Coming Home: The Congregational Choice to Live in God's Amazing Grace

Coming Home:

The Congregational Choice to Live in God's Amazing Grace

by Pastor Anne Woodman-Howe

Copyright 2013 Pastor Anne Woodman-Howe

Smashwords Edition

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments

Introduction 

Chapter One - The Times They Are a Changin'

Really?

What Do We Expect of Our Members

What About . . . ?

There Are Even More Ways We Have Adapted . . .

A Double Hit

What Do You Think? 

Chapter Two - Responses to Change

Apathy

Grumbling

Remember When . . .

Problems - Despair

Hope - Business

Hope - Legalism

The Implications of Our Choices

What If . . .?

Choices

Chapter Three - Theology Matters

Theology of the Cross

The Theology of the Cross:  Why We Avoid It and Why We Need It

Theology of The Holy Spirit

Why We Need to Emphasize The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit Now

Theology of the Word

The Need for a Jesus Centered Theology of the Word

Theology of Discipleship

Discipleship:  A Journey Into Resurrection Life - Going Home

Resurrection Discipleship:  Receiving and Giving Life

Conclusion

Chapter Four - The Practicalities of Moving Into  New Paradigm

Moving Away From Christendom

Abiding in Jesus

Retreat Settings

Spiritual Type and Prayer

Looking at Your Own Life:  St. Ignatius

Your Own Faith Life Journey

Lectio Divina

Fasting

Simplifying Your Life

Multiple Intelligences

Play

Imaginative Bible Study and Prayer

Storytelling

Worship

Bible, Traditions and Theology

Bible, Traditions, Theology and Personal Experiences

Our Calling to Service - Matthew

The Priesthood of all Believers

Our Calling and Congregational Life

The Organizational Structure of the Congregation

Our Calling During the Week

Decision Making - Discernment

Vision Statement

The Wilderness and The Journey - Journaling

Conclusion:  Abiding in Jesus and With Each Other

Chapter Five - Conclusion

Appendix A - Description and Commentary on The Rapture Exposed and Dispensationalism

Selected Bibliography

But the Spirit also provokes . . . the signs of crisis and danger.  World history is not led towards its fulfillment in a continuous series of advances through the proclamation of Christ’s victory and through the experiences of liberation in the Spirit; on the contrary, history becomes increasingly fraught with crisis.  Just because Christ is ‘the sign of the times’, crises arise around him. . . ".[1]

Preface and Acknowledgments

This is a book about home and the longing we have to be home.  In some ways my longing for home started in recent years with a deep yearning I have to live back in my hometown, Aberdeen, South Dakota.  When I left Aberdeen, I vowed I’d never return, other than for vacations.  Now I can’t wait until personal circumstances and God’s calling allow me to be able to live there again.  I feel a longing both for family and for the land with the openness and freedom the land brings.  And now even more recently, the longing for home goes back even further, as I long to return to the home of some of my ancestors,  to be in Ireland.

I also have a longing to find a spiritual home.  My biological family was not involved much in organized Christianity.  I came into the church through the back door.  The church that I found upon entering that back door was not the church that I expected to find or the one that my heart longed for.  Instead of the church being a people into which I felt welcomed and loved, I found it to be a bureaucratic organization, that seemed to care mainly about procedure and control.  It didn’t seem at all like the place I had read about in the Bible, or maybe in my naivete, the place I thought I had read about in the Bible.

This book is written because I still have a longing to be home.  Home to Ireland and home to the congregational people that I believe Jesus intends we strive toward becoming.  I will write about why and how I believe the church of Jesus Christ has moved away from Him and what I believe needs to be changed to allow us to be closer to Him, to come home.

Many thank you’s are needed.  To friends and family who took their valuable time to read and comment on this manuscript and provide editorial assistance:  Diane Luther, The Rev. Ann Miller Smith, The Rev. Dr. Dennis Theophilus Orsen, Carol Hollister (editor extraordinaire) and dear friend and colleague, my sister, Patty Schwan, Art Alderson, for his comments on this manuscript, his devotion to the church and for his friendship, to Dr. Vern Bloemker for his expertise in the English language, to Donna Bloemker, for her advice and support, and to Dr. Janine Rihmland for her faith, drive, and friendship. 

To those who have helped me academically in researching and writing in the areas that this book reflects upon:  The Rev. Dr. Ed White of The Alban Institute, Dr. Martha Robbins from The Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, The Rev. Dr. Barbara Jurgensen from Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Columbus, Ohio, and The Rev. Dr. John E. Wilson, from The Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, who initiated my interest in ecclesiology by his own enthusiasm for the subject and his support of my work.

To my daughter Julie, who has taught me so many lessons about life, courage and faith, and to Snickers, Toby and Dakota, no book can be written without a Siamese paw print or three in it, and to Midnight Charlie. 

To the ones who have made the music that has kept me going - Celtic Thunder, Keith Harkin, U2, and Bon Jovi - they have kept me standing and moving in the right direction, following my own damn broken heart, trying to Keep the Faith  with No Apologies.  

To people in the past who have provided the conditions necessary for me to be able to do this writing, Tommy and my paternal grandfather, Lawrence Caryl Woodman, Sr.  I hope I am carrying out the mission they had in mind so many years ago.

Above all, thanks be to God, who has kept me safe and at home in loving arms, all the while challenging me to become the person known from before I was born.

Introduction

I grew up on the outside of the church, looking in.  As a child, my family belonged to a Lutheran congregation (ALC), but we were never active in congregational life.  We attended worship services once in a while and my father saw that my sister and I were confirmed.  But church was not important in our house, in fact, it was looked down on and discouraged.  I always envied those who were active in the church.  I wanted in, but never felt that I quite fit.

Although we did not as a family participate much in congregational life, I found myself being drawn to God.  When I would be going through difficult times, I would usually go and sit in the church sanctuary.  It was in some of the most difficult times in my life, that I went back to the church, to my hometown pastor, The Rev. Ken Thurow, to whom I will always be indebted, for showing me a God who is real and loving.

Soon after these difficulties, Michael, Julie and I were on our way to Laramie, Wyming, where I was to begin a teaching assistantship in international politics.  In Laramie, I found comfort in sitting in a small park across from the University campus, under a tree, reading the Bible.  For the first time in a long time, maybe forever, life felt warm and cozy, and I felt at home.  I found a God who cares about people like me, who have broken lives, who have been hit hard by life and in the grace of God, keep getting back up.

While working on a master’s degree in international politics, I found myself being led toward the ordained ministry, instead of a career in the State Department.  I was no longer going to be on the outside looking in.  Or so I thought.

Then I went into congregational life.  It was not what I expected.

First of all, I thought I would find a warm and loving place.  Not so.  An incident in one of Peter Jackson’s films on Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, reminded me of this .  In the second film, The Two Towers, Gimli, the dwarf, is coming into Edoras, Rohan with the elf Legolas and the ranger Aragorn.  His comment on the atmosphere in riding into Edoras is that he’s seen more cheer in a graveyard.[2]  My first thought in hearing that was that I feel the same thing in entering many, or even most, congregations.  Marva Dawn echoes the same sentiment in her book, Truly the Community:  Romans 12 and How to Be the Church.[3]

I had thought that in being involved in congregational life, I would be living among a people who were committed to knowing and loving Jesus; therefore, I would be among a people with whom I could share my spiritual experiences and who would help me learn how to grow in my relationship with Jesus.  However, for the most part, this was not what I found.  What I found almost all of the time was that I was among people who didn’t talk much about Jesus; and when they did, they really didn’t seem to know Him.  It felt like He was distant to them, not real, not active in their lives.

I realize now that some of my letdown was my own wishful thinking and my own naivete about congregational life.  But this letdown was and continues to be more than my being naïve.  Something else is wrong.  We have lost our true center.  So what is to be done?  Give up?

There have been times when giving up on congregational life seemed like a very attractive option, even recently.  I have been frustrated with congregational life and hurt by those in congregations.  There have been times I wanted to quit and have yelled at God for getting me into all of this.  I remember one day in particular; I was so frustrated with ordained ministry that I was ready to throw in the towel.  I was walking up the steps to our apartment and telling God in no uncertain terms that I quit.  Immediately a picture of Jesus on the cross flashed into my mind.  My answer back to God was:  And you had to take it that far, didn’t you?  Any less and it would have been so easy to give up!.  For what would I not do for the One who loved me that much?  So here I am, trying to love and serve those whom my Beloved loves.

As if that reason isn’t enough to seek the renewal of the church as it is gathered into congregations, God reminds me that to be a part of God’s church in this difficult day and age, is indeed a blessing.  It is a privilege, an opportunity, an adventure.  And I am an adventurer at heart; I love explorations and challenges.

Now is a challenging and exciting time to be the church.

Chapter One

How could we have been listening to the Scriptures all these centuries and still be surprised and chagrined by the humiliation of Christendom?’ . . . "How could we have been contemplating the ‘despised and rejected’ figure at the center of this faith for two millennia and come away with the belief that his body, far from being despised and rejected, ought to be universally approved and embraced?[4]

The Times They Are A-Changing

Bob Dylan was and is right:  The Times They Are A-Changin’.[5]  The relationship between church and society has been and is going through a process of change.  One of the clearest and most concise expositions of the reasons for this change is found in Loren Mead’s book, The Once and Future Church.[6]

Regarding the relationship between the church and society, Mead writes that there have been three different paradigms in the relationship of the Christian church and society.[7]  The first paradigm Mead calls the Apostolic Paradigm.  In the Apostolic Paradigm, people made a clear cut decision to follow Jesus.  This decision usually had consequences for them in their personal, social and economic life.  Therefore, individuals took great care and consideration in their decision to become a Christian person.  In this paradigm, the local congregation was a group of people whose lives were consciously based on the values and life of Jesus, which were generally different from those of their surrounding society.  In fact, there was often hostility between the values and lifestyle of the members of the church community and that of society.  Also, since it could not be assumed that your neighbor was a Christian person, the mission field of the congregational community was right in its own backyard.[8]

The second paradigm began in 313 A.D. when Emperor Constantine became a Christian.  This paradigm Mead entitled the Christendom Paradigm.  When Constantine became Christian, it was his decree that everyone in the empire become a Christian.  There was no longer a distinct boundary between who was in the church and who was not, because everyone who was born into the empire was a Christian person as a matter of birth.  People no longer necessarily made a clear cut decision to follow Jesus.  You were a Christian because you were born into a Christian society.  There was no longer any great difference between the values of the church and the society, because the church and the society belong together.  In addition, the mission field was not next door, because everyone living close to you was a Christian.  The mission field was across the ocean.  There are congregations who still behave as if the Christendom Paradigm is the only relevant paradigm in our time.

Mead writes that in our time a New Paradigm of the relationship between the church and society is emerging.[9]  In this New Paradigm, we can no longer make the assumption that almost everyone is a Christian or has a basic understanding of Christian theology or values.  The church can no longer assume that everyone knows about Jesus, or, if they know something about Jesus, that they have received the message that he is loving.  There is no longer a necessary correspondence between the values of the church and society.  While including peoples across the ocean, our mission field now is back to being in our own backyard.

This shift between the Christendom Paradigm and the New Paradigm is only the second shift in the relationship between church and society in the almost 2,000 years of the church’s history.  Some people may think that the time of the Reformation was a time of paradigm shift.  Although there were many changes during the time of the Reformation, it was not a time in which the basic paradigm of the relationship between the church and society shifted.  Before and after the Reformation, Luther and the other reformers still were dealing with a close connection between the existing society/government and church organization.[10]

We have spent anywhere from 1,600 to 1,700 years within the Christendom Paradigm.  Making a shift into a New Paradigm, after this long a period of time is, to say the least, a major event.  It is no surprise that congregations are often left wondering what is happening.

Really?

You may be thinking:  This all sounds good.  But is it actually relevant to what’s going on in my congregation?  We know congregations have problems:  membership decreasing, budgets not being met.  How does this information about paradigm shifts fit reality?  How does it fit what is happening in our congregation?

Before reading on, take the following survey that was presented at a seminar I attended by The Rev. Dr. Ed White, of The Alban Institute, entitled Recovering Your Congregation’s Spiritual Center.  (The following is a revised version of a handout that was presented at this seminar.)

What Do We Expect of Our Members?[11]

Go through this list.  Put an x by those statements that are actually true in your congregation about what is expected from the members of your congregation.  (Remember you are to mark the statements that are actually true; not those you wish were true or that you believe are supposed to be true.)  Please mark all that apply.

___ 1  To support the congregation financially?

___ 2.  To tithe?

___ 3.  To give a percentage of their income?

___ 4.  To attend worship regularly on Saturday or Sunday?

___ 5.  To intentionally pursue their spiritual growth through Bible study, prayer and other spiritual disciplines?

___ 6.  To conform to our congregational culture? (i.e. like the hymns we like and accept the service the way it is.)

___ 7.  To discover, develop and exercise their God-given gifts and talents in the life of the congregation?

___ 8.  To exercise their God-given gifts in the workplace, home and community?

___ 9.  To discover in what they are doing all week long a calling and not just a job?

___10.  To talk about the work of God in their lives and share their faith with others.  

___11.  To invite their friends and family members to church?

___ 12.  To accept the norms of the congregation as to how we deal with our differences?

___ 13.  To serve on a committee?

___ 14,  To participate in a small group that will provide nurture and pastoral care?

___ 15.  To show up at Christmas and Easter?

I have presented this survey to people in congregations.  The answers that were received during the seminar by Dr. White and those I have received in congregations are these:  We expect people to support the congregation financially, to conform to our congregational culture, to attend regularly on Sunday morning, or at least, to show up at Christmas and Easter.

Now, think about the organizations you belong to.  What are the basic requirements for belonging to them?  Might they be something like these:  a member of the organization is expected to be supportive of the organization with their time and resources (including money), support the goals and objectives of the organization –you believe as the organization does or you wouldn’t be a member of it, and at the very least you are to attend the main meetings of the organization.[12]

Let’s move on and see if there is a correspondence between the primary requirements that we have for congregational membership and the requirements that we have for membership in other organizations.  First, we are expected to support the organization we belong to with our time and resources.  In congregational life, we are expected to support the congregation financially and with our time and talents.  Second, we are expected to support the goals and objectives of the organizations we belong to.  In congregations, people are expected to conform to the congregational culture.  Finally, members of an organization are expected to attend the main meetings of the organization.  What about in the congregation?  Congregational members are expected to attend Sunday worship at least occasionally and/or attend at Christmas and Easter.[13]

What do you think?  Have we grown to treat the congregation like any other organization that we are a member of?  At least somewhat?

But, you say, we know the church is special, that it is different.  We may treat it somewhat like we do other organizations we belong to in society, but surely that isn’t a sign that we have adapted to societal understandings of life and how the world is to be?  Is it?

Have we adapted?  Let’s think about it.

What About . . .?

Walter Wink in his three-part series regarding the Powers[14]  writes that there is an atmosphere around us that . . . penetrates everything, teaching us not only what to believe, but what we can value and even what we can see.  It offers us the acceptable beliefs that society at any given time declares to be credible. . . .. [15]  Wink in his book Engaging the Powers, states that during the time of the Christendom Paradigm, and even before it, we have lived under the atmosphere of the Domination System.  Therefore, the question becomes:  During the Christendom Paradigm has the church strayed away from the values of Jesus and picked up the values of the Domination System?

Let’s look at the values of the Domination System and our congregational life and see.

In the Domination System money is an important value.[16] What about in congregational life?  How important is money?  What is the topic that is talked about most in your council meetings and congregational meetings?  What do people worry about the most within your congregation?  The spiritual life of its people or whether or not the congregation   is meeting its budget?

Another  value of the Domination System is that property is sacred, and property ownership is an absolute right.[17]  Is this also seen as being true or having any relevance in congregational life?  Ask yourself, how much time is spent in your council and congregational meetings related to property concerns?  I’ve been in council meetings where a half hour was spent on snow removal and light bulbs, while