Pastor Ryan Gaffney

So one of the odd realities of having a blog about ministry is that there are a lot of things that come up worthy of reflection in my daily life, which really aren’t wise to talk about, especially not right then. I have talked about this before. So let’s circle back and talk about some of what was going on as I wrote that article which I couldn’t talk about then,

Basically I was planting a church. Until I wasn’t.

I got out of seminary, I was called to minister, called to preach. I didn’t have a job but I had plenty of time, and I went to work, finding people who would listen to me, people I could serve, Jesusy things to do, and I tried, Oh! how I tried so hard to follow all the rules and expectations of the PCUSA as I sought ordination following my degree.

I was weak and vulnerable, I didn’t want to tick anyone off at the moment when they were “assessing my readiness for ministry” Now that I am ordained I have no such concerns. It’s really hard to defrock someone, and you can’t do it just because you disagree with them or they annoy you. Then, not so much.

Anyway I started this church-like-thing. I preached sermons with some people, lead Bible Studies, did mission projects, but it was disorganized. Some people who did the mission projects did not come on Sundays, some people who came to Bible Studies were also at other churches.

Presbyterians (who dislike disorganization) have come up with a name for these church-like-things so that they do not have to conform to all the expectations of a normal PCUSA congregation (having elders, an ordained pastor, a filed 501c form and so on) we call them New Worshipping Communities (NWCs)

So fine, I went about trying to become an official NWC so that I wouldn’t be coloring outside the lines. I met with a committee. I met with another committee, they gave me a grant to take a trip to Florida, which lead to a trip to California, then we met back in another committee. The whole time the ministry in Texas was growing (at least it was for the weeks I was permitted to actually BE in Texas) I counted about 50 people involved, 30 of which regularly attended monthly potlucks at our tiny apartment. I was ready to take a major pay cut and work towards ordination to this emerging ministry. But the latest committee told me I wasn’t ready for that yet, that I should take more training at my own expense before moving to the next threshold. “What’s after that?” More thresholds “How many?” we’re not sure “What do I get at the end?” We aren’t sure of that either.

It came to be that as an unemployed person I had two full time jobs, one building the kingdom of Jesus Christ, and one going on trips and committee meetings and filling our forms to try to legitimate that work to people who had never visited, never seen my context, and who, by the way, had never successfully planted anything themselves.

”What would you do, as a committee” I asked “If you ever decided I was good enough?” and then came the reply “We are still figuring that out” so there it was. Turtles all the way down. Becoming an NWC, and then a Presbyterian church was not a file bound up in red tape, but rather a Gordian knot consisting of red tape entirely

So what did I do?
There is a move in Sumo called a “henka” which is perfectly legal, but considered dishonorable. When your fellow athlete comes against you full speed, you simply get out of the way.

”I’m sorry I wasted your time” I eventually said. “I thought I was planting a community that could be a church some day, that it matched what it is that a NWC is supposed to be. Really it’s not like that. It’s just a group of people who love Jesus and help each other, I’m not planting a church I’m just being a Christian, doing regular kingdom work like everyone should be doing”

They had nothing to say against that. It didn’t require any more forms or meetings. Granted, I never got any money or recognition our of them, but I wouldn’t have gotten much of that otherwise and I would have had to earn it against bias. For the hours I would have put in, I would have gotten more of both working at Starbucks.

It turns out, that there is no real way to define a church, and no real way to say what isn’t a church. A church is a gathering of people who are curious about God, so is your average 8th grade field trip, or softball team, or collection of people at a bus stop. We try to make rules and draw lines, but that’s all it is. Us making rules and drawing lines.