John Meunier

This is a sure fire way to kill off a somewhat lively blog, but I have decided to give up blogging and Facebook for Lent.

I will see you on Easter.

May God walk with you through these days.

I’m no Jeremy Smith or Leonard Sweet, but I like to pick up a techie metaphor for church every now and then.

While reading the New York Times review for the new Amazon Kindle, this paragraph caught my attention.

The point everyone is missing is that in Technoland, nothing ever replaces anything. E-book readers won’t replace books. The iPhone won’t replace e-book readers. Everything just splinters. They will all thrive, serving their respective audiences.

Perhaps it is so for churches as well. Our sometimes manic pursuit of “the next big thing” might miss the essential truth. There is one church, but it has a thousand different blooms.

The discussion about ordination continues. Will Deuel responds to a comment with a good post worth reading. I am going to react to one thing he wrote.

If the board’s primary purpose (actually, sole purpose according to someone very well known within the denomination) is to make pastors for our churches, then they would look at our individual strengths and weaknesses and require us to fill in those gaps.

This probably is how people describe the process at its best. Indeed, Deuel is writing this to make a point about flexibility and responsiveness in handling individual cases.

But I hope we do not attempt to make pastors by filling in the gaps.

We all have strengths and weaknesses. If we want to grow up a bunch of effective pastors, we should pay more attention to adding to strengths than building up weaknesses.

Think of a tool box. A hammer is a hammer. A screw driver is a screw driver. A wrench is a wrench. The goal of a tool box is not to have a box full of “well-rounded” tools that all do everything and none of it terribly well. The goal is to have different tools do their individual jobs really well.

Yes, there is a certain point at which a weakness in one area becomes crippling.

The bishops and the cabinets and the local congregations deploy the different clergy tools as they can best be used. That is the point of the “sent” ministry is it not?

From Eugene Peterson, Under the Unpredictable Plant

A bare sixty to seventy years after Pentecost we have an account of seven churches that show about the same quality of holiness and depth of virtue foud in any ordinary parish in America today. In two thousands years of practice we haven’t gotten any better. You would think we would have, but we haven’t. Every time we open up a church door and take a careful, scrutinizing look inside we find them there again – sinners. Also Christ. Christ in the preaching. Christ in the sacraments, but inconveniently and embarrassingly mixed into this congregation of sinners.

Matt Judkins reports in response to some recent commentary that he had a good experience with his BOM.

My daughter – Lord bless her soul – is taking on the challenge of teaching me some guitar.

So, I need a goal.

What are some of the easiest hymns to play (and sing for bad singers) on guitar?

The Methoblog is discussing Will Deuel’s BOOM hazing experience.

One of the commenters mentioned some cases he knows.

A friend in Florida has been deferred twice because of having significant student loans, all of them for his M.Div and Ph.D. work. That conference does not want to put him forward for ordination because he owes money for school.

Here was my response when I read this.

Ack! Being in debt is a reason not to be approved by the Board of Ordained Ministry! Do we only want ministry candidates who can pay for their M.Div. with daddy’s trust fund? (If there is some unspoken debt threshold out there, I’d like to know about it.)

Here is what I think the UMC needs. It needs someone to start collecting these stories from all over the country. There needs to be some sort of systematic look at the process. We need data and information.

What we have now are lots of anecdotal stories that float around. For those who see no problem, anecdotal cases can be dismissed on a case-by-case basis. They are unique. Sure, some will say, the process is more byzantine or obscure than it was back when, but it is still working. Besides, I know those people on the BOOM and I don’t want to be seen to be criticizing them.

There is a new interest in many quarters in collecting data. Why not do so here? Some have said that building up a new generation of leaders is a key to the future of the UMC. Oh wait, that was not “some”; it was the General Conference and bishop’s council.

If that is a goal, then why not a real, hard, and clear-eyed look at the process? Not just the process as it appears on PowerPoint slides, but as it actually works in different conferences.

I know there are voices that will say the process is working fine. My response: How do you know? What is your standard for saying that? Do you have any evidence to back up that claim?

Can we even articulate in a clear way what the goals of the process are? Can we even describe what a good system of clergy development would do or look like? Do we systematically survey or inquire of new clergy whether they found the process constructive and challenging in a positive sense?

I am willing – eager even – to be shown that the system is working well and doing exactly what the UMC would have it do. But I am doubtful that anyone can show that it is. Rather, we assert claims in the absence of evidence on either side of the question.

How about we recruit a laity committee of people with experience building such systems? Give them a budget and let them spend a year making the most aggressive evaluation of the system they can. Let’s hear what someone with no vested interest in the system has to say about it. And then let’s make the changes that will serve the purposes and needs of the church and the kingdom.

We try to judge the tree with only a vague idea what kind of fruit it is producing. Isn’t that foolish?

From Reaching Out:

When we think about the people who have given us hope and have increased the strength of our soul, we might discover that they were not the advice givers, warners or moralists, but the few who were able to articulate in words and actions the human condition in which we participate and who encouraged us to face the realities of life. Preachers who reduce mysteries to problems and offer Band-Aid-type solutions are depressing because they avoid the compassionate solidarity out of which healing comes forth.

Video interview with the new Asbury president found here.

(h/t): BW3

Ken Carter recently reminded me of the porch-door-house metaphor for Wesleyan faith. I wonder if there is a coal cellar where they keep the crazy uncle. I feel that might be the place for me.

I’ve lived most of my adult life wildly out of sync with the world around me.

Lisa and I got married when I was 20 and had our first child at the age of 22. Our son’s playmates all had parents 10-15 years older than his parents.

I entered newspaper journalism as a career as the newspaper industry was starting its nose dive.

I became a United Methodist as an adult – somehow avoiding all the people rushing out the doors on my way in.

And now – here I am – a 41-year-old rookie preacher trying to get into seminary. I hear middle-aged, white guys like me are not in what you would call heavy demand. I’m old enough that the younger generations see me as – well – old. So, I have no traction with the desirable demographic. Plus, I’ll be on the backside of the 40s when I come off of provisional status – BOOM willing.

Sure, I’m a decade older than Jesus when he died. Sure, my cell phone is a museum piece and I don’t own a iPod or any of the othr essential hip pastor gadgets. I have a blog , but I understand that blogs are so yesterday.

This is when I find myself looking wistfully at Abraham. How old was he when he got the moving orders? Moses was a mid-career pastor, wasn’t he? What did the 20-something slaves think of him, I wonder.

How does that prayer go?

I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed for thee or laid aside for thee,
exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.

Hand me my coal shovel. I’ll get to work.