How to Break in Your New Pastor

Shoes are a problem.  The moment I realize I've finally found a truly good pair of shoes--not just practical and good-looking, but really comfortable--is usually the moment I see they are also starting to wear out. No matter how much I loved them, no matter how much I'm willing to pay, I will never find the same pair to replace them.*  Like it or not, I'm going to have to go out and find something new, something different.

I've never actually "broken in" a new pastor.  At least in my adult life, I've always been looking from the other side of the story.  Nevertheless, I have been through a few pastoral transitions, and I've learned some things, not the least of which is that metaphors like shoes have limits, especially when we start talking about "wearing them out," or "breaking them in." (Get too involved in a metaphor, and you'll find yourself trying to figure out how to "wear your pastor with heavy socks around the house to stretch them." And no one wants to go there.)

So I will keep the metaphor under control, and tell you what I know.  Because there are things you can do to make it easier, I promise.

1. Start Over--Good shoes, simple as they may be, can be hard to part with.  Good relationships are a hundred times more so.  But whether the last pastor was your best friend or just someone you put up with, you aren't ready for the new relationship until you deal with the old one. Mourn, celebrate--the important thing is to separate the old relationship from the new one. It's a common mistake to treat a pastoral relationship like a marriage, and feel you can't like one without being disloyal to the other, or that you need to rank them.  But your new pastor needs to be met as her own person, and not as a comparison to someone else.

2. Wait--New things are awkward.  New shoes can pinch, and new patterns feel weird. Someone else's face on the platform, someone else's style in the board meeting, can rub you wrong just because it's new.  Wait.  Understand that your pastor is going through the very same thing, only the change is bigger for him.  This is one place the metaphor works.  You can be certain she will adapt to you much more than you do to her.  In fact, I promise he will have a you-shaped impression in his sole in time.**

3. Smile--There's an art to introducing yourself, but don't sweat it, because you learned this in grade school.  Be friendly, but not overwhelming. Be helpful, but only if you want to help***  Most of all, be real. There is nothing so comforting as people who like you enough to be themselves with you. Make a joke, as questions.  Pastors are real people (contrary to the rumors), and they come to you as social refugees, strangers in the land.  But you don't have to befriend them for charity's sake, because they are almost universally interesting, caring people, and fun to boot.  I promise.

4. Invest--Change is hard, and change takes time, but it's also an opportunity.  A new pastor is a great time to think about other changes for your church.  What's your vision?  What's your hope? Your new pastor will have some experience or skills that the last one didn't. They can help your church stretch in new directions. Of course, you shouldn't drop big decisions in her lap right at the start. And it's important to know the difference between having a dream, and lobbying like a special interest group in Congress.  But this is a good time to invest in your church.  Come to church. Engage in the conversation.  Share your ideas, and look for others' that you can help with. Take advantage of the opportunity.


The conclusion of it all it this:  that metaphors aside, change is unavoidable.  The Advent Movement is always moving.  So, even if we want it otherwise, finding a pastor is always going to be less like choosing a spouse, and more like getting a new pair of shoes:

You'll find the best fit you can, of course.  And then you'll give it time to adjust, and to feel comfortable.  And finally, I most certainly hope, you'll start going places together.

*Okay, there are exceptions.  You might wear out shoes exceptionally fast, or you might be my dad, and buy 2 of the same pair if they fit well.

**All right, I should apologize for the corniness. But I was provoked.

***If you don't really want to do anything, offer to do anything.  But if you'd like to be helpful, make sure to offer something specific, like food, or to haul away boxes to the recycling center.  

A Potluck Story (script)

After the weight of last week's blog, I have something lighter to offer. This script my first short drama, and it's strictly for fun.  It's a little parody of the delightful contradictions of church potluck.*

A Potluck Story

Visitor and two hosts enter, holding paper plates and plastic forks. They approach a table which the table of potluck food, although there are no other props, and the food on the table is imaginary. Actors will look at, pick up, and read labels on this imaginary food.

Host 1 is trying to make a good impression, and is more and more embarrassed as the skit progresses. Host 2 is having fun, and approves of the food thoroughly. Visitor approaches the potluck table with enthusiasm, which turns to confusion, and finally to distaste.

Visitor--Thanks for inviting me to your church--I really liked it. And why didn't you tell me you had a dinner afterward? I could have at least picked up some KFC.

Host 1--Oh that's all right. We wouldn't want you to bring anything. You're our guest.

Host 2--And besides, we don't serve any meat at our potlucks.

Visitor--You mean you're all vegetarians?

Host 1--Yes

Host 2--No

Host 1--What I mean is, we like to eat vegetarian, because it's healthier, and we really care about health here.

Visitor--Oh, I get it. Because meat has all that fat and cholesterol?

Host 1--Exactly. So we eat other things for our proteins.

Visitor (reading a label on a dish)--"Tofu cheese loaf"?

Host 1 (embarrassed)--Yeah, um, why don't you try these? I made them--gluten-free oat burgers.

Visitor--These? (Pointing)

Host 2--No, those are the gluten burgers.

Visitor--I'm confused. And what's this? (Picking up something, and sounding out the word on the label) Veg-a-naise?

Host 1--That's like mayonnaise, it's just made without the egg.

Host 2--Since eggs are so bad for you.

Visitor--But aren't those deviled eggs over there?

Host 1--Well, yes, but--

Host 2 appears to suddenly notice the (imaginary) deviled eggs, and eagerly serves 2 or 3 onto their plate.

Visitor--You know, maybe I'll have salad. Do you have salads?

Host 1--Right here. Here's a Ramen noodle salad, and a taco salad, though I guess that one's mostly ranch dressing.

Visitor—Is that a fruit salad? It looks like Cool Whip and canned oranges.

Host 2 (proudly)--And marshmallows!

Visitor--You know, I'm really not all that hungry. Maybe I could just have a cup of coffee.

Host 1 and 2(gasping and dropping their plates)--COFFEE?!


*Please note--this script is for entertainment only. I am seriously not making a statement about what we eat or what we should eat.  That's between you and your conscience.  And, of course, the church-kitchen police.

On Being Adventist in the Wake of Charlottesville

My church has a troubled track record on race. I studied it once, for a campmeeting afternoon seminar for young adults.  I composed the lecture with a five-month-old in a pack on my chest, reaching around whichever twin refused to sleep, to type on my laptop. And I delivered it to all of a half-dozen participants. But it left it's mark on me, if on no one else.

Right now, while my country is enraged over racially-motivated violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, it's all coming back.  Because I know my church knows what to say about this.  We have the right ideology, the right theology of the value of mankind. And yet all we are able to do is shake our heads from a distance.

I think I know why. We have such a mixed record when it comes to race.  We have such a mixed example now.  We were among the first to invade the American south to educate (and not just evangelize) former slaves, but a hundred years later many thought segregated churches were a moral obligation. We abhor human inequality in no uncertain terms, and yet we can't seem to find a way to de-segregate our racially divided conferences in parts of the US.*

What is our problem?  Well, there's the usual susceptibility to culture--the fact that we are products of our context, even though we try to think beyond it.  And then there's the way we cling to an instruction rather than applying a principle (Ellen White had urged segregated churches after both black and white workers had met violence from the opposition.)  But our real problem, at heart, isn't about racism.

I won't claim there isn't racism in the church, or even that it's not a serious problem.  But the trouble that haunts the soul of this denomination isn't how we feel about race.  It's how we feel about activism.

Before the Civil War, and the Emancipation Proclamation, there were activists in the church. But the prophecies of Revelation talked of slaves in Babylon at the end of time, and many, including Uriah Smith and James White, insisted that it was wasted work to push for the end of slavery.  It couldn't happen, so the time was better spent freeing men from spiritual bondage.

Even after the Civil War, the church discouraged former slaves from fighting for political or social equality, urging that they would do more good by keeping their heads down and working hard.  Besides, Smith argued, the eschatology still applied.  That meant slavery was bound to come back into play.

In the 1920s, church administration gave up on the idea that our institutions would voluntarily de-segregate, and we created black Regional Conferences in parts of the US.  From the record, one feels that the disappointment in the church was as palpable as the relief.

And then came the 1960s, and the Civil Rights movement.  But it hadn't come from us.  We could have taken that opportunity for change, but the church was suspicious.  We saw dangerous elements in the protests.  Some accused Martin Luther King of being a Marxist.  Although Adventists, many of them young people, did participate, church leaders often warned them not to.

In 1963, a Review and Herald article urged members generally to take the "middle of the road" and not rock the boat.  In 1965, Oakwood students were told they would be disciplined if they participated in King's famous march on Washington.

And finally we come to Charlottesville.  We are sickened by the news from Virginia.  We're grieved that anyone could hold and promote racist views in our midst.  But we stop short of saying too much, because we're not comfortable with the counter-protesters either.  We don't identify with people who step out into the streets to have a confrontation with an ideology that's wrong. I know I don't.

 The Adventist response is to issue statements, sad and measured, and insisting we don't condone the racism or the violence.  But the statements are nothing better than paper for the people living the violence.  I'm not sure they're a comfort to those living the racism, either.

This is our trouble with issues of social justice.  It's not that be don't believe in equality.  But we are, as a denomination, allergic to activism.

Activism is political, and we don't want to b lumped into someone else's party agenda. It's confrontational, and we don't want to escalate the conflict. Most of all, it's social, and we are too busy talking about the gospel.  And so, because we don't march, we are left issuing statements.

But the gospel ought to change the world.  So if we are sitting back and letting others change it, if we cannot even change the church, are we really living the gospel?  What if the harmony of races actually is the incarnation of the gospel in our time?**

I am uneasy about it all.  Because I'm not comfortable with punching Nazis.  But I don't want to be comfortable doing nothing, either.

Charlottesville is an opportunity for you and me.  We can either use the chance to pat ourselves on the back, because we're so much more enlightened and godly than the Nazis.  Or we can take the opportunity to question ourselves.  In what way does our faith make the world a better place?  What are we doing about problems like racism?  What do we want to be doing?

*We also have a problem transferring that equality to men and women.  Many in our midst, for reasons I can't explain, believe that "separate but equal" is actually a thing if you apply it to gender instead of race.  But that's another conversation.

**Not, of course, the entirety of the incarnation of the gospel. We have a lot more problems to address than race.

{Since I am writing from a college campus, I feel compelled to include an informal (and casually formatted) bibliography for my historical assertions.  These are my sources:

Ronald D. Graybill, Ellen White and Race Relations, Review and Herald, 1970.  This entire volume is available to read online here: http://documents.adventistarchives.org/Books/EGWCRR1970.pdf

Bert Haloviak, "The Impact of SDA Eschatological Assumptions on Certain Issues of Social Policy," Race Summit Workshop Presentation, October 27, 1999. This paper can be found here: http://blacksdahistory.org/files/118422186.pdf

AT News Team, "Adventists Remember the 1963 March on Washington, Martin Luther King and the Impact on the Church," Adventist Today August 28, 2013. Found here: http://atoday.org/adventists-remember-the-1963-march-on-washington-martin-luther-king-and-the-impact-on-the-church/

Bill Knott, "A Journey and a March," Adventist Review 2005. Found here: http://archives.adventistreview.org/2005-1521/story1.html }