church-place

It is Where I Belong

in All Entries / Church / Faith / Family  by Paddy Ducklow 0 comments

Someone asked me the other day why church is important to me. For me, it is sort of like asking why my family is important to me. It is where I belong.

I know lots of people and many I know well. Some of these people I may tell my story to and I listen to their experience too. But in church, like in my family, there is so much I don’t have to say to be known and know that my belonging is not questioned.

This is probably obvious but psychological research finds that a sense of belonging increases meaningfulness of life. We feel our lives are meaningful when we feel we belong. I think that this is one of the reasons why people marry (rather than “live together”) and why they marry when they discover they are pregnant. “I want my child to know she belongs” is what is often said.

Here is an idea: close your eyes for a minute and think of two people or groups to which you really belong. Now consider how much meaning you feel in your life. (I just did this with the thought of my two grandsons – our granddaughter is due any day now – and “out of the blue” I feel my life has meaning.)

Note: this is not about what others give me (recognition say) or provide for me (a place to be known); it is what I am when I am with them. Now I can clearly see this with Jasper and Lucas – I am Poppa. I know who I am, where I belong, and in the mystery of our shared “us,” I have meaning.

Some people don’t know they belong. I had 2 clients yesterday who basically said that to me. One was married (and she with 2 kids) and one was single, 37 years old and into weekend hooking up when what he really wants is to be married with kids and to belong.

I want them to have family, I want them to have church.

Done (or “Disposable Art” as a friend once said)

in Change / Church / Depression / Emotions / Faith / Vocation  by Paddy Ducklow 0 comments

July 1, 2013 and it is the hottest Canada Day on record and I have spent the day dumping old sermons into yellow plastic recycling bags.

Now please take this blog in the spirit with which it is written – total self-pity. I think that sometimes a little public pouting is good for the soul, in spite of what psychology claims, especially when one feels that “life as I have known it is over” (I have been muttering this a lot lately as I approach my 65th).

So, as I have said, it is a sweltering day, 30 degrees upstairs in our house, and Carole decides to go for a swim in the ocean but I mope downstairs where it is 10 degrees cooler and shuffle through 40 years of my paper life. For those who don’t know, preachers used to write sermons on 8.5×11 inch paper and drew outlines on acetate sheets for projection, way before PowerPoint and laptops but way after flannel graph.

Into the yellow recycling bag went all my Biblical brilliance. Sermon series entitled “Questions God Asks of Ordinary People,” “LAF, It’s Only the Church” and “Some Things I Learned Since I Knew it All,” were interspersed with less colorful topics such as “Romans in a Week,” or “When God Comes Down,” which sounds a bit frightening if I didn’t have a decent theology about who God is. He probably won’t incarnate again just to rebuke me for pouting.

In dumping my theological history, my occasional rants and revelations, my hope for a truth that can be walked in, my compulsions to see the church be what it can be, as well as some wisdom along the way, I feel relieved, finished finally. Done.

Seeing my soiled and written-on outlines, I can also see my anxious delusions as well as worthy hopes and good intentions and I am content that both get dumped together, slumming side-by-side in my yellow recycling bag. This seems fitting and the yellow tinge makes them look more antiquated, more special than they are.

It occurs to me that the best preaching that I could muster is to be recycled into Starbucks cups. So if you see the word “grace” or “hope” or “heaven” prisoned inside your paper latte cup, it might have been written by me.

You’re welcome.

Vocation – The Work a Person is Called To

in All Entries  by Paddy Ducklow 0 comments

Frederick Buechner writes: “It comes from the Latin vocare, to call, and means the work a person is called to by God. There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of Society, say, or the Superego, or Self-Interest. By and large a good rule for finding out is this: The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need most to do and (b) that the world most needs to have done. If you really get a kick out of your work, you’ve presumably met requirement (a), but if your work is writing cigarette ads, the chances are you’ve missed requirement (b), on the other hand, if your work is being a doctor in a leper colony, you have probably met requirement (b), but if most of the time you’re bored and depressed by it, the chances are you have not only bypassed (a), but probably aren’t helping your patients much either. Neither the hair shirt nor the soft berth will do. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” (Frederick Buechner, from his book, “Wishful Thinking”)

Pain Causes Change

in All Entries  by Paddy Ducklow 0 comments

Issac Newton’s first law of motion is that “everything continues in a state of rest unless it is compelled to change by forces impressed upon it.” Psychologists know that pain causes change.

People and organizations change painfully. Recently, two organizations have contacted me to work with them as a change agent in their stuck organizational system. It is clear that shifting priorities, revamping goals and objectives, clarifying values, transitioning staff, getting leaders to listen to more than their own convictions, building a productive relationship ethos – all of this and more – is painful.

Sometimes in therapy it is important to provoke the pain of change rather than placate or remove immediate discomfort. In working with church-place and workplace organizations, I propose 7 steps of systems change.

Step 1: Valuing the experience of pain and the gains that dissatisfaction can produce. This is human reality.

Step 2: The discovery of attainable goals that are honestly believed, often articulated and creatively lived. This is the mission.

Step 3: The presence of a change agent (this is the leader) who can shift the organization from homeostasis (no change) to morphogenesis (more change). This is the leadership factor.

Step 4: A logical, planned and scaled process that is responsive to adjustment as needed. This is the change contract.

Step 5: The informed participation of the respected community as an active partner in the desired goal. This is the empowered followership.

Step 6: The active presence of a courageous and challenging leadership team (alone, a leader is helpless) with vision of the mission, balanced with a sense of humour, and a focus on the everydayness of ordinary life. This is the missional team.

Step 7: A commitment to celebration and continual renewal while appreciating that our attainments are always partial.

[Someone shout “Amen!”]