Ministers' School

This will probably be too long and varied. I will learn how to manage this thing better.

The church newsletter left out my blog address. Ah well. There's always next week.

I was at our conference Ministers' School the last three days. It was really a good school, I thought. Marva Dawn and Tom Long were the leaders. I especially enjoyed Dr. Long's comments on the Seven Habits of Disaffective (?) Preachers--and Dr. Dawn is fairly provocative in much she says. I asked her if she and Brian McLaren had ever had a sit-down discussion or had been on the same agenda at a conference, and she said no. She did say that others had told her that he was saying many of the same things she is. I think that is true. It's my understanding that she and Leonard Sweet have sometimes been in disagreement about some things, but I think much that what she reminds us about worship---liturgical integrity, the place of truth and beauty, mystery, and authenticity, resonates with what I read from many folks in the emergent conversation. I wish she would attend to the current conversation more.

Perhaps the best of what I take away from Ministers School this year is the "conversation time" that Bishop Schnase offered this morning. To a question about his reflections on clergy spiritual formation, Bishop said he believed there are two major pitfalls for clergy ---loneliness and cynicism. Wow, do I ever agree. I have never struggled with cynicism, but do daily with loneliness. I know many colleagues who struggle with both. I think cynicism in some ways is more insidious, because it often springs from a sense of hopelessness that some feel--that nothing we do really makes much difference; that those in authority in the church--the bishop, the cabinet---are motivated not by the Holy Spirit but by human desire for power or institutional survival; that our churches won't change, or can't change. I am afraid I become fairly judgmental when I see that kind of cynicism in colleagues. Yet, in my better self, I know it arises from the soul, souls that are often injured by circumstances that make it hard to have hope.

Loneliness is something I know more about firsthand. Having been single now for over five years, and having moved several times over the last thirty years, I think loneliness is sometimes exacerbated by the itinerancy. We are told, and I know why and I guess I agree with it, that we are to cut ties at least for a significant amount of time, with persons in the congregations we are leaving. Building friendships takes time and energy that I don't always feel that I have. Last year, I very intentionally started to work on some friendship with clergy colleagues, and have made one of my resolutions this year to renew others that I have let slip.

This week, I was especially thankful for two particular friends with whom I was able to talk some about this continuing passion around emergent. I'm not sure if I was more grateful to my well-read friend Bart, who six years ago walked with me through the dark times of separation and divorce and my sister's death, and who, yesterday, sat and listened and listened as I talked about goals I have set around emergent for the next month, and yet, I know, wasn't all that familiar with some of what I was talking about---or if I was more grateful for Jim (what box, Jim?) who at lunch today brought me to tears when I told him I had set some goals and he asked me to tell them what they were--a simple thing, really, but what a huge joy to have someone who listens to this rambling voice of mine.

I'll share more about this sometime soon, but I have also set some reading goals on some classic literature on prayer, since I am going to preach a series on prayer during Lent. This week I've been reading O Hallesby's book entitled simply "Prayer" from the 1930s. He defines prayer as acknowledged helplessness, but with faith, opening the door to Jesus.