The Yeast is in the Dough

published on Wednesday, December 23, 2009 by admin

Jean Vanier is the founder of the L’Arche homes, where persons with developmental disabilities live in community with those of us who are disabled in other ways. Vanier’s book “Community and Growth” is one of the wisest and most profound meditations upon authentic life in community that has ever been written. “Community and Growth” offers countless lesson to rural church leaders, more of which will be shared in this space.

At one point in the book Vanier shares the following quotation from a letter written by Little Sister Madeleine, founder of the Little Sisters of Jesus:

“Do not feel obliged, in order to protect your religious dignity and your intimacy with God against exterior dangers, to put up barriers between the lay world and yourself. Don’t put yourself on the fringe of human society . . .

Like Jesus, become part of that humanity. Penetrate deeply into and sanctify your environment by the conformity of your life, by your friendship; by your love, by your life totally given to the service of others, like Jesus, by a life so mixed in with everyone else’s that you may be one with them, wanting only to be in their midst like yeast that loses itself in the dough in order to make it rise.”

On Christmas we celebrate and marvel in wonder at the beautiful mystery of the incarnation. For us and for our salvation, God did not remain high and aloof on a heavenly throne, but instead “took flesh.”

The Divine tiptoed down into the world and, in a kind of limbo of love (How low could he go?), descended lower and lower and lower until finally he became a helpless infant born in a barn and mewling in a manger.

Heaven immersed itself in earth, that earth might be suffused with heaven.

The yeast lost itself in the dough in order to make it rise.

As those who adore this baby, may we remove the false barriers of superiority that we set up between the world, our people, and ourselves.

May we forsake the aloof high thrones of our churches and inhabit the barns instead.

May we dare to take flesh and sanctify our environment by entering deeply into its life.

How low can you go?

In the spirit of Christmas,

Be yeast.

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What Rural Churches Can Learn from a Small College’s Turnaround

published on Thursday, December 17, 2009 by admin

The November edition of The Chronicle of Higher Education includes a fascinating profile by Scott Carlson of new President G.T. “Buck” Smith’s efforts to lead a turnaround of tiny, debt-ridden Davis & Elkins College in West Virginia.

Buck Smith is a college President who works for no salary, picks up litter on campus, judges hamburger-cooking contests, mails favorite books to prospective students, helps 20-year-olds fix their broken toilets – and who is helping his small rural school march proudly into the future with its head held high.

According to Carlson’s article, Davis & Elkins College was once trapped in what a professor referred to as “a death spiral.” Located in a small, remote Appalachian mountain community, the school had suffered stagnant enrollment for years. A lack of financial resources led to mounting debt. Campus buildings were in disrepair. Students were even starting to leave, producing what one professor called “a rats-off-a-sinking-ship” feeling.

When Buck Smith was hired to lead the school out of its morass, he refused to take a salary. “It’s not a job: it’s a mission,” he says of the decision to come to the school. “I wouldn’t do it if it was a job.”

Smith’s primary strategy to turn around the college’s fortunes was so “simple and earnest,” Carlson writes, “it may sound naïve to the jaded.”

“The underlying thing for me is relationships- hardly anything important happens that doesn’t have to do with relationships,” Smith says. So, the new President regularly meets with faculty and simply listens to them. He and his wife attend cultural events sponsored by members of the campus. He has actively sought connections with needy students, the lowliest employees, and with the local community.

“It’s getting to know people, being interested in them . . .” Smith claims in the article. “Life is built on genuine relationships, where trust and integrity are without question. When that is there, there are no limits.”

Depth of relationship is a gift that a small college such as Davis & Elkins can offer its students. Smith does not view the college’s small size as a drawback, but rather as the source of its power and appeal. In this Smith was influenced by his mentor, small college President Herbert Lowry. Lowry once wrote, “The small college has a superb asset, one that is subtle and not easily measured or explained. It answers to one of the deepest of human needs, the need for belonging. And the only way to do justice to the sense of community that a college can confer is to make an almost preposterous claim for it – namely, that this is something which no larger institution, however excellent and richly blessed, can confer in the same measure.”

Buck Smith has not only focused upon the gift of relationship in his own leadership, but has sought to “institutionalize” this emphasis throughout the college’s life. For instance, faculty members are allowed to eat for free in the campus dining hall in order to encourage their interaction with students. Davis & Elkins also cancelled its mass mailings and its indiscriminate advertising campaign. Instead, those funds are now used to allow recruiters to visit high schools in the seven surrounding counties, and to attend three times more college fairs than before. At these settings recruiters pass out the president’s personal business card, and urge them to call him on his cell phone. Other students who make inquiries get a personal response within 24 hours, often from Buck Smith himself. The people in admissions who talk with prospective students learn their names, their parents’ names, and their dogs’ names: conveying, Carlson writes, “that at this college of 700 students, you are part of the family.”

As a result of this focus on personal relationship, The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that the freshman class was up 50% this fall. The number of applications was more than seven times higher than it was in 2007.

Buck Smith’s leadership has helped to turn the school’s small size, once thought by some as a hindrance, into its greatest asset. As a result, Davis & Elkins College is beginning to thrive.

We live in an increasingly impersonal culture, where interactions take place at fiber-optic digital distance. Text messages outnumber cell phone calls almost four to one. Relationships often delve no deeper than a surface-level of acquaintance. Individuals claim to be more connected than ever: and yet seem to feel lonelier than ever at the same time.

In such a milieu, there is much that the small membership rural church can learn from Scott Carlson’s complete article and from the experience of Davis & Elkins.

The family-like small church can also intentionally turn its size into its greatest asset. The congregation can challenge one another to offer personal invitations to church events that they believe in. Visitors can receive a phone call and a note within 24 hours of attending worship. The church can focus and lavish love upon a few specific people or households who are in particular need or who might show promise or interest in the faith. New people can be invited into gatherings where they may share their stories: their names, their parent’s names, their pets’ names. Long-time members can be given this opportunity, too, because close proximity does not automatically mean people really know each other. In everything the congregation does, there can be an intentional focus on fostering the gift of authentic relationship.

With Buck Smith's example in mind, I imagine the pastor of a small rural church standing up each week at the beginning of worship and saying, “Grace and Peace to you from our Lord Jesus Christ. Welcome to Little United Methodist Church. We know we’re not the biggest place in the world. We know that there are other, larger congregations nearby that offer a greater variety of wonderful opportunities for all kinds of people. But what we are is a church that believes in the power of authentic relationship, of knowing one another in Christ: and we believe we do this as well as anyone can. This is a place where you can get to know people of all ages and seasons of life, because we do things across generations. This is a place where every person in the congregation will know the names of your children and watch out for them. This is a place where we will listen to and remember the joys and prayer requests that you share each week. This is a place where you can have a personal relationship with the Christian sister or brother who is your pastor. This is a place where you can discover your gifts by offering them to others, because this is a place where we need what everybody has to offer. All of this isn’t easy: genuine relationship is never easy. But we believe this is the way God would have us to be church – and we are thankful to be a part of that together.”

In Scott Carlson’s article, Buck Smith summarizes his leadership: “It comes down to whether you are going to look at your future based entirely upon your past or what others are doing, or whether you are going to look at the fundamentals, the principles, the basics, and have the discipline to stay with those.”

He is right. Life is built on genuine relationships, where trust and integrity are without question. When a rural church turns its size into its greatest asset- when it stays with the fundamentals, the principles, the basics of community- when it builds on the gift of authentic relationship in Christ, and has the discipline to stay with it . . .

there are no limits.

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Why Chick-Fil-A May Love My Daughter More Than the Church Does

published on Friday, December 11, 2009 by admin

Tuesday night is “Family Night” at the local Chick-Fil-A near my daughter’s preschool in Burlington. On a recent Tuesday night when my wife has to work late, I pick up Ada from school, and, with no plan for dinner (nor the skill to cook anything worth eating beyond “Spaghettios”), we make a beeline for chicken strips and waffle fries. Ada squeals in delighted expectation.

The Chick-Fil-A is hopping with activity. Cars are lined up for the drive-thru in a long loop that extends all the way around the building. The parking lot is jammed-full. Inside are congregated all of the young families in our area who seem to be missing from the church.

Chick-Fil-A has prepared for us. When we walk in, the restaurant is decorated with brightly-colored balloons and Christmas greenery. The “Eat Mor Chikin” cow is making the rounds greeting the kids. When we place our order the cashier (as they all seem to be at Chick-Fil-A) is unfailingly kind and polite: he has clearly been trained to “yes-sir” me to death. As we make our way to an open booth (“Yes! A booth!”), a hostess at the restaurant offers to spread out a kids’ placemat for my daughter: it is a little gesture of hospitality demonstrating her empathy for what a mess a pre-schooler can make at the dinner table. I’m grateful for anything that will help in the post-dinner cleanup process.

Ada and I offer our blessing and open our bag of gustatory wonder. I notice that even the bag has been designed with Ada in mind. Decorating the outside of the colorful container are lessons about the gift of giving, using good manners, and recognizing the good in each person. Inside the bag, next to the food, is a free children’s book, “The Berenstain Bears Hug and Make-Up.” Ada can’t wait to read it, and neither can I. We love the Berenstain Bears books for their real and yet hopeful depiction of what a family can be. They are the kind of family we hope to be, the kind I hope all of the families around us might be.

As we savor the waffle fries and giggle over our nuggets, an employee of the restaurant performs a simple magic show in a corner for a group of rapt kids. Later, I watch children going in and out of the little playground area in the restaurant. I notice that the door handle to the playground is located down low at toddler-level, so that even the smallest child can let him or herself in and out on their own. Meanwhile Mom and Dad can stay seated and enjoy their meal in peace.

One little girl bumps her head on the playground equipment and cries. Soon a solicitous manager appears to check on her and her family. He brings a bag of ice for her bruised forehead, and a free ice cream cone for her bruised feelings. It’s clear she’s going to live.

I look around at all of the families who are congregated here together on a Tuesday night. I look across the table at my daughter, her face bright with satisfaction. I wonder, “Why doesn’t the church look this way on a Tuesday night?”

It is then that, for a moment, the thought occurs to me that Chick-Fil-A may love my daughter more than the church does.

I am aware that Chick-Fil-A imagines itself as a “Christian” business. Their restaurants are (admirably) closed on Sundays. On the wall hangs a plaque that states Chick-Fil-A’s corporate purpose: “To glorify God by being a good steward of all that is entrusted to us. To have a positive influence on all who come into contact with Chick-Fil-A.”

I am tempted to be skeptical about all of this. I know that someone might look at some of what I am experiencing with my daughter and just see manipulative child-marketing. I wonder whether a place that serves its food in hundreds of millions of landfill-filling disposable paper containers can ever be “a good steward,” in any sense. I am disappointed to see no recycling container for my water bottle. I especially wonder where the restaurant’s chickens come from, and how they are raised: and whether Chick-Fil-A is just another of the powerful corporate entities who collude to pay contract farmers as if they were serfs.

Can any fast-food restaurant ever glorify God?

And yet, on that Tuesday Family Night, I am not cynical: I am wistful. It is clear to me that these families are here for something that is about more than tasty Chicken Strips. Through little gestures of thoughtfulness and hospitality to harried families (the decorations, the politeness, the place-mat, the book, the magic show, the playground, the door), the folks at Chick-Fil-A have managed to turn this restaurant into what sociologists describe as a “third place”: not work, not home, but a third place where people enjoy gathering together.

The people at Chick-Fil-A are no doubt motivated in this (at least in part) by a bottom-line desire to increase their profits – and yet they seem to understand that the best way to get people to come to their restaurant is to invest in genuine kindnesses to people like my daughter and me. Caring for people is good for business. They understand that whatever they may spend monetarily on these gestures of hospitality are investments that are likely to be repaid in return visits. In this they are, to borrow a phrase, “innocent as doves but wise as serpents.”

As a result, this Chick-Fil-A is thriving.

As my daughter and I drive home with our stomachs full, Ada sits in the back thumbing through the Berenstain Bears. Up front, I dream of a church that is as innocent and wise as the restaurant we just left. I envision a church that would offer Tuesday night meals- for free even- to folks making the transition between work and home. That would give little gestures of hospitality and love to children. That understands the demands on overwhelmed young families. That would be willing to take risks and make sacrifices in the trust that such acts are “good for business,” investments in the future.

I see a rural church with a full parking lot, and a line of cars stretching around the building.

It can happen. It will happen. After all, we have something to offer even more, yes even more appetizing than Chicken Strips and Waffle Fries:

the Bread of Life.

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