after 40 years, here’s why i still believe in the parish – Transcript
Jim Latimer
Welcome to Coaching for Interims. We are about empowerment for interim ministers, best practices and quick help from interims for interims – wisdom from the field. I’m your host Reverend Jim Latimer. Today we have with us Reverend Dr. Shelly Stackhouse. Shelly has served in ministry a long time, both as a settled pastor, and in various forms of transitional ministry. She’s served in big churches and small churches. She has a lot of expertise around buildings and what we do with them, which we discussed in a couple of previous podcasts. This particular one is a bit different. When we were talking a week ago, she said, You know, Jim, in spite of all this – the trials and the beauty and the frustrations – I still believe in the parish. So, I would love for her to say more about that for our colleagues.
Shelly Stackhouse
Thanks, Jim. You know, I love Facebook. And I say that with the caveat that Facebook has a lot of stuff that’s wrong with it. There’s a lot of dangers in it and all of that. But one of the things I love about it is how clergy have been connecting on it with one another. I’m in several clergy groups, and I actually discovered Jim’s work through his Facebook posts. And so, it’s been great. But I’ll tell you what, it’s pretty depressing these days to be on almost any clergy group, because person after person is posting all these articles about clergy who are leaving the parish, and that we are having the great resignation in the midst of the pandemic – the great resignation among clergy. And among clergy of all ages, and among clergy who are or have been settled pastors or associates, or interims or chaplains or clergy of all kinds. But especially parish clergy, who have had it and are getting out. And who have been wounded – some of them absolutely wounded in congregations, others who are just tired, and are tired of it. And I understand that totally and completely.
And over 40 years, I have occasionally toyed with getting out. I took a sort of a four-year hiatus to do a PhD, although throughout that time, I also did several fillings for folk who were on sabbatical and supply preaching. And then I decided I wanted to go back to the parish and not go to academia, at least full-time.
So, I’ve been thinking a lot about this. Is the church over? Is this great experiment that was started by Jesus, that really was a continuation of the synagogue, this experiment that the Holy Spirit exploded on Pentecost. Is it really over? Have we finally killed it? I don’t think so, is where I’m at.
I want to mention an article I read that has helped me begin to really form my thinking about this more solidly. It was in The Christian Century a number of months ago. The article was by M. Craig Barnes, who is the president of Princeton Seminary. Craig was reflecting on people who are saying, Well, the church is dying. It’s gonna somehow have to do serious morphing. We’re gonna have to get rid of all the buildings. Everybody’s quitting. Or, as a recent article put it, They’re not coming back.
And when Craig was reflecting on that, he said, We’re kind of asking the wrong question here. He said, The church has – and I am paraphrasing wildly, so, if you want to find this article, google The Christian Century and Craig Barnes – The church has done its best to shoot itself in the foot for 2,000 years. The church has made so many mistakes – and you could list them. You don’t have to be a deep historian to list them: Hello, Crusades! Hello, Inquisition! – if we want to go back that far. But we don’t have to even go back that far: the White churches in the South who supported slavery; the White churches in the north who supported slavery…
Jim Latimer
Thank you. Yep…
Shelly Stackhouse
…so many ways that the church has fallen short of the ideal that Jesus – that God – has had for us. And yet, it keeps going. And Craig reflected that perhaps it is that Jesus has a use for this institution. And that our role is not to preserve the institution, but to figure out what it is Jesus needs us to do – in our time and in our place. And to trust that the church in some form will continue. Because it’s never taken just one form. It has morphed in a million ways over more than 2000 years.
So, we are in line with all of that. And if the church is still serving Jesus, then it will continue in some form, or Jesus will find another way. But if we say that what we are is people of faith who serve Jesus, then stop worrying about the future of the church and start worrying about serving Jesus. Vast simplification of his article.
So, I’ve really been thinking about the fact that how many times over the years have I been gifted personally, because of church. I mean I believe as a teenager that I was I was saved, not in the kind of evangelical sense, but I was saved because of a congregation, because of a church – as a teenager. And it was a flawed church. And it made mistakes. It did some really stupid things. But it was, for me, at that time, the right set of people, the right thing happening. And I have seen that happen over my ministry again, and again. And I am reading on Facebook and talking with colleagues and seeing the same blasted thing happening now all over the place – in little moments, in big things. Amazing stuff is happening because a parish exists.
So, that’s not a big solution to something. But what it says is, For God’s sake, we need to believe in ourselves and not allow artificial definitions of success that often rank around numbers – Let’s see how many (Facebook) “likes” we have – numbers of people attending, or numbers of people liking, or dollars. For too long clergy have been told that their success is related to the amount of dollars that are raised in their church. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, from my point of view!
So, to buy out of the corporatization of the parish, and to buy back into a sense of parish as the Body of Christ, and therefore believe in ourselves as the body of Christ – this miracle that happens every time we gather around a Communion table. So, I believe in the parish church. I mean, there will come a time at some point – not too far away – when I am no longer serving a parish church. I will be part of one though, because for me, that is where I connect with the body of Christ – to this day in all of its flaws. And I’m an old enough person that I know that bodies get messed up after they’ve been around for a while, and they need repair, and they need care, and they need TLC. But the body is still there, and it can still do amazing things! So, that’s why I still believe in the parish.
Jim Latimer
Oh, man! I’d like to sit in the pew on Sunday morning a few times to hear you preach. That was really something. That was a thing of beauty right there.
Shelly Stackhouse
But it’s from the heart.
Jim Latimer
You buy out of the corporate model, and you buy into the Body of Christ model. What you’ve offered so eloquently isn’t a solution to, Oh, the church is this, or that!! it’s not a solution. And Jesus – it seems – hasn’t called us to solve for solutions. He’s called us to show up fully in the present and take the next right step for love.
Shelly Stackhouse
Oh, yeah, Jim. That’s it!
Jim Latimer
And that requires an immense amount of courage, depending on whether love is with a small l or a capital L.
Shelly Stackhouse
Yeah, it requires courage on a lot of levels. It has always required courage. This isn’t anything new. It has always required courage. And when we get complacent is when we think we’re failing. And of course we’re failing, because we’re human beings. Of course, we are. And we’re also serving. And we’re also loving. And we’re also changing people’s lives. There is transformation happening. I believe this.
Jim Latimer
Amen! Perfect Shelly. Let’s wrap it up there. This has been tremendous! Thank you so much for your time. You’re amazing.
Shelly Stackhouse
Thank you, Jim. Thank you for asking.
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