Dysfunction and Prayers

OK - since Fr. B requested a full report (and I'm all about taking requests), I'll give some more details. I realized that my last post was rich with fodder in several different areas. I may have to break these up.

Since it's fairly timely, I'll explain the prayers, and my relationship with this congregation. I don't often attend the church where I am a member. That makes this more interesting. When I was in college, I actually worked there first. I did a youth ministry internship there. It was great. It is a large urban congregation in downtown Minneapolis. The kids were this wonderful combination between rich suburban kids and very poor immigrant, urban kids. They got along wonderfully. It was a very shaping experience. I feel a strong connection to urban ministry because of my work with these kids.

The problem was the rest of the congregation. This is a congregation that has an over-inflated sense of it's own self-worth. It has never been a neighborhood church, like other congregations. It was built to be the flagship church of the American Lutheran Church. It tended to attract high profile members in the Lutheran community. In the 70's they actually wrote a book about the history of the congregation, entitled What God Hath Wrought. Humble title, huh?

In the early 90's, it was discovered that a beloved senior pastor had an affair with some woman (not a member, and not at that time). To be honest, there were probably problems before this, but this is where I can trace a lot of our current dysfunction. Anyway, since then, they have gone through a string of pastors and staff.

When I starting doing stuff with the congregation, I was sort of blind to this. I was loving my work with the youth. They also had a nice gay/lesbian community that would get together. It was nice.

Oddly enough, the day we joined ended up being the day the congregation would vote on adopting the status of Reconciling In Christ. This is the Lutheran version of congregations affirming to GLBT people (back then they only had to be affirming to GL people, but it's since expanded). So, we were received as new members, and then were able to vote in the meeting.

The vote failed...by 11 votes (out of about 600 votes cast). This should have been my first clue. Many of us decided that we would "stay the course" (to steal another hopeless phrase). I worked with one of my favorite pastors to formulate a young adult ministry. I was able to handle the ambiguity of the congregation's feelings about me.

What really turned me away was when they attacked the youth program. During the transition between youth directors, they decided to cut the staff person to part-time, and give them no budget. A lot of the budget was spent on the urban kids, so this essentially turned them away. For me, that was the last straw. I decided that I needed to take a hiatus.

Which I have done for the last two years. I have been in several congregations. I've kept my membership, because I'm not quite sure how I relate to local congregations. Since I do a lot of ministry work on my own, I don't think I'll ever be a good congregational member. For my own sanity, I'm learning to say "no". So, that's where I am.

OK - I'll post this and continue with the prayers later. Thanks for listening.