What is it that you do, anyway?

Before me, there was a minister for youth and family ministries at my church. I don't know what his official title was, despite the fact that he was a seminary classmate of mine, and I knew him the entire time he was here, and I lived twenty miles up the road, and I am now here. These are questions I neglect to ask. Titles don't particularly interest me, which is perhaps why the title of my own position is somewhat foggy. My contract says I am the "Mission, Outreach, and Youth Ministries Coordinator." As that is pretty unwieldy, I am more often referred to as the "minister for mission, outreach, and youth," and even more often as the "minister for...what all is that you do, again?" and occasionally as the "MOY." Confusion over the title reflects uncertainly over the job description. It's a new position, and I don't think any of us really has a clear idea of what I'm supposed to be doing.

And yet, I have to explain what I'm doing several times a day, because right now, most of my job entails meeting new people and discussing how we might collaborate. The title - or some version of it - becomes helpful in such situations, because it divides things up in a way that more or less makes sense to most people. Some of my readers have asked what in the world my job is these days, so I thought I'd try to give a brief run-down of what I do, and I'm going to go with the three categories, even though they overlap considerably in my mind and daily activities.

Mission - coordinating and further developing the church's involvement with local, national, and global mission (emphasis on the local). What this means right now: meeting with the directors and other staff of every social service agency I can find and a variety of other movers and shakers in the city structure, compiling a list of needs, getting a grasp on the social and political situation of the city, and trying to figure out how we can be strategic in giving various types of support. What I hope to be doing soon: spending more time with the population these social agencies serve, and discovering how church members are already involved. In the long term: helping the church be a truly transformative presence in the community.

Outreach - connecting with demographics currently not reached by the church. I have a long list of possibilities, from which I'm supposed to choose two or three focus areas. The one obvious choice from day one has been young adults, however one defines that. I connect pretty naturally with a large segment of this population, as I'm a) part of it, and b) an extrovert who spends a lot of time in public places, just getting to know people. This is the part of the job where I've been laying a foundation for the last year. So, I'm continuing to hang out in coffee shops and bars, while exploring other potential contact points. What I hope to be doing soon: starting a weekly "God on Tap" type discussion group at one of the local watering holes, and discerning where else we might be a presence. In the long term: organizing an alternative worship service of some sort, developing a ministry based in a core of intentional community, and...who knows what else.

Youth - This is the fairly self-explanatory part of my job, as there is an existing youth ministry at the church, which I now oversee. Right now, I'm just trying to get into the swing of managing schedules and volunteers.

Then there are some other things. This position wasn't necessarily designed for an ordained person, but since I am, I'm also involved in worship leadership, teaching, and occasional preaching. And then we're starting some new collaborative projects with other local agencies, my role in which is still uncertain.

So, that's what I'm doing these days, along with just getting to know the other staff, figuring out the schedule and flow of the church, and organizing my office and life. And on Sunday, I'm going to go away to Michigan for denominational meetings, and then I'm coming back for about 3 days before I leave for Ireland, so I'm sure everything will be totally thrown off by the time I get back.

Lost in Translation?

During college, I spent a summer living in Ukraine with a mission team. I was one of the only members of our team who had studied any Russian, and I pick up languages pretty quickly, especially when I'm immersed in them, so I spent quite a bit of time talking to our Ukrainian counterparts and wandering around Kiev, trying out conversation with the locals. It was great, except that there were these times when I would forget which language I was speaking, and speak in Russian to an American teammate, or in English to the woman at the bakery. With a stop in Germany on each end of the trip, just call me triply confused.

I was reminded of this experience by a post that Teri recently wrote about the different languages we speak in church and non-church culture. Christianese has never really been my thing, but I've learned to speak it - a couple of versions of it, actually - out of necessity. When you work within the church, you learn to speak the language, even if it's not your native tongue.

It happened to me first in college, after my conversion experience, when I joined an Intervarsity chapter, and phrases like "accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior" were said all around me. That one never quite rolled off my tongue, but I could talk about witnessing, giving personal testimony, and having a relationship with Jesus with the best of them. It happened again when I started taking religion classes, and the terms of historical Christianity, philosophy, and liberation theology entered my vocabulary. It happened big and bad in seminary, when words like "eschatology" and "premillenialism" become part of my daily discourse. And then there's the return to congregational life, which slaps you in the face with the sudden knowledge that all those words you learned in seminary, while providing a helpful foundation, need to be adapted and translated back into the dialect of the "normal" Christian.

And then there's the rest of the world, where people often have little or no idea what you're talking about if you start speaking to them in the language of the church.

I'm lucky in that I didn't really grow up in church, and I've always had relationships with people outside of whatever Christian circles I was part of at a given time. My family doesn't speak Churchese, and neither do most of my friends from realms other than seminary. They've picked up a little here and there, mostly from my slip-ups and from those moments when I can't quite figure out how to translate. That doesn't mean the concepts aren't relevant to them, but the actual words don't mean much.

The foreign languages I've studied in the past, my Russian, German, French, and bits and pieces of others, are all a little rusty for me right now. This week I met with a group of community college students who are of a more standard evangelical strand of Christianity than I am these days. As I strained to understand them, and even more to speak in a way they would understand, I felt much like I had encountered a group of Ukrainians. I had to grasp for words that had once been easy.

Frankly, I would have preferred trying to speak Russian, a language that carries less baggage for me. But the fact is that my job now relies on my ability to be a multilingual translator. I work in a church, where we speak the language of church, albeit a progressive church sort of language that is much more comfortable for me than most. A big part of my job is being outside of the church, with people who have nothing to do with church and no reference for Churchese. I also work with groups of other Christians with whom we collaborate, who speak a whole different dialect of Churchese. I have to be able to converse with all of these people, and communicate to them what the other groups are doing and thinking.

I say this as though it's a taxing enterprise, but the truth is that I find it fascinating and challenging. As the boundaries in our world increasingly bleed into one another, and the church becomes less and less of a common reference point in Western culture, this is not a task that belongs only to me and to others who have jobs that blur church/non-church lines as explicitly as mine. There is value in preserving our language of worship and theology, but it's no longer adequate for this to be the only language we speak. If we Christians want others to understand us, we need to be able to speak another language - perhaps a multiplicity of languages. We encourage our children to learn Spanish and Mandarin so that they can survive in a cross-cultural world; perhaps it's time that we add to our Churchese as well.

About Last Night...

Wasn't that the name of a movie? This is about something else entirely.

I continue to be frustrated about what I can't do. For example, I am a founding member of a certain non-profit organization which shall remain nameless. It concerns an issue close to my heart. I don't want to let it go entirely. Still, I find myself pulling back, largely because, the more I give, the more is asked of me, and I'm just not sure I have it to give on such a broad level. I'm finally in a place where I can engage this cause locally in a way that feels like its making a difference. I have not felt like my work has made a difference in this area in a long time. I'm also in a place where engaging this cause is integrated into the scheme of many other things that matter to me, which is the way it feels like it should be. I know I'm being oblique here...this all goes back to getting into such trouble over what I write in my blog. I'm fairly safe these days, but still gun-shy. Anyway, my energy is here, in the city where I live. So what do I do with my commitment to the larger organization? Or with any of the multiple other commitments I've made that suddenly seem like entirely too much?

All of this is rooted in a very alien feeling that I have been having lately. It is the feeling that I am home. It's very weird. I have not lived anywhere longer than three years in my adult life. I made a home for myself in my last position, but it was sort of a broader sense of being home in the general region of the world. Now I've moved, and I feel home. I'm not really sure what to do with that, except that I suddenly feel like I want to invest myself where I am, and I suspect this is a good thing. And I really love my job. Really really. Even though I'm not entirely sure what I'm supposed to be doing yet.

On a side note, I went to a mixer event tonight for a local organization which shall also remain nameless, and met the most boring group of people ever assembled on the face of the earth. I don't believe I'll be going back.

I take on too much. I know I do. It's a talent inherited from the combination of a father with lots of vision but not much follow-through, and a mother with workaholic written all over her. Somehow I picked up both strands. I get excited about ideas and causes. I want to help. But there is a limit to how much I can do, and I'm part of too many organizations where too few people pull their weight. If everyone did an equal share, I might actually be able to keep up with these things, but they don't, and I can't really blame them. We all have to decide what takes up our time. And yet, the burden they don't carry means that those of us who remain have to shoulder more, and again, I can't do it all. The "more" makes it all too much.

So, I've taken this new job, and I love it, and I want to invest my time here. But that means pulling back from a great many other things. I hate this. I don't like disappointing other people, and I really, really hate disappointing myself. I am disappointed in myself any time I can't do everything I wish I could do. I feel guilty about the things I am reducing or leaving behind, because I genuinely do care about them. I just can't do it all.

Speaking of boring, it's nearly Valentines Day

Ranting about Valentines Day is so overdone, I know, and it's so the stereotypical single girl thing to do, but ugh. I had completely forgotten about its existence until this afternoon, when the church office administrator mentioned it.

I'm going to pause here to interject that it is an amazingly wonderful thing to have an office administrator. From time to time, I just stand agape and think, "Wow, there's someone else whose job it is to do these things at which I utterly stink."

Anyway, I dislike Valentines Day. Maybe someday I'll be all starry-eyed in love and the holiday will be fun, but in the meantime, blech. I do enjoy the chocolate that tends to appear, but the rest of it is pretty annoying. It doesn't seem like very many people really enjoy it; most of the people I know get either melancholy about being without a partner, or stressed about buying the right gift or planning the right evening, or anxious about providing baked goods and a gazillion goofy little cards for their kids' school parties. Last year, we were marooned in a massive snowstorm on Feb. 14, so I got to miss it all entirely. The weather is kind of nasty here today, but I don't expect to be similarly blessed this year.

Speaking of the weather, I'm tired of winter now. Today I kept stepping in big, slushy puddles and freezing my feet. If I hadn't determined my office hours, I would totally stay home tomorrow and work in my pajamas.

Reflections on the Blog

Sometimes I look at my oft-neglected blog and think, wow, I'm boring.

I don't actually think I'm boring. Others might disagree, but I think my life is pretty interesting most of the time. Ministry is many things, but boring isn't one of them. I have many highly entertaining friends. Lately I've been traveling a ton, and I just started a job that is the antithesis of boring. I've been playing more music, both with the band and solo. I generally have several fairly amusing encounters every week with people out and about in the community. I spend a fair amount of time reading, thinking, and talking about God, church, culture, relationships, and life in general, and while my thoughts on those matters certainly wouldn't fascinate everyone, they're not boring either. So why is it that my blog is so doggoned boring? Surely I have more interesting things to write than show up here.

The truth is that there are many things I want to write, but don't. I made a fairly major screw-up on this blog when it first began, when it was one of my few outlets for working through what it meant to be a minister. And then there was another big mess when I thought I was writing pretty innocuous posts, which some people perceived totally differently than I did. So I'm a bit gun-shy, both about how I might once again forget my appropriateness filters and write something genuinely offensive and hurtful, and about how people might read my words and freak out.

Gun-shyness does not make for good writing. It seems that most things I could write about that would be meaningful are likely to offend someone. It's a conundrum.

Yes, I realize that in theory I could write in a journal or something that wasn't public, but I don't. I've tried, and I lose interest quickly. Writing isn't the same for me if there isn't an interactive aspect to it.

And yes, I realize that this is probably pretty boring, too. But I'm trying to work out whether to start writing about things that actually mean something again, and this is how I go about figuring out such things.

If loud music is your thing:

(as it is mine)

The newest incarnation of my band, now named Never 7th, will have our debut gig at Broadway Joe's in Albany on Saturday, Feb. 9 from 9pm-1am.

Given that this is our first time playing outside of the basement, I'll ask in advance that you be forgiving. That doesn't sound very positive. It'll be good. Really.

Lent already???

Ash Wednesday is this Wednesday. How did this happen? I just started on Friday, and it's already Lent this week. Good grief.

My job doesn't involve much in the way of worship planning or leading responsibilities, so Lent really isn't a big strain, relative to past years. But here's the thing: I'm supposed to teach a class for Lent. I have to publicize the topic. That would be fine, but I have no idea what the topic might be. Seriously, I am totally blank on what I want to teach. My head is so scrambled from the last two months that I can't even remember what I know enough about to teach a class about it. Any ideas, anyone?

Something is very different about this day.

I think it must be a Saturday; my calendar tells me it is. And yet, there is no sermon to be written. WEIRD.

Saying Good-bye is So Final...

...except when you've given back your key but left your robe hanging in the church office, and when you're almost but not entirely moved out of the parsonage. These are the things that happen when you move gradually over a two-month period and are out of town (or country) for most of the last part of it.

I know that conventional wisdom says I should make a cleaner break, but that's just not the way it is. That's not how it's going to be in personal relationships either. I know ministers who refuse to talk to people from their former congregations; I won't be doing that. I'm not their pastor anymore, and I think that's pretty clear to all parties involved. That doesn't mean I'm not going to talk to them anymore. Spending three years getting to know people and being part of their lives and making them part of mine, only to pretend they don't exist once I've moved on, just seems fake and stupid to me. Conventional wisdom has never really been my thing anyway.

Leaving was hard. Very hard. Several of my friends from seminary have already left their first calls as well, but most of them left under negative circumstances in which they and the church were at least a little relieved to part ways. I know my departure didn't entirely upset some people, but on the whole, it was amiable. This makes things both easier (need to leave your stuff in the parsonage for a while? no problem!) and harder (no bitterness with which to stave off the sadness).

But on a cheerier note, I felt well enough to start the new job today, so I spent a few hours getting acquainted with the staff and moving into the new office. In this office there is a desk. It is gargantuan. I have no idea what one would need that much desk space for. I would really like to move the desk so that the space is a bit more usable, but I have to wait for several huge weightlifters to be available to assist me in this effort. Good thing I have plenty to do in the meantime. In addition to putting away my 8 gazillion boxes of books, there's quite a bit of cleaning and sorting to be done to make room for said books. Note to pastors moving out of offices: Clean. Up. Your. Stuff. Thanks. I know that cleaning up the predecessor's "legacy" is par for the associate pastor course, but seriously.

And on this topic, don't you sometimes wonder about the people who held your office before you did? Why is there a book in my closet called The Secret Passions of Christian Women? How about those study guides titled Dating Dos and Don'ts that look to be from the 50s? The small, wooden sailboat?

Of course, someday I will leave something behind that will make the next occupant laugh at me, and maybe it will even stay there through several occupants so that someone wonders why in the world it was ever there at all.