Dear Blooming Glen Friends,
The air quality here in Southeast Pennsylvania this week reminds me of the air quality that was frequent in Inland Southern California in the 1980’s. We used to laugh about it saying that it took all the faith we had to believe in an invisible God. Seeing what you breathe made faith easier.
Slowly, over time, the air quality improved (as did our faith). The improvements came about because of powerful incentives, potent disincentives, and a shared vision.
The incentives to cleaner air quality in Southern California became obvious: The medical profession made it clear that the cleaner the air, the less childhood respiratory disease. The cleaner the air, the less heart disease in adults. Healthy air = healthier humans. We began to recognize that our quality of life was tied to the quality of the air we breathed. And as the air got cleaner, the rates of increase in our health insurance got smaller.
The disincentives were applied by the State of California through its California Air Resources Board (regulating mobile sources of air pollution), and the South Coast Air Quality Management District (regulating stationary sources of air pollution). Now, a few words are in order here. Nobody in California likes these agencies, but without something like them, vehicles and industry would have no common standards to comply with for cleaner air. To be sure, some of the standards imposed have been punitive, and controversial. But in the main, the capacity of CARB and AQMD to monitor air pollution, leading to the imposing of regulations and enforcing the implementation of highly technical standards through the courts, has brought cleaner air to Southern California.
The recognition of incentives and the application of disincentives has, over time formed a common vision in Southern California – clean air is a moral good; clean air is possible to attain and still have a thriving economy and clean air should be sought as a matter of nonpartisan public policy. There plenty of loud and long arguments over how best to accomplish that vision. But no one questions the vision. Conservative, liberal, centrist, Democratic, Republican, or Decline to State, almost everyone in California agrees on the goal of clean air.
Could there be something in this story to point us in a healthy direction as a church? Maybe.
The triple cocktail of 1) Post-Christendom, which has weakened our institutions and made communicating the gospel difficult, 2) Chronic COVID, which isolates us from each other and lends itself to mistrust and polarization, and 3) the Digital Babylon, which makes information easy to obtain while making wisdom harder to find, have conspired together to create a polluting ecology in the church. It’s hard to get things done, we’re angry at each other for things we had nothing to do with, and because we can access information with a few keystrokes, we don’t listen to each other so well anymore. We need some new, powerful incentives.
One such incentive may be that everyone’s story is worth telling. Maybe the starting place of community is a commitment to the transparency of our personal narratives. I honestly did not know what was going to happen when I shared with you the story of my dysfunctional family of origin. Most of you have shared with me your gratitude and respect for my telling that story. I have also experienced some criticism and personal cost for sharing. But the incentive to share with you transparently about who I am – warts and all – has been worth it.
We also need some powerful disincentives. I’m not suggesting we create some sort of California-sized bureaucracy regulating our behaviors. We do however need to disincentivize the tendency to focus on the problem instead of identifying opportunities. When you focus on problems, you generally end up with more problems. When you focus on opportunities, you have more possibilities.
Finally, we need a common vision. Vision in the church can become as scattered and pixelated as some insect’s vision can become. Settling into a common vision is a long process. In my time with you as an interim pastor, I’ve been working to reverse engineer a common vision: Starting with preaching (big picture), and working with staff (the smaller picture), and finally aligning the organizational systems of the church has gotten this process started. Now the pivot is toward understanding a common approach to program:
Beginning to implement a robust approach to ministry with children, youth, and families that is intent, as the centerpiece of our call to be a missional church, on drawing newcomers into the congregation who can belong in order to believe.
Growing out of that centerpiece effort, a life of worship (the journey inward) and mission (the journey outward) that makes gospel discipleship about the application of the art and skill of following Jesus daily in life.
Supporting these efforts, a ministry of adult formation that energizes and supports discipleship and a ministry of pastoral care that assures those in crisis that they are not alone.
So, let’s incentivize transparency with one another. Let’s disincentivize problem-naming and shaming. Let’s settle into a vision of reconstituting Blooming Glen Mennonite Church that is not as a copy of a perceived past, but is an extension of God’s healing and hope flowing through us into the world.
Maybe we’ll all breathe easier.
Love you, church!
Pastor Jeff
jeff@bgmc.net
PS – I’m looking forward to Monday morning breakfasts (at the A&N Diner, 7:30-8:45 am) and Friday afternoon coffee (at the Broad Street Grind, 3:30-4:45 pm) for informal conversations about whatever is on your mind.