Guiding Question for Churches in the Threshold Liminal Space: What Is Ours to Give Away Now? – Transcript
Jim Latimer
Welcome to Coaching for Interims. We are about empowerment for interim ministry, best practices and quick help – wisdom from the field. This is our collaborative Wisdom from the Field project featuring short interviews with transitional interim ministers, and others, with practical help and wisdom to offer those engaged in transitional ministry. Thank you for tuning into this episode of Wisdom from the Field.
Jim Latimer
Today we have the good fortune of having with us in this episode, Reverend Lindsey Peterson. Lindsey is a designated term pastor. She serves in a very urban setting in New England. And as I have come to know her these last several years, her giftedness is remarkable and diverse. She’s an accomplished singer songwriter with lots of experience within the church environment and also on the outside. She’s one of the few people I know who is comfortable, not just in and out, but also right on the boundary, and is able to go back and forth with ease between the secular and the sacred, to make an unnecessary dichotomy of it. And so, we wanted to have this episode speak a bit to this question of when we’re in this liminal space, What is ours to give away now? Lindsey, if you would speak to that, that’d be great.
Lindsey Peterson
Yes. You and I have had rich conversation about this question – What is it like to be in the liminal space? There are so many different dynamics that create liminal space. You described one, the liminal space between secular and sacred and that it’s an unnecessary dichotomy. Which is true. That’s an active liminal space that I exist in, and I think the church needs to exist in also. Then there’s also within the congregation itself, within the shifts at the church itself, and then within my role as designated term pastor being at the halfway point of two and a half years of a five-year term, and the work we’ve done. This is also a liminal space because we’ve created a vision, but there’s no clear pathway yet. And the pathway is not going to become clear all at once. It’s happening through this liminal space.
Lindsey Peterson
And the question of, What is ours to give away? What is ours to give away, now? Is a prayer tool. It’s a discernment tool. It’s a guiding question to hold in this liminal space. It recognizes that we do have something. There is something we have. Is it our building? Is it our experience of Christianity? Is it our theology? Is it our queer affirmation? Is it the financial resources that our founders left us?
Lindsey Peterson
Then there’s the challenging question of, Were any of those material resources ever actually ours? Should they have been ours? How were they gotten? This year in July marks the 150th anniversary of the laying of the cornerstone of the building of South, and then it took a year and a half to finish, or two years. So, the 150th anniversary of the completion of our building – the main part of the building – will be in two years- quite a coincidence! And we’re doing a bit of looking at the materiality of the building, such as, Whose hands built the church? Whose money built the building? Where did they get their money from? In part because South has been an endowment-driven church for so long, those feel like important questions to spend time answering in this liminal space, because they can direct us from a spirit-lead, and justice lead-perspective around how we are being nudged to use or give away those material assets and resources.
Lindsey Peterson
And connected to it is the emotional spiritual work of holding the tension of this place in this community called church. And that’s true for so many people who are part of church. I’m in one specific context. This place in this community called church – so much of what it is has been built on the backs of things that today we would not support, hopefully. And so, how do we make right? How do we participate in the healing and creating a more beloved world? Just holding that question. I love how in our conversation, just you and I offline, we said – and I’m gonna share how you parsed it – I think it’s very powerful. You said, The overall question is, What is ours to give away now? And you reflected on the several ways you heard it – which is very powerful I think – is, What is ours. What is ours? And there’s another component, What is ours to give away? And then, What is ours to give away now? Each of those questions evokes different responses, and I think also different responses in our bodies. I think a lot of where New England Congregational tradition, which is the one I know, New England UCC, a lot of where we are now – material as well as emotional, spiritual – is a need to release our grip. It’s a giving away of our privileged place for the sake of life, for the sake of a movement of the Spirit, for the sake of the wellspring.
Jim Latimer
Lindsey, I just heard you make a connection between giving away and emotional space in that sentence. Could you speak more to that?
Lindsey Peterson
Right. So, we have been talking about what does it feel like to give something away. And my thinking was that when you really have released something – you’ve given it way – even if you go through a constricted place, you go through a resistant place, like, I don’t want to do this! – you go through that tightening. Ultimately, you know you’ve released it, you know you’ve given it away when there’s space in you – when there’s a lightening of your load. When you breathe deeper. When you feel a little lighter. When you stand up a little straighter. When you smile a little more. When you have more capacity, as in space, for all kinds of things. And that’s also reflected very much in the hope. We need that feeling inside of our churches. We need that opening of emotional space – that whoosh! – just releasing some things. I know “things” is very vague, but really releasing some things so that we can open ourselves.
Jim Latimer
Because some of those things are physical things, and some of those things are self-image things. Some of those things are our relationship with other groups around us – giving up a commitment to the idea, This is how our relationship should be with this other organization in town! Giving away clinging to that, so as to let it come into a slightly different relationship – these two entities, right? That could be another form of giving away.
Lindsey Peterson
That’s right. Oh my god, I just forgot. There’s a song like that – I’m forgetting right now the artist – but the line is, You can never lose a thing if it belongs to you. Throw it away. Throw it away. You can never lose the thing if it belongs to you. I can imagine some people feel a question, and sometimes I feel it too of, What is ours not just to release, but to share, right? And I love the faith of that line of, You can never lose a thing if it belongs to you. Because then it’s a trust that you will have what is yours to have. Back to our earlier conversation, You will know what is yours to do. And you will know what is not yours to do. And you don’t have to carry what is not yours anymore.
Jim Latimer
The task is, What’s mine to keep carrying? What’s mine to release? What’s mine to take up that I haven’t been carrying?
Lindsey Peterson
Yes. Exactly.
Jim Latimer
Wow. Let’s wrap this episode up here. This simple question of, What is ours to give away now? can be a guide to provide a container, a discernment prayer tool type of question, to help guide through these liminal spaces. Thank you so much, Lindsey. It’s been profound.
Lindsey Peterson
Thank you so much, Jim. It’s a pleasure to be here. Thanks for opening space for these conversations.
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