iowa – Salvaged Faith

It's a coaching problem…

Posted on January 21, 20152 Comments

I was recently talking with a colleague about the fear/frustration that church members think we, as the pastors and staff, are the ones who do ministry.

Obviously, since we are the ones getting the paycheck, we should be the ones out making new disciples and teaching and being prophetic and visiting the sick and all of those other things churches do.

In that scenario, it is the congregation’s job to sit back, complain if something isn’t happening (like growth), and financially support the work.

Our job, however, is not to do the work, but to call and equip the laity (the people) to share in the work.

Using a sports analogy, I guess you could say we are a lot more like coaches than players. We are paid to look at the gifts and talents of our players, to train them, to condition them, to challenge them to grow, but they are the ones who play the game.

We can stand on the sidelines and encourage. We can call timeout and give advice and lay out a new strategy (pastoral care). Coaches review game films and get the team ready for the opponent (bible study). We can hold practices where the players learn the essential elements of the game.Worship is such a time where we learn to pass the peace, confessing and forgiving, and hear a pep talk about how to play.

What I love about this analogy is that most coaches have a season of recruitment where they go out and build relationships with people and build a team. So, evangelism and community engagement are an important part of our job.

But then the church has to go out there and play. Out to their schools and homes and workplaces and golf courses and hospitals and homeless shelters.

As a sports fan in the Hawkeye State, there is a lot of armchair coaching that goes on in my house.

Some days are better than others.

During football season, we’d cry out, “put Sunshine in!”

Watching ISU miss free throws makes you want to pull out your hair.

I’m not even going to discuss the Hawkeye loss last night. I can’t even….

But at some point, you have to stop looking at the players, and you have to ask what is going on with the coaching.

The same can be asked of the church.

When we see a church declining or in financial trouble or stagnant, we have to ask what is happening with the coaching.

Part of the problem is that as pastors, we forget we are supposed to be coaches.

We get bogged down in meetings and administration and in the pressure to go out there and bring people into the church and don’t always make time for one-on-one coaching sessions.

We sometimes worry about how the music or sermon will be perceived, rather than how it will shape and form the congregation.

It seems to be easier to make the visits to the sick and home bound than to train up the laity to care for one another as an act of Christian love (and to train them to receive care from one another).

And sometimes, we simply assume the “team” is playing fine so we fail to change the line-up. Maybe that’s the hardest one. With good and faithful people serving in a particular ministry area, we are afraid to inject new leadership, or worry more about how someone will feel if they are benched… even if it is better for the mission and work of our church.

And then, in some churches, we find that we are coaches who don’t have a team in the church, but a booster club. We have people who think they are fans rather than the starting line. And the coaching mistake is that we let it happen or continue to happen.

Maybe its time to run some laps and do wind sprints and shoot a thousand free-throws.

Maybe what we need is a good hard season of practice.

Unimagineable…

Posted on June 11, 20141 Comment

I think in some ways, I’m still in shock. Or exhausted. or both.

At 2:45 on Monday afternoon, we announced that we had raised $2,009,907 for Imagine No Malaria as the Iowa Annual Conference.

I had spent my lunch break sitting on the floor of the treasurer’s office counting the dollars that districts had raised by passing bags and hats and buckets that morning. And as first one district exceeded a thousand dollars, and then another, and then pledges of a thousand dollars and more came rolling in, I knew we had done it.

I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face as I tried to casually stroll to the Diakanos area (our youth who serve as pages for conference). I needed their help in updating our tally boards so we could reveal the new total to conference.

And even as we were recording that unbelievable number, the Iowa Foundation announced a $6,000 match of the afternoon’s donations. They believed we still needed about $12,000 to go over the top and were willing to get us half way there. And the East Central district announced over $1500 in pledges for our rider in the North Central Jurisdictional Ride for Change. Even before we had made it official, our tally was inadequate. Our success was still growing. The gifts were unbelievable. We couldn’t keep up with the outpouring of dollars and cents and checks and pledges.

I strode up to the microphone… flipped on the yellow light… and imperceptibly shook as I shared the good news.

What that number represents to me is not simply money that was raised by folks in Iowa. It represents all of the lives that will be saved because of the work of United Methodists. It represents the churches that were transformed and started to think beyond their walls in this past year and a half. It represents the youth who were given a voice and ran with a cause they knew was making a difference – whether it was with their feet on the pavement, on the ballfield, or by dyeing their hair. It represents moms and dads in places I have never been like Sierra Leone and Angola and Nigeria who have hope their children will live. It represents the effort of communities who have rallied together to educate one another and hold each other accountable. It is the pennies of children and the pocketbooks of millionaires. It is diversity, and beauty, and joy, and sacrificial, and empowering, and far beyond anything I ever asked or imagined was possible.

I believed we could raise the money.

Don’t get me wrong.

I got involved in this whole wonderful mess in the first place because I knew that if every United Methodist in Iowa gave only $10, we would have raised nearly $1.8 million dollars.

It was weird for people to come up and congratulate me after the big announcement, because this was OUR success and not mine. This was OUR effort and I simply had the honor of being the midwife. The resources were there for this to be a successful campaign. Of that, I had no doubt.

But I never imagined how it would transform the people of Iowa. I have been blown away by the stories of individuals and communities which have been transformed by Imagine No Malaria in Africa. And I never imagined how this whole experience would transform me.

Hopefully I’ll have time in the next few weeks to process some of what I have learned and some of how God has moved in my life.

But for now, I simply say: God is Good.

What I am learning as I give up social media for Lent…

Posted on March 20, 2014Leave a comment

#1 – I seek praise, sympathy, solidarity through social media. The smallest, most insignificant thing could happen and my first instinct is to post it so that other people will comment and respond. It is attention-seeking behavior that often slips into a self-centered focus. Having to constantly fight the urge to post has led me to wonder what I’m getting out of those posts… and what others are as well. Sometimes, it is an authentic search for community and others to share the journey with. Sometimes it is race to see who has the biggest sob story or frustration of the day. These past weeks have reminded me of my insignificance. No one really cares what I had for breakfast or about a stubbed toe or that I shared an article. I’m just not that important. And I shouldn’t be.

#2 – Most of my news comes from social media. When I hear of breaking news, I search for the topic on twitter instead of turning on the television. The variety of sources, the mix of images, video, stories, personal reflections, global perspectives is amazing. I just don’t get the same depth of information watching one news channel go on for hours at a time about a single event, and when you flip stations between the networks, the information is often similiar with only slight colors of perspective. As Ukraine and Russian and the Malaysian flight disappearance have made headlines, I have largely been out of the loop of what is happening in the world.

#3 – Many of my conversations with close, personal friends, happen on Facebook. While texting is part of my communications toolbox, I rarely call or email these individuals. I never realized how much I rely upon Facebook groups for keeping in touch with a circle of friends – whether they are colleagues or my girlfriends. I had to write a clause into my lenten discipline that allowed me to continue using the Messenger part of Facebook (which meant I had to download the app), because I realized I would be completely out of the loop on conversations about health, upcoming events, and personal struggles. Not being on facebook and able to follow posts on group pages has left me feeling fairly isolated from those I am most connected with.

#4 – I pray a lot through Facebook. Whether they are shared prayer concerns among colleagues or simply reading the everyday struggle and hopes of friends, family, and colleagues, I am frequently moved to pray as I interact with posts and snoop on people’s lives. Not having that source of prayer material at my fingertips, however, has led me to pay attention a bit more to the people around me… the guy sitting on the park bench, the people in line. I find myself wondering what their story is, what they hope for… I haven’t worked up the courage to ask yet, however. I’m not sure if I’ve always been an “overhearer” of people’s lives or if this is something that a social media culture has developed in me and others around me. And sometimes I wonder if that extension of ourselves into the public space is good or not. I hesitate to lift up a prayer out loud on the bus, but I don’t when I’m commenting on a friend of an acquaintances post. It’s something to ponder.

#5 – I enjoy watching sports with social media. I enjoy the quick stats and the commentary that is often far better than what is on the television. I like the sense of solidarity in amazing plays and in bad calls. Yet, with the Iowa Hawkeyes basketball team being told to stay off of twitter because of the criticisms, I also recognize how brutal it gets out there. The things we yell at the television in the quiet of our own homes now are the things we post online in public in the heat of the moment, without tempering our emotions and remembering it is, after all, just a game.

#6 – I’m following the practice of celebrating Sundays as “little Easters” and not fasting from social media on those days. In the past two weeks, I’ve largely used those days to dump pictures and a quick narrative of the highlights of my week, as well as to quickly skim my group pages, catch up where I can with friends, and have left very few comments. I might have spent a total of 2 hours on facebook between those two days. The time I spend in my typical week on social media must be astounding. I’m sure there is an app somewhere to monitor it, but I’m afraid to look.

#7 – I use Facebook and social media equally for work and for personal matters. Conversations with friends and co-workers happen simultaneously. I’m more aware of that fact as I try to occasionally use it for work-related items (like updating our facebook page for Imagine No Malaria), but the distinction is so blurred that I have tried to avoid it or batch post. I think it would be worth it to do some hard work of creating new lists on facebook to better discriminate what I post and to whom so I could use it for both in a better way.

#8 – this is NOT going to be a permanent fast.

Where Have All the Young Girls (and Boys) Gone?

Posted on November 8, 2013Leave a comment

I’ve been taking guitar lessons at my local rec center. And with one of the simplest chord progressions – C, Am, F, G7 – the Pete Seeger song, “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” is pretty easy to learn.

In fact, I had been playing it the other afternoon before I discovered some really interesting maps of migration patterns in the United States based on Census figures. These maps were created by folks at the University of Wisconsin – Madison and are based on net migration by county. That means they look at the balance of in-migrants minus out-migrants, rather than tracking the flow of where people move when they leave. As they explain it, the group took the data per age group at the beginning of the decade, estimated population in 10 years (accounting for rates of death), and then looked at actual numbers for the end of the decade. The positive or negative numbers show the difference between actual and expected figures.

There are some interesting things to learn about the nation as a whole, but as a pastor in Iowa, I was also interested in what was happening in our state. I hear a lot about how young, educated people are leaving the state in droves, and yet I know many young adults, like myself, who are still here or have returned. In the church, we have experienced population decline in more rural areas and overall, the population of the state is not keeping pace with national growth which caused us to lose a seat in the House of Representatives this past cycle.

But what can we see when we look at patterns over time?

Net Migration 2000's — Net Migration 2000’s

Net Migration 1990's — Net Migration 1990’s

Net Migration 1980's — Net Migration 1980’s

Net Migration 1970's — Net Migration 1970’s

Net Migration 1960's — Net Migration 1960’s

Net Migration 1950's — Net Migration 1950’s

(Orange represents a loss of greater than 4.49, yellow a loss of .49-4.48, white is -.48 to a growth of 4.47, light purple 4.48-19.47, and dark purple an increase of over 19.48)

When we look at the overall patterns of net migration, we lost a lot of people from the state in the 50’s, 60’s, and 80’s. You can even see how there was a slow down in out-migration in the 1970’s but how that all would have changed with the farm crisis in the 1980’s. Since that time, however, we have seen growth… or at least a stemming of the tide in the east central and central parts of the states and surrounding urban areas. What surprises me is the continual decline in population along the eastern edge of the state in the counties along the Mississippi River and the somewhat lack of decline in the south central part of the state. However, as I have driven through that are much in the past year, it is a) not a difficult drive to Des Moines and bigger cities for work and b) an area where smaller cities are thriving. The only place where we have seen extraordinary growth (a rate of over 19.48 is in Dallas County. This would account for the huge growth in the western suburbs of Des Moines.

Net Migration – All individuals – 1950-2000’sAs we think about migration patterns among folks who Business Insider describe at their “prime earnings age” or 30-54, the picture looks much like it does above, but with more drastic changes. Areas that are light purple are often dark purple in this age range. Areas that are white turn purple. In the 1950’s and 1980’s the picture flips the other way and there is much greater loss in this age range throughout the state. While we often covet young people in our churches, this age range is a source of much untapped potential. They have regular steady incomes, workplace skills and experience that are beneficial to ministry, and are raising children. Unfortunately, all of those things also mean they are extraordinarily busy. To minister to this group of folks in today’s world will require us to think in new ways – in terms of time, place, and types of activities.

What about the patterns of migration among younger folks? The study describes a range of 15-29 years of age and this is largely the group of people we have been so concerned have been leaving our state in droves. Largely, the patterns show a movement towards urban areas, which makes sense, when you think about the fact many of these dark purple areas are also university cities. Because the net migration patterns are based the formula described above, it is natural for collegiate communities to consistently have positive data… their numbers are based on 5-19 year olds in the community at the beginning of the decade and then actual 15-29 year olds at the end. It is interesting that Black Hawk county (home of University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls/Waterloo) has fluctuated between growth and decline over the past fifty years while the other two state universities have continually seen an influx of that age group.

The two exceptions are in the data from the 1950’s when Linn County (Cedar Rapids/Marion) experienced a large growth in this age group (although there are some smaller private colleges here) and in the 2000’s when Dallas County also shows extraordinary growth in this age group. Most striking is that Dallas County does not have a college or university! Because the 15-29 age group is so large, you can breakdown the data into smaller chunks on the net migration website. While Story (ISU), Johnson (UofI), and Black Hawk (UNI) counties all saw growth of young people in the past decade, their gains were largely in the range of 15-24, or college aged students. In comparison, Dallas County experienced minimal loss in that same age range, but saw an increase of 88% in their 25-29 year olds. That rate goes up to 182% in the 30-34 age group. It is not surprising, that 0-5 year olds also spike in Dallas County at this time.

Migration rates among different ethnicity groups also have implications for ministry because we have seen large growth in Hispanic, African, and Southeast Asian communities across our state. However, because of the varied ways that census data has been collected, it is harder to see the patterns of change in this particular format. Data from the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s is simply listed as “white” or “non-white,” the 1980’s shows no distinction, and in the 1990’s and on a distinction between white, black, and hispanic is listed.

The Institution of Marriage

Posted on July 20, 2013Leave a comment

**uploading some older sermons as I sort through files. This one in particular was a joy to write and I was blessed by the opportunity to share this day with my dear friends.**

Friends, we are gathered here today to celebrate an institution.

Now, that may seem like a boring and cold thing to say… but I assure you, nothing about today will be boring or cold =)

Institutions form societies. They mold us as individuals. They enhance our ability to be fully developed human beings. Institutions carry within them the values we hold most dear… the values that we want to pass on to the generations that follow us.

The institution of the family brought this man and this woman… in fact, all of us men and women… into the world. Each of you who have played the role of a parent or grandparent or a sister or brother to these two, have helped to make Ben and Kayla who they are today.

The religious institutions in their lives formed in them a deep sense of justice and love. Their wrestling with faith enabled them to ask questions about what it means to be faithful, about who their neighbor was, and about what it means to be a child of God.

Without the educational institution – well… Ben and Kayla never would have met. Some of us gathered here today witnessed the beginning of their journey together at Simpson College. They discovered their common values, they laughed and love together, and each step since that first one has brought all of us here.

Today, we witness them enter into the institution of marriage.

On the back of your programs, there is an excerpt from an important court decision in the state of Massachusetts.

Marriage is a vital social institution. The exclusive commitment of two individuals to each other nurtures love and mutual support.

Civil marriage is at once a deeply personal commitment to another human being and a highly public celebration of the ideals of mutuality, companionship, intimacy, fidelity, and family. Because it fulfils yearnings for security, safe haven, and connection that express our common humanity, civil marriage is an esteemed institution and the decision whether and whom to marry is among life’s momentous acts of self-definition.

It is undoubtedly for these concrete reasons, as well as for its intimately personal significance, that civil marriage has long been termed a “civil right.” Without the right to choose to marry one is excluded from the full range of human experience.

In beautiful and poetic words, the court reminds us that this institution of marriage is a public celebration of the ideals of mutuality, companionship, intimacy, fidelity, and family… it fulfils yearnings for security, safe haven, and connection that express our common humanity. These values – these ideals – are what bring us together today.

Any of us who know you – Ben and Kayla – know that your love has been a mighty and blazing flame for many years now. We know that your love needs no ornament or stamp of approval from any religious or governmental body in order to be real. We know of your commitment to one another, of your mutual respect, of your willingness to allow your partner to be who they are and yet love them anyways. We know that your love cannot be bought – that it is genuine and true – honest and holy. In fact, had we not gathered here today… and perhaps some of you thought we never would =) … Kayla and Ben would still be two individuals bound together by commitment and nurtured by love and mutual support.

But we do gather and we do celebrate, because a deeply personal commitment is not all that is important to them. Ben and Kayla believe that making these promises in public benefits the community. They believe that marriage brings stability to society. They believe that the honest, simple, and holy thing we call love is meant to be shared. By stopping at this place in their journey together and gathering before you, they mark the importance of the relationship that they share. They measure how far they have come and leave a reminder to all that follow of what marriage means to them. Here in Iowa, we don’t necessarily gather cairn stones to mark these moments… but we do like to put up billboards along the side of the road.

So, looking back years from now, we might remember that this billboard, from this moment, says: With God as my helper, I choose to live my life with this imperfect, flawed and terribly wonderful soul. I choose to take on the obligations and the joys of a shared existence. I believe that the ability to make this choice and to be faithful to it, is one of the highest and most esteemed values of our society.

The promises Ben and Kayla make today – and their living out of those promises – are themselves a witness of the importance of this institution and the joy they seek by entering it.

They believe that the benefits and obligations of this beautiful institution should be available to all that choose them…

Being married today in Iowa – they not only are publicly celebrating their love and the ideals of mutuality and fidelity and connection… they also celebrate the ideals of equality and justice.

So let us join them in their journey together and mark this moment with celebration…

Let us celebrate that we have the ability to bind ourselves together with the partner we choose.

Let us celebrate that many waters cannot quench the love two people have for one another.

Let us celebrate this beautiful institution of marriage and all of the good that it stands for. Amen and Amen.

BIG words

Posted on May 30, 20134 Comments

This first exercise or engagement with our proposed strategic priorities for Iowa comes with a word image. I put the full document into a word cloud generator to see what we talk about the most and what that says about our work.

For this post… the words that stand out: conference, communities, ministry, development, transform, work, faith, disciple

Our document is fundamentally about how we as the Iowa Conference function… where we are going and how we are going to get there. So it is not surprising to see “conference” as a primary word.

The same goes for “communities.” We talk both about communities of faith and being more present in our communities throughout the proposal. There was an intentional effort to not limit conversation to local churches or congregations but to broaden our definition to include new and developing immigrant faith communities, Wesley Foundations, camps, and other places where discipleship happens… even if it isn’t in an officially chartered congregation.

So the second part of that term, “faith” also is prominent. But this word is also used in “bold steps of faith” and to lift up faithful people and to develop the faith of leaders and disciples.

The word “ministry” surprised me, although it probably shouldn’t have. In this proposal, we use the word in a lot of different ways, however… as a description of the activities we do (areas of ministry, the ministry of pastors, ministry with the poor), groups within the conference (Ministry Cabinet, School for Lay Ministry), but also as part of a description of place (rural ministry, ministry context). These describe what we are doing, how we are doing it, and where we are doing it.

When we aren’t using the word ministry, we are using the word “work” in this proposal. We even talk about the work of ministry! This phrase describes who will work with whom (congregations working with the poor, CFA working with the Cabinet) as well as what that work looks like (work of peace and justice, work of intentional faith development).

“Development” is a big part of our second priority – working to develop new and more effective leaders… both in terms of faith development, but also recognizing the need for asset-based community development. It is internal and external to our walk with Jesus. Development also shows up as we discern where new communities of faith can be developed.

Next, “transform.” This is the core of our document. Change. New life. Resurrection. This word captures transformation, transformational, transforming, transformed… you get the picture. And it is all through the document. Leaders who are transformed and transforming. Communities of faith that are transforming their neighborhoods. Our mission is to help transform the world.

Also not surprising, “disciple” makes a strong appearance. Our mission is also to make disciples. Whether we are talking about deepening our discipleship, making disciples, equipping leaders to disciple, or sending disciples into the world, this is a thread that runs through our proposal.

Invitation to Conversation and Discernment

Posted on May 29, 20131 Comment

Hi folks,

This year at our Iowa Annual Conference one of our major topics of discussion will be the vision, mission, and strategic priorities of our Iowa Conference.

As part of getting people across the conference to think/pray/discern where we are heading with this document, I’m hoping YOU might think and write about the document this next week. I want to invite you to prayerfully read the full document and craft your response. If you blog, let me know where and when your post shows up! If you don’t blog, I would love to invite you to be a guest on my blog and will share your responses.

In this exercise, some questions we might wrestle with are:

What kind of difference would this make in the Iowa Annual Conference?
What are the obstacles to passing the vision/mission/priorities?
What are the obstacles to living them out?
What are some lingering questions you have or places you feel led to push back?
What excites you? What inspires you? What stirs your soul so that you can’t wait to get started?
What are we missing?

Up front disclosure: I was on the writing team for this project and have spent a lot of time invested in the work. It’s not perfect. It isn’t even really finished… that will happen on the floor of the Annual Conference as we adopt the priorities and then work to perfect the goals as a legislative body… and even then, we are creating a working document. I’m hopeful and prayerful that God truly is leading us outside of our old structures and into a new reality – focused on relationship, mission, discipleship, and life in our community. I’m happy to answer any questions you might have and/or talk about where I’m still struggling!!!

I’m not looking for your approval, but your deep engagement and conversation… and to invite those who respond in your own circles to do the same. I want us to be as informed, prepared, and above all SPIRIT LED as we get to the actual conversations on the floor of annual conference as we can be. And that takes connection and holy conversation.

PLEASE seek out others who are writing and read and interact with their thoughts and responses!

PLEASE invite others to blog also! And if you have friends/colleagues/church members/neighbors who don’t blog, invite them to write a guest post for your blog to broaden the engagement!

All in all… thank you. And let me know when you post next week so I can link your posts and share them broadly.

All Shall Be Well,

Katie Z.

p.s. I hope this might be the start of deeper connection among the bloggers in our conference, as well!

Coffee making ladies…

Posted on April 14, 2013Leave a comment

Tonight I had a presentation scheduled in Tama/Toledo. These two little towns are so close I can’t tell where one ends and the other begins. And based on my introductory sentence, you might guess that I wasn’t exactly sure which one I was supposed to be in!

You see, many little towns in Iowa still have more than one United Methodist Church because one of them was Methodist and the other was Evangelical United Brethren. Both became UMC and they never joined. Many of these churches are now part of multi-point charges served by the same pastor, who often work together..

Long story short… I found myself parked outside of the Toledo worship center half an hour before the presentation. All the doors were locked and the lights were off.

I gave them 10 more minutes and then started trying to find the pastor’s number in old emails. About that time, he called me and I instantly realized I was at the wrong building of this four-point charge.

I should have known something was wrong, because the little old ladies in churches like this always show up at least half an hour early to start the coffee pot.

Back in the car, down the road a few miles to Tama, and all was well.