Living Christ in the world. This is where I find myself most often resonating with this aspect of my call in chaplaincy. Jesus Christ epitomized a ministry of accompaniment.  Jesus SAW people in their need (blind man, hemorrhaging woman, woman returning from burying her son, and so on.) Through my baptism, I die and live in Christ, and Christ lives in me. I am called to walk alongside those I meet in the hospital.  I am called to extend the love of Christ to those in their greatest time of need.

The Lutheran church defines a sacrament as taking a very ordinary thing (water, bread, and wine) and using that to make manifest the promises of God.  Baptism with water grants us eternal life in Christ, and Holy Communion feeds us for this journey on earth and reminds us to whom we belong. These sacraments are of paramount importance in the hospital, when we are reminded of our mortality and finitude and frailty in the face of overwhelming circumstances. While I am not presently allowed to preside over the sacraments because I am not ordained, I have no doubt that being able to offer them in my ministry of chaplaincy is crucial.

One of the ELCA buzzwords these days is the idea of "Missional Leadership".  This was the prompt for my candidacy approval essay and I will explore it in my next blog post: Chaplains as Missional Leaders

What is Chaplaincy Anyway?

One of the things that I have been wrestling with lately is the question, "What is chaplaincy anyway?" As a discipline, it is not terribly well-known or understood. When my patient's ask me what I do, I usually say something along the lines of, "Chaplains provide spiritual and emotional support while you are in the hospital."

My work involves discussions of trauma, acute illness and injury, coping with loss of function, loss of life, and so on.  It involves end of life care and it involves discussions about transitioning to comfort care and about who will make decisions for you if you are unable to make them for yourself. They are non-biased, non-partisan, supportive conversations that involve attending to the specific needs of the patient.

This doesn't seem particularly different than what might be offered by social workers or particularly compassionate nurses.

But the other dimension that makes chaplaincy unique is the understanding that patients have spiritual needs and part of whole-person care is attending to those spiritual dimensions. My CPE supervisor has been challenging me with this question during the last couple months, "If your work is only about attending to the spiritual and emotional needs of the patient, why can't a particularly compassionate atheist do the same work?"

I am not sure that I have an answer, but this is the one that I am trying on lately:  Chaplains must be people of faith themselves, it doesn't matter what sort of faith, as a Jewish chaplain can provide care to a Buddhist patient, or a Christian chaplain can provide care to a Muslim patient, but it is important that in order to do their work with integrity, they must believe that there is a higher power at work in the world and in our lives. 

Reformation/Re-formation

Haarlem, Netherlands.  A. Hanson, 2009.

Yesterday was Reformation Sunday in the ELCA.  If you want a quick and dirty primer on what the Reformation is, click here. Reformation Day is celebrated among Lutherans with a particular sort of affinity that some of my clergy friends call "Lutheran pridefulness day."  It's where Lutherans get to pat themselves on the back and be thankful that they are different than OTHER kinds of Christians.

When Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to the door of the Wittenburg church in 1517, he was responding to a overruling church hierarchy that was out of touch with the people and with what God was already doing in their midst.

 But it is with care and deliberation that I raise the following question, with this radical reforming history in our tradition, are we really willing to be re-formed now?  

I am not convinced that the ELCA is open to reformation in this day and age.  I raise for your consideration this article that appeared in the most recent edition of the Lutheran magazine, "Get set for clergy retirement wave: Age, perspectives to change the face of the ELCA" by Charles M. Austin.  Austin's article is primarily making the observation that there is an anticipated wave of clergy retirements in the near future, and these retirements will change the face of leadership in the ELCA.  This is an absolutely valid observation.  He also argues that this can be a good thing, with young clergy bringing energy to their work and perhaps building bridges between younger members who are new to the ELCA, with which I also agree.

But the overall tone of the article is one of unwarranted mourning.  Austin, along with many others quoted in the article, lament that with the retirement of many of these older pastors is the loss of "skill and wisdom gained in decades of ministry", "'residual memory' of predecessor church bodies", and perhaps most grating, these retired leaders' "commitment to ministry."  (Which seems to imply that younger clergy do not have the same commitment to their work.)  To all of this lament, I raise our own theology for consideration.

At the core of our Lutheran theology is the cross.  A symbol of death.  That in order to have new life, the old self must be crucified. When Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to that door in 1517, it probably felt a little bit like death. He was standing up against a giant behemoth of an institutional church, and he had no way of knowing that his bold act would lead to anything but excommunication. But as Marty himself said, "Here I stand, I can do no other."  This is not to say that older pastors are dragging down the ELCA, but rather the attitude that the good days have already passed in our church.  It is fully possible to be a pastor in a call for decades and be continually open to what God is creating new every day. In fact, I feel fortunate to know and be mentored by several of these older pastors.

I have been working on my ELCA assignment paperwork, and in my Rostered Leader Profile, one of the questions is, "What are your hopes for the ELCA?"  which I answered with the following response:

It is my hope that the ELCA will be open to what God is already doing in the world in surprising places, and be willing to let some things die in order that new things might be born.  It is my hope that we believe what we confess in our own theology about death and resurrection.

Here I stand, I can do no other.

The ELCA is in decline.  This is not a special distinction.  We share this dubious distinction with all other denominations. There are fewer people coming to church.  There can be no assumed Christian culture. Being a member of a church is the exception, not the rule.  We are more likely to be eating brunch than attending church on Sundays. The understanding of "church" that pervaded American culture for so long is dead.  It hurts to hear and hurts to say, but it is true.  Healthy congregations still exist, and will continue to do so, but the sort of church that we hold up as overwhelmingly normative in the ELCA (or any other denomination, for that matter) just doesn't exist any longer.

I am a Lutheran. I love our tradition.  I love our theology.  I also hurt for a church that seems to be stuck in the past.  I hurt for all the vibrant, excited young leaders who have their vision squashed by people like Charles M. Austin and others who view us as second-string replacements for the "all-star" pastors who are retiring.

I do not think it is timely or appropriate to throw out all of our tradition.  But I ask that we consider why we do the things that we do. And be willing to let certain things go to make room for the new life in our denomination.  I know that the word "death" used in this post is going to make some people uncomfortable and angry. So how about re-formation?


Are we as the ELCA actually willing to be re-formed?

Are we willing to let go of "cultural Lutheranism" (tired jokes about jello salad and lutefisk and Scandinavians) and be willing to see what Lutheranism looks like today?  Are we willing to find places for people of color in our overwhelmingly white churches? Places for other languages and cultures in our expression of liturgy and worship?  To be influenced and changed by those people that we label as "Other" to "Our" tradition?

Are we willing to dare to be different in the way that we "do" church? Are we willing to provide space for our people to co-create worship alongside the seminary-educated professionals? Are we willing to let go of control?  Are we willing to explore alternative ways of educating and forming pastors?

Are we willing to dare to believe that the church does not actually exist within four walls?  That it might have nothing to do with buildings at all?  To believe that God is already at work in the world and instead of creating a place where people can come and encounter God, we will walk alongside people in the world where God is already with them?

Are we willing to stop lamenting what has been and turn with joyous expectation to that which is to come?  

Review of Queer Clergy by R.W. Holmen

Credit Cokesbury.com

Earlier this fall I responded to a call for people willing to review a new book, Queer Clergy by R.W. Holmen, that was hitting shelves in early 2014. I received an advance reader's copy. Life got a little out of hand (as is to be expected while working in a church over Christmas), so I am just now getting around to writing my review.  

Queer Clergy: A History of Gay and Lesbian Ministry in American Protestantism is a compelling history of the role of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans*, and queer (LGBTQ) clergy in five major mainline Protestant denominations, the United Church of Christ (UCC), the Episcopal Church (TEC), the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the United Methodist Church (UMC). Holmen traces the arc of history in each denomination from the first murmurings of LGBTQ clergy to the present (or until about May 2013). He uses official documents of the denominations: minutes, resolutions, policy statements, and judicial decisions, as well as personal interviews with LGBTQ pioneers in each denomination.

Holmen himself is an ELCA Lutheran with a background in law, who is an ardent ally for LGBTQ persons. He writes in the preface, "Hopefully this book will help LGBT Christians and straight allies to appreciate our past and to remember the pioneers who have led the church to be a place of welcome."   This book is a straightforward and concise history text, but for me, its real value is in naming the pioneering and prophetic queer clergy who have gone before me.  Since I am a part of the ELCA, this review will focus on that portion of the text, part III.

In this forum, it is impossible to summarize all the information packed into this section of Holmen's book. It is a rich examination of the early LGBTQ activist groups in the Lutheran church (starting in the 1970s), the early explorations of social statements regarding human sexuality (although none considered LGBTQ ordination), and the introduction of many early clergy pioneers.  After the formation of the ELCA in 1988, Holmen traces an intensifying call for discourse.  Through reporting personal interviews with those involved and citing synodical documents, he traces the heartbreaking stories of defrocking of out glory, of congregations being expelled from the ELCA for calling openly gay and lesbian pastors. He discusses the process of extra ordinem ordinations and the ultimate formation of the group, Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries (ELM), to provide a credentialing body for those clergy who had a call to ordained ministry and also happened to be LGBTQ.

A theme in this section is "Biblical obedience mandated ecclesiastical disobedience."  With rising crescendo, Holmen traces the history of resolutions and proposals until the ELCA Churchwide Assembly 2009 (CWA09) and what is referred to in ELCA circles even now as "The Vote."

This resolution is as follows, "RESOLVED that the ELCA commit itself to finding a way for people in such publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships to serve as rostered leaders of this church."

With 559 voting yes, and 451 voting no, the moment had arrived for queer clergy in the ELCA.  Holmen writes, "the reaction among a thousand voting members and another thousand observers was muted.  The plenary hall was suddenly sacred space, and the quiet interrupted only by weeping and the murmur of prayer.  By twos and threes and fours and fives, the children of God huddled together in tears and prayer, some in joyous thanksgiving and others in grief."  I remember watching this vote from my desk at work in Boulder, CO.  I remember weeping too with joy that my denomination had found a way.  Little did I know how important this would become for me personally.

Holmen also respectfully addresses the opposition to this vote in the years that follow.  I was impressed by both his treatment of this issue, but also the conduct of the ELCA and its leaders.  He also covers the emotional reinstatement process of those clergy who were defrocked and those congregations that were expelled.

I don't find myself moved to tears by books very often, and Holmen's book did this for me.  I have a lot personally invested in this history, and as I read this text, I gave thanks over and over again for the brave clergy, bishops and allies, who went before.  I know many of the people personally that Holmen writes about, Pastor Anita Hill, Pastor Bradley Schmeling, Retired Bishop Herb Chilstrom, and others, but this book filled in the rest, and I will never stop being thankful for these people.

Preparation for Public Ministry

The Sunday at Humble Walk
Lutheran Church when we baked bread for our
Eucharist during the service instead of singing.

I am a part of the Rocky Mountain Synod of the ELCA.  Our bishop, Jim Gonia, is a visionary leader and this morning I found this blog post in my Facebook newsfeed:

Preparing Leaders for Ministry

He raises issues that have haunted me for years about the existing process of assignment/seminary education:

1. The gifts and passions of individual leaders-while important-are subservient to the places where leadership is needed.

2. Seminaries are attempting to train leaders for ministry on the basis of the gifts recognized within them

3. There is a dilemma that occurs when the gifts and passions that a candidate has to offer don't fit with existing opportunities for ministry within the church.  Inevitably, our new leaders end up in first calls that do not allow their gifts and passions to flourish, or end up waiting a very long time for their first call.

He raises the idea that perhaps we redefine congregational "need" not in terms of an empty position, but in terms of what will propel a community of the faithful more fully into God's mission.  He suggests that we become more intentional about using the energy and gifts of newly trained leaders who might demonstrate a better understanding of and commitment to our theology than many "cultural Lutherans."

He ends the post by saying, "I've said before that the church we are being called to become is not the church we have been.  How will our preparation of leaders reflect this?"

I have felt stuck in this terrible tension of how broken the system of seminary education is and how it is breaking me.  This blog post from my Bishop demonstrates first, that I am not crazy, and second, that there are leaders who see that the church does not have to be stuck in 1955 or stuck in the understanding of what it means to be the body of Christ in the upper Midwest.  It gives me so much hope.  Because I love Lutheran theology, I love scripture, I love what the wild and rampant Holy Spirit DOES to people's lives.  I am not ready to throw out this entire thing, despite what I feel like at Luther Seminary sometimes.

It is terrifying to look beyond what we have been.  It is exciting to see what we might become.  But we cannot dig in our heels and beg and plead that nothing ever changes.  Because that is unrealistic.

So thankful today for prophetic voices.  Thanks be to God.

Truth

This is exactly what I feel so passionately about with regards to being/doing church.  How might we all be the missional church?  

Credit to St Paul's Episcopal Church in Medina, OH for this picture from their Facebook page.

Changing Ecologies in communities of faith

A few years ago a church was expected to have a website in order to be seen as credible.  It could be relatively simple, just a place to post service times, a mission statement, contact information for the staff, etc.  I still believe that a website is absolutely necessary, but I would also boldly suggest that a social media presence is fast becoming a necessity, if it is not already.  The entire world of communication has shifted from a one-sided broadcast model (such as a church sending out a newsletter to the congregation) to a transactional model (congregation members can interact online to share prayer concerns, dialogue about a sermon, etc).  Many congregations are not here yet, but the rest of the world is in this place.  This is just another way of illuminating that our model of church is no longer working.  The Social Media Revolution video dictates that it is no longer a matter of deciding whether or not you are going to participate in social media, but how you will participate.

And this is terrifying to people, primarily those who are not digital natives or naturalized citizens, which unfortunately, comprises a large number of pastors and church attendees.  There are certainly concerns about privacy, which should not be dismissed (well maybe those conspiracy theory-type fears should be thrown out), but most concerns center around the issues of Promise, Tools, and Bargain (what am I going to get out of this, how will it happen, and what is it going to cost me) as discussed by Clay Shirky in Here Comes Everybody.  Misunderstandings arise when expectations of use are not clear, and I think this is tremendously important for navigating the changing ecologies of faith communities.

The answer is not to completely prohibit social media usage, but rather to explore the reasons why you are using it and to be open to evolving needs, rules, etc.  The tide has changed, and here are some things that I have figured out about social media (some from my own mistakes, some from the mistakes of others!).

Amy's Suggestions for Social Media Use in Faith Communities:
1. If you wouldn't want your parishioner, pastor, candidacy committee, professor, congregation, etc to see it, don't post it.  It has been argued that there are specific privacy settings that allow you to post certain things for certain people.  Yes, that is true.  But it is also a ton of work and inevitably you are going to miss something.  It is easiest to control what you post before you post it.

2. Don't post pictures of other people or their children unless you have asked them first.  And even then, reconsider whether or not you should be posting it. This also applies to "checking in" functions on facebook and twitter and other social locating apps as well.  Never assume anything.

3. Make it clear that you speak only for yourself on your personal profiles.  If you also represent an organization on a social media platform, conduct yourself accordingly.

4. Social media allows life and ministry to happen in real time.  Which is great.  But it also has the potential to completely encroach on your non-virtual life.  Think about how you will respond to pastoral care crises that happen in this forum.  A long way of saying, think about your boundaries for self care and sabbath in advance of when an issue arises.

5. Have multiple layers of involvement in social media spaces.  Congregations should have a public page that provides information for visitors about service times, mission, etc, but also a backstage space to foster online community.  Think of it as a coffee hour that occurs 24 hours a day.

6. As Shirky notes, "everyone is a media outlet."  Our actions online as church leaders can have ripple effects that we are unaware of.  You never know who is reading, watching, listening, etc.   This post, by way of example, had a much greater impact than I was aware of until it blew up.  Someone who follows this blog on a RSS feed saw a new post.  This person told a person who attends this church.  Who told a few others.  Who told the pastor.  Who I was interviewing for a research project, and who called me in to her office, and very nearly refused to participate after reading this blog post.  Nothing was untruthful, but it has a different impact as a result of online permanence.  If it was mentioned in passing, it would have been quickly forgotten.  Instead, it was up on the interwebs for further review.

7. Be willing to reevaluate why and how you are doing something, and do not be afraid to change the "terms of use."

8. What happens on social media has a real world impact, particularly on interpersonal relationships.  This is a part of pastoral care and preaching.

9. Crowd-sourcing is both a blessing and a curse.  If you are posting something in social media, you are going to get people's opinions whether you want them or not.  And disabling comments is a cowardly way out.  If you don't want others to share their opinions with you, don't post it in the first place.

10.  Social media should never be a way of "getting in the young people," "growing membership," "reaching our target audience,"etc.  If you are thinking this way, you have missed the point already.  Never, EVER, use social media as a bait and switch for evangelism or a membership drive.  Social media is not a means to an end.  It is an end in and of itself.

11. Never make assumptions about a person based on their online presence.  Assume that each person has a much bigger story and then seek it out.

12. Know that the Holy Spirit works in social media too.  I have a TON of stories about this.  I think I will file that away as a future post.