Keeping Captive Audiences Captive

A few weekends ago I went to a pretty good presentation that talked about ministry of leadership in changing times. The presenters were very hospitable and knowledgeable, and they’d come from far away to talk to people in the Dioceses of California and El Camino Real.

When one of the presenters saw my name he said, “Aren’t you changing the world?” I was taken aback and asked for some more information about what he meant he said, “Young, fabulous, and trying to get the church into the 21^st century.” I said that, ha, sure, yeah I fall into that category and that’s me!

A few minutes later I got to talk with the other presenter about some of the things I am doing in the Diocese of California and some of the things I hope to be doing in the next year or so. It was a great little conversation and I felt really good about what I’m doing and what I want to do. It built on some feedback I’ve gotten from congregational leaders this week too.

Before we started though, I had a surprising interaction with one of the facilitators. I asked if someone had the Wi-Fi password for the church hosting us. The presenter said, “We do. But we aren’t giving it out because people will do other things during the presentation, so we’ll give it out at the end. Nice try, Joseph!”

This facilitator echoed some concerns that had been raised at Episcopal Communicators in early April. If people are looking things from the sermon up as preachers are giving it then they may know what the preacher is saying that isn’t accurate. This already happens. My mom’s pastor has been reading his sermons from a website the last two years. My mom googled a phrase and found out and now she follows along. Every week.

Rather than fearing that people can do that, this access to information challenges preachers (and all kinds of presenters) to be better at what they do. I don’t think that it’s always a good thing for everyone to be online all the time. I do think that avoiding access so that those in leadership aren’t accountable is a worthy defense, though.

Much earlier this year I went to a presentation where our presenter asked us to put our computers away because we wouldn’t need them. She lied. Her presentation was awful, and yes, I wanted to escape her awful presentation into my work email or the Twitterverse. Should I have stayed engaged? Yes. Should she have been better prepared and less hokey? Totally.

The presenter wouldn’t give me the Wi-Fi password on Saturday for fear that people would do other things. He had a captive audience that he didn’t want to escape. That was an unnecessary fear and anxiety though — his presentation was great. I was (clearly) really annoyed by this — the presentation was on the church changing, and I’d just been complimented for the work I’m doing that involves electronic communication, but he didn’t trust me to stay engaged…and he took the choice away from me.

What do you think? Is having outside access a good or bad thing? How do you navigate this in your ministry setting?

That Open Letter to the Church from My Generation

My Facebook feed the last two days has been filled with postings of An Open Letter to the Church from My Generation. The supposed money quotes are

I’m writing this because I’m worried about the safety of the Church. The Church keeps scratching its head, wondering why 70% of 23-30 year-olds who were brought up in church leave. I’m going to offer a pretty candid answer, and it’s going to make some people upset, but I care about the Church too much to be quiet.

and

So, my advice to you, the Church: if you’re looking for some intelligent biblical liberal opinions on the subject, have a little coffee chat with your local Methodist or Episcopal pastor. Christians can be all about gay people, it’s possible. People do it every day with a clear biblical conscience. Find out if you think there’s truth in that view before you sweep us under the rug. 

This author self-identifies as a "A College Kid Who Misses [the Church]." I actually really don't like this letter at all and don't like how much it's been shared. I am making the assumption that it makes some big assumptions as it uses a plural pronoun to cover 23-30 year-olds. I'm in that category. In some ways I am certainly an outlier: I am a priest at 26 which is not the typical 23-30 year old, and the author makes some assumptions about me based on my age. Making assumptions about people based on similar demographics to our own and is just as dangerous as making assumptions about people based on demographics different from our own.

I am glad this author found truth in Macklemore's song, but I fear that her blog has a tone of "If the church would just get on board with the gays everyone would come back." [Edit: It's not just a tone, it's explicit, "But my generation...will not stick around to see the church fight gay marriage against our better judgment," and "We want to stay in your churches, we want to hear about your Jesus, but it’s hard to hear about love from a God who doesn’t love our gay friends (and we all have gay friends)."]

My favorite line, rather than the ones I've seen quoted is "I’m saying this: we cannot keep pitting the church against humanity, or progress." That's true. More of what I've encountered about people my age who are interested (or disaffiliated) from the church is that there isn't much about Jesus from the Right or Left but a lot of hot button political/social issues.

I am glad that this experience of truth in song rang true for her in her Midwestern town where there are churches that preach only hate or things the author doesn't like. I am from the rural south and know all too well messages of queer exclusion and feminine submission. I am frustrated as mainline protestants (many of whom are clergy) who share this letter highlight this author's encouragement to have coffee with mainline protestants. I am frustrated at this author's candid answer that we're scared of change.

Yeah, sure we are, but there are a lot of real studies about formation and discipling as followers of Jesus that affect people's attendance rates. I find these ten reasons (link) more compelling based on my own experience. As I encounter people my age who are really willing to commit to a faith tradition they are looking for authentic expressions of that faith tradition. The author says we can smell fake a mile away. A sudden shift about teh gai is going to look really fake the same way politicians' all suddenly, as Chief Justice Roberts put it, falling all over themselves to endorse marriage equality. A friend of friend said, "I almost respect Muslim and Catholics the most because at least they go big and stay nuts." I don't agree with that assessment, but this person isn't religiously affiliated and has some hints at how those religious traditions are seeing their own authenticity.

An authentic expression of Christianity is that things take time. Sometimes more than they should, but sometimes not as much. We look beyond ourselves to the larger and we look to our future. I don't fear for the Church, though. I trust in grace and the guidance of the Spirit. Mainline Protestantism has been on a journey about dealing with queer people for a while, and not every branch of it is on the same page. The remaining denominations not onboard have been struggling for decades like those who do endorse marriage equality.

I am a gay man and my faith was the biggest impediment to my coming out to myself, to my family, my friends, and my faith community. Others' interpretation of my faith was an impediment for years after many of those coming outs. The author signs the blog entry "A College Kid Who Misses You" while also encouraging talking to United Methodist and Episcopal clergy, which is exactly what I did. Rather than leaving the church though, I left the church of my past, and in so doing I learned a lot more about Jesus than I had before. I started encountering parables that I didn't remember and words of Jesus that felt fresh and new. I left the church of my past and discerned a vocation to ordained ministry in another church.

I never missed the Church. I sometimes miss the people I grew up with, but I think it's anachronistic to say that one is scared for the Church's decline while also identifying with the statistic of 23-30 year-old's who've left the Church (compared to leave the church of one's past). Being fearful for the church (which I don't think is necessary) I think necessitates a staying in it and speaking to it. I feel like a curmudgeon as I say all this, but saying you miss the church reads to me like you've left it and are armchair quarterbacking to speaking to it on your blog rather than making or maintaining relationships with church people.

So, no, this isn't a letter from my generation. It's well-written and has some good sentiments, but I think needs some more depth to it to get the kind of sharing it's gotten. I continue to pray for the church to be discerning and to be focused on the message and person of Jesus — which doesn't exclude social concerns, but must be the starting point rather than an after thought for how we engage with society.

JpM

Lying in Ordination Vows

Over the last few weeks (a month or so) I've participated in conversations about the diaconate. Many of my seminary classmates have said that at their ordinations to the diaconate they would have to lie in their ordination vows. A professor said that many people have to. One said his bishop said he could cross his fingers. Where would people be lying in their ordination vows? And why? The vow in question is the first question of The Examination (BCP 543), "My brother, do you believe that you are truly called by God and his Church to the life and work of a deacon?"

As these conversations have been happening, others have been as well, and a big event has, too. On December 21 I knelt before my bishop and he prayed, "Therefore, Father, through Jesus Christ your Son, give your Holy Spirit to Joseph; fill him with grace and power, and make him a transitional deacon in your Church." I was ordained as a transitional deacon, it's in the prayer.

Actually it's not. The constant references to my being a transitional deacon or to the transitional diaconate have annoyed me the last few weeks. I don't want to get into the idea of cumulative orders where they stack up like nesting dolls. or talk about direct ordination to then presbyterate. I'm not an advocate of that. I am, however, an advocate of deacons, their work, their lives, and their ministries.

My classmates have said that they will have to lie in their ordination vows, but I think that presents a problem. Rather, I should say I did not have to lie in my ordination vows. I do believe that right now I am truly called by God and the Church to the life and work as a deacon. Saying that I'm a transitional deacon betrays the importance of that life and work. While some people advocate ordaining people directly to the presbyterate, one of the reasons I pursued orders in The Episcopal Church was to serve time as an ordained deacon, called to a  special ministry of servanthood under my bishop modeling for all the baptized that servant ministry to which we are all called.

My understanding of my call to the priesthood is that the Church forms its priests by serving as ordained deacons first. I don't believe that I am called to be an ordained deacon for life, but I am a deacon right now. I am not a "transitional" deacon anymore than Bishops Harris, Robinson, Parsley, Gray-Reeves, or Curry were transitional presbyters. While some say that those called to the priesthood should be ordained right to that order, I think that instead we might discern as individuals and in community when people are called to be priests.

Rather than setting the date of an ordination to the priesthood six-twelve months to the day from the diaconal ordination, why not take the process of priestly ordination just as seriously as we do postulancy, and candidacy, and diaconal ordination? While people seem to hem and haw and build up loads of anxiety before their first meeting with the commission on ministry or for getting candidacy, it seems like skating from that point on, and no one seems to question if they will be ordained to the priesthood in an exact timeline per their diocese.

Apparently that I'm even saying these things could hold my process up in some dioceses, too! When discussing a GOE answer from this past week I told classmates of my intentional inclusion of a deacon in a liturgy and cited the diaconal ordinal. They were from the same diocese and almost both immediately said that in their diocese my advocacy for the ministry of the deacon would lead to questions among the committee if I might not be called to the vocational diaconate.

Throughout my seminary career I have been such an advocate, and I think it has to do with my formation about ordained ministry happening a)with vocational deacons around and b)such a strong teaching on the tradition of the church that I could never have thought about being ordained directly to the presbyterate - although one of my closest friends and mentors (in the tradition from which I came) was pursuing just such a process. During that time, however, she was on trial and discerned herself and in community when she would be ordained an elder.

Scott Gunn wrote tonight about Broken Things in the Church. I think one of the things broken in The Episcopal Church is not the diaconate, but our treatment of the diaconate. As Episcopalians we say that we firmly believe in the three-fold ordering of ministry. Our understanding of the ordering of ministry is important to us in ecumenical dialogue, but I think oftentimes we act like there are really only two orders of ministry: priests and bishops.

In a sermon at General Convention 2009 Bishop Barbara Harris implored the church to stop treating LGBT people called to ordained ministry as though they were "half-ass baptized." If we continue to treat vocational deacons as though they're half-ass ordained (limiting their use of the title "The Rev", disallowing them from wearing collars, making them wear grey clergy shirts to tell them apart, saying that "the clergy" follow "the deacons" in procession, etc.), while encouraging deacons pursuing the priesthood to act like priests in waiting, we devalue the ministry of all deacons.

Rather than celebrating our three-fold ordering of ministry we say that only people who want to be priests and people who can ordained are ordained. Those other people who've had the prayer prayed over them are just fixtures, regardless of the good work they do in prisons, with seafarers, in schools, and all the other places deacons go to serve. I love telling people in the subway that deacons taught me to knit and explaining the ministry of the deacon to random New Yorkers who just wanted a picture of me knitting.

I'm called to that ministry at this point in my life. Maybe it's easier for me to embrace this because I don't have an ordination date yet, and I don't know what the timeline is. There are a lot of variables that may need to be worked out. Maybe it's a good thing for me, though. I'm not a priest-in-waiting because I don't know when I'm waiting for! I am a deacon called "to make Christ and his redemptive love known, by [my] word and example, to those among whom [I] live, and work, and worship, ... [and] to interpret to the Church the needs, concerns, and hopes of the world." (BCP 543).

The Prayer Book knows nothing of transitional deacons, only deacons called to special ministries of service under their bishops, whether they are pursuing the presbyterate or not.

Children in Church

"Adult members sometimes complain that they cannot pay attention to the sermon, they cannot listen to the beautiful music, when fidgety children are beside them in the pews.  'Send them away.' many adults say.  Create 'Children's Church' so that these distracting children can be removed in order that we adults can pay attention.

"Interestingly, Jesus put a child in the center of his disciples, 'in the midst of them,' in order to help them pay attention.  The child, in Jesus' mind, was not an annoying distraction.  The child was a last-ditch effort by God to help the disciples pay attention to the odd nature of God's kingdom.  FEw acts of Jesus are more radical, countercultural than his blessing of children."

 - Hauerwas and Willimon, Resident Aliens

What the Church Needs

"What we need at present for our Church's well-being, is not invention, nor originality, nor sagacity, nor even learning in our divines, at least in the first place, though all gifts of God are in a measure needed, and never can be unseasonable when used religiously, but we need peculiarly a sound judgment, patient thought, discrimination, a comprehensive mind, an abstinence from all private fantasies and caprices into personal tastes - in a word, Divine Wisdom." (emphasis added) - John Henry Newman, Priest and Theologian

(A Modified) Order of Worship for Evening

This is the order of service we used tonight.  It'd modified from the Prayer Book.  Neither of us really likes to do that, but the kids don't have Prayer Books (there is one here that we've seen).  More commentary on how it went tomorrow...and how it came about, which is part of the changing.  We used what we had, we were intentional about it, and it worked as best as it could.

We Gather

“Gozo”

“Alabare”

Greeting

        

         Stefanie: Luz y paz en Jesucristo nuestro Señor

        

         Joseph: Repitan esto después de mi

         Demos gracias a Dios.

A Reading

         Is. 9.1-4 is assigned lesson

         Joseph: Repitan esto después de mi

         Demos gracias a Dios.

Prayers.

        

Ilumina nuestras tinieblas, te suplicamos, oh Señor, y por tu gran misericordia defiéndenos de todos los peligros y riesgos de esta noche; por amor de tu único Hijo nuestro Salvador Jesucristo.  Amen.

Danos gracias, Señor, para responder prestamente al llamamiento de nuestro Salvador Jesucristo y proclamar las Buenas Nuevas de su salvación a todos los pueblos; para que nosotros, y todo el mundo, percibamos la gloria de sus obras maravillosas; quien vive y reina contigo y el Espíritu Santo, un solo Dios, por los siglos de los siglos.  Amen. 

We Hear God’s Word and Respond

Salmo 27.1, 5-13 with refrain of v. 1a.

“Hallelu/Gracias a Dios”

Gospel reading from the children’s bible

         Joseph: Repitan esto después de mi

         Demos gracias a Dios.

Sermón

“Gloria a dios”

Oración de los Fieles

We Are Sent Forth

La Paz

         La paz del Señor sea siempre con ustedes

         Y con tu espíritu.

“Shake Another Hand”

“Amen, amen, amen”

Salgamos con gozo al mundo, en el poder del Espiritu.

Demos gracias a Dios

        

Hey Church: Holy Crimes

Yep, it's that time of the week again.  Go read this week's edition of Holy Crimes.  And read the comments.  Please, read the comments.  I think they say a lot about how we're perceived.  When we fail to keep one another accountable it's reflective of all of us and informs people's opinions.  And when we're silent about it that says we don't care (even if we do).  And when we run and hide from it our hearts haven't been changed and aren't being changed by the Gospel.

So, go read, read the comments, maybe leave a comment of apology or repentance.  NOT defensiveness.  There's nothing to defend here.  Being so certain of being right is what gets us into this mess.  Listen to the voice of the modern prophets.

Holy God, holy and might, holy immortal one, have mercy upon us.

Hey Church: Holy Crimes

Hey Church, go see what we haven't done so great at this week by reading this article.

Pray for the accused.  Pray for the victims.

Almighty and everlasting God, whose will it is to restore all things in your well-beloved Son, the King of kings and Lord of lords: Mercifully grant that the peoples of the earth, divided and enslaved by sin, may be freed and brought together under his most gracious rule; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Hey Church: Straight(ish?) Talk about Trans Sex Work

Hey Church.  You should go read this article.

As clean and tidy as our Sunday mornings might be, that's now how all the world is....and we are called to know about that, pray about it, and engage it.  I don't have much experience with transpeople or sex workers.  I can't begin to fathom the struggles they have day-by-day...but this is a good starting point based on someone's real experiences.

Go read the article.  The whole thing.  It's long-ish, but it's really good.

September 11 Collect

O God who created all peoples of the earth, knows them all by name, and loves them infinitely: Comfort all who have lost loved ones, especially on this day; forgive those who seek division; lead us to reconciliation with all of our neighbors; and give rest to the departed, that one day we might all join in your heavily Kin-dom, a city of eternal peace, through Christ the Great Reconciler who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Sermon: Gleaning

from Sit and Eat:

Lydia's congregant Jennifer Goodnow preached this sermon at St. Lydia's on Sunday, June 20 as part of our exploration of the book of Ruth.  Jennifer is a teacher and life long Episcopalian.  You can read the text for her sermon here.

There are women who come to my neighborhood on a regular basis to go through the garbage bags that the supers leave out for sanitation pick-up the next day. These women are well-known by the supers, always work in a tidy and organized fashion, and clean up after themselves, tying up bags when they have collected what they need. The women collect cans but also go through the black garbage bags and collect clothing that Upper East Siders deem unworthy of the many local thrift stores. 

I have often wanted to talk with them but I don’t speak Spanish very well and I don’t want to scare them. I’m guessing they are undocumented and suspicious and fearful of being turned over to La Migra. I’d rather smile and say good morning and leave it at that instead of frightening them with the many questions I have.

They are foreigners. They speak Spanish and I believe are from South America. They may not speak English. They may have little education, little opportunity other than collecting cans and clothes. They are modern day gleaners, sweeping up the remainders of people who live n the wealthiest, highest educated zip code in the United States. They are the Ruths of the 21st century.

It’s easy for me to look at these disenfranchised women and compare them to Ruth. Ruth has chosen the life of a foreigner in a foreign land, just like them. Women during Ruth’s time had little power. Childless widows had no power. The gleaners on my block – if they are undocumented – are, technically speaking, against the law. If they were caught they could be deported, even though NY is not exactly Arizona. The gleaners I see on my block are poor. They are in a desperate situation, like Ruth.

However, I am gleaning as well. I’m a spiritual gleaner. God has laid out a huge feast for me … and I am eating crumbs off the corner of the table. I believe God sees more in me than I can see for myself. I think that God’s perfect paradise, enlightenment, full communion with God is just over my shoulder. But I am looking for it in the wrong place. I’m looking straight ahead and can only see a glimpse of it out of my peripheral vision. I’m standing and eating the crumbs that have fallen on the edge of a table and that’s all I can see. If I would shift my gaze a bit more, I would see an enormous banquet with dish after dish laid out on an endless table.  But, I seem to suffer from a myopia that does not allow me to realize what is present. The Hindus call it Maya – the mistaken belief that the world we are living in now is all that is real which leaves no room for the other-worldly or divine.

I used to go to another church, an Episcopal church, here in Manhattan. Dogs are allowed in the church and I would bring my golden retriever, Music with me to the service. A few years ago, we decided to switch the Eucharist from the wafer to homemade bread baked by different congregants. It’s a honey-infused, whole-wheat crumbly cake. Connor, my godson, hated it when he was younger. He would receive and then palm his communion bread and try to sneak feed it to my dog! I used to tell him that dogs don’t need communion because they are already in full communion with God. My dog, Music is pure love. We humans are the ones who need the help! We need the communion with each other and God. When I come to St. Lydia’s every week, I eat a piece of baguette and I drink three buck chuck from Trader Joe’s – but that’s not my communion. My experience of communion is being in community with everyone here. I have small moments in life when I’m not simply gleaning. When I’m not eating crumbs off the edge of the table, moments when I get a clearer sense of the feast that is laid out for me and everyone else in common union.

We share the sermon at St. Lydia’s and I invite you to reflect on your own experience of spiritual gleaning, communion, or anything else that resonates with you from the text or my words tonight.

Read it all...

Prayer for Priests

I'm watching the ordinations to the priesthood of the Catholic St. Paul-Minneapolis Archdiocese 2010 and this prayer just happened and I really liked it. It really speaks to my call, too.

“Together with us, may they be faithful stewards of your mysteries, so that your people may be renewed in the waters of rebirth and nourished from your altar; so that sinners may be reconciled and the sick raised up. May they be joined with us, Lord, in imploring your mercy for the people entrusted to their care and for all the world.”

Aside: Oh PostIt notes. What would altar books be without PostIt notes?

Preaching Grace from the Pulpits on Sunday, Living Legalism the Rest of the Week?

from Grace and Truth to You:

Jack Beavers sent me a link to an article in the Fort Worth Star Telegram with a profile on Joel Gregory, former pastor of First Baptist Church, Dallas, Texas and Southern Baptist Convention celebrity. Joel is now ministering in black churches across America. Toward the end of the article, in explaining the ministry he has in now in black churches, Joel Gregory is quoted as saying:



"To some degree, white evangelicals preach grace. But when it comes to dealing with real-life situations, there's a good deal more judgmentalism and legalism. Black churches not only preach grace, they are willing to take you where you are and if you fall down, really try to help you get up, and not punish you."

Read it all...

I have to say that this fits totally with my experience of Southern Baptist Churches, in large part. It's been a long time, and I learned a lot when I was Southern Baptist. I got a lot of love from a lot of different people, but I heard very contradictory messages about grace and legalism. I heard "grace, grace, grace," and then heard a lists of things to do and not to (some from the pulpit, some at home) if you're really a Christian. Don't drink. Don't smoke. Don't be gay. Don't get divorced unless there's unfaithfulness. Now, most of the rules aren't necessarily bad things, but there wasn't a lot of room for mess up. I mean sometimes the lived reality of it was graceful, but the attitudes about people getting pregnant outside marriage or messed up on drugs were shame/guilt based, even if the person wasn't explicitly excluded.

This not having room for people to be fully welcomed back doesn't encourage people to be real with one another. It encourages behavior modification. Derek Webb says on The House Show

Because, here’s the truth, flattery at its very best will encourage nothing more in you and in your community than behavior modification – modifying your behavior to act the way you should, to hide the things you do that are wrong, and to try to amplify the things you do that are right. But, see, here’s the truth: all the behavior modification in the world will never change your hearts, and it can never change our communities. Jesus however, does change our hearts and he will change our communities. And that is why boldness is called for.

And later, more on grace and legalism in my experience.

Episco-upgrades: Think bigger on pastoral care

Episco-upgrades: Think bigger on pastoral care:

"In a healthy congregation, the lay people engage in the ministries to which lay people are called. The priest engages in ministries appropriate for priests. Of course, the details will vary by church size (family, pastoral, program, etc.), but the point generally remains. When clergy do the work of lay people, the community is deprived of some of its vitality. And, of course, when clergy abrogate some of their responsibilities, boundaries are blurred.

While it is true that many people are attracted (and even called) to priestly ministry by the desire to offer pastoral care, this ought not to be the primary task of a priest. Priests should offer pastoral care, to be sure. But in congregational life, they are also called to offer leadership in other ways. They ought to use the gifts which have been given only to them (sacramental ministry especially), while sharing their ministries with many others."

(Via Seven whole days.)

Pray for the Church

Grandmère Mimi keeps us updated on sex-scandals in the Roman church. As I read more and more headlines, I hurt for victims whose abusers have yet to face justice, and I pray for the church, for its wounds and its broken system that perpetuates hurting itself and others.

Today she linked us to a HuffPo article which concludes:

I wish the higher-ups could educate these girls without thinking about what methods the two women back at home use to trigger their orgasms. Their decision to the contrary smells of an obsession with homosexuality.

If that's not what this is about, then the Catholic Church should apply this Denver principle to others who violate its sexual doctrines. Do America's Catholic schools harbor any children whose parents had sex before marriage? Who use birth control? Who encourage their older children to use birth control? Who got divorced and remarried, or who married a divorced person?

Ban all their children. Then the bishops can sell the vacant schools to pay off the judgments in lawsuits by people who were molested by priests.

Be sure to read it all. And keep your eyes on Mimi. She has good stuff, and a lot of content.

"Sundries"

Sorry that I've been posting a lot from Scott A. Gunn, the Blogger-in-Residence Rector at St. Google's, or rather Christ Church, Lincoln, RI, but he's got some good stuff on his page pretty frequently. These are my favorites from a recent post of his.

The Diocese of Rhode Island's Altar Guild has a blog. Yes. Not only do they have a blog, they update regularly and have been so doing for quite a while. Make sure you check out Rhode Island Altars. Not only do they blog regularly, have been doing it for a while, they also LABEL stuff. Check out the section on altar lace.

Fr. Scott points us to a Newsweek article from 1995 about why the internet will fail. Glad that's out there for reading 15 years later as I sit on the interwebs in my philosophy class having my mind stretched in a most delightful way. Blogging right now is a break from it to process some in the back of my head.

The final thing I'll share from Fr. Scott (who is a very funny guy, and good to go to emergent worship with at General Convention, but only if he wears clericools) is a video about what to expect if we try something new. About trying new things he says, "[T]he church seems unable to grasp a simple concept: sometimes we should try things just to see if they work. It’s really that simple."