When the Church Gets It Wrong

After posting a blog on Friday, (But What If the Church is Wrong?) I was running errands and mulling over (read obsessing over) whether I should have posted it.  I kept hearing my head the words from Bishop C. Andrew Doyle's new book, "nothing is more threatening to the life and mission of the Church than cynical and negative leadership." (p. 3) I wondered, "Is that how people will read it?" I don't think I'm a cynical and negative leader, but what if that's how people read it? I don't want to come across that way; I'm not that way, but what if people misunderstand?

I was worried about colleagues and friends in the church who might misunderstand what I was trying to say.  I was worried because I have been told before I don't accept my priestly authority. I was worried I would be seen as a troublemaker, a pot stirrer, an unhappy priest--none of which I consider myself because I'm not.  And let me be really honest, I'm in search (Episcopal code for looking for a job), and I certainly don't want any parish to think I'm not hopeful for the future, that I don't believe there is a place, a much needed place, for the mission and ministry of the Church in the world because I most certainly do, and I desperately want to be a part of it. But I also think we have to look very hard at who we are and how we are in the world.

Hear me (ok, read me), it wasn't that I didn't believe what I wrote.  It wasn't that I didn't and don't struggle constantly with the questions I posed, it was something else--I was struggling with how it would be received.  Was I too harsh? Too judgmental myself? Too holier than thou?  So as I was turning into my neighborhood I decided I would take it down.

I didn't--I didn't because when I opened my computer there were messages from colleagues and friends saying thank you.  Thank you for writing this. So I didn't take it down, but I continued struggling with the question--what if the church is wrong? If I'm really honest, the questions that reverberate from the post is why do I stay?  Why do any of us stay? And why do I so desperately want to be a part of it?

Very good questions....

Tomorrow seated at our table will be all four of our children--all reared in the Episcopal Church. One continues to be very involved in the church--it has been said by more than one person on more than one occasion they believe she will one day be ordained.  A second wants nothing to do with church and in fact often says he doesn't believe at all.  The other two are somewhere in between. And yes, I do believe their feelings and beliefs do come from what they've experienced in the church.  I do believe the church they've witnessed bears some responsibility. We sometimes have heated debates; we sometimes have to drop the subject; we sometimes raise our voices. And yes, it's hard.  So the question remains--why?

I believe the answer comes not from focusing on the question what if the church is wrong, but rather what does the church do when it is wrong?

Presiding Bishop Michael Curry initiated a good bit of my former question with his All Saints Sermon.  Presiding Bishop Michael Curry who is African American--our first African American Presiding Bishop--the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, the church who for centuries supported slavery. On October 4, 2008, the Episcopal Church apologized for it's role (Episcopal Church Apologizes) and now we have an African American Presiding Bishop who leads us, challenges us, inspires us.

That's why I stay--because we have been and can be a place that takes responsibility, because when we are wrong we bear witness to a community that can extend love and mercy and forgiveness and grace.  When we are wrong and we admit we are wrong, we can model for the world what it means to take responsibility, to own our past, to learn from our mistakes and to move forward with love.

Bishop Doyle also asks in his book, "To adapt to the VUCA world, what must the Church give up? What must the Church take on?" (p. 18) (VUCA world = volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity). I believe the Church needs to give up it's absolute certainty in all matters and take on being a place to question, a place to bring our doubts, our fears, our anger and our joys, and our grief and our solace.  I believe it needs to continue to be a place where we can  practice grace, mercy, forgiveness and WHEN we get it wrong it is a place where we can start again.

I am not negative and cynical.  I claim my priestly authority. And I believe in the God "who is and who was and who is to come" (Revelation 1:4 NRSV) I believe the Church can and is an institution with faults but I believe it can and is an institution that at its best serves Jesus' cause--I also believe we have to be honest about who we are as individuals and as the church.

Here's how I honestly understand who I am...

I am not a negative and cynical leader in the church; I do accept and claim my priestly authority. I also claim I am a leader. (My therapist right now is high fiving herself for my ability to publicly say that...) I'll say it again; I am a leader, I am a leader, accepting my priestly authority and exercising it in my own way--in the way God created me to be.  I am a leader who leads expressing my uncertainty, admitting my vulnerability. For better or worse I am a clergy who lives out my vocation in a way Rachel Held Evans wonders about when she writes, "I often wonder if the role of the clergy in this age is not to dispense information or guard the prestige of their authority, but rather to go first, to volunteer the truth about their sins, their dreams, their failures, and their fears in order to free others to do the same." (p.112) 

I guess that blog on Friday was me going first--me going first admitting I question, I struggle, I hurt because of the hurt I know the church has caused.  But I also stay--

As I think about our children and where they are in their lives of faith, I could be angry at the role the church has played. But I'm not. I do wish it were different. But they're on their own journeys and I am honored to journey with them OR to let them journey alone. And I believe that just like we O'Doyles continue to love one another, accept one another, extend grace and mercy to one another--to gather around one table with our differences so can the church.

Tomorrow gathered in our home will be our family plus other families--families we have met and fallen in love with through the Church.  Families who have become our family. We will gather with our different nationalities, our different political views, our different theologies, our different beliefs--we might even talk about some of them.  But we'll also gather as people who love and accept--as people who try to practice mercy and forgiveness and grace.  As people who learned how to do that in the Church.

I stay because of what happens when the Church gets it wrong. I stay because we do get it wrong and by staying we get to start again and again and again--for as long as it takes.





Doyle, C.. Andrew; A Generous Community; Being the Church in a New Missionary Age. New York: Morehouse Publishing,        2015.

Evans, Rachel Held; Searching for Sunday. Nashville, Tenn: Nelson Books, 2015.