Update: United Methodist News Service has posted a more complete article reporting on this situation here:   http://www.umc.org/site/apps/nlnet/content3.aspx?c=lwL4KnN1LtH&b=5259669&ct=11798635

For readers of this blog who are not United Methodist, this will seem a puzzling post. For United Methodist Clergy it will raise great interest.

Apparently, it is the judgment of The Rev. Fitzgerald Reist, Secretary of General Conference, the governing body of The United Methodist Church, that an action eliminating security of appointment for clergy did not receive the appropriate support through plenary vote at the 2012 General Conference.

This letter from Bishop Sudarshana Devadhar of Greater New Jersey is circulating on the Internet advising of this opinion. United Methodist News Service is pursuing the story and will be posting as soon as accurate information can be confirmed.

My posting does not indicate that I am qualified to interpret the legislation as it was presumed to have been voted at General Conference nor that I am in a position to interpret the Book of Disciplne. I am making the information available as it was made available to me.

After I commented on a reading list distributed by “Q”, some readers of this blog asked for my list. I’ve been slow to respond. But here is a list of the dozen books I intend to read in the course of this year.

That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back, Thomas L. Friedman and Michael Mandelaum. I’ve almost completed this book. Friedman and Mandelbaum write about four challenges that confront the United States–globalization, the revolution in information technology, chronic deficits and excessive energy consumption—through a lens of U.S. power, influence and ideals.

To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World, James Davison Hunter. I’m close to finishing this book also. Davison calls on Christian faith communities to de-couple public witness from political engagement and to practice “faithful presence” for the common good. The latter includes non-partisan, non-ideological expressions and actions for the common good. He bases his case on a theology of the Creation that calls Christians to be responsible to follow the teachings of Jesus to acknowledge the reign of God, be a servant people, act with compassion for all and invite all into the kingdom of God.

Commonwealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet, Jeffrey D. Sachs. The book was released four years ago, but I’m just getting to it. Dr. Sachs, the leading voice behind he Millennium Development Goals, proposes a new economic paradigm that is globally inclusive, cooperative, environmentally aware and science based because we are running up against the realities of a crowded planet.

The Triumph of Christianity, Rodney Stark. There’s a new (to me) strain of thought that says early Christianity spread with the cooperation of elites in the institutions of the day, and without this cooperation, the Christian movement might never have achieved the success it has attained. This case says Christian ideas and acceptance needed more than grassroots movements and populist coalitions. The followers of Jesus also needed influence in the institutions that shape culture in order to survive and grow.

Pathologies of Power, Paul Farmer. This, too, is an older book that’s been on my shelf for quite a long time. Dr. Farmer is an advocate for a definition of comprehensive human rights that includes, among others, food, shelter and health. Dr. Farmer is a tireless advocate for those who live without these basic necessities and who lack the voice to advocate strongly for them.

The End of Poverty, Jeffrey D. Sachs. Another of Dr. Sachs’ important works. As the world moves ever so slowly toward raising standards of living in developing nations, it appears that ending the most debilitating effects of poverty is no longer considered a pipe dream. Dr. Sachs, more than any other economist I’ve read, makes this case most clearly and reasonably.

Life, Keith Richards. A gift from my daughter, I’ll do my best to work through this biography of the guitarist and founding member of the Rolling Stones.

The Worst Hard Time, Timothy Egan. The Dust Bowl and the Great Depression plunged both maternal and paternal sides of my extended family into poverty and pushed them off the land. One grandfather kept life and limb together as a sharecropper, and another lost his farm, and his heart, when he had to move to town and work laying sidewalks through the Civilian Conservation Corps. I have a lifelong fascination with how the people of that era kept their families together (or lost cohesiveness) and made it though this most difficult economic period. It also reminds me that history does, indeed, repeat itself–perhaps not in every detail, but in wider sweeps of human behavior.

The Shipping News, E. Annie Proulx. Another oldie, but one I’m interested in because the reviews praise Proulx’s ability to write lean, clean prose, a talent I can only wish for.

A Guitar and a Pen, edited by Robert Hicks. This collection of stories by Nashville songwriters is a departure from their storytelling form of music to narrative. The songwriters of Nashville are the poets of popular culture, and I admire their ability to tell a story about life in all its sadness, strength, joy and humor in three minutes. This is fun, light, pleasurable reading.

There you have it. I’ll no doubt be reading beyond these books, but these will take priority.

When Bishop Warner Brown said at the United Methodist Council of Bishops meeting yesterday that bishops need a “safe place” to discuss issues they are uncertain about, he was raising the dilemma many leaders of public organizations face in this new world of horizontal communications. Public discussion is often beyond our control. And that is unsettling, sometimes leads to inaccurate attribution and puts the speaker on the defensive unfairly.

Bishop Brown pointedly looked at the journalists in the room and said he could not speak tentatively or test new thoughts in their presence, for these very reasons. That’s the dilemma.

He wasn’t helped, however, by the first response of Fred Miller, the consultant who is advising the Interim Operations Team about how to re-organize the general church. Miller was advising the bishops about how to become a “leadership group.”

He outlined a strategy that at times sounded manipulative and concealing. Miller told the bishops to present their most inconsequential and boring material in such an exhaustive way the press would get bored and leave the room, and then the bishops could get to the meaty subjects they really want to discuss. He said this is his advice to boards of public organizations.

In a wide-ranging conversation that included a call to honesty and open leadership, courage and perseverance, this wasn’t the only bad advice Miller gave the bishops. He also told them one way to deal with conflict is to escalate the complexity of the issue so that the opponents get confused and the issue so muddled that the original disagreement gets resolved in the fog.

Not exactly a prescription for open leadership in the 21st century.

Miller did seem to comprehend the dark chasm he had stepped into with regard to journalism and much later expressed support for the fourth estate. He told the bishops the best way to deal with Bishop Brown’s concern was to be transparent and put everything on the web for all to see. Then, he said, it’s possible to assess such things as metrics, by looking at trends and avoid referring to the personal failures of individuals, or discussing opinions. This fact-based approach de-personalizes the discussion and  gives data for discussing disputes, he said.

This is a more healthy way to assess much that we care about in the church. What was not spoken in this discussion is the fact that the Council is allowed to operate under its own rules of procedure with regard to the open meetings provision of Paragraph 271 of the Book of Discipline, the book of church law by which all church entities operate – though it is expected “to live by the spirit” of the paragraph.

The council has the option to go into executive session pretty much at will, and it uses it often. The day following this exchange, for example, the council spent the day in executive session.

Why closed meetings?

Sometimes, it’s not clear why this leadership group chooses to meet behind closed doors. When they launched the very important “In Defense of Creation” study, instead of streaming their discussion on the web as a way of showing why creation care is a crucial faith concern and how they were struggling with it, they went into executive session. They missed an opportunity to share with the whole church how they connect theology and faithful practice to protecting the Creation.

Even as a journalist, I’m sympathetic to the need for leaders to have a way to discuss nettlesome matters they must deal with. We need the ability to think out loud without being locked into positions that we raise in a speculative way. We don’t want to be misquoted or held to some position that we don’t really support merely because we asked a question about it. And that happens.

But it happens whether the journalists are in the room or not. It happens when people gossip. It happens when leaders speak to staff and staff read between the lines and make assumptions. It happens when we make a jocular comment in a hallway conversation that ends up on Twitter as a more definitive statement than we could have imagined. It’s the horizontal communications world we live in.

Leaders in a public organization lead public lives. At United Methodist Communications, we offer training to episcopal leaders and others about dealing with the media. We offer resources for creating social media strategies. We offer crisis communications management training. We offer support for strategic communications planning. Few bishops take us up on these offers.

Changing the climate

The current climate in which we live is a climate that starts with skepticism. We’ve been worked over by institutions that had harmful agendas. We’ve seen 20-plus years of mismanagement of sexual abuse cases by the Roman Catholic Church, and religious figures from many backgrounds fall to the same private practices they publicly condemn. We’ve seen politicians lie, business leaders abuse trust, and our public institutions and corporations abandon the people who depend upon them. Trust is broken.

Sunshine is the best antidote. Honesty is still the best policy. We’re all human. We’re all anxious and afraid. We all need a safe place. A community of trust that allows us to be human will be based on openness, honesty and accountability.

And we desperately want leaders to take us there – leaders with open hearts, open minds and open doors.

My favorite phrase is “the leading causes of life.” It was conceived by Gary Gunderson and Larry Pray, and I’ve written about it several times. Gary is Senior V.P. for Health and Welfare and Director of the Center for Excellence in Faith and Health of Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare in Memphis.  Larry is a pastor in the United Church of Christ and Senior Pastoral Scholar for Methodist LeBonheur Healthcare. They co-authored the book, Leading Causes of Life.

Their phrase endures, for me.

But another phrase is making the rounds in conversations in the denomination in which I labor: the “Death Tsunami.” It’s intended to describe the impending demographic change that will happen over the next several years as older members pass away.

It’s meant to be prophetic. Behind it is the thought that if these older members are not replaced with a younger group the days of the denomination itself are numbered.

I’ve been bouncing these two phrases around in my head, asking which excites me, gets my creative juices flowing, makes me want to get involved in making things better?

Guess which one does it for me?

I know the death phrase is meant to attract attention to a real problem. But it frames the future in such an inexorable way I just can’t get a handle on how to respond to it. As Gunderson and Pray write, “If death defines our efforts, then it will win every time.”

Hearing this, I want to start singing Joe Diffie’s country music song, “Prop Me Up Beside the Jukebox (If I die).” That’s about all the energy I can get for this framing of our collective future.

On the other hand, I can get energized about looking for the leading causes of life. It makes me want to search out those places and people who are creating, causing change, moving forward. It’s energizing to seek out what gives us life, makes it purposeful, gives it meaning. We are on a journey toward life.

For too long the mainline denominations have wallowed in their narrative of death. They’ve come to believe it, and they’ve allowed others to confirm it. Well, I don’t.

I believe we belong to each other and to God. This is the essence of our connection. In my denomination this means that the local church, annual conference and general church have the capacity to do more together than any of us can do alone. This gives us the capacity to transform the world for the better if we claim it and live it.

And that leads us to what Gunderson and Pray call coherence. Coherence is that web of blessing that defines our roles as human beings. It calls us beyond ourselves to become involved with others. It gives us life, they write. We are not alone and all about ourselves. We’re in this together.

In a world of rampant narcissism, the Christian faith calls us to become servants to those most vulnerable, in need and without voice. How counter-cultural is that?

And that call leads us out of helplessness and despair to agency. We can change and create change. We are not the inevitable victims of the tsunami of death. We are the agents who can bring, with God’s help, new life, new meaning, new purpose and hope to the dry, arid places that seem without the refreshing waters of renewal and healing.

And when we act in this way–moving toward life and toward others–we are blessed and we become a blessing. We sense that we are accountable to those who have come before, those who will follow and those with whom we share the invigorating journey called life.

So, like Joe Diffie, “I wanna go to heaven but I don’t wanna go tonight.” And “I ain’t afraid of dying, it’s the thought of being dead” that perplexes me. So I’m not giving in to the tsunami of death talk.

Instead, I’m looking for life through connection, coherence, agency and blessing, and I see these at work in the stories of this denomination everyday.

Let’s seek the leading causes of life.

“The Final Great Awakening – An Endtime Revival”.: The Circuit Rider vs The Televangelist

Until recently, I resisted the idea that we’re being “re-wired” by new media.

After all, at our core we like to say we humans are all the same. We have the same needs, desires and hopes, though our life experiences are sometimes vastly different.

I was skeptical about the claim that superficial media could actually change the way our brains work. I’m less sure today.

Recently, while doing a search online for articles about social media and their effects on human communities, it occurred to me that the act of searching online is a different way of thinking about research. In contrast to my former visits to brick-and-mortar libraries, I can conduct research differently today than in the ancient past of pre-Internet days.

I was sitting at home, late in the evening, tapping a keyboard to get at various sources, not perusing a card catalogue and shuffling though shelves of hardbound books. The latter sounds almost archaic, in fact.

I found Clay Shirky’s “Cognitive Surplus” article and saw that it was expanded into book form and published recently. I read reviews, checked to see if it was on Audible.com or Amazon (available from both) and downloaded it from Audible.

In a matter of minutes, I was listening to the book.

This is only one example of how new media have changed my everyday life. Wherever I am, it is second nature for me to use my iPad or handheld device to check the news, respond to e-mail, share photos and video, get directions, and perform a host of other tasks. Easy access to limitless information has become the norm, and I’m almost always connected.

In retrospect, I concede I am being re-wired. Not knowing enough about how our brains work to make a scientific assessment of whether our neuron pathways are being changed, I’ve concluded that at the very least how I perceive and act upon my perceptions, expectations and access to information has changed how I function in pretty basic ways.

Not only has my method of research changed, so has my ability to check trusted sources online to assess the reliability of information, to secure opinions about the value of books and other information, and to act upon my desires or needs and get instantaneous feedback or gratification.

Until I reflected upon this later, it seemed quite normal. But it’s really quite amazing. I am being re-wired. I did not go to a bookstore and buy the book. I did not consult with a friend face-to-face about its content. I expected I could find it in a digital format and gain access to it immediately. I found it, ordered and downloaded it, and began to listen.

What I have not yet fully assimilated, and may never, is what this says about human interaction, trust, business, education and personal fulfillment. There are layers and layers of questions about human development, behavior and community.

These are the stuff of faith and the faith community. They are not necessarily the ultimate stuff, which is our relationship to God. But they come close.

A friend showed me an iPhone application that displays biblical text on-screen as a narrator reads it. This gets closer to how we relate to Scripture and perhaps how we use such tools for better or worse to relate to God.

So, the issue isn’t only that I’m being re-wired.

As if that weren’t enough, I’m discovering my spiritual practices could also be re-framed by these new media. I’m not afraid of this reality, but I am approaching it less casually than before.

The new media do change us in ways that are not merely superficial. This is a mixed blessing, one that I must continue to assess.

Have you been re-wired? Could new media change how you relate to God? Let me know what you think.

FITCHBURG, Mass. –– Faith United Parish, a congregation of The United Methodist Church and the United Church of Christ, teamed up with students from Fitchburg State College to do an “extreme makeover” of nearby Longsjo Middle School. The school now has freshly painted classrooms, an operating theater, and the love of many volunteers. See http://fsc.edu/fitchburgeducationfoundation/ott.html

April 17, 2010

Kamina.

The Democratic Republic of Congo has seen its most basic infrastructure destroyed by ten years of civil war. Roads, schools, hospitals and clinics, nearly every basic piece of infrastructure necessary for life is lacking, compromised, or doesn’t exist.

We discovered this in Lubumbashi when we experienced roads within the city that in the developed world would be considered impassable. And we rediscovered it when we drove from the airbase in ru-ral Kamina into the small town. A strip of asphalt in the center, not wide enough for a vehicle, was all that remained of a paved road that once connected the dilapidated base to the town.

But this lack of essential service doesn’t necessarily mean lack of community, nor lack of enthusiasm for improvement. Perhaps the most dangerous result of resource deprivation is the risk that people begin to believe they don’t matter, or deserve better, because they adapt to being without. It’s the risk to human dignity.

But we experienced a surge of community-wide expressiveness that I’ve never witnessed before in Africa in such a place as Kamina. As she did in Lubumbashi, Yvonne Chaka Chaka called people to come forward to the stage as she sang and danced. And a sea of humanity surged forward. Sitting on the stage, I could not see the end of the mass of people who had come to hear her and to learn about malaria.

But it became clear that they already know malaria’s toll. They wanted nets. And they made that clear. One man held up money to demonstrate that he would pay for a net at that moment.

What this said to me is that the education about malaria has been successful. People in Kamina under-stand what causes it, and they want help to prevent their children and loved ones from contracting it. And it says that people want action. They want change.

Unlike the children in Lubumbashi, this crowd was insistent and assertive. They want nets, and they want them now. I began to be concerned about the mood of the celebratory event. It wasn’t menacing in the least, but we had thousands of people standing shoulder to shoulder calling for nets, and we had no nets. An earlier distribution had already been carried out here.

Yvonne managed them well, changed the mood to celebration and hope, and offered words of educa-tion about what can be done even without nets to reduce the risk.

And the community has done significant work already. A canal 15 kilometers long has been dug to drain large areas of standing water to reduce the breeding ground for mosquitoes. Nets have been dis-tributed, not nearly enough for the entire city, but a small fraction at least. And community health workers are accessible, the local hospital is functioning and agriculture development is producing food and generating income.

These are no small accomplishments. And yet blazed into my memory of Kamina is thousands of people crying out for nets. Crying out for the chance to live a better, healthier life.

Hearing the stories of the UMCOR and IMA executives trapped in the rubble of the Hotel Montana is to hear of conditions so horrifying they are unimaginable. Utter chaos. At times utter hopelessness. And always courage and more courage. Faith and more faith.

It is a profound gift that Jim Gulley and Sarla Chand give us when they tell this story, difficult as it is to hear. We need to know, to grieve and to hope. And they help us.

They help us to fill in the blanks. To understand the darkness and chaos. The silence. The pain. With their help, our heavy hearts can take solace in the strength of the human spirit and the power of faith. Through their words, we imagine the unimaginable – being trapped under tons of rubble in darkness.

Strangely, however, for me it’s harder to imagine singing. But sing they did. “I’ve got peace like a river, I’ve got love like an ocean, I’ve got joy like a fountain, in my soul.”

Such strength and faith.

They help us to piece together the fragments of life in the darkness and silence, to assimilate order out of the chaos. Our minds are still troubled and our hearts still heavy, but we find a measure of peace, like a river, in our souls.

They are helping us to shape a narrative for a community of faith. We stand with Jim Gulley, who tells us, like Job of old, he has no answers about why some live and some die, some suffer and others don’t. But some questions have no answer, and there are times when we need each other more than answers.

And these brothers and sisters in Christ comforted each other, told stories and sang. They created community out of chaos. They cared for one another. Offered comfort, encouragement and stories.

We also hear from others like Pam Carter, who was evacuated unharmed on the outside but her heart was torn by leaving a friend who chose to stay. Their separation under such conditions haunts her. But she is tirelessly advocating for Haiti now more than before.

Asked if they will return to the place of their great personal pain, all answer yes. The tasks that brought them together remain unfinished. The work of redressing the inequities of the people of Haiti has not run its course. The challenge of empowering the women, improving the quality of life of the children, partnering with the church in Haiti all lie before us and even more so now. The search for justice and the fruitful life God intends for all will bring them back, and perhaps take them to other places in God’s world as well.

This is the narrative they are helping us to understand. We share a faith of deep conviction about the abiding, loving presence of God in our midst, wherever we find ourselves. And this faith is expressed in practical action that changes the world as we believe God calls us to partner with God for change.

And, for me, most profound of all: “Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I will be also.” Even under tons of rubble in the darkness and dust and blood, I am with you.

And if this be true, and I believe it is, then we must be with people wherever they find themselves seeking a fruitful life because that is where God is and that is who we are called to be as followers of Jesus.

God, what a story.

Video
Sarla Chand: “I was their connection to the outside world.”

Sarla Chand: “We at IMA will do all we can to honor Sam and Clint’s legacy.”

Sarla Chand: “Until the very end, they were joyful.”

Jim Gulley: “I want you to tell my family how much I love them.”

Jim Gulley: “We are French firemen. We are here to take you out.”

Jim Gulley: “My last walk with Sam was tragically short.”

Audio
Pam Carter: “Haiti needed us before. Multiply this a hundredfold.”

Related Articles
Haiti quake survivor Chand recalls hotel rescue

Survivor: UMCOR trio kept faith in Haiti ruins

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It is a time of darkness and deep sadness. This morning I wrote a personal note to my colleague Sam Dixon telling him of my joy at his rescue. Around noon today as I sat in the newsroom at United Methodist Communications, my colleague David Briggs informed Tim Tanton and me that Sam was dead.

I exhaled loudly, as if I had been kicked in the stomach. Tim suggested we pray together, and we did.

I went to my office and listened to the song that’s the music bed for our television spot playing now. And a line caught in my throat. “Don’t tell me love ain’t worth the fight,” by the band The Congress. http://bit.ly/pE9ap

Sam fought the fight against poverty and disease. He fought against indifference to human suffering and the unequal division of the world’s resources. And I think he would say, “don’t tell me love ain’t worth the fight.” He died fighting the good fight.

I was to be in a meeting with him on Thursday to talk about combating malaria. And we were inviting him to attend our board meeting for strategic planning next month. Now there is this void.

This past week has been a time of emotional highs and lows. And if I’m feeling this at a distance, how much more so must it be for families missing loved ones? They are heavy on my mind. They fight through these days, clinging to hope and seeing reasons for despair.

In times like this when our human vulnerability is so fully exposed, faith means the most to me. We stand in the gathering darkness utterly vulnerable, our pretenses laid bare, our arrogance humbled, our false sense of power brought low and perhaps most significantly, our hopes dashed. In this state, in some miraculous way, we experience God’s grace.

Thomas Merton wrote, “If nothing that can be seen can either be God or represent him to us as he is, then to find God we must pass beyond everything that can be seen and enter into darkness.” In the darkness we find God. A mystery.

Through no action on our part, without justification or reason, it happens. We are encircled by a loving presence that affirms us, strengthens us, assures us and restores our hope. A great cloud of witnesses testifies to us that our vulnerability is not the whole story. There is more. It is the story of God reaching out to us because it is the nature of God to be with us in our darkest time.

The scriptures come alive. Those who wrote the sacred stories experienced life as we do. The passage of centuries does not diminish their authenticity. They knew pain as we know it, stumbled in the darkness as we stumble.

And in darkness they find themselves, even in their vulnerability, powerlessness and grief. “Once you were not a people, now you are God’s people,” one writes. “I will gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise,” another says of God’s promise. And a third says assuringly, “You will not fear the terror of the night.” Yes, they know. They have walked where we have walked. Our humanness is their humanness.

In this I find hope. A connecting thread. A common humanity. “The Lord is near to the broken-hearted,” they tell us. “Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.” A promise and hope.

Don’t tell me love ain’t worth the fight.