coaching: how we do what we do
In May of 2018, a pastor friend of mine asked me, “As a pastor, don’t you sometimes feel like you’re just rearranging the furniture on the Titanic?” It was such a heartbreaking and honest question from someone who had been pastoring for more than 25 years. Yet I was surprised by how vehemently the word “no” immediately bubbled up inside of me. I did not feel like I was wasting my time amidst all that was happening in the world. In fact, I felt quite the opposite.
I spent a lot time reflection on his question, and on why I felt that my time as a pastor was well-invested. I realized that part of the answer came from my own journey of reconstructing Christianity which had transformed a really important part of my Christian evangelical upbringing: the purpose and expression of worship.
One of the sins of white evangelicalism is an over-correction to the personal: the teaching that the only important thing is one’s personal relationship with Jesus. Service to the community, justice-making has been a nice-to-have, but not a spiritual imperative. The resulting impotency and willful ignorance has harmed (and continues to harm) people of all kinds of marginalized backgrounds, but mostly pointedly BIPOC and LGBTQ individuals and communities.
But our spiritual roots look nothing like this. Worship and justice are inextricably tied together. And so for progressive churches and communities, we must critically examen our worship practices and traditions to ensure they reflect the robust justice-minded theology we are (and have always been) called to.
Good worship matters. Good worship transforms us. And justice-making is the true measure of whether our worship is good or not. Worship should remind us who we are and to whom we belong; worship should draw our attention to the community as well as to our own experience; worship should inspires us to do the next loving this. This is what can change the world.
If you are a leader of a worshiping community, I’d love to help you analyze your worship practices and gatherings. There is not a one-size-fits-all approach to worship (thank God) so my role is not to give you a formula to follow. Instead, I will help you align your worship practices theologically and culturally to be a truer expression of who you are as a community, and who God is.