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24-ISSUES OF LAITY AND CLERGY SPIRITUAL GROWTH

by Dick Rauscher

INTRODUCTION: THE BASIC PROBLEM

The Christian Church in general is using a paradigm of ministry that is not meeting the spiritual formation needs of our laity or our clergy. The current high priority   commitment of institutional resources, programs, and policies directed towards institutional growth and survival leave spiritual growth, and the spiritual disciplines required for effective spiritual formation in a substantially lower priority. Despite the fact that the Christian Churches have been allocating a major portion of their resources into church growth and survival we continue to see

• an increasing incidence of clergy stress, burnout, and depression; 
• a dwindling in the number of clergy available to serve our churches; 
• a continuing decline in overall church membership;
• and an increasing number of clergy who report a growing sense of failure and dissatisfaction in their ministry.

Most clergy and laity are in agreement that something needs to change, but it no longer makes sense to continue pouring vital church resources into membership growth and survival. It’s not working.

This inability of the institutional church’s current paradigm to effectively address the issue of clergy spiritual formation and spiritual growth, while at the same time pouring increasing amounts of the Church’s time and financial resources into the never ending church programs designed to deal with the discouraging statistics, simply doesn’t make sense. It brings to mind a story of Nasrudin the Sufi mystic.

One morning Nasrudin was seen riding his mule frantically up and down the street of the village one morning.  After watching this frantic activity for several hours,  one of the villagers shouted to Nasrudin as he hurried by,   “Nasrudin,  what are you doing riding your mule so frantically up and down our village streets all morning?”  Nasrudin turned and shouted back over his shoulder as he raced down the street,  “ What am I doing?  What am I doing?  I’m looking for my mule you fool!!” 

The words “I am the way, follow me” are meaningless when our laity and clergy are not  encouraged and supported by the institutional church to work on their own spiritual growth.  Until that happens, our churches will be unable to effectively lead others to God,  and the vitality of the Christian Church will continue to decline.

The sobering reality important to note is that the discouraging statistics cited above  (that we are seeing from all of the mainline Christian churches), are being generated at the same time that experts are telling us that the hunger for spirituality in our culture is virtually epidemic. The western culture’s hunger for spiritual growth has never been greater than it is today.

The fastest growing western “church communities”  are the Wiccan churches of  the Celtic Pagans, the Naturalists, the Ecological fundamentalists,  and those spiritual communities that are embracing the Eastern spiritual practices embedded in Hinduism, Taoism and Buddhism.  Interest in Mysticism and Eastern spirituality is endemic in Western culture today. 

It is important to note that most of these rapidly growing churches are not well organized, embrace women clergy, own little or no property or buildings, and are virtually all based on a spirituality that is “unity”  focused,  experiential in nature, and intimately grounded in a oneness with nature and all of god’s creation.  We will talk more about these concepts below.

It is the writers contention that if the Christian  Church could adopt the paradigm of  Christian ministry proposed in this paper, the Christian Church would grow with minimal effort, and the primary problem of the institutional church would be one of  “keeping up” with church growth,  not facilitating it!  So far, we have not effectively embraced the change and spiritual hunger that is sweeping through our culture.  We are obviously out of step with the people we are called to serve.

It is also the belief of this writer,  that if the statistical trends we are seeing could have been explained and corrected by the existing paradigm,  it would have happened by now. These are not new issues!  A paradigm of Christian ministry more balanced between the needs of the institutional church and the spiritual growth needs of it’s laity and clergy is badly needed. A minor tweaking of the current paradigm is not going to fix the problem.

Until we find the will to have the inevitable confrontation with all of those in the Church who will resist the anxiety and uncertainty that will be part of the transition to any new paradigm for the Church,  the discouraging statistics will continue to grow,  and the number of frantic “nuts and bolts”  programs designed to deal with the symptoms created by the current paradigm will continue to siphon off valuable and badly needed Church resources. Some one once referred to this symbolically as “frantically moving the deck chairs on the Titanic as it heads inexorably toward the looming iceberg.”

Unfortunately, the need to “belong” is a powerful and primitive psychological need of every human. In our existing paradigm of Christian ministry, clergy who put more than token energy into self care and their spiritual formation or in any way threaten the growth and survival priorities of the institutional church, will find their “belonging” in the institutional church quickly threatened. The financial well being of their family will be in jeopardy.

When the majority of the pastor’s energy is directed towards the priorities and expectations of the institution,  their institutional “belonging” and the financial wellbeing of their family is secure.

DISCUSSION OF A PARADIGM’S LIFE CYCLE

Many groan when the words “new paradigm” are used. They are “tired of hearing about new paradigms”.  The reality we are confronting as we enter the 21st century,  is “change”.  This “change” is happening at a rate unparalleled in human history and is continuing to accelerate geometrically.

There is an old saying that says simply,  “what cannot be avoided must be embraced”. The issue is not whether we are tired of discussions about “new paradigms”,  the issue we must embrace is that the growing statistics we are experiencing in the Christian mainline churches are not   being effectively addressed by the policies and programs of the current institutional paradigm.  In fact, the problems are increasing.

If the Christian Church is to remain effective or even survive, we must learn to embrace and work with the incredible changes that are currently sweeping through virtually every facet of our Western culture. We must find ways to respond quickly and effectively to the needs of those we are called to serve.  The days where change in the Church could afford to happen over centuries or decades are behind us. 

To be effective in the culture of the 21st century, the very process of change itself must be included as an integral part of our new paradigm of Christian ministry. This includes the new theological and biblical insights that are emerging from the scholarship and research of both Christian and secular theologian’s. The Jesus Seminar is one such example of change that is currently being ignored by the institutional church.

It is important to understand the life cycle of a paradigm.  New paradigms are proposed simply as an attempt to interpret and make sense of new data being collected, in any field,  that cannot be explained by the existing paradigm.    The individuals who first propose these new paradigms are often initially considered to be radical, crazy,  extreme, demon possessed, sacrilegious, or just simply weirdo fanatics who “have lost touch with reality”. 

Challenging old paradigms can be very dangerous work.  For example,  Galileo,  who believed in and defended the heliocentric theories of Copernicus was actually imprisoned and put under house arrest by the Church where he remained until his death.  Columbus set sail to prove that the world was indeed round. Jesus, Buddha, Martin Luther, Ghandi, Mother Teresa, Galileo, and Mandella, were all attempting to teach us a new paradigm of compassion and non-violence. However, like most prophets, they were often persecuted for challenging the existing paradigms.

The early proponents of any new paradigm often have a rough time being taken seriously, but eventually,  the mass of “data” challenging the old paradigm can no longer be ignored.  As the number of supporters of the “new” paradigm begin to grow, their numbers eventually reach a critical mass and they begin to wrestle the reigns of power away from the leaders and institutions of the “old” paradigm.  They become the “new” school of thought.  It is not uncommon for this transfer of power to happen only as the “old school”  proponents die off.  But eventually, the “new” school (paradigm) becomes the cultural  “norm”,  and then becomes the “right way” to understand reality.

It is important to note that this “new” paradigm and it’s defenders / supporters will also need to be replaced someday when the “data” being collected can no longer be explained by this “new” paradigm. 

The struggles to replace our old  paradigms (or world views) to fit the “data” that emerges is a necessary and ongoing process regardless of whether we are “tired” of thinking about “new paradigms” or not.  Inevitably, the time comes when every existing paradigm can no longer simply be reworked,  it must be replaced.

The challenge of Quantum Physics to the old Newtonian / Cartesian world view is a good example of paradigm shifting that most people are familiar with.  For three hundred years,  the science of Newton and the philosophies of Descartes were the prevailing world views held by science and the church.  The universe consisted of Newtonian objects that simply bumped into each other;  and mind and body were understood as separate entities.

Then along came scientists such as Bohr, Faraday, and Einstein who taught us that  Newtonian “objects” don’t even exist!  They proposed that the entire physical universe is not a collection of solid objects made by collecting together a large number of smaller objects called atoms,  but is rather nothing more than a collection of subatomic  “energy fields” that our extremely limited human senses refer to as solid Newtonian objects. 

The quantum physicists proposed to us that these energy field “objects” that make up the universe, exist only as one probability out of an infinite number of possibilities. In other words, these early quantum physicists taught us that static Newtonian objects are not the building blocks of reality. Newton’s physics could not explain why E=MC2..  

Within a couple of decades this new “quantum paradigm” toppled the three hundred year old Newtonian scientific paradigm.  We began to talk about Neil Bohr’s concepts of complimentarity i.e. the middlepath concept of the mystics, that all things in the universe are paradoxically two different things at the same time.  For example, light is both particle (photons) and waves (field of energy).  They went on to demonstrate that unity is simply any pair of opposites. 

Using these revolutionary new ideas,  it wasn’t long before the quantum biologists discovered that even life itself could only be understood as a self organizing system that operates within a larger system,  that operates within an even larger system. These new understandings of life gave birth to a new paradigm called systems theory.

Thus, since these “quantum” discoveries of the early 1900’s,  the universe and everything in it is now understood by science as being simply part of a unified field of energy, a unified oneness or unity that the mystics have been telling us.  In other words,  the quantum physicists are now embracing and supporting the theological concepts of unity talked about by the mystics of every faith for thousands of years.

The mystics, and now the quantum physicists are radically challenging many of our theological certainties that were unconsciously based on Newtonian science.  Most importantly they are saying clearly, that the concept of “otherness” so embedded in Newtonian physics and much of Christian theology, is meaningless.  There literally is no “otherness” in the Creator’s universe.

Buddha taught us about unity and enlightenment 2500 years ago.  Jesus confronted Newtonian “otherness” and taught us about the unity of God’s creation 2000 years ago.
And the mystics teach that when we create   “otherness” through our “beliefs”,  we create  pain and suffering.  War and violence is the consequence we have suffered for ignoring the mystics. 

Today,  this new paradigm of a “quantum universe” is rapidly transforming virtually everything we know about our world into “unity” and  “systems thinking”.......the idea that nothing stands apart or alone as a separate object.........that everything is simply part of a larger system,  that is simply part of an even larger system.  What comes to mind is the Ground of all being.....the Unity of the universe......the God of creation.....the Mind of the universe.

To summarize, if we are to effectively address the discouraging statistics that are emerging in our Church,  and the explosive growth of churches that embrace unity and challenge “otherness”,  it is clear that we will need a radically new paradigm redefining the meaning of Christian ministry within the Christian Church.

Whether we are tired of the word “paradigm” or not, a new paradigm is badly needed..............a paradigm that is “unity” focused,  eliminates all forms of “otherness” and the pain, suffering, and violence that is created  by such dualistic thinking, and most importantly, a paradigm that embraces the increasingly rapid changes taking place in the scientific knowledge of our universe, and our growing global culture. The new paradigm should not require intellectual suicide to have a faith in God or a higher power.

BASIC CONCEPTS REQUIRED IN THE NEW PARADIGM TO NURTURE SPIRITUAL GROWTH
To facilitate discussion of the new paradigm being proposed in this paper, the contrasts between the spiritual growth needs of clergy and laity,  and the growth needs of the institutional church have been highlighted in the comparison table on page 9.  The table illustrates clearly that spiritual growth and formation needs are almost always antithetical to the growth and survival needs of the institutional church.  The table highlights the basic conflict that exists between being and doing. 

The comparison table should not be interpreted to imply that the insights on one side are wrong and therefore right on the other side, but only to clarify the idea that the disciplines needed for spiritual growth and spiritual formation are simply not compatible with the disciplines required to facilitate the growth and survival needs of the institutional church.

COMPARISON TABLE: SPIRITUALITY VS THE INSTITUTIONAL CHURCH

CURRENT PARADIGM CONTINUUMS

• SELF CARE..................................................................................INSTITUTIONAL CARE
• TRUST AND SHARING...................................................................OBEDIENCE
• VULNERABILITY...........................................................................COMPETENCE
• ECUMENICAL...............................................................................XN (IE.OTHERS = BAD,WRONG,EVIL, IRRELIVANT)
• BEING...........................................................................................DOING & FIXING
• SELF AWARENESS.....................................................................ACCOMPLISHMENTS
• SPIRITUAL...................................................................................RELIGIOUS
• SILENCE, SOLITUDE & LISTENING...............................................BUSY, ACCOMPLISHING, & TALKING
• SPIRITUAL GROWTH.................................................................... INSTITUTIONAL .RESPONSIBILITIES
• INTERNAL FOCUS........................................................................INSTITUTIONAL FOCUS
• BELONGING TO HUMAN COMMUNITY...........................................CHURCH MEMBERSHIP
• INTERNAL BELIEFS EXPLORED................................................... DISCUSS  INSTITUTIONAL POLICIES
• BECOME LOVE AND COMPASSION.............................................BE LOVING AND COMPASSIONATE
• SLOWING DOWN, SIMPLICITY.......................................................FRANTIC DOING
• LEARNING TO LIVE IN THE MOMENT............................................PLANNING THE FUTURE
• EXPERIENTIAL.............................................................................INTELLECTUAL
• RIGHT HEMISPHERE....................................................................LEFT HEMISPHERE
• INTUITION.....................................................................................LOGIC
• EXPERIENCE...............................................................................THEOLOGY
• MYSTICS                                                                                                THEOLOGIANS
• SPIRIT                                                                                                      WORD

BASIC CONCEPT #1: THE NEED FOR A MIDDLE PATH APPROACH IN ALL THINGS............THE END OF OTHER-NESS: THE SOURCE OF PAIN, SUFFERING,  AND  VIOLENCE.

The mystics, and now the quantum physicists, are stating that  there is no other-ness in the universe, only unity, and unity is simply any pair of opposites.  In other words to walk the middle path  of unity and avoid other-ness  we need to carefully define the extreme black and white ideas and beliefs of any issue. If we embrace the ideas or beliefs on only one side of the issue, and thus ignore the ideas and beliefs on other side,  the mystics warn us that we will create pain,  suffering and violence. They remind us that since all things are created by God, there is truth in all things. Thus to have Truth on any issue requires that we embrace the ideas and beliefs found on both sides of any issue. This is called, learning to walk the middle path. It is important to note that compassion, peace, happiness, and love are found only  on the middle path.

Jesus taught about the unity of God’s creation. He systematically broke down the cultural and religious categories and caste barriers that created other-ness in his world. Thus other-ness in any form, for any reason is by definition, not Christian. It was not taught by Jesus.

There is a powerful need in all of us to embrace the black or white “certainties” on one side of an issue, and thus avoid the anxiety of uncertainty,  paradox,  ambiguity, and not knowing.  This is called the pain of sitting with ego emptiness.  The mystic’s remind us that maturity is the ability to sit with this anxiety and remain on the middle path, embracing all  of God’s creation ie. both sides of an issue. Both sides of any issue contain truth. 

In other words, spiritual growth requires that we learn to embrace the concepts of middle path thinking and the paradox that both sides of any issue are needed if we are to have Truth. Put simply, if our theologies, ideas, or beliefs create “otherness” for any reason,  then our ideas, beliefs, and theologies are not in touch with reality.  In the mental health field,  this is called psychotic or neurotic thinking. In mystical language it is called pain and suffering.

Mark Finn in his book Object Relations Theory and Religion describes the paradox this way:

                                    Relative truth is the truth of conventional reality; it is the truth of categorized distinctions,  cause and effect,  and linear logic.  Absolute truth is the truth of radical unity;  it is the truth of no distinctions,  no conditionalities.  From the perspective of relative truth,  there is a person standing in relationship to his environment;  from the perspective of absolute truth,  person and environment are one.  This unity or absence of distinction is often rendered in translations of Buddhist texts as “emptiness.”............One cannot take absolute truth without relative truth,  yet absolute truth is in fact absolute.  Thus the relative psychological world and the absolute spiritual world are inseparable. Buddhist (meditation) practice sets as its goal the collapse of such duality’s as sacred versus profane,  psychological versus spiritual,  while recognizing the relative truth of the distinctions themselves.

Zen master,  Suzuki Roshi, describes the paradox this way,

When we cross our legs like this,  even though we have a right leg and a left leg,  they have become one.  The position expresses the oneness of duality;  not two and not one.  Our body and mind are not two and not one.  If you think your body and mind are two,  that is wrong.  If you think that they are one,  that is also wrong.  Our body and mind are both two and one.  We usually think that if something is not one it is more than one;  if it is not singular,  it is plural.  But in actual experience,  our life is not only plural,  but also singular.  Each one of us is both dependent and independent.

The modern mystic Wendell Berry reminds us that those who define the extremes on any issue are vital for us to get a feel or perspective of the territory,  but we cannot live on the extremes at the edge of the wilderness without creating pain, suffering, and violence.

This is not a philosophic idea,  it is embedded in the mystical reality that if we embrace an extreme idea or belief on either side of the middle path too firmly,  we will automatically create  the opposite idea or belief.  We cannot have hot without cold, pleasure without pain, light without darkness,  or good without evil.  Pain, suffering, and violence come into the world on the back of  “judgmental otherness” created  when black and white thinking embraces one side (the good, right side) of the middle path at the expense of the other side (the bad,wrong side).  Evil comes into the world when these black and white thinkers militantly refuse to own their   responsibility for the pain, suffering,  and violence caused by their  judgmental beliefs.  

Note however that a dedication to the middle path of the mystics is clearly antithetical to the “certainties” and “membership rules” required to belong to and protect the viability of the institutional church. (See the comparison table on page 9).  In the existing paradigm, any pastor who attempts to put too much energy into his or her spiritual growth (listed on the left side of the middle path) and thus ignore the growth needs of the institutional church (listed on the right side and currently favored by the institutional church) will soon find themselves labeled as “ineffective” by the institution. 

These pastors end up serving the smaller churches, and they and their parishioners often struggle with guilt, and their self esteem knowing that they are not as “good as”,  or “measuring up” with the churches that are successfully meeting the expectations and growth needs of the institutional church.

Thus the first basic concept that has to be included in the new paradigm for “Christian ministry” has to include the spiritual discipline of staying on the middle path in all things and avoiding the creation of other-ness in any form.......especially a middle path balance between spiritual growth and institutional growth.

BASIC CONCEPT #2: THE NEED FOR A DEDICATION TO REALITY REGARDLESS OF THE COST...........LIVING AN AWAKENED SELF AWARE LIFE.
The disciplines of psychotherapy and the teachings of the mystics both stress the necessity of our being dedicated and committed to embracing reality regardless of the cost.   The mystics and psychotherapists both remind us that living the unexamined, unawakened life,  caught up in our desires and the illusions of what we think  is real, is called pain, suffering,  and unhappiness.

Living fully immersed in reality cannot happen if we are living in illusion, distracted by worry,  living in the past or in the future, or caught up in the abstractions of our goals, our wants,  our desires, our beliefs,  our fantasies,  our unconscious expectations, our certainties, and our plans.  Thus learning to live in reality means developing the skill and discipline of moving out of the abstractions in our mind,  and living fully awake, fully self aware,  and fully “in this  moment”......the only reality that we have.

There are many realities that we are called to understand if we are to achieve good mental health,  happiness, and a healthy awakened and self aware spiritual life.
 
Since we cannot change what we do not understand,  and we cannot change what we do not accept about ourselves,  spiritual growth is simply growth in self awareness and self understanding.

In other words, to be both mentally and spiritually healthy requires a lifelong commitment to  a) live fully immersed in reality....regardless of the cost  and b) a never ending growth in self awareness.

This growth in self awareness is not  a work that can be done without a teacher (the role of teachers will be discussed later) and it can take a lifetime of effort;  much of it painful.  The mystics or spiritual directors call this work  “moving into emptiness......the suspension of all certainties and the willingness to simply be with what is”......to live in balance with all things on the middle path. This includes of course the shadow side of our own ego.

Until this spiritual growth work is done through the practices of meditation, or spiritual direction,  or psychotherapy; it is virtually not possible to create a compassionate community.  Our spirituality will not grow, it will not blossom and it will not bear fruit until we are able to live an awakened, self-aware life that is fully immersed in the reality of  “this”  moment. Until we “know” ourselves and the shadows cast by our own egos, we will live in illusion and thus we will  do harm to others. The other-ness that we unconsciously create through our lack of self awareness will  cause real pain and suffering for others. This pain is not caused by the devil, or the speck in our neighbors eye, it is caused by the log in our own eye.

For example, even the love and compassion that we offer others is a paradox that creates other-ness. The act of helping implies a powerful helper and a helpless helpee.  When we become  love and compassion by deeply knowing our own soul, then the helpee’s pain is no longer “their”   pain,  it is our  pain. We move from an I - you relationship to an I -Thou relationship. Without deep self knowledge the I - Thou relationship is not possible.

We cannot take anyone any further into the desert than we have been willing to travel ourselves.. Unless we have made the journey of deep self-knowledge ourselves,  our empathy and compassion are seriously limited.  Jesus taught us to love God(unity),  and then to love (understand and accept) our neighbor as we love (understand and accept) ourselves.  Unfortunately, that’s what most of us do. If we do not know ourselves,  how can we possess the empathy or ability to know  others.  To feed His sheep,  requires the ability to first see  the sheep.

John Wellwood reminds us that every relationship we have with others is a direct reflection of the relationship we have with ourselves and therefore, the renewal of the world begins with the relationship we have with ourselves.

Thus the second concept in our new paradigm and new understanding of “spiritual growth in Christian ministry” is the fundamental understanding that we grow spiritually only when we are willing to do the difficult and painful work of understanding ourselves first.Thus, our new paradigm must include a major increase of energy and institutional resources flowing into the areas of therapy and / or professional spiritual direction for our clergy. 

BASIC CONCEPT #3: THE NEED FOR TRUST, SHARING, AND VULNERABILITY...............THE HEART OF COMMUNITY

We must remember that faith is not certainty.  Faith requires doubt.  The new paradigm must include permission and support for pastors and lay members to formally explore and embrace the reality of doubt and uncertainty as an integral and fundamental part of their spiritual growth.

Virtually all spiritually growing persons will developmentally go through stage three doubt and discouragement before entering a stage four spirituality that reflects the mature spirituality of the mystics that we are proposing in this new paradigm.  In fact, all of the developmental models of spiritual formation teach us that stage three doubt and uncertainty are essential for virtually anyone growing spiritually who hopes to reach some level of spiritual maturity.

Virtually all pastors get tired and discouraged at times. This is especially true of new pastors who are often serving multiple charges, going to seminary, raising a family,  and are living in poverty! All Christians lose the certainty of their call at times. Biblical research by groups such as the Jesus Seminar is seriously challenging the faith of traditional orthodoxy for all Christians.

In our present paradigm, clergy feelings of doubt and discouragement, and struggles with the validity of one’s call to ministry are experienced as very dangerous to both the institutional church and the pastor’s congregation. In our present paradigm, doubt, discouragement, stress, and depression, cannot not be openly explored or shared by clergy without the fear of losing one’s standing in the ranks of institutional membership.

The pastor is frequently forced to go through this painful spiritual struggle alone and is often forced to live out an isolating “pseudo” faith that denies the struggle and pain that is such a necessary and normal developmental part of all spiritual growth. It is no wonder that stress is high in ministry. When we live out of a pseudo / false self,  it takes great energy to pretend to be someone we are not. Lay members have an easier time of it. They simply have other priorities on Sunday morning and eventually drop their membership rather than face the silent criticism and judgement of the faithful  congregation.

The only connections that we can make with others that lead to any sense of “community” (unity)  are those where one vulnerable heart connects with another vulnerable heart.  True community can only emerge when people are able to feel safe, and trust,  and be vulnerable.  Pseudo hearts do not connect to form community!  Without trust and vulnerability there can only be the pain and suffering of other-ness and a fragmented community.  Scott Peck refers to this as pseudo-community.

Our new paradigm must include safety, support and encouragement for high levels of sharing, trust, and vulnerability.  Vulnerability in the new paradigm must always be held with love and compassion, and never  allowed to lead to betrayal and pain for any  reason. This requires the presence of non-judgmental listeners who are embracing the middle path,  and who are themselves growing in self awareness and wrestling with the log in their own eye and who are willing to share their vulnerabilities with others.

BASIC CONCEPT #4: THE NEED FOR SILENCE, CALM, QUIET, AND SIMPLICITY.........EXPERIENCING THE SACRED IN DAY TO DAY LIFE.
Rushing from task to task,  responsibility to responsibility is inherently destructive to spiritual growth.  To grow spiritually we must increase the silence in our lives.  Silence flows into our lives when we simplify our lives and slow down. 

Catherine Doherty in her book Poustinia and James Carse in his book The Silence of God both tell us that spiritual growth will not happen unless there is much silence and simplicity woven into our lives.

Simplicity does not mean selling your possessions and living the life of the aesthetic.  It simply means learning to focus on one thing at a time,  developing the skill of carefully listening to others and not interrupting them,  and taking large blocks of time to simply sit and be   in the moment;  fully in the presence of God’s creation.

Simplicity means finding balance and living life on the middle path between “being”  and “doing”.  The comparison table on page 9 shows clearly that silence and simplicity are not compatible with the growth needs of the institutional church. The basic imbalance in the current paradigm rewards  busy (often frantic and driven)  “doing”,  accomplishing, goals, plans, programs, and responsibility.

It is not uncommon to hear pastors “bragging” about how they are working 60, 70 and 80 hour weeks ministering to others.  Their own families are often abandoned because of the “needs” of the congregation.

The present paradigm for Christian ministry is   focused on the “doing” / growth needs of the institutional church and thus encourages a bragging / complaining focus on how hard one is working and how much one is  “doing”.  A more balanced paradigm of bragging and being rewarded by the institutional church for simply “being” in spiritual formation 30-40 hours a week is close to unimaginable under the current paradigm.

Almost without exception,  the institutional church’s focus is on intellectual formation for ministry and it virtually ignores  the spiritual formation of it’s members. We have too many pastors preaching about   spirituality who have not had the support  or institutional encouragement to develop their own spirituality. They have not done their spiritual growth work.  They are reading about   spirituality from a map and have not been supported and encouraged to make  the journey.

Jesus did not say,  work hard,  build me a church,  and then take your map and go out and “teach” others about how to live a spiritual life whose focus is on God...... the unity of the universe.  He said become  a disciple and then go into the world and show   them the way.   His words were “I am the way.  Follow me”. 

Spirituality cannot be taught, but spiritual practices that lead to spiritual growth can be modeled.  Thus the new paradigm for Christian ministry must   include support and encouragement for clergy to slow down,  build in large blocks of quiet, reflection, listening,  solitude,  and simplicity.  The new paradigm must encourage pastors to move intentionally from the rapidly moving rim of the institutional wheel to the stationary hub of the wheel. Unless we build this into our new paradigm of ministry,  we will continue to teach “religion”  and religious “values” and ignore the spiritual formation of those who are spiritually hungry.  The spiritual hunger of our own souls will continue to be ignored.

We can only lead others as far into the desert as we have been willing to travel ourselves. How is a pastor busy serving the institutional church supposed to develop his or her own spirituality and lead  others into the desert of spiritual growth? How can pastors preach peace, and silence, gentle listening, and simplicity of life style when they are modeling a frantic, responsibility driven, doing,  fixing ministry attempting to be all things to all people?  The painful reality is that they can’t. Unfortunately, this is exactly what many pastors are encouraged to do under the current paradigm. Clergy should not be “preaching” ministry,  they should “be” ministry and “show” others what it means to love God. Follow me.

BASIC CONCEPT #5: THE NEED FOR SPIRITUAL TEACHERS..........OUR GUIDES INTO THE CREATORS UNIVERSE.
The new paradigm for Christian ministry must include a fundamental reality that spiritual mystics of every theological understanding, every therapist, and  every trained spiritual director reminds us of........... “you cannot develop your spirituality or grow spiritually without a spiritually mature teacher who has made the journey into their own desert. “ 
 
A mature spiritual teacher is one who can model silence, calm, “being”, a deep self knowledge,  self awareness,  and the ability to live an awakened life fully in the present, fully awake,  fully aware, and fully involved with God in this moment. A mature spirituality cannot be achieved alone, it cannot be achieved in seminary, and it can not be achieved by attending church organized programs called spiritual formation. A mature spirituality requires many years of intense spiritual practice under the guidance of a mature spiritual teacher.

Spiritual maturity is transformation and praxis.  In many Eastern traditions it is taught that to grow spiritually you do not go to a spiritual mature teacher to listen to them teach,  you  begin your spiritual formation by going to them to learn how they tie their shoe laces!  It is not uncommon for this initial task to take years before the student is ready to progress.  The rugged individualism of the Western culture makes it hard for us to honor  others and simply let them teach us how to tie a shoe lace.  We are taught to “do our own thing” and be independent.

Because there are so few spiritually mature teachers or clergy in the mainline Christian churches who have actually made their own spiritual journey and who have done their own spiritual work in the desert of their own egos,  most pastors are encouraged to simply read the spiritual and theological maps and then to preach about their pseudo spirituality as best they can. They are destined to move through their ministry spiritually asleep worrying about the next sermon, the next visit, the next meeting. It is clear that they can only preach about  spirituality. Asking most clergy about mature spiritual formation is like asking a 14 year old adolescent about the vicissitudes of married sexuality.  They cannot say,  “I am the way.  Follow me. I’ve been there, I’ll show you the way.” It is no wonder clergy are discouraged and burning out. It is no wonder that laity are finding other things to do on Sunday morning.

It is the belief of this writer that many Christian pastors are ready and hungry to do this spiritual growth work.  The problem is the dangerous imbalance toward institutional needs in the current paradigm that discourages such desert work.  Our new paradigm must   include institutional encouragement and support for those clergy who are willing and ready to journey out into their deserts.  And when they return many years or decades later,  we must find ways to lift them up and honor  them as our teachers. We need these spiritually mature teachers in the Church who have actually made the journey, so they can lead others into the deserts of their own souls.

To illustrate how far we are from the new paradigm of Christian ministry proposed in this paper, we only need remind ourselves that it is not uncommon for pastors to be asked about their “spiritual health”  or how their “spiritual life” is progressing. The assumption is transparent. We can do the work of spiritual growth on our own, and that we are even capable of assessing how we are doing!

The mystic-sages and all great spiritual teachers tell us that if we want to assess the spiritual progress of a student you must not ask them. You need to ask their children and their spouses. If we want to assess the effectiveness of a church, we must ask the community that the church is part of.....the neighbors, the nursing homes, the hospitals, the hospice nurses, the poor, the gays, the prostitutes, and the tax collectors. 

Too often in the current paradigm we assess “how a pastor is doing” by checking to see if all his or her reports have been submitted, and all the apportionment’s paid, and that the pastor has attended all the mandatory meetings of the institutional church. Spiritual formation is virtually ignored under the current paradigm.

When we as clergy of the various mainline churches meet to “evaluate” our new ordinands, for the most part, we are not spiritual teachers, we are working as ”religious judges” assessing the ordinands “intellectual” preparation for Christian ministry. Will they “fit” into the institutional culture. Will they make good colleagues? Will they represent the institution effectively in the larger community?

A pianist once said, anyone can play the notes,  it’s the space between the notes that makes the music.  The present paradigm of Christian ministry being used by the Christian church does not reward pastors who put too much emphasis on the space between the notes despite the fact that too many notes, too close together becomes a painful cacophony of noise. The new paradigm of Christian ministry proposed in this paper would encourage clergy to discover and nurture the space between the notes so that their ministry is a gentle healing melody.

BASIC CONCEPT #5:  THE NEED FOR FRINGE STORIES AND LISTENING...........HONORING OUR CONNECTIONS WITH THE SACRED
Dr. John Karl of the Samaritan Pastoral Counseling Center in Rochester, NY recently gave a talk on the importance of listening to the sacred stories from the of the edge of the wilderness. He was referring to the wilderness of our own lives and the lives of those who live at the painful edge of the wilderness in our Western culture. He reminded us that we already know the dominant stories in our culture.  Those are the stories that we all know by heart and would include for example our Biblical stories, our fairy tales, the Christmas story, Easter, and Thanksgiving. He was referring to another kind of story that we need to learn how to listen to; the quiet, rarely told stories about the sacred moments in a persons life. 

These are stories that are usually shared very tentatively with the listener, and at the first sign of disinterest, or judgment on the part of the listener, the story being told will simply fade away into silence. Unless a pastor is able to sit patiently, in silence, and fully present in the moment, the tellers story will not emerge. The opportunity to help the teller lift a sacred moment of their life up and out of the ground of their day to day life is lost.  A connection with the sacred is lost. The opportunity to sit in the presence of the sacred is lost, and no healing will happen for the individual or the community. A connection with the Creator is lost.

Under the current paradigm of most mainline Christian churches, the spiritual discipline required for this kind of listening is discouraged.  The art of story telling,  which is of course the discipline of listening, is thus disappearing in our church and in our society.  Finding a Christian pastor who has developed the spiritual discipline and skill to sit quietly without interrupting, without finishing the others sentence or thought, without pulling the focus of the story back onto themselves, and without commenting out of their own ego on what is being told, is very rare indeed. Without an empathic listener,  no communication or community is possible.  No connection with the sacred is possible.

As Catherine Doherty reminds us,  we have forgotten that sitting in the silent presence of one who loves God is often enough to bring healing to the deepest of wounds.  Thus, it is no wonder that in the absence of this kind of healing through fully present silent listening,  the current paradigm of Christian ministry is forced to encourage pastors to heal the wounded by means of a busy, “doing” ministry, that “fixes” the wounds of the wounded. Busy pastors make poor listeners.

We must not only learn how to listen to these sacred stories from the fringes,  our new paradigm must support and encourage our pastors to go  to the fringes and bring back the sacred stories that they encounter. There are pagan sacred stories, Hindu sacred stories, Buddhist sacred stories, Taoist sacred stories, American Indian sacred stories, African sacred stories, gay sacred stories, feminist sacred stories, and inner city sacred stories to name only some of the possibilities. But our present paradigm of Christian ministry somehow assumes that these “fringe” stories are sacrilegious, or are not “Christian”, and therefore are wrong or bad. The mystics remind us that truth can be found anywhere people are struggling to understand and connect with the underlying Ground or Creator or Unity of the universe.

It is no wonder clergy often don’t know the needs of the secular community that surrounds their church.  They are too busy under the present paradigm “ministering” to those inside   the local church who too often encourage, support,  and even demand obedience to the current unbalanced  paradigm of a doing  Christian ministry.

These “conservative” controlling personalities can be found in virtually every Christian church.  Pastors who challenge these persons in their congregations are quickly in conflict with the powers and principalities of the current paradigm. And these controlling people are quick to “remind” the pastor that they should be “doing  more”. 

These same people reject or deny new theological insights that are emerging from current theological scholarship such as the Jesus Seminar. They hold the pastor and the congregation to literal interpretations of scripture that were clearly meant to be theological metaphors. Many pastors understand the importance of these new theological insights, but they are held hostage by those in control. In other words, the present paradigm, with it’s focus on church growth and a “doing” based ministry literally empowers these powerful minorities in the local church who enjoy controlling the pastor and dictating how the church should function.

The result is clearly reflected in the statistics that show that the majority of the unchurched and those who have left the Christian church are college graduates. They are refusing to commit intellectual suicide in order to have a faith in the God of Creation. They are unwilling to allow those in power in the institutional church to dictate the beliefs and define the faith of their religious or spiritual life.

It is no wonder that our pastors are burned out. They are not spiritual leaders, they are institutional workers being told what to do by the local church bosses who are using the current church paradigm of Christian ministry to empower themselves. Clergy are often powerless to confront these people and eventually are forced to move to their next appointment. And sadly in the mean time, the spiritual ministry that the clergy know in their hearts needs to happen, is put back onto the shelf because there isn’t time or permission to do it in this particular church.

The new paradigm must support and encourage pastors to “be” Christian ministry and listen quietly to all  the sacred stories.......those from the fringes near the wilderness,  those from the desert,  and not just those dominant stories that are found at the center of our local culture.......or those dominant stories that are told over and over inside the four walls of the local church. 

Jesus called us to minister to the prostitutes and the tax collectors. These are the people who live at the fringe of any society. But to minister to them requires a paradigm that encourages pastors to spend large blocks of time outside  the local church and getting to know those who live at the fringe of our society. Under the current paradigm, mission work means sending more money to a third world country.

Unless our new paradigm supports and encourages this kind of listening on the fringes of our culture, we will continue to miss the spiritual needs of our culture, and much of the sacred of God’s creation that is embedded in all of our stories. And most sadly, our church will continue to decline through inbreeding, and our pastors will continue to burn out and struggle with the stress and depression that comes whenever humans feel powerless and stuck.

SUMMARY

There is an old saying,  that if you want to hear God laugh, make a plan.  Our institutional church under it’s present paradigm of Christian ministry is filled to overflowing with plans. The pastors and their congregation are drowning in “plans”, programs, goals,  ministries to “do”, and meetings to make more plans.

It is not the purpose of this paper to encourage a Christian ministry based on only a spiritual growth model, but rather to propose a new and balanced paradigm of Christian ministry that establishes a balance between clergy spiritual formation and  institutional growth.

The basic and dangerous imbalance   built into our current paradigm of Christian ministry virtually ignores the spiritual growth and spiritual formation needs of clergy and laity in favor of a fixing, busy, doing, talking, teaching ministry that is focused primarily on institutional growth and survival.

This imbalance is generating the discouraging statistics that we are seeing and the frantic busyness of our clergy. This includes increasing clergy stress, burnout,  depression, and isolation; the dwindling number of clergy available to serve our churches; the continuing decline in overall church membership;  and the fact that many of our pastors are reporting a sense of failure and dissatisfaction in their ministry.

If we are to embrace a new paradigm for God’s church,  then we must be willing to grow and change the way we do business.  We must be willing to accept the reality that teaching religious theology and the praxis of spiritual formation are not the same subject. And our new paradigm must make a clear distinction between the two.  A busy “doing” and “responsibly following the rules for membership in the institutional church” ministry is not and will rarely ever be “transforming”. Increasing our spirituality and working on spiritual formation is  transformation. Authentic spiritual growth leads to praxis.

If we are truly concerned about the care of our clergy in the Christian Church we must be willing to institutionally encourage and support pastors who are truly struggling to find the “middle path” in their ministry. Paradoxically, we must find ways to lift up the hidden beliefs embedded in all of us that cause other-ness because they are the source of violence and suffering. Paradoxically, at the same time, we must learn to lift up the other-ness of diversity and the singularity of everything in God’s creation, and hold that  sense of otherness with our compassion and love.

Black and white thinking always creates judgmental other-ness and must be challenged in our new paradigm of Christian ministry whenever it is identified. Our pastors must learn to endure the anxiety of not knowing that is part of walking the middle path. Spirituality flourishes only on the middle path. The creation of other-ness for any reason is not Christian. Jesus spent his life breaking down the caste barriers that created the other-ness of them vs. us. To be Christian requires an uncompromising commitment to becoming compassion. A life that does no harm to others or the earth we live on can only  be lived on  the middle path.

The new paradigm proposed in this paper will support and encourage our clergy and laity to learn to live fully in the moment, fully self aware, and self conscious of all the beliefs, illusions, certainties, unconscious expectations, fears, fantasies, and childhood wishes that they use to create judgmental other-ness and the pain and suffering that is created by it.  They will know themselves well enough to stop doing harm to others out of their “religious” certainties. Under the new paradigm clergy will be encouraged and supported to work in therapy and under professional spiritual direction. We cannot change what we do not understand. We cannot change what we do not accept about ourselves.

Our new paradigm must encourage and support more trust and vulnerability on the part of the clergy.   Community cannot be built without vulnerability.  If pastors are going to lead the way spiritually they need to say  “I am the way.  Follow me.  I will show you how to be vulnerable and build community.” The paradigm for Christian ministry proposed in this paper would encourage and support high levels of trust and vulnerability.

Internal and external noise, busyness, and responsibilities are inherently destructive to spiritual formation. Simplicity and large blocks of listening and silence are necessary if our clergy and laity are to be successful in their spiritual growth. Simplicity does not mean living the ascetic life. It means learning to slow down, focusing on one thing at a time, fully present listening, and finding a balance between doing and being.

We can only lead others as far into the desert as we have been willing to go ourselves. There are those who make the journey and those who only read the maps and then preach about spirituality. Spiritual formation is virtually ignored under the existing paradigm currently being used by the main line Christian Churches.

The paradigm proposed in this paper will encourage the formation of spiritual teachers.  The mystics of every faith state clearly that spiritual growth and spiritual formation cannot happen without a mature spiritual teacher. Just as our eye cannot see itself without a mirror, our ego cannot see itself without a teacher. It is easy to see the splinter in our neighbors eye and virtually impossible to see the beam in our own eye. 

Our laity, and especially our clergy, need institutional encouragement and support when they are willing and ready to journey out into their ego deserts to encounter, wrestle with,  and nurture their own souls. And when they return from the desert, the new paradigm must hold them up and honor them as the spiritual guides of the church.

In the present paradigm, we are too busy “helping”  parishioners inside  our local churches to find  the time to “listen”  to those who live on the fringes; to those who are not in the pews on Sunday morning. The new paradigm for Christian ministry proposed by this paper will support and encourage pastors and laity to go to the fringes of our spiritual culture so as to help us develop perspective on what God’s people are asking for and needing. 

After they have listened to the sacred stories from the wilderness, they will be able to say to “I have been to the fringes of the wilderness, and here’s what I have learned”. After they have listened to the sacred stories from the wilderness our clergy will be better prepared to reach out their hand and say to the world “ I am the way.  Follow me. I will lead you into silence, solitude, quiet, listening, and simplicity. I can walk with you into your  desert because I have journeyed into my own wilderness. I have listened to your sacred stories, so perhaps I can help you find some of the healing you are searching for.”

Spiritual formation requires time and silence. These are antithetical to the growth needs of the institutional church. The danger of the current paradigm of course, is that clergy have been encouraged to become the readers of maps, the well educated “experts” who know  what the world needs.

In closing, the paradigm or world view of ministry that this paper is proposing would begin nurturing pastors to be gentle, quiet, fully present, listening guides, open and vulnerable; authentically sharing their lives with their congregation. 

They would be self aware enough to know that taking care of   people (and the institutional church), and caring for  people the way Jesus called us to care are two different realities.  The former leads to exhaustion and clergy burnout and the latter leads to spiritual teachers who can show others how to care for themselves and others; not as loving and compassionate “doers”,  but as love and compassion itself.  

On that day, pastors and laity will no longer have to teach people how to be loving and compassionate. They will know how to simply model love and compassion because the pain and suffering of others will have become their own. Their lives will say “follow me”.

Spirituality and spiritual formation have different needs from those of the growth oriented institutional church and they are not compatible with one another.  We must stop thinking that they are. Until we do, the institutional church will be blind to the difference. 

The paradox of the middle path requires that we keep both needs fully in view; the need for spiritual formation of clergy and laity, and the growth needs of the institutional church. 

We need them both to do the work God calls us to.
But we need them balanced.

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