Things we say, and what we mean

I recently had a conversation with an almost-stranger about how she says something that regularly bothers one of her co-workers: she will call him “kiddo” out of habit.

Her co-worker is bothered by this because, to him, it implies that he is just a kid—that is, that he is too young to take seriously. This, even though he is in his late 20s, or perhaps early 30s. 

When she says this, though, she doesn’t mean to imply that; she says that she calls people old and young alike “kiddo” and that she means it as a term of familiarity, even mild affection.

Another example

This reminded me of the phrase “bless your heart,” which many (especially southerners!) will say as a sort of code for, “oh, you poor fool.” 

And yet, I have a good friend who will say this with utter sincerity, truly wishing blessing on whomever he says it to. He doesn’t mean any condescension, though he is aware of the “typical” other meaning that is condescending. When he says “bless your heart” he truly means to invoke blessing on his companion.

Which Is Right?

When I studied communication in college (and when I taught it in the Rhetoric class that I taught for five years), a key principle that I learned and passed on to others was this:

Communication is what the other person hears.

In other words, intent can only take us so far. While we may mean to say, “You’re someone that I can relate to” (as in, “kiddo”) or, “I recognize the struggle you’ve been facing, and God bless you for enduring it” (as sometimes intended by my friend’s “bless your heart”), we have to recognize that the hearer may receive our words quite differently.

Tim Stafford, in his excellent book That’s Not What I Meant!, gets to the heart of this well. He recognizes that sometimes our words come across quite differently than intended (as the title clearly implies!), and that our words that we mean to be healing can sometimes hurt.

Tim’s book is a great study in how we can do better with this. While I don’t mean for this to be a book review, I do highly recommend Tim’s book (which is being re-released by Doulos Resources, a ministry that I work with—full disclaimer). By the way, you can order Tim’s book here.

Tim has some great advice in his book about communicating well. about the situation I described above, he says this:

Perhaps they get the message you think they should. But perhaps not. Perhaps they only sometimes understand. And wouldn’t it be better if your family and friends didn’t need a codebook to interpret your words? Wouldn’t it make more sense to say what you actually mean?

It Swings The Other Way Too

I’ll never forget how a friend of mine stood before a group of a couple hundred people at a campus ministry meeting in college and confessed his sin to them. He felt the need for such a public confession because he realized he had hurt so many people with it. What was this grievous sin my friend confessed?

He was a jokester. 

My friend liked to play pranks on others. He could spin a yarn for hours, and do it with utter believability. He had a knack for finding the irony in just about any situation and turning that into a good round of laughter. (On more than one occasion, this was a needed breath of light-heartedness that was just right in a heavy moment.)

What’s wrong with that? Well, in carrying out his pranks my friend preyed on the gullible. He was skilled at creating a moment when he would reveal his joke for what it was, to maximize the embarrassment of his victim. On more than one occasion, he had taken things too far—so far that a number of people didn’t trust a word he said. Humor is always at someone’s expense. My friend always collected; he never paid out.

Until that evening, when he opened the Bible and read to us from Proverbs 26:18–19:

“ Like a madman who throws firebrands, arrows, and death is the man who deceives his neighbor and says, 'I am only joking!’"

My friend had read those words and they cut to his heart. He realized that HE was that madman. He had wounded so many with his pranks and jokes, and then laughed them off as just being funny.

We all learned from him in that season of life. We learned that what we mean and what we say don’t always line up—and that costs us the integrity that Jesus expects of us. 

It pays to give attention to how our words are perceived by others. It’s not always just what we mean when we say something that is communicative; everyone hears with their own ears.

A smart-aleck grammar wonk seizes a "teachable moment"

Wife: “Say, I got the report from my doctor today."

Husband: “Oh? How was it?"

W: “It was concerning."

H: “Concerning?"

W: “Yes. Concerning. To me."

H: “Of course it was concerning you; it was your report, right?"

W: “No, I mean it concerned me."

H: “Right. Should your report have been about someone else?"

W: “You know what I mean!"

H: “You mean it was ‘disconcerting’?"

W: “I mean you’re a jerk."

 

Friends, don’t let this happen in YOUR marriage. Learn the difference between “concerning” and “disconcerting."

Can elders rotate?

I was recently (briefly) part of a discussion on a Facebook group for PCA Teaching Elders and Ruling Elders (I know, that may sound like it has strong potential to be a dull-fest—it’s actually a great group), and the topic was on elders—specifically, ruling elders in this case—having an agreed-upon “rotating Session” system.

For those unaware, here’s a brief synopsis: ordination to the office of ruling elder is life-long and perpetual, unless an elder gives up his office either voluntarily or involuntarily (the latter being due to a discipline issue). However, elders are not always active in their office; some will step off of “active duty” on their Session for a time, or perhaps they move to another congregation and aren’t (yet) elected to serve in the office. The question, then, is whether a Session should be “permanent,” in which case an elder serves indefinitely unless/until he moves or requests a break; or whether a Session should be “rotating,” wherein elders serve for a defined “term” of some stated number of years, after which he rotates off for a stipulated period of time.

Part of what makes this a controversial topic is the fact that in a rotating system, elders typically must be re-elected by the congregation in order to resume duties as active Session members. This seems, to some, to be antithetical to the perpetual nature of the office of elder. This is a sticking-point for most discussions (at least the ones that I’ve been a part of) on this topic.

For full disclosure, let me say that I lean favorably toward rotating Sessions, as I believe they have many merits and, in healthy congregations, few disadvantages. I should also note that neither of the congregations I have served as pastor have had them; and, in both cases, I was happy to submit to my fellow elders and to the will of the congregation about the matter.

In the particular discussion that I mentioned above, there were a number of points raised (or at least referred to), which I’d like to address. I believe that the stock answers to these questions, especially from the decriers of the rotating Session concept, are shortsighted and/or somewhat lacking in nuance. Therefore, this isn’t meant as rebuttal, but rather as a “fuller sense” of the questions and issues at hand.

(A couple of supporting “documents” were mentioned in this discussion, and I will respond to two of them directly; one is a blog post, which can be found here: Should Elders Be Ordained for Life?; the other is an article by John Sittema, from the OPC’s Ordained Servant magazine, entitled “Some Thoughts on Term Eldership." A further note here: I looked for John Murray’s article, “Arguments Against Term Eldership,” to no avail; perhaps it has been pulled down from sites that previously had it, as it is apparently included in a collection of works by Murray published by Banner of Truth.)

Claim #1: no biblical warrant

One of the most emphatically asserted claims is that “there is no biblical warrant for rotating terms of eldership.” It’s true; there is no proof text that I or anyone can point to where one of the apostles urged elders to rotate on and off of Sessions. Open and shut case?

Not quite. As the author of the URCNA blog linked above acknowledges, there is no biblical warrant for forbidding them outright, either! In fact, what is striking to me is that Scripture is essentially silent on the question of whether a ruling elder can or should serve indefinitely or on a rotating basis. At best, this question should be seen as an example of adiaphora—matters that are not essential, and of which Scripture displays a certain amount of indifference with regard to practice. (To say otherwise is to shift the burden of proof—which is a fallacious argument. It may also be a case of Bulverism.)

Two other factors on the “biblical warrant” question come to mind, though. First, if we insist that the lack of any biblical support for a rotation system means that it shouldn’t be done, doesn’t that also prohibit any kind of sabbatical or inactive duty whatsoever? In other words: as long as an elder remains a member of a congregation that has installed him as a ruling elder, is there any biblical justification for any cessation of that active duty (short of a sin/discipline issue)? It seems like you can’t really have it both ways here.

Second: when we lack a normative or prescriptive basis from Scripture (as we absolutely do with this issue), it’s useful to look for examples. Admittedly, we don’t have examples of ruling elders rotating off or taking sabbaticals from their duties. But we do have examples of teaching elders who do so! (Think of Timothy and Apollos, who served as pastors of New Testament-era churches, but only for a time before stepping down.) And interestingly, it often seems to be the stringent “two-office” guys who protest the loudest about a rotating system (the PCA Position Paper on the number of offices is helpful in understanding what this means). But if ruling and teaching elders are the same office utterly, why the double-standard when it comes to how pastors (teaching elders) are called to local churches, but usually only for a season? In other words, why don’t we expect pastors to serve congregations for the duration of their active lives of ministry? 

(I’ll admit that this last point is weaker; I believe, though, that its weakness is due to the inconsistency inherent to a straight-up “two office” view.)

Roy Taylor remarked that, "To argue that a rotational system is "unbiblical" is to infer that Calvin, Knox and the First General Assembly of the Church of Scotland (to which we trace our lineage) were either ignorant of the biblical teaching, in the least, or deliberately chose to ignore the biblical teaching.” Are we ready to do that?

Claim #2: the permanence of the office

Another problem highlighted with a rotating system is that it appears (to some) to fly in the face of our view of the office of elder as a permanent office: men who are ordained to the office never stop being elders. How can you have this and also a rotating Session?

Sittema is helpful here, as he points out the unfortunate association of the concept of “election” with regard to church offices to other forms of “election,” particularly of the more political form. This, he says, introduces some “bad habits” in terms of a congregation’s view of what it means when they elect men to serve as active Session members. He’s right, too, that such a bad habit—or rather, severe misunderstanding—leads to a highly problematic understanding of what an elder’s role in the local church actually is. In this case, a rotating system can be a further obstacle toward proper understanding of the office; indeed, it can further entrench the misunderstandings.

I think there are two things going on here, and both should be addressed. First, if there are misunderstandings about what elders do, they should be corrected. It is the Session’s job to instruct the congregation in the proper concepts of eldership—what it is, and what it isn’t—and to labor faithfully to disciple their flock in what they should expect from their elders. There is absolutely a pastoral and shepherding nature to the office, as is clear from Scripture and from the PCA’s (and others’s) church order; this is not in dispute by either side of this discussion. Elders must shepherd; they are not merely “board members” (which is exactly why I despise the label “Elder Board” instead of “Session”). 

Second, I believe there is a persistent misunderstanding in the PCA (again, among others) in the difference between “being an elder” and “being a member of the Session.” A church’s Session is the seat of its oversight, and is the sole authoritative body for a local congregation. No elder has any authority unto himself, except that which the Session delegates to him (this includes the pastor!). Elders are shepherds, and no less than that—but also, apart from their function as members of the Session, no more than that. 

This is actually the very reason why a healthy rotation system can benefit a congregation. The Session's authority and oversight requires certain kinds of work and demands attention that can sometimes stand in the way of a shepherd fulfilling all of his ordinary shepherding duties. (Most of us who are elders have been a part of Sessions where some matter arises that requires every minute of attention we can give it, for a season; this isn’t ideal, but it is the reality.) When an elder rotates off of the Session, he doesn’t cease to be an elder to the congregation; his responsibilities as an overseer, however, are lessened. In at least two congregations I’ve worked with (prior to my own ordination) where a rotating Session was in place, the “inactive” elders were really even more active in their shepherding of the congregation! They were freed to focus on visitation, teaching, and other shepherding responsibilities because they weren’t also given the demands of the congregation’s oversight.

Again, Sittema is helpful on this; even as he personally objects to rotating systems, he urges: “If your congregation elects elders for terms of office, and then grants them release from active duty for a time, make clear to all that they are still in service, even though the nature of their service may be changed for a time."

Claim #3: the lack of continuity 

A frequent complaint about a rotating system is that an elder serving a three-year term is barely getting started in his work before his term is up! And it is true that a three-year term (which is a very common length of term for rotating systems) goes by very quickly. An elder serving for only three years would have to hand off a lot of responsibilities, and each hand-off would potentially slow down the progress of the proper oversight of the church. Is there a problem of continuity in a rotating system?

Probably not—mainly because this is something of a straw-man argument. It’s true that most rotating systems specify some term in the three- or four-year range. However, I’ve never seen such a system in place that didn’t allow, or even expect, that two consecutive terms could/would be served back-to-back. So now we’re up to six years.

(In one church where I worked, there were at least two examples of men who had been asked to serve a third term of a single year—and, upon his concurrence, the congregation had voted to approve this. Admittedly, this begins to undermine the very purpose of a rotating system! But it goes to show that, when continuity demands it, such a system can accommodate.)

Further, any major lack of continuity many indicate a lack of understanding of what it means to be an elder (see #2 above)—because, in a healthy system, an elder rotating off of his Session should actually be able to do more in terms of shepherding. This may extend to his participation in presbytery or Assembly-level work, as well, as there is no stipulation (to my knowledge) that, for example, elders serving on presbytery committees or commissions must be active on their congregation’s Session. 

Also: hand-offs happen all the time. Sometimes they are inconvenient, and even problematic. But there is very little difference in a hand-off that happens because of an elder retiring or moving, and a hand-off that happens because of a rotation. Oh, but one difference is key: with a rotation system, the hand-offs are both expected and normal, so everyone is used to it.

Claim #4: not enough men

Opponents of rotating systems state that rotations mean that leaders are annually burdened with the responsibility of finding qualified men as candidates. Nominations, training, examinations, and elections have to take place each year, in order to fill the next year’s “class” of elders. And what if no qualified men are found? Sessions will find less-than-qualified men and “create an Ishmael” (so says the URCNA blog post) instead of waiting for the Lord. What about this?

Here we have a continuation of the straw-man from #3, because the possibility of current elders serving consecutive terms is not taken into account. If there are no fit candidates to be newly-ordained and installed, then it is likely that at least some of the elders whose term is “up” can remain active for a second term.

This argument also ignores the fact of a long-standing rotating system: that, potentially, there will be a handful of men in the congregation who have served as elders previously and who are currently inactive; and, that these men might be re-activated for a new season of service on the Session. In a healthy church with a rotation, elders are multiplied over the years and there is virtually always a pool of fit, trained, and experienced candidates.

But isn’t this claim also an indictment against the pastors and elders who have neglected discipleship of their congregations? In a church where discipleship is actively occurring (led by the elders, teaching and ruling), God raises up those who will be led into service—as volunteers, as teachers, as deacons, and yes—as elders. Could it be that the reason why there is often such a shortage of “qualified” men for eldership is because the current elders haven’t identified men that could be qualified and sought to prepare them to be such?

Claim #5: not enough men, part deux

One interesting claim against a rotating Session is that it keeps the Session from growing to the size that it could if every possible elder simply was added to the existing Session. Many hands make light work—and by rotating some off, it keeps the workload unnecessarily high for the active elders. Shouldn’t we simply build up our Sessions with every elder that we can?

Three problems here. First, this continues the fallacy that an “inactive” elder is doing nothing at all. If inactive elders continue to fulfill their office as they are able, the workload will be diluted for the rest. 

Second, if a Session is concerned that the ratio of elders to congregants is getting too imbalanced, there may be deeper problems at work. It may be that the congregation is growing numerically, but not enough discipleship is going on to accommodate the growth in a spiritual parallel—and consequently, there are not enough potential candidates to be nominated for eldership. Or it could be that the Session simply isn’t accounting for this numeric growth in the way that they present the need for elders to the congregation, come time for nominations—and they need to ask for more elders than before.

Ultimately, though, this isn’t the Session’s final decision. In the PCA at least, our church order states that the congregation determines the number of officers to be elected, not the Session. The Session can (and should) make recommendations, and if they have taught their members well on the function and role of the elder then the congregation should happily accommodate the need for more elders! But it is the congregation’s decision. (Which, I would argue, means that the decision for whether a Session should be permanent or rotating should also be a congregational decision, after much instruction.)

Claim #6: we just don’t do that around here

In Sittema’s article from The Ordained Servant, he acknowledges that a rotation system (“term-eldership” in his words) is more of a “continental Reformed” approach to church order, rather than one of the Scottish/Westminster persuasion. The URCNA post perpetuates this, too, touting that the permanent/indefinite Session has a “long history” going back to our Scottish roots. Are we bound to a permanent Session because of our presbyterianism?

I’m all for learning from the wisdom of our tradition, and I definitely think we shouldn’t throw something out that is a long-standing universal practice (and especially not because it is a long-standing practice!). Yet here’s another potential fallacy, or a couple of them: this could be an inverse Chronological Snobbery (claiming that it is true simply because today’s thinkers are inherently inferior to those in a past era, also called an Appeal to Tradition) or an Inductive Fallacy (saying “here are many examples, therefore it must be so”). We have to be careful not to fall into a sectarianism about this kind of thing, because the Scots got it wrong sometimes, too. 

Why can’t we learn from the continentals, as well as from the Scots and Westminster folk? I don’t see why there must be a bifurcation, especially on something like this.

In the PCA, our Stated Clerk, Roy Taylor, commented extensively on the question of whether a rotating system is allowable within our polity. He said:

A rotational system of officers is in keeping with the early history flowing from the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century. John Calvin led in restoring the office of Ruling Elder in reforming the polity of the Church in Geneva in the Reformation. Those who hold to Presbyterian polity trace their theological-polity lineage to him. Calvin instituted a rotational system of officers. It is interesting to note that they had one-year terms.

Is a rotating system “un-presbyterian”? Not according to our polity, nor that of some key players in our heritage. 

Freedom for Sessions!

Let me state plainly what I implied above: Sessions are free to go in either direction here. I may have a strong opinion about it, and many reasons why I think a rotating system is beneficial—but it would be wrong of me to impose that on even my own Session if they are not in agreement. It would be even more wrong of me to insist that other Sessions choose one way or the other, because there is no right and wrong direction to go here. Frankly, those who assert that there is are the ones in the wrong, in my view.

Living in the "Clue" house

Marcie and I were talking about my collection of musical instruments (which is not insubstantial):

• Three guitars (one acoustic, one electric, and one dobro-style resonator—though it is currently unplayable, and needs some repairs)
• A bass (also acoustic, but NOT an upright bass)
• A banjo
• A fiddle (yes, a fiddle, NOT a violin)
• A mandolin (also in need of repairs)
• A lap dulcimer
• A strumstick
• A balalaika (I don’t know if this is playable or not, but it’s neat!)
• An electronic piano/keyboard
• A collection of percussion instruments (a djembe, a tambourine, and a handful of shakable instruments)

I also have been promised one of my mother’s spinet pianos, though we’ve never had room for it.

Specifically, we were talking about where we would keep this collection should we actually want them to be available for use. My internal response is always, “We’ll keep them in the music room, of course” (though we’ve never had a room we could designate as such, and I rarely mention this response to Marcie!).

This brought to mind my other rather large collection—books (probably around 4000 volumes)—and the fact that we would probably do well to have a room for these as well! And of course it would be nice, if not quite necessary, to have a designated room as an office/study.

In short, I’ve figured out that I want to live in some version of the “Clue” house: the house implied by the board game Clue, which I played often as a child. The rooms in the Clue house include:

A library

A study

A conservatory

A kitchen

A dining room

A lounge

A hall

A cellar

A billiard room

A ballroom

We could do without the last two; maybe the billiard room would be a small den, and the ballroom could become a family room. It seems pretty obvious that such a house would likely have a second story with at least four bedrooms (maybe five?) and a couple of bathrooms.

Do such houses still exist? What sort of house would YOU live in?

One way to strip your pastor of his dignity

Thom Rainer, the president of LifeWay, recently posted this great piece on his blog: "Fourteen Sentences that Brought Joy to Pastors."

He's right; these sentences would, indeed, bring joy to any pastor. Why? Because they represent the combining of love and dignity in how the pastor is treated. Pastors (and their family members) deserve to be treated with the same love and dignity that those in their congregations expect from them—and these sentences are prime examples of how to do that.

Unfortunately, I recognize a need to dwell on the other end of the spectrum.

I was recently asked to write up my process for preparing a sermon, and Marcie read over it after I was done. She asked me, "When you put all that down on paper, do you think, 'ugh, I don't want to have to do that every week'?" No, I don't. I'm not averse to the sermon preparation (though it IS hard work), the difficult discipline situations, or the hard work of mourning with those who mourn and aching with those who struggle. It's not the possibility that the church may fold, or the drudgery of church budgets and hand-wringing over giving and attendance numbers that make me second-guess whether I want to be a pastor again.

The one thing that does is the people who live at the other end of that spectrum, and the words that they say to people like me.

Pastors are usually resilient people, thick-skinned people, and gracious people—but we are vulnerable to hurtful words just like you are. We are wounded by thoughtless statements, the same as you.

And yet (here's the great irony), my experience—and the experience of other pastors, as well—is that people will say things to pastors that they wouldn't dare say to anyone else. Things so tactless that they wouldn't dream of saying them to the their most disliked co-worker or neighbor. Only someone with absolutely no inhibitions would normally have the gall to say them.


I'm talking about things that, if they were said to anyone other than a pastor, they would probably get punched in the nose (or slapped in the face). Some examples?

• There are the standards that most pastors eventually get, like, "It must be nice only having to work one day a week."
  
• One guy told me once, "I was wrong about you—we made a mistake when we called you here. You're not the right guy to be the pastor of this church."
  
• I was recently told, in response to a comment I made on Facebook, "It's pretty clear that your gifts are somewhere other than in pastoral ministry..."

These are just a few that come to mind; there are others (some of them even more hurtful).

Maybe you meant well. Probably so. You were just being honest, right? If you can't shoot straight with your pastor, then who can you be straight with?

But here's the thing you need to know when you say this sort of thing to a pastor: you've just undermined him entirely. In a sentence or two, you stripped him of his dignity and took away his confidence. With a brief word, you armed Satan with a memory that will be re-played in his head over and over again for years.

If your goal was honesty, you probably over-stated. But if your goal was to try to drive him out of the ministry, you probably hit your mark. And every time he faces another situation in which he doubts his effectiveness, his usefulness to God, or his calling to ministry, your words will ring in his ears—along with the words of others who carelessly said similar things.


This is not "normal" behavior for Christians. Don't be a church "pod"! Show some inhibitions.

For pastors who have had such hurtful words said to you (which means, for all pastors):

These words are not the sum of your ministry. They surely have hurt you more than was intended. I know that they will haunt you. Perhaps they have even traumatized you.

The benefit of doubt that the Gospel of grace urges us toward means that you believe that these were not meant to cut to the quick as they did. Try to hope all things and believe all things about the ones who said them, and to love them in spite of their caustic words.

You do not do what you do for the approval of men.

Rethinking the church's civic role in marriage

We have an interesting situation facing our culture (by which I mean, the American culture): for the first time in history, the definition of "marriage" is vastly different in the Christian church from what the state (by which I mean, the civic governing authorities) says that it is.

Background

Historically, the Christian church has defined marriage as a covenantal relationship between a man and a woman, bound together before God and committed to maintaining God's standards for what constitutes that marriage. Marriage was given to us by God for particular purposes: for the mutual help of the husband and wife, for having children, and for prevention of sin. Marriage is not the same as other relationships that the Bible describes as "lawful" (such as friendships, parent/child, work-oriented relationships, etc.) or that the Bible declares to be "unlawful" (including same-sex relationships, marital affairs, and others). Some may disagree with whether this position is "right" (and obviously some do), but whether that has historically been the church's position is indisputable.

Also historically (and continuing to the present), the church and state have held hands in a peculiar practice. In a tacit acknowledgement of the origins of marriage and the church's right and authority in the institution of marriage, the common practice and legal allowance is that pastors, priests, rectors, and ministers are allowed to function as civil magistrates when it comes to marriage. How so? They are recognized as a legitimate authority who may sign the marriage license. Whereas a pastor or priest asserting civic authority in any other realm would be laughed at, in this one sphere they are granted the strange status of being both ecclesiastical and civil authority.

More recently, and increasingly across the country, individual states are passing laws that define marriage more broadly, including the allowance of same-sex couples to marry with the same recognition of their marriages as those whose marriages would fit the definition of the historical church above. There are different arguments for why this is being done, but the underlying rationale pins on two presuppositions: (a) that homosexual practices are not morally or ethically wrong, and any individual or institution that claims otherwise is bigoted and misled; and (b) that practicing homosexuals deserve the same rights civically as any other citizen. Thus, they conclude, any restriction to the civic rights afforded by marriage on the basis of some moral or ethical restriction is wrong, and should be removed.

What's my point

The second premise above is not the focus of my post today, and frankly I wouldn't dispute it (as I've blogged about already; see "Inconsistency in opposition to civil unions"). Really, the first premise is not the focus of my post either, except to say that it finds little to no support in the Bible when any orthodox hermeneutic is applied, and therefore is not a claim that should carry much authority with Christians.

Rather, my focus is on the sticky wicket that this change in status quo presents to the church. To get there, I'll need to unpack the implications of the American pastor's strange function as quasi-magistrate a bit further.

A marriage in a church is recognized by the state as legitimate and licit, because the pastor is given that right to officiate both the ecclesiastical and the civil aspects of the marriage. Likewise—by default—a marriage that is recognized as legitimate and licit by the state is presently assumed also to be legitimate and licit in the eyes of the church. Which is to say, if two Christians choose to elope rather than hold a traditional wedding, and they employ the services of a justice of the peace to officiate, then they can safely presume that their church will recognize their marriage as a legitimate one. There is something of a Material Equivalence at work: in either case, the circumstances of a marriage presided-over by a recognized officiant meets both the necessary and sufficient conditions for the marriage to be deemed licit by both the church and the state.

With the recent changes to the laws of many states (and the likely inevitability of the same in most, if not all, of the remaining states), however, this logic fails. There may be sufficient conditions on both sides, but now there is a missing necessary condition for the church: the certainty that particular requirements are met to qualify the marriage as biblically licit. Without this certainty, the church can no longer be assured that a marriage approved by the state is a truly licit marriage ecclesiastically.

To be sure, this is not, in itself, exactly new; with the proliferation of "no-fault divorce" in the 1970s, this certainty dissolved. It has long been possible for a husband to abandon his wife, divorce her, and elope with his mistress—and for that marriage to be presumed to be a legitimate, biblically-licit marriage. Frankly, we should have acted on the implications of this decades ago, and our inattention has caught up with us.

Some solutions

How we got to where we are is a long and winding path, and includes many concessions and missed opportunities through the last many years. One could argue that this was an inevitable conclusion for our culture to reach, and they may be right. But here we are nevertheless, and though hindsight may be 20/20, foresight and wisdom for the days ahead is what we need.

We do seem finally to have come to a fork in the road, and I believe it is time for the church and the state to quit holding hands. The Material Equivalence that was the logical basis of our implicit acknowledgement of civilly-officiated marriages has been dissolving for years, and is no longer present in any reliable form. The function of the pastor as civil magistrate when it comes to marriage needs to come to an end.

This is actually the way it is in most other countries in the world! If you want to have the civic benefits of some sort of formalized union, you apply to the state for a marriage license and have the (regular) magistrate sign it. If you want the blessings of the church on your marriage, you see your pastor or priest and he officiates. And if you want both, then you must follow through with both.

A long-time friend of mine who is a political consultant in South Carolina recently blogged about this topic as well. In an interaction that followed, I asked him whether he thought the best route to sever this relationship between pastors and the state was a political one: passage of a bill that would revoke the pastor's right to sign marriage licenses. He said that we're way to far gone for that: "It's in state law in a thousand places."

Thus, it seems like the best route is for pastors and churches to voluntarily lay down our "right" to this role in civic society. To do this, we would need to amend our church constitution (in the PCA, this would mean an amendment to the Book of Church Order) so that this is plainly stated.

(I actually presented a proposal for this to my presbytery recently, and it was voted down—but mainly because the wording of it was not as clear as it needed to be. I'll keep working.)

Tricky factors

Moving in this direction will present a few bumps along the way. As I list these, I confess I'm not sure entirely of the implications of them, but I do recognize that they are there.

For one, it raises the possibility that some Christians may seek a marriage in the church but not with the state. One friend wondered about whether this would be a way for senior citizens to avoid any implications for their Social Security benefits, for example. I suppose that's possible, but I think it would be difficult to make a solid case for why this would be wrong for Christians to do.

It also raises the question about marriage as a creation-wide institution, and that's a good point. We don't see marriage as a sacrament, as it is not for believers only. Nevertheless, many pastors would seriously think twice about officiating a "church wedding" between two non-Christians as if their marriage was no different than that of two Christians. And I actually think this distinction is helpful precisely because it draws a clearer distinction between what is present in a Christian marriage versus a non-Christian one.

Other questions raised concerned how the church would deal with marriages not conducted by the church (or, for that matter, conducted in churches of a different denomination). Would none of them be recognized? How would the pastor and leadership deal with a civic union/marriage that they didn't believe was legitimate ecclesiastically? These are great questions, but not without some precedent. By analogy (and I want to be careful to distinguish this as an analogy, because we don't view marriage in the same way that we do baptism), when someone presents himself or herself for membership and the question of their baptism from another tradition—Roman Catholicism, say—comes up, then the Session must decide whether they will acknowledge that baptism as legitimate or whether they will require them to be re-baptized. To some degree, we take these case-by-base, but in another sense then patterns and precedents are established. I think marriage would be much the same.

I know there are other questions I haven't thought of. What do YOU think? What tricky factors do you see, that I haven't listed?

What happened?

In case you didn't know, the church I moved to Tucson, AZ in 2011 to serve as Senior Pastor, Dove Mountain Church, closed its doors in October of last year.

I get asked about 3–4 times a week, "What happened?"—so I thought it would be worthwhile to offer a few words about that here on my blog. At least my 10s of readers will know, and won't have to ask!

Though I wasn't part of DMC until 2011, I have done my best to piece together a working history of how we came to the end that we did. It's hard to say for sure, and I know that what I will say below is just one "take" on the whole thing. If you ask others involved in the church (especially if they were in the leadership), they may give an entirely different answer. And, frankly, their answer may be just as legitimate as mine.

[One request and caveat, however: be very careful of the opinions of those who were only peripherally connected. Even people that speak very confidently as if they are "in the know" can be, and have been, very mistaken in their accounts of what happened.]

Dove Mountain Church (DMC) launched as a church plant out of a mother-church congregation, Catalina Foothills Church (CFC) in 2007. They launched with a large number of great people (around 175) including some strong leaders, with a healthy amount of money, and with a generous gift of a 15-acre piece of land (in an area called Dove Mountain—thus the name). They had a good man as their pastor, and a lot of ambition as a "core group" (I use that term somewhat loosely, as 175 people is larger than most of the churches in the PCA).

That group was zealous about the idea of a new church, and enthusiastic in employing that zeal to good work. They got busy right away, and "particularized" as a church (instead of a church plant) quickly—in about seven months. Yet, though they were one group, it now seems clear that they were not united behind what they were setting out to do. No one had articulated, in a way that was understood and "bought into" by the whole congregation, several key aspects of vision:

• Where they were going
  
• Why they were going there
  
• What they were going to do when they got there

They lacked vision; instead, they were comprised of segments with very different visions.

One segment of the group wanted to replicate the work and ministries of CFC in the new location, which was about 30 minutes to the northwest of the mother church—essentially, their ambition was to build "CFC North" and take the mother church's effective ministries to a new part of town.

Another segment had been well-served by the ministry of the church planting pastor while he was an associate pastor at CFC. Their hope was to see his style and emphases in ministry writ large, and to realize the fulfillment of the dream of a church community that he had articulated—which was, in a number of ways, quite different from that of CFC.

Yet another segment had never quite fit in at CFC, and saw this as an opportunity to build a church that was similar in some ways to CFC, but different in some key ways.

There were probably other segments, too, but these were the main three as far as I could tell. This lack of unity in purpose and vision became a clear problem as time went on.

Initially, there were great efforts made to make plans for building on the 15 acres of land. Soon, however, it became clear that these plans would not be fulfilled as quickly as many had hoped, if ever (the founding pastor told me that, after a very short while, he became convinced that they would never end up on that land); consequently, most of the first segment left over the following months.

A couple of years later, the founding pastor burned out and left. This was, understandably, a blow to the whole congregation—but especially to that segment who had essentially followed him. Many of them left immediately, and others followed over the next 18 months or so.

That left a group of about 80–90 people, most of whom were initially part of the last segment.

When I interviewed, the clear impression I got was that the leadership, at least, had recognized the need for a clear and compelling vision that would drive the congregation forward. I was asked repeatedly what my vision would be, and my answer was, "I won't know until I get there—but I will make it a priority to ascertain what vision would best serve the congregation and articulate that as soon as possible."

(This was my first and probably largest mistake. One take-away here is that, if the church itself doesn't have a clear, well-stated and widely-understood vision, then the pastor should not accept a call if they aren't ready and willing to accept his vision for them.)

As I met with members of the congregation, I inquired as to their sense of the identity of the church. Most could not give a clear answer, but the central idea that I got was, "we are not CFC." The core identity, such as it was, focused on how they were different from the mother church.

The trouble was, even here there were variations. Some loved aspects of CFC's ministry that others saw as insignificant or even worthy of abandoning. Others wanted a church that was different altogether.

When there is no single, unified vision in a church, it's not that there is no vision at all. Instead, in this case, there were many visions. And each member was holding out to see if their vision would prevail. As I worked with the leadership and began to hone a vision, it was clear to many others that their vision would NOT, indeed, prevail—and they left too.

Our numbers continued to decrease; one deacon, who had a knack for numbers, showed me a spreadsheet where he had tracked giving and attendance from the very beginning. It demonstrated a pattern of constant decline from the very early months, and that pattern held all the way to the last days.

We tried a number of approaches to stem the tide and turn things around, but were unable to do so. Last summer, we held a number of meetings with the congregation in which we discussed options for how we might continue forward. Ultimately, we voted to ask the presbytery to take us back to "mission church" status (essentially, to become a re-plant or a new church plant again). At that point, about half of our remaining people left.

Presbytery was cautious about it, and rightly so. After some further discussion, we came to the point where we didn't believe it would be fruitful to press on, and decided to close up for good in October.

Which brings us to now. That's my account of "what happened" as best as I can tell it.

Celebrating the Mac...

This week marked the 30th anniversary of the Apple Macintosh, otherwise known as the "Mac." Congratulations, Apple!

I love Macs. Some have "accused" me of being a Mac Evangelist (which, if you didn't know, is actually a thing), but I'm not: I don't seek out opportunities to tell people about my love for Macs, or try to convince them to switch to Mac. I am, however, always happy to field questions when people have them, and to tell them what I love about my Mac (and other Apple products). I see this more a mark of a satisfied customer than an evangelist—in other words, if you were as satisfied with your Windows or Linux computer as I am with my Mac, you would be happy to tell others about it, too.

I have a long history with Apple computers. In fourth grade (or maybe third?) our class went weekly to the computer lab, where we learned very basic (pun intended) stuff on Apple IIe computers. A couple of years later (in 1984), a friend showed me his dad's new computer, which he called a "Mac"—it had this weird thing I had never seen before, which my friend called a mouse, and when he started it up it smiled at us. I was curious.

Though my first computer was a Coleco Adam (the one with the cassette tapes for drives), I continued to use the Apple IIes in the computer labs at school until my junior year, when the school got a Mac Classic. Though it wasn't technically mine, this was "my first Mac"— seriously, I quickly became more adept with that Mac Classic than the computer teacher, and she would often refer people to me about how to do things she didn't know about.

When I graduated from high school, my graduation present was—you guessed it—a Mac: specifically, a Mac LC with the 13" (not the standard 12") color monitor AND one of the new Apple inkjet printers. The whole system cost my mom about $3K, and I used that Mac for years (my first introduction to the longevity of these machines). As a reminder of how far technology has come since then: I was able to be very comfortable with the 40 megabyte hard drive for a long time, and when I upgraded it to have 4 megs of RAM I was pretty sure I would never need more than that. I had a 56K dial-up modem with which I joined AOL (I was a charter member, username: BigEd3) and CompuServe (I don't remember my number; sorry).

Five years later, my mom gave me a laptop computer they weren't using at her office, and I had my first-ever introduction to a Windows-based computer. I came to appreciate the portable nature of that computer, and when my Mac finally was too old to run any of the current applications I wanted to run in '98, I found I couldn't afford a replacement Mac. I built a Windows-compatible computer then, and used that for a few years (also buying a Windows laptop for seminary a couple of years later).

In 2002, though, I once again had the pleasure of a Mac smiling at me when some friends of a seminary classmate offered him their iMac and he wasn't interested (so it came to me). I quickly re-embraced my Apple and Mac roots, and have run Macs exclusively since then.

These are the Macs I've owned (and/or my family has) in the intervening years:

• 12" iBook (2003)
  
• 13" MacBook (2006)
  
• 21" iMac (2006)
  
• 17" MacBook Pro (2007)
  
• 13" MacBook Pro (2010)
  
• 27" iMac (2012)
  
• 13" MacBook Air (2013)
  

I don't see any reason yet to consider other options. Thanks, Apple, for all that you've done to support my technological life for these 30+ years! Keep up the good work.

Liturgy, forms, and "everyone is wrong but me"

Jeremy Walker reports on the Reformation 21 blog that, in essence, the reason for the resurgence of interest in liturgy is because of the absence of spiritually substantial religion. In other words, the only reason why people might prefer a more formal liturgy is, he says, that they hope it might "fill the void" in their spiritually-empty lives.

That's interesting. I don't know Mr. Walker, nor am I aware of what congregation he is a member of—but in the circles I've moved in, it's actually the inverse of this: the people I know who are the most mature, spiritually, seem to have a growing interest in liturgy.

Mr. Walker's fellow Ref21 blogger, Carl Trueman, took him to task for his misunderstandings just 45 minutes later. He takes apart most of Mr. Walker's post better than I could.

All but one key idea. Mr. Walker concludes with this:

"The only thing that arrests the swing is when the anchor drops in the Word of God and simple, unaffected worship enlivened by the Holy Spirit is known and felt by saints who are satisfied with pursuing and enjoying God's promised ends by God's appointed means."

The great irony here is that Mr. Walker is under the impression that "simple" and "unaffected" worship is not, itself, a "form" and a "liturgy" of itself. He is welcome to his preference for a simple and plain form of worship—but let's not pretend that a plain form is anything other than exactly that.

Recipe: Christmas "Reindeer"

It's been a long time since I posted a recipe; here's a Eubanks family favorite.

We call these "reindeer" because (a) they do look kind of like Rudolph, and (b) it's simpler than "chocolate-peanut-M&M-pretzels." But that's basically all they are. They are delicious, and a great quick mouthful of wonderful. They package well for gifts (we typically put them in the cellophane treat bags that can be found at Walmart), or can fill out a tray for a party. (That is, if they last until the party! Ours always go fast.)

Here's what you need:

1 16oz. bag of small twist pretzels^*

2 11oz. bags of Hershey's Dark Chocolate Kisses

2-3 12.6oz. bags of Peanut M&Ms^†

Prep:

1. Preheat your oven to 200°.

2. Unwrap the Hershey's Kisses.

3. Separate red and green M&Ms (optional; see note †).

"Baking":

4. Cover a cookie sheet with parchment paper. (I strongly recommend a true cookie sheet, not a "jelly-roll" pan — you'll see why in step 9.)

5. Lay out pretzels covering the entire sheet of parchment paper^‡; it's okay to put them really close (give just a little margin, though). You'll find it easier later if you turn all of the pretzels so that they are oriented the same way.

6. Place one unwrapped Hershey's Kiss on each pretzel in the "bottom" part of the twist — the teardrop-shaped part — so that the tip of the Kiss is pointing toward the center. (See photo.)
7. Put the sheet of pretzels+Kisses in your pre-heated oven, just long enough to soften the chocolate thoroughly but not to the point of melting — 6–7 minutes is ideal in a 200° oven. (Be careful, too, of scalding the chocolate, which imparts a bitter taste.)

Finishing:

8. Place one M&M in the center of each softened Kiss. Go ahead and smash it down a good bit; this will set the M&M into the chocolate more firmly, and also cause the chocolate to spread around the pretzel better — all of which makes them stay together better after they set.

9. Slide the parchment paper off of the cookie sheet onto a table or counter. This step is technically optional, but doing so will allow them to cool and set faster, and free up your cookie sheet for another batch!

10. Allow them to cool and set until the chocolate is solid again.

Provenance:

Molly discovered these at a preschool holiday party. At that point, she was still a pretty picky eater (especially when it came to sweets), but when she tried these she said, "those are good!" I knew that I had to try them if she thought they were that good, and she was right!


The mom who brought them claimed she just threw them together; she wasn't planning on using the Dark Chocolate Kisses, but the store was out of milk chocolate ones. (What a happy accident!) Molly and I bought the stuff to make more on the way home from the party, and we've made multiple batches every year since.




* We prefer Rold Gold Tiny Twists; the flavor in them matches better with the sweet chocolate than Snyder's.

† If you're a Rudolph purist, get the holiday colors (red and green) and pick out all of the green ones — and in that case you'll need three bags. If you don't care about greens, reds, yellows, and browns, you can probably get by on just two bags.

‡ DON'T use wax paper; you'll never get all of it peeled off of the bottoms of the softened chocolate!