What If The DRE Ran The Church?

Of all the things I've done in my career perhaps the thing with the best title was when I was hired by the Canadian Unitarian Council to be a "provocateur" for one of their annual conferences.  Professional Provocateur -- arguably the role I was born to play.

So I'd like to be clear that what I'm doing in this post today is being provocative.  Intentionally.  Consciously.  I'm not saying that I don't believe what I'm writing, but only that my goal is not to convince you of its rightness or wrongness.  I'm hoping that a conversation might ensue.  I'm hoping that others might stop for a minute, cock their head to one side or the other, maybe squint one eye, and say to themselves (and anyone who happens to be around them), "Huh.  I never thought about it like that.  I wonder . . ."

That's what I think "What If . . ." questions are really all about.  To get us to see things from a new angle, to try on a different perspective, and to remind us to wonder.  Today's What If?  What if the Director of Religious Education ran the church?

Let's start with a few assumptions.  I am writing about the religious community I know best -- Unitarian Universalists.  Others may find something useful in all of this, but it's really to and for UUs that I'm writing right now.  And let us for the moment at least agree with one another that I consider Unitarian Universalism to be its own religious tradition.  You may not think so -- and there are certainly folks with divergent opinions on this issue -- but I'm the one writing and I am beginning with the premise that Unitarian Universalism is its own distinct and unique religion.  We grow out of Protestant Christianity, that's true.  But Christianity itself grew out of Judaism and nobody's running around saying that Christianity should feel compelled to adhere to Jewish traditions, norms, and forms.  So I'm writing primarily to Unitarian Universalist and with Unitarian Universalism in mind, and our tradition is its own thing.

All that said, I think it can also be agreed -- and if you wildly disagree remember who's writing this! -- that the forms of our tradition still look awfully like the Protestant traditions from which we were born.  Many of our churches are called, well, "churches."  And lots of them look like churches.  What with the pews and the pulpits and all.  And lots of them have an ordained clergy person (or two) who are seen to a greater or lesser extent as the CEO of the church.

This makes a certain amount of sense.  Our tradition grows out of the Protestant strains that advocated for a "learned clergy."  And today's ordained UU ministers spend a fair amount of time (and money!) preparing for the roles through which we serve our congregations.  We study preaching, and church history, and theology, and pastoral care, and comparative religions, and . . .  If we're not all really smart folk we at least have a whole lot of learning!

But here's where I want the head tilt to come in.  Does it make sense for a Unitarian Universalist congregation to have an ordained clergy person at its head?  Let me play this out a bit.

In some traditions the clergy person -- Rabbi, Imam, Minister -- has been, not to put too fine a point on it, the smartest person in the room.  At least, often, the most educated. And for certain the most well trained to do things like interpret sacred scripture.  It seems self-evident that traditions that value such things would look to someone who looks a whole lot like a modern ordained minister to lead them.

But Unitarian Universalists don't necessarily fit this mold.  In the vast majority of UU congregations today the ordained minister is decidedly not the most learned person in the room!  Per capita, UUs have more Ph.D.s than just about any other religious tradition.  And our clergy don't even necessarily know more about scripture and religious history than the people in the pews, not that that's a particularly powerful need in most UU congregations.  We don't have a sacred text that is in need of interpretation.  And is a seminary-trained, ordained clergy person the only one who is able to draw meaning out of life?

In some traditions the clergy -- priests, let's say -- are thought to be imbued with a special authority to perform certain acts.  Only an ordained priest, for instance, can officiate the sacraments.  But UUs don't have sacraments, per se, and even if we did it would be the rare congregation that would say only an ordained clergy person could perform them!

Where am I going with all of this?  I have heard it articulated, and have said it myself, that everything a UU church does is in one way or another part of the process of "faith formation."  Everything we do is part of that "free and responsible search for truth and meaning" that we affirm is one of our guiding principles.  It's long been noted that ordained clergy are woefully uneducated about issues of church governance and administration.  But I think it can just as certainly be asserted that another area in which our training is generally underwhelming is faith formation.  A cursory course in religious education, sure, but that is not the area of expertise most of us were encouraged -- or even assisted -- in developing.

It is, however, precisely the purview of the Religious Educator.  In recognition of this, in fact, more and more congregations are changing the title of their Director of Religious Education to Director of Lifespan Faith Development.  And, so, I'm just wondering -- why, if there has to be one person who is at the "top" of the UU org chart (if you will), why is it the clergy person and not the religious educator?

To be sure, in many of our congregations the religious educator is a part-time, and even a volunteer, position.  The person filling the role does not have anywhere near the training and preparation of the clergy person.  These folks may mean well, but they are in no position to "run the church."  I acknowledge that this is so.  I don't, however, assume therefore that this means it should be so.  It may be that we've been putting our preparatory energies in the wrong place.  Perhaps, rather than putting so much time and energy into clergy preparation we should be developing better prepared, and better supported, DREs!

I also want to head off any argument directed at the idea that I'm saying clergy are unimportant.  I am not.  We bring skills, and training, and sensitivity to the game that's important.  Even essential.  Clergy have a capacity for seeing connections, and weaving things together that is, indeed, a part of our training.  And while I do believe that nearly everyone is qualified to "pass life through the fire of thought" (as Emerson described the art of preaching), I also know that the clergy's training in homiletics and worship theory make us indispensable in training and guiding the laity.  There is no question -- in my mind, at least -- that ordained clergy bring great value to congregational life.  I do not, however, believe that that ipso facto translates into the elevated role most of us have inherited and are assumed to deserve.

It seems to me that it would be ideal for the religious professional, and the "ministry professional" (for want of a better term), and perhaps even an administrative professional to work together as a team -- each one bringing their own particular skills and perspectives to the task.  But I want to question the virtually unquestioned assumption that it is the ordained minister who is -- and should be -- "in charge."  And, to be honest, if I had to pick only one role to be "on top" I think I would choose the DRE.

So . . . thoughts?

Pas texum,

RevWik

Teaching and Learning as a Spiritual Practice

One of my favorite figures in all of the world’s spiritual literature is a 9^th century Chinese Buddhist monk named Joshu.  I don’t love Joshu because he had his enlightenment experience early –although  it is said that he was only about eighteen when he realized his own Buddha-nature and, therefore, his essential oneness with everything.  And it’s not because of this next thing, although this is pretty cool too.  You might think that after you’ve had an enlightenment experience and realized your own Buddha-nature and your essential oneness with everything you might set up shop and start teaching people.  Not Joshu.  He went on a pilgrimage to visit all of the great minds and enlightened souls in China at that time, to see if there was anything else he needed to learn.   Pretty cool, right?

And this wasn’t a journey of a couple of months or even a couple of years.  He took sixty years to do it!  That’s right.  From the age of about twenty until he was eighty years old, Joshu continued to seek out teachers and continued to deepen his awareness and his understanding of the dharma.  When he was eighty he figured that he could finally settle down and begin to teach, which he did for the next forty years.  (Yes, Joshu lived to be about 120.)  But that’s not even why I love him so.

I love Joshu because of something he is remembered as saying when he set out on his pilgrimage, and which described his attitude throughout his life.  He always said that if he met someone who had something to learn from him, even if that person was one hundred years old, he would teach; he also said that if he met someone who had something that he, himself, needed to learn he would become their student, even if that person was a child of seven.  Joshu knew, and this is why I think he’s so great, that you’re never too young to teach, and you’re never too old to learn.

We Unitarian Universalists say pretty much the same thing.  It’s why we talk about “Lifespan Faith Development,” because we know that it’s not enough to simply offer “religious education” to the church’s children.  All of us, from our youngest to our oldest, the entire lifespan of our community, from “cradle to grave” as it’s sometimes described, we all need to be engaged together in both teaching and learning.  And we know that when it’s really happening, it’s always a two-way street.

I want to tell the children a secret.  Shhh.  You know those adults, those grown-ups who’ve been teaching your RE classes all of these years?  [Grown ups, put up your hand if you’ve ever taught or helped out in the RE program.]  You see all those folks?  You probably thought that they were teaching, but if you ask them I’d bet they’ll tell you that they were learning.  [Right?]

Never too old to learn; never too young to teach.  We know this.  We do know this.  What we do here in this sanctuary on a Sunday morning is one way to expand and deepen our souls.  Yet what we do downstairs, and upstairs, and across in Summit House is no less of a spiritual practice.  In fact, if you were to ask me, I’d say that it’s both a more challenging and, over the long haul, a more rewarding one.

If all the adults did was “teach” and all the children did was “learn,” I could see the point of those who prefer the worship hour to the “church school” hour.  But that’s not what it’s about.  That’s not what it’s about at all. 

In fact, back in the 19^th century no less a luminary than William Ellery Channing, who was arguably America’s most well-known Unitarian preacher, had this to say about religious education:

The great end in religious instruction is:
Not to stamp our minds upon the young, but to stir up their own;
Not to make them see with our eyes, but to look inquiringly and steadily with their own;
Not to give them a definite amount of knowledge, but to inspire a fervent love of truth;
Not to form an outward regularity, but to touch inward springs;
Not to bind them by ineradicable prejudices to our particular sect or peculiar notions, but to prepare them for impartial, conscientious judging of whatever subjects may be offered to their decision;
Not to burden the memory, but to quicken and strengthen the power of thought;
Not to impose religion upon them in the form of arbitrary rules, but to awaken the conscience, the moral discernment.
In a word, the great end is to awaken the soul, to excite and cherish spiritual life.

This was written, remember, in the 1800s!  And in a marvelous image he said that children are not empty vessels, needing adults to pour facts into them; they are more like flowers requiring only careful tending that they might grow strong according to their own individual natures.

Can you see why I say that this is a spiritual practice?  Can you see why I sort of secretly envy those who are free to engage in that practice?    And that’s not to say that what we do here doesn’t have its merits, it’s just that, well, in the words of the All-Church Meeting a couple of weeks back, a part of me has always been kind of drawn to the “do” track more than the “talk” track.

And speaking about “doing” I’m reminded of a quote from the Messiah’s Handbook” in Richard Bach’s fabulous book Illusions:  adventures of a reluctant messiah. 

“Learning [he says] is finding out what you already know.  Doing is demonstrating that you know it.  Teaching is reminding others that they know just as well as you.  You are all learners, doers, teachers.”  He also notes that, “you teach best what you most need to learn.”

I don’t want this to sound like a plug, although I suppose in a way it is, but there are still opportunities for you to engage with our children’s religious education program, our ministry to and with our children and youth.   I’m kind of stuck here most of the time, but you can sign up to take a turn at engaging with some of the best teachers you’ll have ever explored the world with and to offer something that might just be the thing to change a life . . . yourself.  Whether you have young children, have had young children, or have never known the pleasure, there is a place for you.  And I’ll share with you a dream of mine.  I dream that someday, in the not too distant future, when I ask those who’ve taught or helped out in the religious education program to raise their hands, every single hand will go up.  And I dream that those of you who are children here today will continue to be here, or in some other Unitarian Universalist church, when you’re the adults, and will still be active in the spiritual practice of teaching and learning.