PresbyMEME: Why I Am Voting Yes on Amendment 10a

The presbyteries of the Presbyterian Church (USA) are voting for the next several months on an amendment to one part of the church’s constitution that will remove language requiring of ordained officers (Ministers, Elders, and Deacons) “fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman” or “chastity in singleness.” The proposed amendment will replace that language with a statement of standards for ordained officers that says nothing *ahem* explicitly about sexuality:

The governing body responsible for ordination and/or installation . . . shall examine each candidate’s calling, gifts, preparation, and suitability for the responsibilities of office. The examination shall include, but not be limited to, a determination of the candidate’s ability and commitment to fulfill all requirements as expressed in the constitutional questions for ordination and installation . . . Governing bodies shall be guided by Scripture and the confessions in applying standards to individual candidates.

Yorocko is glad to take part in a PresbyMEME advocating passage of this amendment. Organized by former General Assembly Moderator Bruce Reyes-Chow, the MEME is challenging men and women who support the amendment to explain their reasons, answering a few simple questions:

  1. Name, City, State: Rocky Supinger, Claremont, California
  2. Twitter and Facebook profiles: Facebook, rsupinger; Twitter, yorocko.
  3. Presbytery and 10a voting date: San Gabriel Presbytery, March 8, 2011.
  4. Reason ONE that you are voting “yes” on 10a is… My friends and colleagues, who serve the church faithfully and intelligently and with their whole lives but who, counter to the momentum of the gospel of Jesus, are forced to shutter a central part of their identity behind a veil of religiosity that is based less on an understanding of God’s grace than it is on a misguided desire to witness to that grace by maintaining misinformed standards of sexual morality.
  5. Reason TWO that you are voting “yes” on 10a is… The language. The current language is less than two decades old and represents a novel attempt to codify standards for ordained officers in a way that the Presbyterian church had resisted throughout its history, and with strict reference to sexuality. The language of 10a, on the other hand, speaks broadly of candidates for ordination’s “calling, gifts, preparation, and suitability for office,” not just standards of sexual behavior, and it places the responsibility of assessing those criteria squarely where Presbyterian polity wants it: on the shoulders of the ordaining body, not in the articles of the church’s constitution.
  6. Reason THREE that you are voting “yes” on 10a is… So that the Presbyterian Church (USA) can better participate in God’s incoming reign of release, freedom, vision, and peace. Since current ordination standards effectively bar gays and lesbians from consideration for office, and since gay men and women in North America continue to be targeted for harassment and exclusion, and since the message Jesus preached was one of a radical reconsideration of what constitutes “religious” behavior, one that was founded on the oft-repeated-in-Scripture announcement that the harassed and excluded were of God’s special concern, the church needs a better way to welcome all of those into ordained service those who know themselves to be despised by the world yet treasured by God.
  7. What are your greatest hopes for the 10a debate that will take place on the floor of your Presbytery? That a single mind may be changed in the direction of passing 10a, from the beginning of the debate to the end. My experience with these debates in the past is a frustrating collection of advocacy pushes and posturing that shows no evidence of the qualities of debate. The vote could be taken without the debate with an identical result. My hope this time is that some small opening will be created for us to hear one another, and to hear God speaking through one another.
  8. How would you respond to those that say that if we pass 10a individuals and congregations will leave the PC(USA)? The likelihood that people will be bothered by a church action is a poor reason to shy away from taking it. People and churches left when churches integrated on racial lines. They left when it ordained women. They’re leaving now, as we speak, simply because the presence of an honest conversation on the subject indicates to them infidelity and a lack of moral vision. While it’s crass to say of those who would leave over the passage of 10a “good riddance,” I’m persuaded that they’re likely to leave anyway, and I’m convinced that fear over membership loss is a terrible guide in moral decision making.
  9. What should the Presbyterian Church focus on after Amendment 10a passes? The same things it’s focusing on now: proclaiming the good news of the gospel, worshiping God, serving the poor and needy, promoting social welfare, and building community for those who have none. I suspect, however, that the church’s definition of marriage is the next thing that needs to be thoroughly considered in light of Scripture and our current context.
  10. How does your understanding of Scripture frame your position on 10a? It frames it on every side. It was abundantly clear in the last round of debating this subject that the people quoting the Bible in the debate were those advocating change. I don’t understand Scripture to be a rulebook handed down once-and-for-all from Heaven, but rather the Spirit-inspired witness of God’s people over multiple conditions and contexts to the ever-expanding reach of God’s welcome. In that light, 10a, while not an easy amendment to summarize, is a no-brainer.

 

 

Program Or Be Programmed, part 2: Don’t Be Always On

Instead of operating in time, computers operate from decision to decision, choice to choice. Nothing happens between the moments I type any two letters on the keyboard. As far as the computer is concerned, this word is the same as this one, even though I took one second to produce the first, and a full minute to produce the second. The machine waits for the next command and so on, and so on. The time between those commands can be days, or a millisecond.

That’s how Douglas Rushkoff unpacks the asynchronous nature of computers, their programmed bias to operate outside of the flow of time. Thus the first of his Ten Commands for Life in A Digital Age (see an intro to the book here): Don’t Be Always On.

Rushkoff can recall the early days of online discourse, when discussions lasted for weeks at a time on cyber bulletin boards. Users would log in to a website, read all of the comments on a given topic, then most likely log off before considering and then composing their contribution to the discussion. Then, hours or even days later, they would log back in and post their entry. It was slow and deliberative.

Now we don’t need to log in. We’re in a perpetually logged-in state. We don’t have to go get the discussion, because new digital platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and those ubiquitous blog comment sections bring the discussion to us. Our phones and screens bleep and blink with every response to our content. We devour it quickly and then repost/retweet/reshare.

Rushkoff’s analysis of this is solid stuff, and I won’t parrot it here. I’m interested in how this always-on tendency, which runs fundamentally counter to the asynchronous bias these digital programs are all built with, affects ministry. How do pastors, for example,  exploit the bias of computers?

“Nothing happens between the moments I type . . . ”

Well, almost nothing. Something is happening in the person to whom my typing is directed. Some anticipation is building, surely, and the longer I stretch those moments out between keystrokes, the more that anticipation builds, the more my Facebook friend will expect from my composition. The more I take advantage of the bias of the digital medium and make it wait for me, the more important what I have to say will seem.

Can the things we need to say in our ministry contexts fit in a thumb-punched email or text? Character limits aside, are we not speaking of the same mysteries our forefathers and foremothers spoke of in abbeys, cathedrals, deserts, and prisons? And don’t these mysteries demand time? Don’t they resist quick replication and summation? I mean, if it can’t wait, how important is it?

Since reading POBP, I’ve switched all of the notifications on my smartphone applications to “off.” I’ll check my emails when I want to, and I’ll respond to them in time. Those tweets aren’t going anywhere, so I don’t need to be alerted the moment they’re posted. And that latest volley in my Facebook debate with my brother-in-law over NPR’s firing of Juan Williams–I’ll get to it when I mean to do some debating, not while I’m listening to the new The Extra Lens album.

My contributions–and therefore my ministry–will come out better for allowing the computer to do what it wants to do–chew up those moments in between.

How do you exploit computers out-of-time bias? Or are you drowning in a wave of status update notifications?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Program Or Be Programmed, part 1

“In the emerging, highly programmed landscape ahead, you will either create the software or you will be the software. It’s really that simple: Program, or be programmed. Choose the former, and you gain access to the control panel of civilization. Choose the latter, and it could be the last real choice you get to make.”

Welcome to Douglas Rushkoff’s latest book, Program or Be Programmed: 10 Commands for A Digital Age.  In the coming weeks I’ll use this space to explore those commands from within a context of Christian ministry, often referring explicitly to youth ministry.

Every new communication medium brings with it a capability that people miss. That’s the unsettling observation that spurred the book’s writing (see Rushkoff expound that here). A text alphabet brings the capability to read, but people use it to listen to priests  read; the printing press brings the ability to publish, but we use it to read elite authors; digital technology brings a chance to program reality, yet we employ it to publish on platforms programmed by programmers. Every new communication technology realizes in full the promise of its predecessor.

I spend an awful lot of time and anxiety in my ministry setting trying to implement the programs of others. Evangelism programs, education programs, worship programs, service programs: I’m trying to apply other peoples’ programs and so find “success” in my vocation. What I’m getting from Program Or Be Programmed is the bald assertion that I’m a full technology and ministry iteration behind. I need to be programming this stuff myself.

That goes well beyond writing my own youth lessons instead of purchasing them from Youth Specialties. It starts with that (it already has). But it proceeds to ask not simply, for example, how youth ministry can make use of the social media tools that teens are using, but, further, what important tools for accompanying young people in faith yet need creating? And how can we create them?

An answer may well be a piece of software that one of us writes. If that sounds too intimidating, though, then at least it should begin with hearing Rushkoff’s 10 commandments for this digital age, commandments that will help us to program the coming reality, and not simply be programmed by it.

Up first: Do Not Be Always On.

Jeff Jarvis, Maggie, and The Walk (part 2)

I blogged yesterday about Maggie the Magnificent and her really stellar leadership of our church’s involvement in a local hunger walk.  Maggie is a high school student who is “disconnected” in programmatic terms from the church’s youth ministry activities. But she’s doing good work in the world, and it made me sad that the church wasn’t positioned as a platform for her to do some of that work. So I invited her to lead the walk efforts, and she killed it. She totally killed it.

Another thing that emerged, though, from this year’s walk effort, was that the youth at our church who participate in it are not necessarily the same ones who come to youth group.

In the past, Sunday youth groups would be cancelled on the day of the walk, since our youth would presumably have already done something that day. I had my doubts about that presumption.

So this year we held youth groups on Sunday night per usual, and, as I expected, that was exactly zero overlap between the students who walked for hunger and those who came hungry for Sunday night community. Ze-ro.

The walk involved the same number of youth as regularly come to youth group gatherings, but they were (this week at least) a totally different group of youth.

This is an emerging attempt on my part to put into practice Mark Oestreicher’s Youth Ministy 3.0 contention that there’s no such thing as a youth ministry, in the singular. Instead, churches have ministries to different groupings of youth. Trying to craft a comprehensive program that will attract all manner of students is foolish. It’s also kind of lazy.

Of course, it’s also a continued grappling with Jeff Jarvis’s thoroughgoing What Would Google Do? with its unambiguous answer that Google would create a platform for youth to do what they already want to do.

My next question, then, is this: if a hunger walk gives youth a platform to do good work on behalf of needy people, then what are youth groups a platform for?

Thoughts?

Jeff Jarvis, Maggie, and The Walk

YoRocko began with a flurry of posts about Jeff Jarvis’s book, What Would Google Do (WWJD). Several months on from those posts, some things are happening at the church I serve that are bringing to life some of the book’s ideas.

Example: The Walk for The Hungry. Our church participates in this event every year, organized by a great local organization called the Inland Valley Hope Partners. Since I’ve been at the church, our participation has been pretty straightforward: a handful of youth collect sponsors in the weeks before the walk, then show up for the event. This follows weeks of bulletin announcements, newsletter articles, postcards to youths’ homes, emails, and direct text messages. When the walk is over, we call it a day; regular youth groups don’t meet that night.

This year I tried something different. Following a hunch that I teased out a bit in this post, I let the event be a platform for youth to do what they want to do. Trusting that our church and community are full of teens who want to do meaningful things, I recruited one of them (we’ll call her “Maggie”) to organize our church’s group of walkers. The student I chose has not once attended youth group in her two-plus years of high school.

Starting a month out from the event, Maggie made announcements in worship and manned a display-decked table to sign up walkers and collect donations after church. She was, of course, fantastic. Our church raised more money than any other church who participated.

More importantly, though, Maggie involved a bunch of her friends in the walk, so that half of our “church” group of walkers were young people who’ve never been to our church before and who’s only connection to it was Maggie, a student who heretofore had participated in exactly zero youth ministry events at the church.

The church was a platform for youth in our community to get involved in something important, and I was impressed to death with the kids who were there, most of whom I’d never met before. Mostly, though, I was impressed with Maggie, and hopeful for what she’ll be leading the church to get involved in next.

See pictures of our walking group here.

Godly Play Gets Going (with audio)

Here’s the audio from last Sunday’s Godly Play story as sermon (doesn’t work with Firefox for some reason). The Great Family story is told exactly as it would be told to children; the long pauses are to allow the actors to complete their movements. The body of the sermon that follows is those actors’ responses to the four Sacred Story wondering questions.

It’s missing something without the visual, but it’s worth a listen. Of course, I’m very interested in your feedback.

Godly Play Gets Going

Yesterday we kicked off our new Godly Play Sunday School with an open house for kids and parents in the Godly Play classroom. Then, during worship, we told The Great Family story as our scripture reading, using our teachers as human actors in place of wooden figures. The sermon was those actors’ responses to the four sacred story wondering questions:

  1. I wonder which part of this story was your favorite?
  2. I wonder which part of this story you think is the most important part?
  3. I wonder where you are in this story, or which part of this story is about you?
  4. I wonder if there is any part of this story we could take out and still have all the story we need?

It was powerful stuff. I had no idea what our teachers were going to say; none of it was rehearsed. But it was so obvious that the story and the actions prompted deep, personal, and critical reflection on the story for each of them.

It was an honor to be a part of it, and I’m so excited to be starting Godly Play at CPC.

Kenda Dean’s Good News

Kenda Dean’s latest book, Almost Christian: What The Faith of Our Teenagers Is Telling The American Church, caught the attention of CNN over the weekend (read Kenda’s thoughtful response here). It’s long since been taken up by the likes of Tony Jones and most everyone else engaged in youth ministry in mainline protestant churches.

Some substantial critiques have been leveled against Dean’s thesis, which is essentially that a lax breed of religiosity among churchgoing teens in America is the fault of the church before it’s the fault of any other villian, like the culture, technology, or any other of the usual suspects. Some have challenged whether her research-backed assessment of levels of teen religious fervor are accurate. Others have challenged her prescription of a fix.

It’s a complex question. Dean’s presentation of the evidence is compelling, if not a little numbing in its depth. She’s no ivory tower-sequestered egghead; she works with teens and with youth workers. She knows whereof she speaks.

Consider this passage. After quoting John 20:19-23 in its entirety, Dean says:

“There it is, in the middle of verse 20: “Then.” An unoticeable word, maybe, unless you are a parent, or a pastor, or anyone who works with teenagers–but there it is, a delayed reaction, the lapse that occurs between telling a teenager she is beautiful and having her believe it; the interval between showing up at the high school gym and having your player, ready for a free throw, notice that you are there; the space between hearin the good news and responding to it. Jesus shows up, speaks up, shows the disciples his scars–then they reacted. A liminal nanosecond in John 20, but a season of life for many of us: the gap between recognizing Christ’s coming and Christ’s sending. Jesus could have grabbed the disciples (or us) by the scruff of the neck, flinging them into the world to proclaim his resurrection right then and there, but he doesn’t. He waits. Between Christ’s coming and Christ’s sending Jesus waits for us to recognize him, and for us to rejoice that God’s good news, after all that we have done to deny it, has come to us. As the dispirited disciples dangle in their God-given in-between, Jesus waits . . . and then: rejoicing! It dawns on them that God’s promise is true, the One they love is alive, the story they are part of is far, far bigger than they ever imagined.

Dean is speaking good news to the church, not pronouncing “Forty days more!” I, for one, am glad to hear it again and to be reminded that youth ministry is far, far bigger than my schedules, talks, devotionals, and visits.

James Baldwin and Beauford Delaney

James Baldwin says of Beauford Delaney, an artist who befriended Baldwin as a youth, “he expected me to accept and respect the value [he] placed upon me.”

Can youth ministry mainly be about this? Cannot all Christian ministry have as a central pastoral task the placing of immeasurable value upon peaople while also cultivating the expectation in themselves that they can accept it, that they are worthy of it, and that they must share it?