DON’T CALL ME [FIRST NAME] 9-30-23

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter: DON’T CALL ME [FIRST NAME] 9-30-23

 

I recently got an email that started: “[First Name], get your subscription here…” I’m not likely to respond to anyone who calls me [First Name].

Reminds me of hearing Ted Campbell at a conference shortly after he retired as pastor of Riverside Church in NYC. He said that while at Riverside, he was a customer at two Gulf gas stations. Two, because one was close to his home, and the other close to his church. At Christmas, they both gave him fountain pens as gifts. One said “Chuck’s Gulf” on it. The other said, “Dr. Ted Campbell.” He said, “I went to only one Gulf station after that.”

About a month ago I briefly met a relative of a neighbor when she came to visit. I ran into her again yesterday as she came for another visit and greeted her by name. She started to cry and ran up and hugged me. “Thank you for remembering my name,” she said. “You have no idea how much that means to me.”

When I was pastoring a large university church, the Nominating Committee suggested asking a young mother to be Chair of the Council on Ministries, a demanding and time-consuming job. I thought it was useless. She was smart and able, but she had three little children and a husband with an all-hours job. But I agreed that they could ask her. She accepted, which amazed me. Later I was talking to her husband and told him how surprised I was. He said, “She did that so she could spend time with you.”

It is true that I am handsome and charming, but I knew that was not the reason she wanted time with me. She was a serious Christian. I was her pastor. If someone is going to lead us into deep waters—and there is nothing deeper than the river of the Spirit--we want to be able to hold their hand.

I worry about those personal pastoral connections in the post-covid church. There have been many factors eroding church involvement for several years now. They ramped up to warp speed with the covid shutdown.

One of the elements that is eroding the church now started out as, and still is, a positive thing. Livestreaming. When churches were shut down completely, it was our only way of worshipping. It has given us the idea, though, that personal contact is not necessary.

Again, for a lot of reasons, including a pastor shortage, churches have gone electronic. And don’t misunderstand me, please, I love livestream worship. Sometimes it is the only way my decrepitude will allow me to worship. Livestream and Zoom and Skype allow us to be efficient, but they are impersonal. We don’t even call the church office and talk to the administrator when we want to rsvp for an event. We are supposed to sign up on something like Sign Up Genius or Survey Monkey rather than talk to an actual person.

It makes no difference how efficient the church is if nobody wants to be a part of it. We want to be a part of a personal community.

Personally, I trust neither geniuses or monkeys to call me anything but [First Name]. My name is…

John Robert McFarland