Blondie, Tuco, and Angel Eyes…anyone get that reference?
So this post is a little different. It is on the blog for all to see. But it is directly shared only with the
Session.
Our Session Meeting last night was essentially three meetings. Three significant points of discussion. And they slotted well with the title of this
post.
The Ugly was the Sexual Misconduct Policy. Not the policy itself (although eleven pages…)
but what it represents. It represents
what it means for a church to be serious about the safety of its church
community in regards to sexual misconduct.
That in a church setting, insult and exploitation and worse must be
taken seriously because even in our Neighborhood in God’s Kingdom, sin seeks to
invade.
It is one piece of a set of responses to the world of sin,
inclusive with our “Youth, Child, and Vulnerable Adult Protection Policy”, and
the Harassment and Anti-Racism policies that are yet ‘on deck’.
The Good was our discussion of “branding”. A good discussion of a term I dislike. Well, I dislike what it is, not what it could
be. I picture somebody who takes up 'branding' as someone who self-identifies as an ‘influencer’. I am old
fashioned enough to slot this "career choice" in the category of "Not A Real Job". Hello, my name is Peter and I...influence? It’s like justifying
doing whatever I want to get away with. When
I grew up…in the last century…when somebody acted like a jerk; acting out or bullying or whatever, they were called out on their behavior. People like this give 'branding' a bad name, like it is an excuse. “I’m a jerk (polite term for what I am really thinking) but it’s my BRAND."
But it is certainly not "new". Any MTV fans out there know the reference of "Puck" from The Real World?
But ‘brand’ as ‘who I am’ or ‘who I want to be’, when its
invested with authenticity and caring, when it can be identified as ‘love of
God’ and ‘love of Neighbor’ -in a world that does both crassly at best-that is
what Jesus brings. It is what we seek to
offer. The metaphor of Neighborhood, taking
off from the beautiful downtown that is Merchantville…
It answers a challenge, “How do I describe to people what
our church is like?” It provides a basis
of contrast, the blessings we have to offer against a world that feels like it
is full of cursings. It’s an organizing
idea. It draws together threads of our
church life and begins to weave it into something beautiful.
Which brought in the Bad.
Maybe this is not so much a third point of discussion as a counterpoint
to the Good. So big, too big, we don’t
have the people, the energy to achieve it now.
We have the ongoing work of Nominating.
We have questions of participation.
Great vision but hard reality.
Which in turn brought in the Graceful. Not a fourth discussion point, but the Spirit
at work in the hearts of a group of people at the center of the leadership and
love of this congregation. “Stewards of
the Mysteries of God” we are (no pressure there, eh?). For some
reason, I think that would be a very bad opener when seeking to nominate elders
to serve at this juncture. But one
mystery of God is to ask how we get from point A to point B.
Answered with three things, three ‘do now’s’, three next steps, action
items, whatever we want to call them.
But what is beautiful to me is that these are not just three more things
a church ‘ought to do’ or are points in a ‘growth strategy’, but they are three
things, deliberate things, that make us more intentioned to be the Neighborhood
in God’s Kingdom that we seek to be.
And typically, I’ve got two of them down in my notes…on
working more effectively with the new folks God sends to worship with us, on
the consideration of quarterly gatherings of our Committees, and…did someone
get the third?
Pastor Pete
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