A Tale of Four Emails ...

This is Lingelbach United Church. It stands in rural Ontario on the north side of Hwy 7&8 between New Hamburg and Shakespeare. The year 2010 will mark Lingelbach's 170th Anniversary as a worshipping community. The year 2010 will also mark Lingelbach's LAST year as a worshipping community.

In the grand scheme of things, the pending closure of Lingelbach United Church is just the loss of yet another rural pastoral charge that can no longer sustain itself. But on a personal scale the loss of this worshipping community renders me completely homeless spiritually.

Kitty corner to the Lingelbach Church is the Cemetary where my father, my uncles, my cousin, my grandparents, my great-grandparents and numerous members of my extended family rest. Across the road from Lingelbach, opposite the cemetary is the rolling farm that my paternal family called home for close to 150 years before it passed from our family hands ... Lingelbach is where my Grandparents were married, my father was baptized, my parents were married, my brother was baptized, my father was buried, I was dedicated in the Evangelical United Brethren Church, my grandparents were buried, and my extended family marked all of life's passages from burials to baptisms to weddings, and attended Church, Sunday School and other special events for decades ...

And soon, it will be yet another foot note in history ...

As I learned of Lingelbach's fate joining the other significant sanctuaries in my life that have moved from real to memory, I read an astounding column from Michael Coren in the Toronto Sun. Coren wrote of the election of the new Moderator for the United Church, noting the failure of the Church to be a Church.

Read the article by clicking here.

I was struck by the line in Coren's column that read:

"Behind the smiles and the hugs is a nasty, exclusive ideology that speaks of tolerance and love but is in fact rigid and harsh."

When I read that line I laughed and I cried ... it rings too true, and for many of the folks in the United Church, particularly the leadership - they fail utterly to see the truth of this statement. A statement offered by a voice from OUTSIDE. We ignore such warnings at our peril.

I wrote Mr. Coren to thank him for his thoughtful and thought-provoking piece and received a prompt reply. Coren noted in his email to me: "The response to my column from the United Church was quite abusive. Says a great deal."

Yup. Abusive replies from within the Church who would all fociferously deny that they are nasty, exclusive, rigid or harsh doesn't surprise me in the least. I've lived that journey for the last three years, and any time I open my mouth, or put words to "paper" that imply that the response is swift, brutish and nasty.

The notion of owning up to the short-comings of the Church is simply and utterly lost on the leadership, both lay and clergy, in the United Church of Canada. Yet the evidence of this reality is compelling and enormous.

Some of this evidence arrived in my inbox within minutes of the reply from Mr. Coren when I recieved an invitation to the ground-breaking for the new Minnedosa United Church.

Aside from wondering WHY??? I had to shake my head in sadness.

Minnedosa United Church has become a shadow of its former self. The planned building is a fraction of what could of, and would have been if JUSTICE had prevailed instead of a biased, one-sided dog and pony show that was designed to remove me and appease a toxic leadership that had once again decided it was time to heave a minister who could not be tethered and controlled by them ... Instead of wrestling with the inter-generational conflict and toxicity that marks Minnedosa United Church, the Church took the easy road and piled the sins and misdeeds on MY shoulders and drove me out into the wilderness ...

The proof of this was underscored in a third email I received today from a friend in Minnedosa who chronicled the repeating pattern of a "gentleman" in Minnedosa who is nothing short of a toxic Drama Queen who has become very edept at blaming everyone else for his failures and short-comings rather than taking a much needed look in the mirror and owning his crap. Once again, rather than owning his responsibility and involvement in the miserable outcome of his life, he is again blaming someone else for what's wrong in his life - choosing to spread his toxic nonsense around by trying to destroy the reputation and life of another person ...

As I read the email I couldn't help but think of the line delivered by Kevin Klein in "My Life as a House" when he notes of his character's father "It didn't matter how small he was, he had to tear me down lower than he was ..."

This clown falsely blamed me for everything that was going wrong in his life instead of going and getting the help he needed and his wife and children deserved. He was instrumental in destroying my reputation and my career by falsely accusing me of things ... I am pretty sure he was responsible for the violence against my house, my van and my person ... and he was quietly supported by the leadership of the Church who not only listened to him, but actively encouraged him, all the while denying any contact and/or involvement with him ... and when the moment came when the Board and Leadership of the Church SHOULD have stood up and said - "Enough, this is false and we'll have none of it ..." THEY instead shrugged and went on spreading these rumours, and falsehoods at the curling rink, the hockey rink, coffee row, and wherever they could find an opportunity to spread their salacious crap.

And ALL the while, the Greater Church did nothing ... they chose to ignore the blantantly obvious, and continue to pretend Minnedosa was fine and the problem rested solely on MY shoulders ...

Well people of the United Church - today we have proof that the source of information about ME is clearly a deeply troubled and likely disturbed individual who is STILL spreading lies and nonsense about ANYONE who he deems "responsible" for his pathetic existence. The good Church folks who listened to him and his family, and who took what they had to say seriously should be deeply ashamed of themselves, and should be asking some hard questions of themselves, their leadership and the outcome of the kangaroo court that began by noting many pre-existent problems in Minnedosa and ended 48 pages later by blaming me for EVERY problem past, present and future ...

Then came the fourth email, from one of the few colleagues I respect and love in the United Church. They noted dryly of my reply to the invitation to the Ground Breaking in Minnedosa:

"Your bitter bone is poking through. Sorry about that but this is one of those times when you have to lose your life to find it, I think. Let it go and bless them in their efforts. God doesn't judge nearly as harshly as you do."

I'll own that my bitter bone is poking through.

AND I know why.

I can look back on a 40 year history with the United Church and count too many moments when the Church has utterly failed me ... my home congregation of Centennial United Church in Stratford was simply awesome. They were a rag tag group of loving and lovable mis-fits who
wrestled with thier demons and struggled with their issues and at the end of the day LIVED THEIR FAITH with humility, love and care. They set me up for failure because they were NOT like any Church Congregation I've encountered since save one.

Since then I've been battered, beaten and bloodied by the United Church, and through it all I've picked myself up, wiped my wounded, and gone back in the fray committed deeply to the Gospel and to sharing my faith through the Ministry I've been called to. And every step of the way the Church has repeatedly failed me, itself, the people I've been ministering amongst, and those who seek something more than warm pink fuzzies from the Church ... and instead of doing ANYTHING to address those failings the Church blames me for having expectations that are TOO high, or denies its mis-deeds and failures.

I remember being TOLD that I couldn't preside at a wedding happening days after my disciplinary process had begun because "rules are rules." The outcome of that daft decision by the powers that be, was not justice. It was adherence to an archaic rule that left a Bridal couple, their family and over 300 friends and family members laughing at the STUPIDITY of the United Church ... Any outreach among that group of close to 350 people would now be pointless. They've witnessed what the Church is about, and they want NONE OF IT.

It is this very thing Mr Coren is speaking of. So obsessed with the latest cause, fad or how-to-process, the Church has lost sight of its mission to be the living Body of Christ to the World.

Rather than wrestling with the cries from the margins, and hearing the prophetic voices amongst us, the leadership instead demonizes those who ruffle feathers and who make the status quo untenable, and we drive out those who won't simply play nice.

Instead of seeking justice - true earth shattering justice - we smile nod and do NOTHING.

My reply to my colleague was as follows:

One day I would like you to read the Friedman book Generation to Generation - AND - some of Bruggemann's stuff on prophetic preaching ... when you read Friedman ask youself 'what could Presbytery have done DIFFERENTLY in Minnedosa ?' that wouldn't have left half the community and congregation sighing and saying - "here we go again ..." while the SAME three or four families invoke THEIR will on the rest of the congregation ...

My bitterness is about the FAILURE of the Church at ALL levels to truly wrestle with the issues that were unfolding in Minnedosa ... I was the lightning rod - NOT to sole problem ... I did what was asked of me - but NO ONE else was CALLED to task for thier sins ... where's the justice in THAT?

I had people --- standing in thier self-righteousness judging me ... the whole concept of speck, log and eyes comes into play ...

I bore my sins ... I still bear my sins ... I've been driven out like the good and dutiful scapegoat, and like J.H. said - the difference between me and the biblical scapegoat is that I refuse to bear my load with graciousness and subservience AND I refuse to just wander off and die ...I'll gladly bear my sins - I've taken my lumps, I've watched as almost everything has been stripped from me ... but I WILL NEVER stand silently while others who are equally culpable and responsible are left free of consequences.

Minnedosa deserves better than it has gotten. ---- has been co-opted by the very process -- should have been confronting - but then -- is of the opinion that Friedman and his view of the generational transmission of conflict and victimizing doesn't happen in the UCC - and sadly they are NOT alone ... --- shares that view as do others ...

I will say it AGAIN - listen to the voices of those who are broken and hurt by the "good church folks" in Minnedosa and hear what they have to say ... Gord Turner outlined in his work in the 80's when he struggled with the concept of "outside looking in" - and listened to the stories of hurt, alienation and outright ABUSE that drove people away.

The Church is NOT a democracy.

Just because a small segment used fear and gossip to prevail doesn't make them right. Just because they are still the Board doesn't make them just.

The Church is about being faithful - and God's judgement is harsh - read the Prophets, read Jesus' own words - read Rabbi Heschel ... a church that tries to pretend everything is warm and pink and fuzzy WILL die ...

Sometimes we have to be harsh to be faithful ... we of the UCC have generally forgotten that - we've become a nice country club for complacency that says swilling a couple of bottles of wine every night in your hot tub is fine and NOT problematic and NOT a sign of alcoholism and dysfunction ...

Instead of holding a morality everything has become relative ...

Funny, but when I read the Scriptures, I don't see a relative Gospel - I see a Gospel that calls people to transform their lives, their relationships and the world to what GOD wants, not what our egos want ... but that's just me.

Today I'm in a good place ... the four emails I've received over the last 24 hours have shown me that the Truth WILL in time prevail and those who believe they have been faithful and loyal will be surprised ... My one regret is that Minnedosa and Minnedosa United Church was never given the help it needed and deserved to overcome the hurt and grief that has marked the last twenty or thirty years ... If the United Church was truly a place of tolerance, acceptance and faith Minnedosa would be breaking ground on the building they DESERVE not the building the current Board and Leadership can afford ...

Me thinks they ousted the WRONG folks ... but what do I know ... I'm no longer welcome in the Inclusive and Friendly United Church !!!

Fortunately, all of this in the hands of the Holy Spirit ... thanks be to God !!!