http://www.fteleaders.org/ en Copyright 2013 2013-05-06T12:31:43+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/finding-a-barefoot-way/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/finding-a-barefoot-way/ Sometimes, when we open our meaning-making to a trusted circle of friends, we see things we cannot see alone. We see images and hear whispers of connection that elude us in solo quests. If we carefully prepare our hearts and minds, we might even sense one another's "shy souls" coming out of hiding to bask for awhile in the mysterious presence of God among us. People of all ages can step onto this holy ground, and I believe congregations are places where that sometimes happens. What if we found a way to allow that to happen more frequently? What if we got serious about creating spaces for intergenerational meaning-making? Calling 2012-04-02T14:31:25+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/re-membered-into-the-body-of-christ/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/re-membered-into-the-body-of-christ/ About a year ago, my faith community formally blessed me and the gender transition I was in the midst of undergoing by including a re-naming rite as a part of our regular Sunday liturgy. In addition to being a parishioner at House For All Sinners and Saints in Denver, CO, I also happen to be transgendered. For me this means that at birth I was not declared to be the sex/ gender that I am currently living as. So I grew up as a female named Mary Christine Callahan and then did a legal name change, began hormone therapy with testosterone, went through puberty a second (and infinitely more enjoyable) time, and now live as a guy named Asher Herman O’Callaghan. Like many of my fellow parishioners, I am a religious refugee. Some of us were or are walking wounded from... Calling 2012-01-20T14:07:25+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/noting-a-womans-body/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/noting-a-womans-body/ God knows women's bodies always have a way of getting our attention. This is not breaking news. But in the past two weeks two storylines have been breaking out and gaining traction on the female body, and I have been both painfully and gratefully reminded that there are always at least two sides to any story. The headlining of the two stories started back in January of 2011 when Egyptian men and women joined in the collective unrest and civil protests against political and social injustices in North Africa and the Middle East known as Arab Spring. But the story reached a new chapter last week in Tahrir Square in Cario, where the Egyptian military and governing forces offered the world yet another powerfully devastating example of what seems permissible to do to a woman's mind, body and spirit. It is difficult to shake the images from...   Calling 2012-01-05T13:44:03+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/finding-purpose-in-3d/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/finding-purpose-in-3d/ This Christmas season I received a gift I love so much I can’t help but give it away. I took my 13-year-old daughter, donned the dorky 3-D glasses, and dove into 127 minutes of delight: Martin Scorcese’s new film "Hugo." I rarely see first-run films. At $13.50, it seems absurd not to wait a few weeks until it comes to the dollar theatre. But I raced out to see Hugo after an email from a friend who said the movie reminded him of our work at FTE. Indeed, he was right: the movie hit me where I live, reminding me why I do what I do, love what I love, and care about what I care about. Hugo creates a space to celebrate all the things we embrace in the work of VocationCARE: holy listening, story-telling, community as source of healing -- and perhaps best of all -- unlikely friendships across generations, mysteriously in service to finding (or re-finding) one’s place in the world. Calling 2011-12-13T14:54:11+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/occupy-vocation/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/occupy-vocation/ As protestors camp out in city parks across the nation over the last few months, the word “occupation” has dominated the media. Here in Denver, the Occupy movement is particularly vibrant, with many of the members of the House for All Sinners and Saints community participating, distributing supplies to protestors and homeless persons alike. For these folks, “occupation” is merely an extension of their sense of the prophetic aspects of their “vocation.” What if the church learned from the Occupiers how to re-occupy and re-claim our own space, the space of God? What if, by observing the revolution on the streets, we also learned how to embrace the revolution we already have, the revolution of grace upon the human heart? What if, in renouncing the quick fix, the easy answer, and the jam-packed schedule, we as a church discovered again for the first time the song, the grand vocational fugue, God is singing through us to a tired and over-taxed world? Calling 2011-12-09T13:06:18+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/radical-trust-our-christian-roots/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/radical-trust-our-christian-roots/ So I went...to an extremely broken place and reality, because my friend had friends he wanted to help. New Orleans’ entire infrastructure was compromised by hurricane and flood damage and our nation struggled to respond adequately with resources and more importantly, a plan for recovery. Enter God. Enter Mercy. James Keenan, SJ, defines mercy as the “willingness to enter into the chaos of others.” I found myself in the chaos of soggy homes, inadequate insurance coverage, limited resources, frightened and overwhelmed leaders, a growing desire for security and stability, and a hunger for what “used to be.” I had no intention to stay in New Orleans much less begin a Christian Community. But things just seemed to make sense. People from all over the world were coming to help... Calling 2011-11-15T13:38:38+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/ecumenical-bounty-a-new-framework-for-the-lgbtq-conversation/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/ecumenical-bounty-a-new-framework-for-the-lgbtq-conversation/ Fifty years ago, someone would have guessed it was just a fancy sandwich: LGBTQ. Now, it has become a global game of tug-of-war with communion bread, inevitably creating a “winner” and “loser” dichotomy. Churches around the world—and certainly across America—are spinning themselves nauseous over what to do with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (LGBTQ) people, and I think it is time we reevaluate things mid-spin. The conversation about LGBTQ people and the church needs to happen in a graceful space that is outside of the loom of legislative consequence.  Calling, 2011 Calling Congregations Conference 2011-10-21T14:41:02+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/becoming-a-church-of-the-cross/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/becoming-a-church-of-the-cross/ Live Blog from our 2011 Calling Congregations Conference House for All Sinners and Saints is a community of theologians of the cross. Of such theologians, Martin Luther famously argued they were made “by living, nay by dying and by being damned.” It is such a belief that informs HFASS’ ethos of “anti-excellence, pro-participation.” We have become the church we are, not through pursuing programs, but by living, dying, and yes, sometimes being damned, through the messy, unclean, and ecstatically wonderful task of being a church of producers, not consumers; participants, not spectators; failures, not models. Calling, 2011 Calling Congregations Conference 2011-10-06T12:42:42+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/in-the-body-of-faith-and-hope/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/in-the-body-of-faith-and-hope/ In October 2010, I was sent to Atlanta to attend the Calling Congregations Conference with a small team of my colleagues from Life Together, the Episcopal Service Corps young adult intern program in Boston. I experienced VocationCARE as a set of practices that intend to enliven individuals and communities, with the potential to deepen our relationship to God, to ourselves, to each other and our communities. Particularly within the context of the US, with its unique history of white supremacy and the concomitant suppression of peoples’ relationship to their own heritages and creation of a mythical US homogeneity, I am excited and encouraged by FTE’s new commitment to thoroughly welcoming the body and its wisdom and potential for transformation, coupled with a commitment to anti-racist practices and learnings. These commitments have... Calling, 2011 Calling Congregations Conference 2011-10-03T12:58:26+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/the-snowflake-church/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/the-snowflake-church/ Last September, Arrington Chambliss and I attended FTE’s VocationCARE: A Deeper Look retreat in Atlanta, GA. We had been invited to learn about the VocationCARE work for churches and spiritual communities. We were interested because of collaborative work we are doing with young adults and congregations. We were learning the tools of VocationCARE to carry back to our Life Together and Leadership Develop Initiative teams that are working to revitalize church communities through intentional community and team-based missional leadership practices. In one particularly memorable session, we were asked to envision what the church of our dreams and strivings would look like. We were asked to be specific—as if we were walking into this church for the first time. Calling, 2011 Calling Congregations Conference 2011-09-29T12:28:28+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/awakening-courage/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/awakening-courage/ I almost got stuck in a snow storm in Indianapolis back in February. On my last day in town, with my flight home cancelled because of ice, I found myself at an impromptu lunch meeting with Rev. Stephen Lewis. At the time, Rev. Lewis was serving as Vice President of Program for the Fund for Theological Education (FTE), and he began telling us about the exciting work that FTE has done in developing what it calls VocationCARE. As Rev. Lewis described how they developed VocationCARE, incorporating the brilliant leadership insights of Otto Scharmer and the spirituality of education activist Parker Palmer, I was impressed and excited to see how we might be able to incorporate what FTE has created into the overall offering we've been organizing for Hope Partnership for Missional Transformation. That chance meeting with Rev. Lewis led to...  Calling, 2011 Calling Congregations Conference 2011-09-26T12:44:09+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/the-church-accountable-2/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/the-church-accountable-2/ The Church, the Gospel and Transformation How striking and tragic is the contrast that the church often presents to 12-step and other communities that hold themselves accountable for transformation. I believe this is to the great detriment of its vocation as Gospel-bearer. For what makes a more total, more dramatic and clear call to transformation than the Gospel, with its summons to metanoia—the about-face of one’s priorities, actions, of one’s very heart and being? And who presents a clearer model of the transformed human being than Jesus himself? Yet, in spite of their claims to “ultimate importance,” how often do we even hear our churches promising anything like transformation (the kind demonstrated within the Gospel stories themselves), with the courage and clarity of Alcoholics Anonymous?   Calling, 2011 Calling Congregations Conference 2011-09-22T13:32:50+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/the-church-accountable-1/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/the-church-accountable-1/ A Lesson from AA In his forthcoming book, Breathing Under Water, the Franciscan theologian and spiritual writer Richard Rohr deems Alcoholics Anonymous, “America’s most significant and authentic contribution to the history of spirituality.” Rohr’s assessment offers confirmation from a far more experienced observer of something that has been gnawing at me, especially of late: the church has something essential, even vitally necessary, to learn from AA. Looking at AA, and a number of other twelve-step or focused self-help programs, what strikes me is how clearly and unambiguously they make a promise of transformation... Calling, 2011 Calling Congregations Conference 2011-09-19T13:55:09+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/becoming-playfully-orthodox-to-speak-christian-as-a-second-language/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/becoming-playfully-orthodox-to-speak-christian-as-a-second-language/ Tom Beaudoin was right in his recent blog. There is something about Christian language in the air! The “age of the rage for literacy” has arrived at all levels of the Christian conversation. There is also a rush to “describe and denounce religious illiteracy,” but neither advocating for Christian literacy nor decrying illiteracy is very helpful if you can’t describe the next step, so that is what I intend to add to the conversation. Calling, 2011 Calling Congregations Conference 2011-09-13T18:25:20+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/finding-purpose-in-the-field/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/finding-purpose-in-the-field/ Around the age of ten years old I remember adults beginning to ask me an odd question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” As a child living in poverty, to me the answer was a no brainer. “I want to be rich” was always my answer; most of time it was received with laughter. Sadly I think too many young people start out life thinking about what they want to become in life based on what they want have in life. Rarely do we say that we want a life and a career that will allow us to have joy, peace, fulfillment, and balance. We typically think about a career that will allow us to buy things that we hope will give us joy, peace, and fulfillment, and then we later learn these items can’t be purchased. Over the years I’ve learned that...   Calling, 2011 Calling Congregations Conference 2011-09-02T13:04:10+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/beyond-religious-illiteracy/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/beyond-religious-illiteracy/ In pastoral research, we are firmly in the age of the rage for literacy. The consensus is striking, the baton relayed from one domain of ecclesial expertise to another: from pastoral workers, to seminary and graduate theological school faculty, to some of the most influential sociologists of religion and practical theologians, and finally to young adults and teenagers themselves, the urge to describe and denounce religious illiteracy has become both diatribe and truism in almost any discussion of the practice of faith today in Christian circles. A whole vocabulary of spiritual insouciance is marshaled to frame common practice and to symbolize the tendency of the larger secularizing American society: teenagers and young adults are said to be “uncatechized,” “poorly discipled,” they constitute a “domestic mission field,” they suffer from any number of deformations of faith-imagination. Calling, 2011 Calling Congregations Conference 2011-08-16T17:54:31+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/digital-mind-and-divine-calling-part-2-of-2/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/digital-mind-and-divine-calling-part-2-of-2/ The problem of distraction in the spiritual life has always been a challenge. The gospel account of Jesus in the home of Martha and Mary has often been a reminder to Christians of the call to let go of the worry and distraction we see exemplified in Martha and to choose the “better part” of attention on God that we find in her younger sister Mary. In the early desert tradition of Christian spirituality, the ancient monastics spoke of the need for Sabbath, solitude, silence, stillness and unceasing prayer in an effort to create enough space amidst inner distraction and dissipation to hear God’s call to relationship. Lest we think this was an impossibly remote ideal for young persons, the later medieval ideal of the school and university was based on the experience of “schola” (Latin for “leisure”) in order for deeper order reflection and contemplation to take place.   Calling 2011-05-11T12:26:24+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/digital-mind-and-divine-calling-part-1-of-2/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/digital-mind-and-divine-calling-part-1-of-2/ One day, I stepped off the plane in Minneapolis airport to catch another flight and found myself sitting in a departure lounge waiting for the next boarding call. A gentleman near me suddenly started talking to someone I couldn’t see. He was holding a conversation with no one. I looked but he wasn’t even holding one of those new, nifty palm-sized mobile phones. Who was he talking to then? I looked around embarrassed and thought that the poor man must be delirious after a red-eye flight from San Francisco and just needed to lie down somewhere and collect himself. The conversation continued. I began to stare and finally noticed a strange blue light flashing on what appeared to be a hearing aid in his ear but the device had a long cord I’d never seen before. I had just been introduced to Bluetooth technology. At that moment, I began to feel a strange shock and dread coming over me. There was something weird going on... Calling 2011-05-09T16:51:03+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/practical-ideas-making-the-church-more-accessible-to-folks-under-35/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/practical-ideas-making-the-church-more-accessible-to-folks-under-35/ The folks at FTE have asked me if I’ll write a follow-up to my 20 Steps to a Renewed Church (posted on April 8th). At first, I didn’t think I had anything more to say than I’d already said. Plus, the mere mention of Church Issues makes me want to fill my backpack with trail mix and furs and head into the Alaskan wilderness indefinitely. But then… what I got to ponder was how easy it is to spout off a Manifesto For How To Live, and how hard it is to actually live. So, here’s my follow-up to the original post. There are good reasons, culturally, why church does not work for many people, especially many young people. By and large church is a place where human beings come to interact together in person and inter-generationally, discuss an ancient text, and participate in a bunch of archaic rituals. In short, it is a counter-cultural situation in the extreme. A very common response to the counter-cultural character of church is to try to make the church “relevant,” which is often a synonym for non-counter-cultural, hip, trendy, and full of Power Point. Calling 2011-04-19T12:01:41+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/20-steps-to-a-renewed-church/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/20-steps-to-a-renewed-church/ Tonight I went to a meeting at the local Episcopal church; it was a dinner and get-together with the new Bishop of Alaska.  Apparently, Alaska hasn't had an Episcopal bishop for a while, so this is exciting news that there is now a bishop.  The dear little Episcopal church here, which is called St. James the Fisherman (how cool is that name?!), is tiny and doesn't have a priest and is run by well-intentioned older women.  Which is the story of so many rural Episcopal churches I left thinking, "ah, the church."  Not "ah" like a sigh of relief, but more just a sigh.  I feel like buried in the center of the church (and I mean the church as a whole--all the Christians worldwide) is this amazing, redemptive, beautiful thing.  When I was an Episcopal chaplain--for four years--all the time people in the church would ask me, "Why don't young people come to church?" or "How do we get young people to come to church?"  I have some suggestions now, so listen up.    Calling 2011-04-08T17:43:06+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/finding-god-and-health-in-the-experience-of-storytelling/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/finding-god-and-health-in-the-experience-of-storytelling/ A University of Massachusetts Medical School study recently found that storytelling may have positive effects on patients with high blood pressure. For at least one group of low-income African Americans followed in the study, listening to personal narratives helped maintain lower blood pressure as effectively as more medication. The study found that participants who watched videos of stories drawn from their own community and told in patients' natural voices fared better than those who watched generic, how-to videos about stress reduction. Does that surprise us? All the world's religious traditions hold... Calling 2011-03-22T14:04:13+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/pastors-not-knowing/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/pastors-not-knowing/ During my senior year of college I was required to write 5 and 10 year goals for my life.  It was assumed that developing a vision for life after college was a good thing.  A plan would help me to map out the next few years.  Graduation would not be a step into the unknown butrather a step into the known. Lately I have started to question the value of planning and knowing.  How much control do we actually have over the future? Calling 2010-12-03T13:34:22+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/meeting-at-the-level-of-the-ashtray/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/meeting-at-the-level-of-the-ashtray/ Often when churches are reaching out to people in their twenties and thirties, there is a tendency to expect them to become someone they are not before they walk into the door. For instance, eighteen percent of college students have never attended church before in their lives, but we too easily expect they will know exactly what to do when they step over the threshold of our sanctuary. They are supposed to know the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostles’ Creed. They need to know what words like the “narthex” mean. They have to know exactly how they are supposed to take communion, or if they are welcome to the table at all. And then they are supposed to know and interpret the many unwritten social cues to which our churches adhere. For instance, in many congregations, if you’re moved by a musical piece, you are not supposed to clap. Calling 2010-11-15T15:29:53+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/born-of-the-spirit/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/born-of-the-spirit/ I have heard this before. In my final practice module session at this week’s FTE Calling Congregations Conference, I am listening to my colleagues reflecting on their experience of their time together. On my left, I hear a seasoned chaplain speak of his desire to go deeper and the influence that Buddhism is now having on his vision of Christian formation. On my right, a scholar and activist in the area of spiritual formation is speaking of her inner discovery of the transforming power of suffering to birth compassion and awareness in the emerging church. Across from me is a divinity student and FTE fellow from the Midwest who describes herself as a “Merton junky” and is trying to connect what she’s heard this week to her life of contemplation. Almost every person in the circle, including our group leader, is wondering how the Calling Congregations process fits into and flows from the spiritual tradition of the church. There’s restlessness and an outspoken yearning in the room to go deeper. I feel it myself as I listen, yet again, to the hearts of church leaders, young and older, who are seeking to ground the conversation more fully in Christian spirituality. Calling 2010-10-19T17:56:39+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/calling-congregations-into-the-way-of-unknowing/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/calling-congregations-into-the-way-of-unknowing/ During the closing worship of the 2010 FTE Calling Congregations Conference, Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor named what she saw as the central irony of the conference—“it’s about calling leaders to a church that no longer exists… at least not in the way that most of us have known it. Or to put it another way, it’s about calling leaders to a church that is being born again in surprising forms that no one has entirely figured out yet.”  Throughout the course of the conference we explored various VocationCARE practices that might help renew the church, only to have the virtue of “unknowing” highlighted at the end. How do we relate to this ever-present tension – between risking answers and embracing ignorance, or acting with conviction and letting go of control? Calling 2010-10-15T17:59:49+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/movement-calls-to-movement/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/movement-calls-to-movement/ Live Blogging from our 2010 Calling Congregations Conference “Deep calls to deep at the thunder of your cataracts” –Psalm 42: 7 Following the FTE Calling Congregations Conference yesterday I departed the Georgia Tech Hotel and Conference Center, took the MARTA train downtown and then walked the better part of a mile to Morehouse College to join the Student Christian Movement-USA Launch Event.  I arrived just in time for a business meeting.  Oh joy!  Reading and discussing bylaws did not seem a terribly propitious start to the endeavor of reigniting a movement that died out in the US over forty years ago.  Thankfully that part of the event drew to a close and we went to dinner. I decided it was time to practice what FTE had preached at the Calling Congregations Conference. I spent the... Calling 2010-10-11T11:10:53+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/yet-with-a-steady-beat/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/yet-with-a-steady-beat/ Reflections on the Future of Pastoral Leadership   Live Blogging from our 2010 Calling Congregations Conference “Yet with a steady beat, have not our weary feet Come to this place for which our fathers sighed?” Lift Every Voice and Sing By James Weldon Johnson After the FTE Leaders in Ministry Conference in June, I immediately circled October 7-9 on my calendar because I knew I had to attend the Calling Congregations Conference in Atlanta. One small explanation for my anticipation of the conference was that I would have an opportunity to take a break from the rigorous academic life at Yale Divinity School and return to the city where I spent the last four years of my life as an undergraduate. I was also anxious to fellowship with old friends and meet new friends who are committed to renewing the church.  Calling 2010-10-10T14:41:02+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/the-architecture-of-possibility/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/the-architecture-of-possibility/ Live Blogging from our 2010 Calling Congregations Conference   Our world has many greenhouses. I run across them from time to time. Sometimes they are in the likely places—a neighboring yard, a place that looks familiar. But other times they are not. More often than not we find them run down and uncared for. Even then, somehow the plants manage to grow and bring life into the world. This morning, participants at the Calling Congregations conference were brought into an image of a greenhouse. Plenary speaker Dori Baker, FTE’s Scholar-in-Residence, brought attention to her soon to be released ethnographic survey of American churches entitled, Greenhouses of Hope. We were invited to imagine a young person who wants to change the world, but also chilled by the types of conversations such a young person faces. Why the church? Why use your gifts in such a sluggish institution if you wish to change the world? Calling 2010-10-08T17:11:22+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/young-people-as-ministry-practitioners/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/young-people-as-ministry-practitioners/ Through its Cultures of Call grants, Calling Congregations at FTE has been investing in congregation-based initiatives around the vocation of the next generation since the spring of 2007. Pastoral internships have been a constant part of that investment. Out of 49 Cultures of Call grants made thus far, nine have been for internships for those of high school and college age. With this history of funding has developed a conversation with grantees and potential grantees in making opportunities for internships mutually enriching - for congregations and interns. In our newest grants initiative to fund pastoral internships for young adults of college age or recent graduates, Calling Congregations has chosen to meld the energy for hosting pastoral interns with our VocationCARE practices... Calling 2010-10-06T23:16:17+00:00 http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/finding-vocation-at-a-bus-stop/ http://www.fteleaders.org/blog/entry/finding-vocation-at-a-bus-stop/ Earlier this week I had the opportunity to participate in a retreat on VocationCARE sponsored by The Fund for Theological Education (FTE). The purpose of the retreat was to explore a new model for nurturing young leaders in the process of exploring vocation, both inside and outside the church. We were led through the process of identifying by answering questions using our personal stories of experiencing God. It wasn't until I was asked to... Calling 2010-09-26T23:22:58+00:00