Time for me to speak truth to this system

-Rev Melissa Fain-

In the past few months there have been moments where I felt I've been on the wrong side of things. Not that I've chosen the wrong side of an argument or anything, but I've found myself being on the inside of need instead of the outside. 

Not long after my ordination, a ministerial colleague expressed what she felt was my biggest pastoral gift: speaking truth to a system. She told me I named something no one was looking at, and correctly voiced that if nothing was done about it it would not be helpful. Now, I'm not spilling the tea here. You're not going to hear the details of that event, just that it's repeatable. On the outside of conflict, I can usually bring down the mob and calm everyone down. I understand the reasons beyond the initial conflict. (Honestly, it's probably why my favorite theology is the systematic kind, the kind that requires us to connect the dots.)

​February 14th marks a pretty big milestone this coming year. I'll be ordained exactly one decade. If you count my church work before the ordination, I've been focused on working for God for twenty years. Just for context, that's little over half my life, and when you consider my volunteer work before that... well, that's most of my life.

With that being known, we've gotta have a pretty real conversation here. It's time for me to speak truth to this system. I've been on every side of it. I've been a Christian child, young adult, and adult. I've been a volunteer and paid staff. I've been everything from a choir director, to a youth leader to a senior minister*. I've been inside the church, in a ministry outside the church, and completely outside the system. I've seen it all. I've heard it all.

I know what if feels like to be a congregant in a dying church, and I know the frustration of being a minister in a broken church. I've witnessed the heartbreak of a congregation, and mourned with them when their minister betrayed them. Yes, I have the Masters of Divinity to show I have the book smart, but I come to you with street smart to back it up.

The Problem(s)

There are a few problems going on in the church, and some of them overlap, which is probably why it has been so difficult to nail it down and deal with it. This will be a very honest mirror church, so it's not gonna look pretty.

1) Most of humanity will sacrifice what is right for comfort.

I used to think everyone chose to join a church/temple out of the deep desire to make the world a better place and grow closer to God. In reality people join churches for a variety of reasons, and those two don't often come in first place.

• People join churches to make themselves look good. It will help their political career or make them look good in their community.
• People join churches to take advantage of the programming. It's a way to get their kids out of the house, or they can turn off their brains for an hour.
• People join churches because they can sit back for an hour while 8-15 people do all the spiritual work for them. This one item is why the mega-church is growing while everything else shrivels up and dies.

Those things are comfort. They're selfish. Sometimes it's good to be selfish, and I've written on those things before, but they are not the catch-all for church.

No matter what, most people don't want to truly sacrifice for anything. They don't want to actually have to build something, or create. At the end of the day, the church building is comfortable. So many of us have felt God has left the building, yet we stay because we've put the building among the assets.  Why can't we fix the church inside the physical church? Ask that to the Israelites, who were called to the Wilderness. They had a building too. They had comfort, but their comfort were as slaves, and we've become sedentary slaves to our physical church.

2) No one wants in once they've been kicked out.

• The answer isn't #1. Everything I mentioned in number one can be found in other places. In fact, I've found a more authentic and caring community in Scouting. I don't need to look good, I don't need the church's programming, and I'm not going to sit back and do nothing. Just me? Nope! There are a growing number of disenfranchised people who are finding that out too.
• The answer isn't a more attractive welcome mat. Whenever I hear a church's discussion how to "grow" their church, it always comes down to getting people in instead of getting out. You can have a stellar web designer. You can have a pretty lawn, or great banners at the road. All of that, to a disenfranchised person, looks like the shiny light on an angler fish. To them, you look dangerous. It doesn't matter how pretty you make the package, you are to be avoided. 
• The answer isn't shuffling around the problem and pretending it's okay. I do not, I repeat, DO NOT play well with people who hide truth. We are called to be Children of the Light. We should always speak truth, walk in truth; breathe truth. Wanna know how dedicated I am to this idea?
  • When I was in middle school I was the first to stand and openly walk out of a church that wanted to hide the reason the associate pastor "resigned" was because the new senior minister didn't gel with her. 
  • When I was asked to resign eight years ago the head elder wanted me to write a pretty resignation letter "so I would be employable." I refused to write a nice letter because I wanted everything to be disinfected by the light. If I was worthy of the actions being taken by this church, I wanted to never have a job in a church again. That meant I was not worthy of the call, and every church should know what they were getting into hiring me. If they were wrong, I wanted every future minister to know what they were walking into. 
  • I have spent the entity of my call speaking truth to silence. I have spoken up for fellow substitute teachers, and went so far as to write an open letter to the school system. Fig Tree Christian has not existed so I can eventually become a glorified web designer. Fig Tree has existed, for eight years, to be a shining light in the absolute darkest places. It hasn't been about the internet, it just so happens that's where all the disenfranchised people are.​​​
• For decades denominations have played this shell game with ministers and churches. We quietly forgive ministers who have broken congregations, and we do the same to congregations that break ministers. That's not Christian! I know, believe me I know. It sucks! You love these people. You want them to move on, but clearly the shell game has only made churches look and become more terrifying.

3) We are blind to ourselves.

There was this craze in the Aughts of looking at mental illness as a television special. Hoarders, over-eaters, abusers... it didn't matter. If they were willing to get better in front of a camera, there was a show willing to be produced. We watched celebrities almost die from drug overdoses, while a few channels over we watched a woman try to explain why she needed to keep 28 used pizza boxes. It was all depressing. While maybe progress was made in the episode, usually the person sifted back into their old way of life, and some of them died from their illness.

I believe the Church is suffering from a spiritual illness that is attacking the Body. Some of the overarching themes of these twenty year old shows, especially the ones about hoarders, might at least help us see the problem.

• The problem is never seen from a person on the inside. Especially when it comes to hoarding, the person can't see the mess they've accumulated. This is actually scientific. Our brains can only process so much at a time, so we have mental blindness to the things we pass by everyday .That's good when going to work, or getting your weekly groceries. That's bad when the world around us has slowly corrupted and it's the corruption we've become blind to.
• No one wants to destroy the problem's shadow. Why does the lady not want to get rid of 28 used pizza boxes? Because in her mind, those boxes would be used to build something for some non-profit, or she was going to recycle them, and never got to the recycling plant. Basically, to keep from seeing the real problem, the person focuses on what could be. Shadows aren't real, but no one wants to destroy the problem because they've become so enamored with the fake potential the problem is casting.
• Someone unrelated to the broken system has to lovingly name the problem. In the 10's it was the height of broken Christians coming online and naming how they were broken. It often ended with them suggesting burning it all down. That comes from a place of brokenness, and it's healthy for the broken person to cry out in their woundedness. It's not helpful for the system that needs to heal. Nine times out of then, when you blow up the problem it comes back with a greater fierceness. I vaguely remember a trained professional talking to the camera about just bulldozing a hoarders house. She explained that while it would be easier for us to just tear it down and be done with it, it wouldn't fix the problem in the person's brain. They would be moved into a new place where the cycle would start again. Instead, someone has to lovingly explain that recycling plants don't take used pizza boxes because the oils contaminate the paper. Or, non-profits can get clean pizza boxes for free at most establishments and do. This helps her see the problem and dispose of the problem once she understands. 
• The Church is currently the blind leading the blind. When I was a child I lived the Church. I still fondly recall the smell of the fellowship area during coffee hour, and can still tell you where they kept toys for us to use so the adults could mingle. When I witnessed brokenness in the church it was like my eyes were finally opened. One cannot see it until they have felt it for themselves. Things that used to bring me comfort now looked like weapons. Church family transformed into vicious monsters. Most see this and they simply stay away. Therefore, those who see the problem are not the ones trying to solve the problem. 

4) The Problem is always "over there."

On some level, I can take the first three. I have focus with the the first three problems. Number four is the one problem that sneaks in and takes away any real power for change. Someone posts a story of church brokenness, and the Church might be outraged, and even sad. Their very friends might show the broken person specifically sympathy. Then, nothing at all happens or changes?

Why? Because the problem, an entire Church problem, suddenly turned into a specific congregation problem. The congregation in question didn't hear the outrage because the church (or the person themselves) swiftly cut "the problem" out, taking away any substantial power to change the system. Eight years ago someone asked me what they could do to help my situation. I told them, "Stay." They did not stay, and it took away their power to make a congregation healthy for future ministers and congregants.

Here's where the Church as a whole really turned into monsters. There is part of our call as Christians we've totally neglected since at least 1992, more than likely longer. We are called to name our failure, bring it to Christ, and die at that cross! Death is actually part of the story! Instead we take our sins, put them on a glorified scapegoat and cut those people loose to do the dying for us!

HERE'S MY ANGER! HERE'S MY OUTRAGE!  It's not about having a cushy job in a cushy church! You've thought that's what I'm doing this for? Once those churches cut those people out they talk about the problem in the past tense. In reality the person left, but the problem stayed to fester and grow. Some of those who left take years to realize they haven't been carrying someone else's problem. The damage is huge on both sides! 

What gets me the most, is Brueggemann was right in his second edition preface to "The Prophetic Imagination":

A confrontational model assumes that the "prophetic voice" has enough clout, either social or moral, to gain a hearing. Currently, the old "prophetic stance" of such churches lacks much of that authority, so that the old confrontational approach is largely ineffectual posturing. Given that social reality, which  I think cannot be doubted, I suspect that whatever is "Prophetic" must be more cunning and more nuanced and perhaps more ironic. -xii

Here's your irony! Here's your prophet telling you in 2001 you will ignore him because the Church stopped listening to her prophets! What has that truth gotten us?

Our insistence to point the finger at someone or something else means so many congregations are gasping for breath at death's door, and no one with the power to stop it cares. You have spent fifty years slowly digging your own graves. Now it's done. You sit in your pit and you'd rather starve than admit God's not in the grave. God's here with me. God's here with those you've cut loose. God is alive, on the other side of death, but for you to reach Him, you have to accept your inevitable fate. You have to admit you met death. Something will die in that grave. It will either be your old way of "church," or the Church itself.

Either way, I'm done waiting. I'm done posturing. This year, I'm moving forward. I'm moving on. I'm going where God is.

* The links to congregations and Christian institutions are for reference only. To link the "senior minister" job is unnecessary. It's important to know that call was to a broken congregation, but as I feel they can find healing, I don't want to put focus on them before they do.