‘Can we talk?’
This from a colleague I don’t know (yet), who shared with me here on Substack:
I am not going back to institutional religion- and I am carrying all the wisdom, sacraments, and practices on my pockets. I am wondering how to be a priest outside of the church. I don’t fit into other models of employment in the world and I am vocationally weary in a world that needs care and sacrament and love, but doesn’t know how to call or discern. This culture is transactional and I am wired for relational living.
The word that struck me here is ‘transactional’.
I am also a priest.
And though there are many forms of ministry - many ways of sharing the love of God in the world - there is something about the sacrament of ordination.
How we are set apart and formed for ministry, upheld by the community, and sealed by the Holy Spirit.
How we prostrate ourselves on the floor of the church, face down on the stone in obedience to God’s will, to the authority of the bishop. How the hands laid on our heads have had hands laid on their heads - all the way back to Jesus putting his hands on Peter.
There is something so ancient about bearing the Scripture, sacraments, and traditions of the Christian faith in this way.
Now we live in a world where we are relics.
The institutional church is struggling. And even though most Americans still call themselves Christian, fewer and fewer come to church. Fewer and fewer participate in the rites and rituals of our faith.
Fewer and fewer need the wisdom and skill we have gained as those who hold and share God’s love as we do.
Or do they?
When I was ordained, I never imagined any other life other than being a congregational priest, and all that comes with it: preaching and pastoral care; baptizing the faithful and burying the dead. Witnessing for God’s love and mercy; Celebrating the Eucharist and other sacraments; bolstering the faith of those who are weary, and introducing it to those who are hungry.
It’s all I ever wanted - all I ever felt that God was calling me to.
It still is.
Alas, as the institution crumbles, the job description has changed. Most of those who reach out to me are stressed out from worry about budgets and buildings, endless meetings that have very little to do with the Gospel, the constant fear of having to close the doors, and the conflict and acting out that results from those fears.
This is why I became a Free Range Priest - to find my way back towards the ministry I was called to. To show that way to others.
To insist that the work of the priest (and other ministers) is vitally important to the world, even if it doesn’t fit into a neat vocational box anymore for many of us.
And so, the word ‘transactional’.
It seems to me that our culture has always been so. And that ‘transactional’ and ‘relational’ do not need to be opposites - in fact, one may lead to the other.
In the olden days (the 20th century), the transaction for those of us in congregational ministry was this: people would come to church. They would support the church with their time, their gifts, and their money. Some of that money would be paid to ministers to do those things we are called to do.
This transaction is broken in fundamental ways. Since most people don’t come to church now, there are simply not enough people - not enough demand - for the system of congregations supporting ministry to work, generally.
And we’re putting so much effort into trying to put the system back together again.
I don’t believe we can.
But I still believe the world needs its priests.
In fact, I believe it now more than ever.
It’s just that the transaction has changed. And we’re living in a time where I think we’re called to find out how to bring church to people.
To do the very same work we have always done - blessing and celebrating, witnessing and proclaiming, teaching and being present - outside of the place we’ve always done it.
This is the adventure of ministry today - in a world, as you point out, that is weary and frightened, and so in need of love and care and sacrament and forgiveness.
We’ve never fit into the employment models of the world. But we do have models - the Acts of the Apostles, for one.
We have each other.
And we have those who need the ministry we provide - even though we may not have met them yet, even though they may not know it.
The transaction may be ‘subscribe to my blog and read about God’; it may be ‘listen to my podcast and hear my sermons’. The transaction may be ‘book me as your spiritual director (or in my case, your spiritual trainer). It may be ‘contract with me to celebrate the Eucharist with your small congregation once a month’.
That may feel uncomfortable - but it’s no more or less ‘spiritual’ than ‘here is your paycheck for serving in a congregation’.
And I think it’s just as likely - maybe more likely - to be relational.
Ministers cannot withdraw from the ways of the world - because that’s where the people who need us are. But we do, I think, need to live into the ways of this world.
And point the ways to the Kingdom of God.