The Cloistered Church

I apologize for taking so long to write again since Tuesday--I usually will post something on Thursdays, but I devoted much of Thursday to a regional clergy meeting where, um,  I might have, to put it charitably, staged a nutty.

We were discussing, with one of our leaders from denominational HQ, the upcoming General Assembly and the anticipated vote on open ordination for GLBTQ clergy (you can read my take on it here).  I was the only "young" (as in, under the age of forty) person in the room and was growing increasingly frustrated with how discussions about particular groups and demographics within our denomination were taking on broader and broader strokes before I finally spoke up and just...ranted, really, for a couple of minutes about how this is partly why people my age think Christians are irrelevant: because we sequester ourselves off in a room--our own private little bubble--and paint people we do not know in such broad strokes as to effectively deny the nuance and uniqueness of their voice.

It was the spiritual equivalent of this.

It was not my finest hour.

But I stand by every word I said as well.  I mean it.

I belong to a predominately Cauasian, predominately heterosexual denomination, and whenever we get together to talk about experiences of race and sexual identity that are not our own, we risk becoming a bit more cloistered.

Just as I wrote recently about how Pope Benedict XVI, during his papacy, seemed only to see the Vatican world as opposed to the entire world, so too can we fall into the trap of seeing only the Disciples world and, more particularly, only the Caucasian Disciples world, or only the heterosexual Disciples world, as opposed to the entire world (and the entire Disciples world).

If I never got out of my office, honestly, my daily routine would not bring me into contact with many people not already a part of the church.  I am called as a Christian to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world (Matt. 5), but I'm often sequestered from that earth, from that world that I am supposed to be ministering to.

And when we indulge in that too much, we run the risk of honestly, truly sounding out-of-touch to people who don't quite fit into our demographic (which I didn't at this meeting because of my age and, perhaps, my background).

Which in turn goes back to the point of my outburst--it's why I feel many young people want nothing to do with us.  We, the church, are seen as out of touch by the people we should be reaching out to.  Not to sound overly angsty here, but we aren't understood by people who think they do understand us, or can, without the messy and spiritually enriching work of bringing us in fully as brothers and sisters in Christendom.

Most of the time, I love my job with a ferocity that surprises even me sometimes.  I cannot imagine doing anything else right now other than parish ministry with a side of blogging.

But like any job, it has its good days and its bad days.  So far, the good far outnumber the bad.

But I worry that my job, and the jobs of many of my dear friends and colleagues, might turn worse if we do not continue to re-examine our own habits the preconceptions that can result.  Otherwise, doing ministry will become even tougher when it wasn't always easy to begin with.  It will become even harder than before.

And I worry that, sadly, that this time, it will be entirely a result of our own doing.

Yours in Christ,
Eric